Obama in Hiroshima Hugs a Hibakusha

May 27, 2016 will be remembered by the Hiroshimans the day a new page of history opened in the A-bomb city of Hiroshima. An impulsive hug seemed worth thousand words of apology.

Today, @POTUS became the first sitting U.S. President to visit Hiroshima. https://t.co/V8FvufNocu

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) 2016å¹´5月27æ—¥

The US President Barack Obama arrived via Iwakuni at Hiroshima's Peace Park at 17:30 and was received by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Both toured the Atomic Bomb Museum and offered flowers at the memorial cenotaph for the Atomic Bomb Victims. Presient Obama gave his impressions of the visit in the presence of mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and scores of "hibakusha".

The word "hibakusha" is not in English vocabulary but will be soon enough. Broken down into parts, the word reads hi (be affected) baku (bombing) sha (person) - meaning the victims of bombing.

In the middle of his statement, President Obama used this word this way:

"Someday the voices of the hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness, but the memory of the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, must never fade."

At the first hearing the sentence may sound innocent - merely stating that someday in the future no one will bear witness to the happening on that crucial, never-to-be-forgotten day. But, here is a gem of wisdom instilled by some formidable penman who successfully employed the word "hibakusha" to kill two birds with a single stone.

Hibakusha is a term referred specifically to the victims of Atom bombs and some of them were present today listening to President Obama utter the word in his statement. And then, the word hibakusha is quite alien to non-Japanese, not to mention the war veterans back home. A mere mention of the word uttered by President Obama moved the hibakusha i.e. A-bomb victims to tears; the war veterans back home were caught off guard by an alien word meaning "the victimized".

President Obama finished his statement thus:

"...... a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare, but as the start of our own moral awakening."

President Obama then approached a hibakusha, exchanged words with him and hugged him tight.

You know, folks, I believe he has done more than an apology. This is Nathan Shiga.