Introduction

In this session, you’ll explore examples of how anti-nuclear activism crosses national borders as activists cooperate to effect change. First, you’ll learn about cross-country cooperation on a specific campaign, considering the Euromissile Crisis in Western Europe in the 1980s and how Western activists sought to engage with citizens on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Next, you’ll explore the role of the hibakusha, survivors of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and how they have impacted anti-nuclear activism around the world. Finally, you’ll learn about the World Campaign against South Africa’s nuclear weapons during apartheid, and how this campaign took place internationally given that protest was curtailed within South Africa itself.

Taken together, these cases highlight how anti-nuclear activists have worked together beyond and across national boundaries in opposing nuclear weapons.