In January 2004 Caecilie B. Buhmann travelled to the USA to participate in the IFMSA-USA National Convention in Chicago. She undertook a dialogue with 75 students and a training with 15 students.

Rune Dahl and Sveinung Larsen then attended a conferenc ein Washington D.C. by the Nuclear Policy Research Institute.

Below you will find some impressions and photos

Present at the convention were 260 IFMSA students from all over the US and also a no. of PSR students.  NWIP have over the years attended a number of IFMSA international meetings and this resulted in an invitation to participate in the national convention for IFMSA-USA in Chicago in January 2004. To our surprise we were given time for a 2 hour dialogue with students as well as a 3 hour workshop. This was a relatively large chunk of the program of the 3-day congress. We had planned to send 3 delegates to Chicago – Naranath Reddy from India, Tariq Jawaid Alam from Pakistan and myself. This would be a wonderful opportunity for two of the most dedicated national student leaders of the NWIP to meet for the first time and to leave their fingerprint on what we recognized to be an invaluable opportunity for the project. Unfortunately one was prevented from travelling due to final exams and the other was not given a visa despite letters of invitation and recommendation from the congress organizers and the Swedish IPPNW affiliate. So in the end I found myself alone in Chicago. A rather unfortunate situation to be in when you consider it is the idea of the project to engage in dialogue and not to use traditional lecturing.

So I did what I could to clown my way through the dialogue and was happy to see an audience of around 75 students out of a couple of hundred attending the congress. The workshop also had good attendance and the group ended up with a plan to invite the NWIP to visit on a comprehensive delegation that could both train more students in a weekend workshop and meet students from several schools in dialogue during the stay. During the convention the NWIP had a table at the project fair where handouts and Vital Signs were distributed to students and students came and asked questions about the project.

On Saturday a dialogue was undertaken with around 75 students present. The dialogue took 1 hour and followed the usual program, with a short introduction (with two pictures from the delegation to India and the dialogue picture of Chazov. Lown and Gorbatchov), 10 minutes on medical effects illustrated by 4 pictures from Hiroshima (showing burns, radiation sickness, a destroyed overview of the city and a destroyed hospital), 30 minutes where topics like NMD, proliferation, deterrence, NPT, Nuclear Posture Review, terrorism, accidental launch and human error was touched upon. The dialogue finished with a discussion of alternatives (NWFZ, MNWC, NPT, CTBT, Unilateral disarmament, New Security, Strengthening international cooperation, Middle Powers Initiative, IPPNW, DwDM, NWIP etc.). About half of the participants filled out evaluations while James Floyd from IFMSA-USA talked about the possibilities of starting local activities and Molly Goggin from IPPNW introduced the organization in general.

Despite the immense importance of meeting with American youth as part of the Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project it took us years to manage to get there. We tried to make contacts with US medical students through Student Physicians for Social Responsibility since the first year, but every time we thought we had promising contacts the plans fell apart. In the end the door that opened for us was through IFMSA.

 
NWIP have over the years attended a number of IFMSA international meetings and this resulted in an invitation to participate in the national convention for IFMSA-USA in Chicago in January 2004. To our surprise we were given time for a 2 hour dialogue with students as well as a 3 hour workshop. This was a relatively large chunk of the program of the 3-day congress. We had planned to send 3 delegates to Chicago – Naranath Reddy from India, Tariq Jawaid Alam from Pakistan and myself. This would be a wonderful opportunity for two of the most dedicated national student leaders of the NWIP to meet for the first time and to leave their fingerprint on what we recognized to be an invaluable opportunity for the project. Unfortunately one was prevented from travelling due to final exams and the other was not given a visa despite letters of invitation and recommendation from the congress organizers and the Swedish IPPNW affiliate. So in the end I found myself alone in Chicago. A rather unfortunate situation to be in when you consider it is the idea of the project to engage in dialogue and not to use traditional lecturing.

 
So I did what I could to clown my way through the dialogue and was happy to see an audience of around 75 students out of a couple of hundred attending the congress. The workshop also had good attendance and the group ended up with a plan to invite the NWIP to visit on a comprehensive delegation that could both train more students in a weekend workshop and meet students from several schools in dialogue during the stay.

 
Having spent years trying to find an opening to visit the US, I found it was a very positive and surprising experience to find that so many students at the convention who showed genuine interest in the topic of disarmament. I left with high hopes for the future and an understanding that it is not lack of dedication or interest that keeps the students from getting involved, it is a lack of knowledge about the nuclear dangers in the world of today. After the congress we managed to stay in contact with a number of the students I had met during the congress. Currently a group of students from PSR and IFMSA in Chicago are communicating with us about possibilities of us visiting in the coming year. We hope to see a couple of those students at the World Congress in Beijing and to link them with new contacts we have made to other anti-war student groups in the US.

 
Caecilie B. Buhmann
Medical Student, Copenhagen

The Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project was introduced to a number of American medical students and me during the International Federation of Medical Students Association (IFMSA) United States National Convention from January 16th-18th, at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. The discussions were mediated by Caecilie Buhmann from Denmark, who provided an excellent introduction to the controversial subject of nuclear weaponry and its political and ethical implications for our generation as well as its place in the future of the global community.

The simple questions which appeared initially obvious, such as the necessity of nuclear weapons, and whether they should be used, led to more sinister implications of the reliance of modern governments on these weapons of mass destruction, and the vicious cycle in which countries use nuclear weapons as political negotiation tools as well as shields from outside aggression. However, the point of these discussions was not to discuss the politics of nuclear weapons, although they were an integral part; instead, a more fundamental approach was emphasized to the art of discussion itself. Caecilie, in a very organized, informative, and educational approach, taught us how to design a basic framework of how to involve the medical student community in discussing a topic that was previously thought by many to be easily solved by “getting rid of nuclear weapons”, when in fact such a suggestion is rather superficial in its scope and disregard for pragmatic outcomes of such a statement. The ultimate goal was to come up with ideas of how to gradually bring about the disarmament of nuclear weapons, from an academic level as students up to the higher echelons of government.

Ideas that were discussed in order to get the general community involved included discussing the effects of a nuclear war, the current international treaties regarding nuclear weapon use; the political power nuclear countries have in the international community, and the potential consequences of nuclear terrorism. Although it was a relatively basic approach, it was an excellent introduction to an extremely crucial and relevant topic that our world faces today. A Plan of Action was formulated at the end of the talks, in which possible discussion forum training sessions were to be planned in the States, in different regions, and NWIP delegates also planned on collaborating with interested student parties in the future as well.

Overall, I found the experience to be extremely intellectually fulfilling, and I would highly suggest it to anyone with a social conscience who wishes to find ways to relieve the already high international tensions that are straining relations between countries, especially in the United States with current world events. Although there is no simple solution, it does not mean we should not attempt for one.

 Eric Yang
Medical Student, Chicago

From the 24th to the 27th of January 2004, Sveinung Larsen and I attended a conference in Washington DC. The conference was arranged by NPRI (Nuclear Policy Research Institute) and was called Three Minutes to Midnight: The Impending Threat of Nuclear War. Our main objective was to try to promote interest in NWIP among American students, and hopefully make some contacts for our future work. The conference was very interesting with many prominent speakers not only from America, but from Russia and Pakistan as well. They had different backgrounds and opinions on some of the issues of course but this led to interesting discussions. Having former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara in the audience asking questions, also brought forward important arguments.