Le poids des mots
Une archive choisie de discours qui ont façonné la posture des États, le sort des alliances et l’ordre international.
Le discours est un instrument d’État. Monarques, présidents, révolutionnaires et secrétaires généraux ont usé de l’allocution solennelle pour déclarer la guerre et pour demander la paix, pour lier leurs alliés et pour les ébranler, pour revendiquer la légitimité et pour la refuser à d’autres. Voici une archive choisie de tels discours, d’Élisabeth Ire à Tilbury jusqu’à nos jours, retenus pour leur incidence sur la posture des États, la forme des alliances et l’ordre international.
Chacun est présenté d’après les sources : l’orateur, l’occasion et le texte tel qu’il a été prononcé ou fidèlement transcrit. Lorsqu’un discours n’a pas été prononcé en anglais ou en français, l’original est offert accompagné d’une traduction. Le Centre fournit le contexte, non le commentaire, et laisse les mots parler d’eux-mêmes.
10 décembre 2024
The deaths I witnessed at that time could hardly be described as human deaths
Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for its decades of work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. The Nobel lecture was delivered in Oslo on 10 December 2024 by Terumi Tanaka, one of the confederation's three co-chairpersons and a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, where he was thirteen years old and about three kilometres from ground zero on 9 August 1945. He recalled losing five relatives to a single bomb, set that memory against the twelve thousand nuclear warheads still held today, and appealed for the elimination of nuclear weapons while survivors remain to testify. The full lecture is copyright of the Nobel Foundation, which requires its consent for republication other than in summary; the text shown here is a summary with short quotations, and the complete lecture is available from the official source and archived copy linked below.
This entry presents an editorial summary with short quotations. The full lecture remains under copyright of the Nobel Foundation; the complete text is available from the official source and archived copy linked with this record.
Speaking on behalf of Nihon Hidankyo, the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Terumi Tanaka recounted the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, which he survived at the age of thirteen. Three days later he went in search of relatives living near the hypocentre and found them dead or dying; a single bomb took five of his family. Of what he saw on that walk through the ruins, he said:
The deaths I witnessed at that time could hardly be described as human deaths.
He then turned from memory to the present, noting that twelve thousand nuclear warheads remain on earth, four thousand of them ready for immediate launch, and that the nuclear taboo his movement helped build is now under threat. Warning that the scale of harm would be many times that of 1945, he told his audience:
Any one of you could become either a victim or a perpetrator, at any time.
He appealed to people everywhere to press their governments to eliminate nuclear weapons while the last survivors remain to bear witness.
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