Give peace a chance: Put SA nuclear energy plans to a vote

Though the new year is now in full swing, many of us are no doubt still tallying the cost of last year’s festive season, be it measured in terms of increased debt levels or expanded waistlines. In the midst of this lamentation and the uttering of vows to never engage in such over-indulgence again, fewer of us will find time to ponder the universal message buried beneath the kitschy Christmas décor and barely audible above the canned music which has become quickly forgotten amidst the busyness of everyday life. During these moments of quiet reflection, thoughts will inevitably turn to questions of what ordinary members of the public, both as individuals and collectively, could do to impart the message of peace and goodwill to humanity and realise the values to which we all, Christian and non-Christian alike, aspire and would like to see flourish in our seemingly cruel and patently unequal world. 

Speculatively, something we could do to advance these values is agitate for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Admittedly, considering how wedded the nuclear powers seem to be to their nuclear arsenals, doing so may seem as forlorn an exercise as fervently praying for the Second Coming and no less miraculous should it come to pass. Notwithstanding the apparent futility of this exercise, it constitutes a worthy social endeavour as a recap of some familiar arguments that have been made against nuclear weapons suggests.

First off, observe that nuclear weapons are indiscriminate. For all the talk of surgical strikes and precision-guided missiles, a nuclear warhead is nothing more than a technologically sophisticated blunt force instrument. Not even the $30 trillion (that’s 402 000 000 000 000 in SA rands using an exchange rate of R13.40 to the dollar) that the United States alone has earmarked for expenditure on upgrading its arsenal over the next 30 years will be able to alter this fundamental characteristic.

Secondly, consider that the destruction wrought by an atomic weapon is disproportionate to any provocation save perhaps the case where a nuclear armed state responds to a nuclear attack by another nuclear armed state. Even then, one side would have had to have elected to deploy nuclear weapons in the first place. Since the initial nuclear strike against a nuclear capable enemy would almost certainly guarantee retaliatory nuclear strikes, a nuclear conflict is unlikely to be contained and risks spiraling into one of unrestricted warfare. The built-in tendency towards escalation in any nuclear exchange and the devastating environmental and atmospheric impacts caused by the explosion of multiple atomic bombs means that there will be dire global consequences in the event of a nuclear war even for nations that are not directly involved in the conflict viz. the citizens of most countries of the world.

It could thus be reasonably assumed that the first act in a nuclear war is equivalent to choosing to unleash genocide on a regional if not global scale. It stands to reason then that nuclear weapons can only be used in a situation where the leaders of nations are able to convince their citizens to hate their nation’s enemies and lead them to believe they are locked in an existential conflict. There is nothing tactical or strategic about any military approach adopted when the objective is the complete annihilation of the enemy. To set extermination as a war aim, leaders have to appeal to their citizens’ basest instincts and call for the eradication of the sub-humans, ridding the world of ‘the cockroaches’ etc. History is tragically replete with the predictably horrendous consequences of stoking these popular attitudes.

At this point, those readers with a longer memory would be apt to interject that nuclear weapons maintained the worldwide social order since 1945 by ensuring an uneasy peace between one-time allies and later fierce rivals during the tense post-WW II and Cold War period. While the truthfulness of this statement is debatable, maintaining a ‘balance of terror’ rather than securing genuine peace between great power rivals came at the cost of cowering populations into a state of anxiety and terror, where every skirmish between belligerents that professed competing ideologies was fraught with the fear it would spark a larger and potentially catastrophic global conflagration. As the populations of those countries caught in the grip of terror groups such as ISIS will undoubtedly attest, living in a constant state of fear prevents our truly realising the values of peace and goodwill to all men (and women). For these reasons, it is argued that the use, existence and development of nuclear weapons is incompatible with the genuine pursuit of the values which we seek to advance and that we ought to work towards ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

Roundabout now, South African readers, on the other hand, will probably be wondering what this has to do with them, if anything at all. Indeed, South Africans, especially those opposed to nuclear weapons, may well have grown smug in the memory of the courageous decision to abandon apartheid South Africa’s nuclear weapons programme which President De Klerk took in 1993. The smugness born of our status as the first nation to voluntarily abandon its nuclear weapons programme may explain the scant attention that has been paid to nuclear weapons in the debate about the South African government’s nuclear energy expansion plans and the distinction which supporters and opponents of the nuclear programme alike have sought to draw between a nuclear energy and a nuclear weapons building programme. This can be seen in the fact that, till now, the nuclear debate has mainly centred round specific details related to the costs and technical merits of using alternate sources of power compared to nuclear. This narrow focus has tended to preclude any consideration of societal values and avoid discussion of the values which we as a nation would like to embrace. By not broadening this debate to encompass ‘values’, we are spurning an opportunity to elicit South Africans’ views on the sort of society which they would like to create and live in in future, more especially since nuclear energy could inhibit the pursuit of the socially desirable value of ‘peace’.

To see how it could do so, consider that treating nuclear power and nuclear weapons as two separate processes and downplaying the degree to which the decision to expand nuclear power capacity reflects a society’s values could be seen to be fallacious. By way of support for this assertion, observe that the technology used to build nuclear weapons and generate nuclear electricity is essentially the same. Their primary difference arises from the fact that in the former the full fury of the smashing of atoms together is unleashed whereas in the latter operators attempt to harness the vast amounts of energy so released in a controlled nuclear reaction. Granted, it is relatively straightforward to rebuff the argument that nuclear technology ought to be rejected because it can be put to destructive uses. After all, automobiles can be put to deadly effect, as the recent attacks in Nice and Berlin illustrate, yet none would dare call for banning the use of vehicular transport on the grounds that fighter jets and tanks use the same process that drives cars and school taxis. The rejection of this argument, however, does not rely on the denial of the fundamental nature of the petrol engine.

The attacks in Germany and France highlight that the intention of the users of a particular technology matters and is the main determinant of the use to which it will be put. South Africans, citizens of a democratic country located at the foot of the African continent which enjoys cordial relations with its neighbours and faces no external military threats which might warrant the development of nuclear weapons, may feel relatively assured of the noble intentions of their politicians when it comes to the use of nuclear technology and confident that their elected leaders will honour the legacy bestowed by President de Klerk. Relying on the calibre of politicians and leaders (people in general), however, does not constitute a failsafe that nuclear weapons cannot be developed and plotted to be used against other nations in future. If so, would it not be more prudent to discount the influence of politicians’ intentions entirely by eliminating the opportunity for them to even consider using nuclear weapons and divesting from our reliance upon the integrity of politicians? It is possible to do so by declaring that we wish to forgo the technology which is used to produce nuclear energy. Doing so would free all world leaders of the burden of contemplating the possibility, however remote, of having to commit a war crime during their tenure in office.

Hopefully, the elimination of this possibility will encourage more peace-loving, public-spirited candidates who would otherwise be put off by the mere thought of having to contemplate the use of nuclear weapons when in office from standing for public office. Having candidates with more pacifist tendencies enter public service is likely to advance peace in our society and the world.

In another variant of this argument, it will be argued that the possibility that a technology could be put to martial uses should not prevent its use in civilian applications. It would be fairly absurd, for instance, to suggest we ban fire even though it can be reasonably presumed that fire was the first weapon of mass destruction. This argument is likely to appeal to South Africans of all hues given our appreciation of a good braai. The problem with this counter-argument is that it assumes equivalence between atomic warfare and other forms of warfare when nuclear weapons, by virtue of their unparalleled destructive power, fall afoul of certain moral principles by which humanity agrees war can be waged. It is, therefore, deceptive to draw parallels between the use of nuclear weapons and that of other armaments.

As a final line of argument, detractors will point out that it is impossible to un-make something and frequently impractical to eliminate it. This applies to knowledge especially, which can only be built upon. From this premise, many would go on to question why we should choose to forgo using this technology and thereby spurn the benefits it bestows. In metaphorical terms, it would be far better to beat one’s swords into ploughshares than bemoan the fact that swords existed. Though seemingly daunting, these are secondary concerns that are more related to the feasibility of a particular course of action rather than meant to settle the debate on the merits thereof. As such, they apply to the regulation and enforcement of a policy rather than policymaking per se.

Policymaking in democratic societies, in contrast, is informed by a number of factors other than the authorities’ ability to implement it alone. Critically, since policymakers serve at the behest of voters, policymaking is subject to the popular will and is reflective of the mores which pertain in society or the values to which the citizenry aspire. For this reason, policymaking is not strictly a technical exercise but one that is dependent upon public input.

On that note, it is put to the reader that those who:

a)  agree that government policies have to enjoy a measure of popular support to pass public muster,

b) believe peace is a desirable value which society ought to collectively and actively aspire towards and

c)  admit the possibility that nuclear technology (for weapons and civilian use) could be incompatible with the genuine pursuit of peace;

would object to the South African government proceeding with its current nuclear plans without submitting them to some sort of comprehensive public consultation process which is designed to interrogate citizens’ views about whether nuclear energy plans align with the values to which we as a nation aspire.

Arguably, a national referendum on this issue would afford every citizen the opportunity to vote on this issue in accordance with the dictates of their conscience after carefully evaluating the merits of various electricity generation options. It is thus the ideal vehicle via which to directly gauge citizens’ beliefs about the compatibility of the government’s nuclear energy expansion plans with their shared value system. Based on this conclusion, one appeals to all peace-loving South Africans (i.e. all citizens) to support the call for a referendum on nuclear power in South Africa.

* Dr Gerard Boyce is an economist who is employed as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Built Environment and Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He writes in his personal capacity.

* THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

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