Every year on the 6th and the 9th of August, Hiroshima and Nagasaki days are observed in Japan and around the globe to commemorate the lives of Hibakusha, the victims and survivors of the nuclear weapons bombings in 1945. However, the use and testing of nuclear weapons from 1946 in the Marshall Islands by the US continued, and in the Kazakh Steppe from 1949 by the Soviet Union had just started. This blog post explores how a new generation of independent Kazakhstan addresses the Soviet colonial nuclear past.
06.August 2025
(Global) Hibakusha and nuclear weapons use and testing
In his book Nuclear Bodies, Global Hibakusha Robert A. Jacobs expands the utilisation of the term Hibakusha to other communities worldwide impacted by the nuclear weapons ‘testing’, referring to them as global hibakusha. He questions the notion of nuclear testing as such and argues that testing can be considered as the ‘use’ of nuclear weapons.
By applying the term global Hibakusha, the author amplifies the voices and stories of the people, whose bodies, land, and sea served as an experimental ground, or rather a ‘radiobiological laboratory’, to test the capacity of those arms in the pursuit of militaristic objectives and ambitions by nuclear powers.
Prior to the Ban Treaty: dominance of state-monopolized discourses on the Soviet-era nuclear tests
The official nuclear disarmament policy of Kazakhstan was constructed on two main discursive elements of the Soviet nuclear past, before the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in January 2021. On one hand, mainstreaming the humanitarian impact narrative in the aftermath of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site (SNTS), where the Soviets developed the first atomic program and tested over 400 bombs for 40 years during the Cold War in the Kazakh steppe between 1949 and 1989. On the other hand, emphasizing the role of Kazakhstan as a nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation champion, having relinquished inherited Soviet nuclear arms after the collapse of the USSR, which briefly made it the 4th biggest arsenal of any nation.
The Soviet nuclear colonial and imperial history and legacy of Kazakhstan resulted in a strong opposition towards nuclear weapons. In contrast to a state nuclear policy, anti-nuclear resistance on a civil society level with the grassroots locally-formed Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement in 1989. The movement made a significant contribution to efforts to stop the nuclear explosions at the SNTS, which represents a decolonial practice or a step towards decolonisation.
However, what united both at the state and civil society levels was the domination of male and patriarchal identity-based public figures in leading anti-nuclear resistance during the Soviet regime and anti-nuclear activism in pre-ban treaty Kazakhstan (starting with the leader of the Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement, the first president of Kazakhstan, a state-supported nuclear 2nd generation victim/survivor). By this, the role of women and youth activism was overlooked in the formation of modern-day Kazakh nuclear disarmament policy. Especially given that young girls and women across generations disproportionately suffer from the devastating humanitarian consequences of exposure to ionising radiation. The gendered impact of the nuclear legacy was rarely addressed, taking into account a sensitive approach.
During the Ban Treaty: meetings of state parties (MSP) – a space for new voices and justice discourse
The current official stance in dealing with the radioactive past neither applies a (de)colonial reflective approach towards addressing the Soviet nuclear legacy, nor seeks nuclear justice explicitly from Russia, as the successor of the Soviet Union, and according to Togzhan Kassenova a responsible country for committed nuclear crimes and experiments on the population of the Kazakh steppe. Whereas Kazakh civil society is more vocal about the loss, damage, pain and trauma inflicted upon residents and downwinders in consecutive generations, as well as the natural ecosystem destruction.
Especially youth and feminist activism are at the forefront in reclaiming agency by bringing forward survivors’ voices, taking a distance from victimhood identity and the state-monopolized humanitarian tragedy discourse. Still, the colonial roots of the first Soviet nuclear weapons program are acknowledged, and the intergenerational and transgenerational impact of enduring detrimental humanitarian and environmental consequences are taken into consideration in an intersectional manner. For example, at the 3rd MSP, Qazaq Nuclear Frontline Coalition (QNFC) submitted a working paper with policy recommendations to establish an international trust fund to address the consequences of nuclear testing. As the 15th anniversary of the International Day against Nuclear Tests, commemorated on the 29th of August, approaches, the decolonial and feminist turn in the nuclear discourse of Kazakhstan’s radioactive past becomes even more present and evident. Indeed, TPNW created a platform for the Global South once again to challenge the existing global nuclear order. TPNW fostered an inclusive nuclear policy environment for Indigenous people, marginalised groups and affected communities to seek victim assistance and environmental remediation, at the MSP and Nuclear Survivors Forum. TPNW paved the way to premise for nuclear justice, as in the instance of Kazakh young feminist changemakers.
