Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen was behind the “Remember Hiroshima” doll placed on “it’s a small world” in Disneyland, part of his new Up in Arms campaign against the U.S. weapons budget.
Ben Cohen Coordinated ‘Remember Hiroshima’ Doll at “it’s a small world”
The doll was spotted on the classic Disney ride on Sunday, August 3, a few days before the 80th anniversary of the 1945 Hiroshima bombing by the United States. As images and videos of the doll went viral, TikTok user mamahuahua revealed herself as the guest who had brought it into the park and placed it on the ride.
In a statement to WDWNT, she said she was involved with the Up in Arms campaign and explained the reasoning behind the doll’s placement:
Yes we put a Japanese doll that said “Remember Hiroshima” onto the It’s A Small World ride at Disneyland. Why?
It is the 80th anniversary of the bombing; an important reminder of what war does to kids.
Hiroshima was a city full of children—tiny, happy bodies full of promise one moment, and murdered the next. Playgrounds turned to graveyards. Sound familiar? Happening now in Palestine, Myanmar, Ukraine, Sudan, and countless other countries around the world.
The bomb we dropped on Hiroshima killed 100,000 people.
The CURRENT, already-built U.S. nuclear arsenal can kill everybody in the world several times over.
And yet our government is planning on spending ~$2 trillion~ on a whole new arsenal. Ummm $2 trillion!? And we don’t have money for healthcare and homelessness and education!?!?!
We can build a world that actually looks more like the utopia in It’s a Small World — a world made for children, not for war.
Cohen confirmed his connection to the doll in a phone interview with Fox News.
“The whole idea of the small world exhibit is that it’s a small world after all,” Cohen said. “You got all the children from the different countries around the world being together, loving each other. And we put a doll in there that says, ‘Remember Hiroshima.’ I mean, that’s what was supposed to happen after the bomb in Hiroshima. We were supposed to remember what we did there and say, ‘Never again.’ And we’ve, we’ve ignored that.”
Through the four-year Up in Arms campaign, Cohen is protesting the Pentagon’s $900 billion budget and specifically the war in Gaza, which he calls the “moral issue of our time.”
“They’ve turned us all into murderers, and they’re taking our money, buying bombs with it, and giving it to Israel to slaughter people in Gaza,” he said. “And a whole lot of them are kids, just like that little girl that we placed in Disneyland.”
Cohen called the large military budget a “disgustingly bipartisan” issue. “Trump is the current president,” he said. “He’s responsible, but I can tell you that all the presidents before him were responsible as well.”
A Disneyland spokesperson told Fox that a Cast Member quickly removed the doll from “it’s a small world” and reminded the guest who placed it — mamahuahua — of park rules. The spokesperson said the guest then left without incident.
In one of mamahuahua’s videos, she shows three security Cast Members following her, possibly escorting her out of the park, and says in on-screen text, “May have gotten banned”.
Cohen launched the Up in Arms campaign in June with a sculpture in Washington, D.C., representing the $100 billion the U.S. has spent on nuclear weapons.
“If we take half the money budgeted for the Pentagon and invested in the things people need and want, the American Dream can become a reality again,” Cohen said at the time. (via Common Dreams)
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