The fact that many countries can use nuclear weapons to cause massive destruction to anyone and anything in their path is making some ISU students fight back against nuclear power.

Yu Hui Lui and Gabriel Hicks founded the Buddhism for Peace club at Iowa State last October.

The club not only focuses on practicing Buddhism but also on the disarmament of all nuclear weapons throughout the world. The program it bases its practices off of is called “Our New Clear Future.”

Lui, graduate student in mechanical engineering, is from Malaysia and has been practicing this type of Buddhism throughout his life. Hicks, sophomore in business, did not know much about this type of nuclear peace based Buddhism until he was older and became more politically involved and interested in what was happening in the world around him.

Although the club is small right now — its roster consists of about 25 members — it hopes the cause it is fighting for will make other students want to join.

“[The power of nuclear weapons] doesn’t discriminate between bad or good, so I think it’s something that is really prominent and a danger to our society,” Hicks said. 

To raise awareness, the Buddhism for Peace club will host an event called “Our New Clear Future Week” from April 4-8. The event will take place at multiple other colleges with the same program, and the hope is to encourage more people to join and sign a petition for the disarmament of nuclear weapons worldwide.

Both Hicks and Lui believe the club opens doors to fight the existence of nuclear weapons. The members of its branch of Buddhism hope that with help and support from a larger group of people, they will be able to force legislators to enact disarmament by 2030.

Lui said they are not completely against nuclear energy.

“We are more focusing on the warhead, the nuclear weapons, not the power plant,” Lui said.

The Buddhism for Peace club also helps students get involved with other nuclear-peace based programs throughout the country. Hicks is a volunteer with the group Global Zero. Through Global Zero, he applied for and won the chance to go to the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C., from March 31 to April 3.

The people who have been accepted to the program will have the opportunity to meet with nuclear weapons experts who are attending the security summit. Hicks and the other people participating will rally outside during the summit. 

Hicks said the people rallying will use the slogan “Who would you bomb?” to “Attack the mentality behind who would you use an atomic bomb on?”