Lydia Popova's Acceptance Speech
Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends. I'm very excited and it is hard to speak, but I will try.
Let me tell, say a few words in Russian, just to greet you in Russian. (Russian words). I said "hello, thank you, thank you so much."
I want to express my deepest gratitude to Claus Biegert who made this event possible, to Fran Macy, my friend who nominated me for this Award, to the honorable jury who selected me and said I deserved it. I believe now, that I deserve it (laughter).
And then I am grateful to a vast number of organizations who supported my nomination. I'm very grateful to the organizers who made this wonderful event possible, I'm really fascinated by being here. And I am really grateful to my husband Mikail Goldman, who supported me when I had to make a hard decision to break my career and start a new life, a totally new life . And I'm very grateful to all my friends worldwide in Russia in the former Soviet Union, and now in the United States, in France, in the U.K., in Germany, in Japan . It's really a great privilege to have friends in different countries worldwide.
Karl already said that I got very frustrated at the end of my work for the nuclear industry. And I got very frustrated by how nuclear experts treated the public. Very often in Russia and in different countries we hear from nuclear expert themselves, that they know what the public does not need to know. They develop their own language, not just to communicate to each other, but also to hide information from public , to keep public unaware of what they are doing . I'm sure that there are basics in every subject, and it is possible to deliver message about these basics, to all the public in quite understandable language. Like Stephen Hawkings does this.
Radioactivity was discovered just 100 years ago. And forty years later Glenn Seeburg discovered plutonium. He was fascinated by this miracle, this source of energy, and he believed, that it would be possible with this element to make the daisies blossom, to make the sea-water potable, to produce light and electricity, for the whole big city, by just one reactor and etcetera. Instead this miracle, this physical phenomenon radioactivity, and the new element plutonium which normally does not exist in nature, was used by politicians for producing dozens of thousands of nuclear weapons, which means weapons of mass-destruction.
Instead of this miracle producing prosperity for people, we see huge stock piles of radioactive waste which are increasing every year. We now worldwide have already150,000 tons of spent fuel and this stockpiles. And nobody knows what to do with this stuff . I should tell you that nuclear industry worldwide has cold feet. They really have a hard time because the conclusion came to the people that 100 years of mismanagement of the physical phenomenon radioactivity led to economic, environmental, and human devastation in this world.
Is it hard to be an antinuclear activist? Yes it is. My dearest teacher in life and a great supporter of environmental and antinuclear activists, Johanna Macy calls it the time when we leave the great turning. And she says we are participants of the great turning and it is hard to be participants of the great turning. That's why for me it is very important to be here, because I can see that this meeting, this gathering, this ceremony, as a celebration of us being together. I feel I am not alone. Yesterday I was greeted very warmly at the Mother Earth Gathering, and it really healed my soul and gave me more energy to continue. (Applause) Thank you.
We see that our government still contracts with nuclear industry to sophisticate nuclear weapons and to produce new generations of nuclear warheads. We see that both Russian and American governments invent new military doctrines that admit the first strike use of nuclear weapons. That means that governments distrust each other and that the border between the Cold War and the post-Cold War is very vulnerable. Can we trust our future to the governments? No.
What governments think and do is quite different from what citizens feel, how they feel and what they want. I do not want to exchange with American people the first strike. I want to exchange with you my feeling of beauty. When I travel to the Unites States, I see how pretty your country is, how beautiful it is, when I traveled through Japan I am fascinated by Japanese culture, when I travel to Germany I am fascinated by European culture and I feel these ties, my personal ties with European culture. I do not want all this to be destroyed. I want us to be friends. I want you to come to my home, I want to cook for you, I want to ask, "how you doin'?"
I'm not your enemy, neither my children nor my small grandson. My little grandson is quite an intellectual lad of four years old. He is really intellectual and maybe he will become a physicist. I bet he will. But I am trying to help him to preserve his childish fascination of the miracles of universe, how the weather works, how the atom splits, but to see this beauty, to be fascinated and to preserve his integrity and he is quite a teacher. He teaches his friends in the kindergarten, he explains complicated things, which he already understands and others encourage him to do this.
And again thank you so much and so much, and I promise I will continue. Thank you.
Karl Grossman's Laudatory Remarks
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