2003 Nuclear-Free Future Awards, Munich

It was during January of this year – the world power across the Atlantic was attempting to build a coalition friendly to overwhelming the land of the Tigris and Euphrates with wave after wave of "Shock and Awe" – when the Jewish physicist Daniel Amit, living in Rome, received per e-mail an invitation to review a manuscript from the American journal Physical Review. Amit summarily declined the offer. He would not work together with any U.S. institution, he e-mailed back, owing to the situation in the Middle East. Begun in 1893 and published by the American Physical Society, the Physical Review was the first American journal dedicated to physics, and its present chief editor, Dr. Martin Blume, was not amused by Amit's anti-American posture: "We regard science as an international enterprise," he wrote back, "and we do our best to put aside political disagreements in the interest of furthering the pursuit of scientific matters. We have never used other scientific criteria in judging the acceptability of a paper for publication, without regard to the country of origin of the author. We have done this even in cases where some of us have disagreed strongly with the policies of that country, and we will continue this practice. We believe it is essential that all parties involved make every effort to separate social and political differences from their participation in scientific research and publication. The pursuit of scientific knowledge needs to transcend such issues."

Amit's answer one day later: "What we are watching today, I believe, is the culmination of 10-15 years of mounting barbarism of the American culture the world over, crowned by the achievements of science and technology as a major weapon of mass destruction. We are witnessing manhunt and wanton killing of the type and scale not seen since the raids on American Indian populations, by a superior technological power of inferior culture and values. We see no corrective force to restore the insanity, the self-righteousness and the lack of respect for human life (civilian and military) of another race. Science cannot stay neutral, especially after it has been so cynically used in the hands of the inspectors to disarm a country and prepare it for decimation by laser-guided cluster bombs. No, science of the American variety has no recourse. I, personally, cannot see myself anymore sharing a common human community with American science. Unfortunately, I also belong to a culture of a similar spiritual deviation (Israel), and which seems to be equally incorrigible... I will exercise my own tiny act of disobedience to be able to look straight into the eyes of

The 2003 Nuclear-Free Future Awards
photo by Orla Connelly

Photos by Orla Connolly

12 October 2003

Altes Rathaus, Munich

In Cooperation with IPPNW-Germany, Berlin
(International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War)
and the Seventh Generation Fund, California, USA

Enjoying the Patronage of
Munich Mayor Christian Ude

Award Recipients:

Carol Gilbert, Jackie Hudson, and Ardith Platte

Dr. Souad Naij Al-Azzawi

Corbin Harney

Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake

my grandchildren and my students and say that I did know."

Thank you Daniel Amit. During an age characterized by the fetish of power and the omnipresence of the new, such moral protest is fervently needed. Whistleblowers and rational naysayers are our new heroes. They are the ones who keep our governments and leading institutions from steering the world into endless calamity. Open, informed dissent is needed now more than ever in order to remind the media of its ethical responsibility and public mission. We need people who refuse to follow orders, people who refuse to swallow the "Big Lie"–- and we most especially need them in the wide field of atomic weaponry and nuclear power, for there whitewash and brainwash continue to aid and abet the spectre of world Armageddon. That's why this year in Munich we are honouring the three American nuns, Carol Gilbert, Jackie Hudson, and Ardith Platte, the Iraqi geologist Dr. Souad Naij Al-Azzawi, the Native American spiritual healer Corbin Harney, and the German physicist Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake –- for the sake of the coming generations, each of these Award recipients has courageously spoken out and laboured for a world more caring, more sane. These are people who can look straight into the eyes of their children and grandchildren. These are people who know.