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Dr. Akiba's Acceptance Speech on
Behalf of The Mayors for Peace
Hilda Lini presenting the 2007 Nuclear-Free Future Solutions Award
to Dr. Akiba and Mayors for Peace
It is my honor and privilege, to thank you, the Franz Moll Foundation, for recognizing our efforts with this meaningful award on behalf of all 1,793 members of Mayors for Peace. You are contributing more than you could possibly know to our campaign at a most critical time.
I hope it is appropriate to mention another important prize that the world has recently applauded: The Nobel Peace Prize for Al Gore and IPCC.
One important reason for that prize is that the world needs to understand global warming is a serious problem which all humanity must wok together to deal with immediately. Global warming is a relatively simple scientific fact. There is no dispute among respected scientists about its veracity. However, even in such a case, a case in which science and scientists should be the final judge, so many national governments, together with the huge interest groups of energy industry and business, have tried to hide, obscure, bend and do whatever they can to prevent the truths from reaching people, thereby obstructing the proper process of democracy.
The Nobel Peace Prize this year certainly will help straighten out the situation.
Unfortunately, the case of nuclear weapons is much worse that that of global warming. That is why the Nuclear-Free Future Award is just as important in improving the situation I am about to describe.
Before I start, let me remind you that the overwhelming majority of nations and people on Earth have the survival instinct and the "gut" feeling that we must get rid of nuclear weapons. At the very core of their being, they feel strongly that the human race must survive.
And yet, the leaders of nuclear weapon states ignore that majority, and most of the media act as if the elimination of nuclear weapons were a non-issue, some sort of utopian pipedream that is not even worth discussing.
Around the world, although older people have some vague notion that nuclear weapons are terrible, they are utterly incapable of imagining the horror these weapons represent. They have no idea what it means for whole families, whole communities, and whole neighborhoods to simply vanish.
I have recently found out that some young people have no idea what a nuclear weapon is.
In rarefied corridors of international politics people speak in lofty terms about the vital role of nuclear weapons in national security, but those people have no concrete idea what they are really saying. They lack the imagination and compassion to truly feel the emotions associated with watching helplessly as their mothers burn to death in the rubble of their homes. Or perhaps they are simply ignorant of all the atrocities repeated as daily occurrences everywhere on Earth.
And that is one reason that the nuclear cult, consisting of a few political leaders of the world, the compliant media and the military-industrial complex has been successful in manufacturing and spreading the world view that these nuclear weapons are necessary for the survival of vital human values and humanity itself.
The Nuclear-Free Future Award and all of you who are present have been instrumental in the effort to change all this. Our collective task today is to bring the issue of nuclear weapons into the foreground of human awareness, contrary to the wishes of the nuclear cult.
All we need to do is to find a way to articulate the majority feeling of the world against nuclear weapons. We need to describe the threat in such a way that people can communicate it effectively to others. Then, we need to arouse them to action and ensure that the will of the majority is reflected in international political decision-making. Above all, we need to insist on democracy in world affairs.
Most nations today make decisions through a more or less democratic process. And let me remind you that many former colonies of the early 20th century have become independent democratic countries and most, if not all, are advocating the abolition of nuclear weapons. And it is only natural that democratic politics within national boundaries should spread to the entire world. In particular, global majority opinion should be reflected when it comes to a global issue like nuclear weapons, and if it were, we could actually abolish nuclear weapons.
And that is where cities come into picture.
We cities are already beginning to stand up and demand forcefully that national leaders immediately stop holding us hostage to obsolete and irrelevant political machinations. We are saying that Cities Are Not Targets, and we will be saying so with increasing intensity and urgency.
The Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign knows that our civilization has become too fragile and interdependent to manage with the brutal and insensitive tools of military force. The delicate and complex problems we face today can only be solved through careful reasoning, negotiation, and cooperation. In the long run, we must find peaceful means of resolving our conflicts. In the short run, we must prevent war and, especially, the use of nuclear weapons.
Mayors for Peace will hold an Executive Conference in Florence, Italy toward the end of this month. At that meeting, we will adopt Phase III of the 2020 Vision Campaign, which will be formally launched at the NPT PrepCom in Geneva in May 2008.
Liberation from the nuclear threat is a struggle that the forces for peace can and must win. In fact, this struggle will be easy compared to other struggles of ours against poverty, violence, global warming and environmental degradation. Furthermore, if we do NOT win this struggle, we have little chance of solving these other problems.
Please keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to take part in the 2020 Vision Campaign. We will be happy to provide you with the latest information and many ways you can get involved. As you may know, the UN has declared the decade from 2010 to 2020 to be a Decade of Disarmament. We are now gearing up to ensure that 2010 will see an anti-nuclear movement the likes of which this planet has never known.
I am convinced that we are entering the Decisive Decade. Will we eliminate nuclear weapons? Or will nuclear weapons eliminate us? The answer will determine whether our children and their children have any chance at all. I want to thank once again the Franz-Moll Foundation and all of you who are here tonight for making this very significant contribution, and I hope we will all work together to give future generations what they need and want most - a safe, secure and sustainable nuclear-weapon-free world.
Thank you very much.
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