Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: World Citizenship Award

Daredevils for Peace

This is a transcript of a speech given by Dr. Mayotte after receiving the Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award at the 26th Annual Evening for Peace

Thank you, each of you of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation for the critically important work you continue to do. I am humbled in receiving this World Citizenship Award and do so in the name of the millions of women around the world who work tirelessly to make our world more just and peaceful. Thank you Riane Eisler for your extraordinary life of commitment to world peace.

When I think of the World Citizenship Award, I immediately think of a 1933 quote of one of our greatest 20th century women for peace, Eleanor Roosevelt. She exclaims: “Peacetime can be as exhilarating to the daredevil as wartime. There is nothing so exciting as creating a new social order.” Today, you and I are sitting, with the whole of humankind, on the cusp of a potentially new world order. Hovering between the now and the not yet, we quiver with the excitement that comes with the opportunity to journey toward a new horizon – toward the possibilities to build and create – to re-imagine and re-envision – a world in which the earth and all its peoples can live sustainably and peacefully. At the same time, in our comfort with the status quo or fear of the unknown, we firmly plant our feet in the here and now, hesitant to boldly embrace the challenges of the not yet.

Another great woman for peace, Marian Wright Edelman nudges us towards the not yet in these words: “We are living in a time of unbearable dissonance between promise and performance: between good politics and good policy; …between calls for community and rampant individualism and greed; and between our capacity to prevent and alleviate human deprivation and disease, and our political and spiritual will to do so.”

“We are also living at an incredible moral moment in history,” Edelman continues. “How will we say thanks for the life, earth, actions, and children God has entrusted to our care? What legacies, principles, values, and deeds will we stand for and send to the future through our children to their children and to a spiritually confused, balkanized, and violent world desperately hungering for moral leadership and community?”

“…The answers,” she says, “lie in the values we stand for and in the actions we take today.” (1) “In the values we stand for and in the actions we take today.”

In calling us to be daredevils for peace, we are challenged anew to change the very “borders of our minds.” (2) We are living at a moment when powerful tectonic shifts challenge us as never before to change the way we think about and act with one another and toward the whole of creation.

Historian/theologian that I am by training, I have come to realize that no human-devised historical event has to take place. We are rational people who choose what does and does not happen. We humans can use, and we have used, this tremendous power of choice to create catastrophe on a vast scale as well as to promote those things that bring peace and stability. We can choose to impoverish humanity and decimate Mother Earth or enrich our human family and together “make peace with our planet.” (3) We can redirect our thinking and our choices – reshape our future – for this is our world and the choices for solutions to the world’s problems will be ours as well.

Over a period of years my life took me into the world of “inhuman time,” as George Steiner would name it, where some of the most horrible atrocities against humanity have occurred because some chose to perpetrate them and others of us let them take place.(4) I have entered war zones and camps where people have fled to find refuge in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. In the ruins of towns and villages people once called home, I held children almost dead from starvation, saw people very freshly blown up by land mines, and conversed with women and children left alone, exploited and abused in their search for food. Among the ruins of a number of war-torn nations, I became tangibly aware of the centuries it takes to build a culture and a nation and the few months or years it takes to obliterate the land and split apart the people who gave spirit and life to that particular culture and nation.

With flight, the continuum of the lives of refugees is interrupted. The old is no more, the new, not yet. They carry within themselves, as do we, both peace and war, love and hate, strength and fragility. They are forced to rethink and reshape their lives. Stagnated in the present, they continue to live with hope for a future that does not include bombs, torture, killing, flight, or economic meltdown due to failed and callous leadership. They dream of return to their farms, villages, and towns, where they will resurrect their songs and dances and their lives.

Those individuals, whose lives have been torn apart, suffer physically and spiritually. Listen for a moment to the words of two women. The first voice is that of an internally displaced, southern Sudanese woman, a midwife who did not have even a clean razor blade with which to cut the umbilical cord in the birthing process. When I asked her what message she would like for me to carry beyond her borders for others to understand the plight of forced displacement, she said: “Tell them we are tired of running – running from bombardments, massacres, and starvation. We gather our children and try to find a place to hide. Sometimes we stay in the bush for months. We look for water and try to stay a while. But guns break the silence, and we have to run again.”

The second voice is that of a Bosnian Muslim woman, one of a group who were held in a schoolroom by members of the Bosnian Serb military and raped over and over again. Her words haunt me to this day. She said very simply: “We have lost the picture of ourselves. We have lost the picture of ourselves.”

On behalf of these women and all those who become the detritus of war, the seemingly disposable people, South African Patricia Schonstein in her book Skyline pleads as she gazes on “… the newly arrived, the sad and broken people [who] behind torn garments and the dusty dreams of Africa…whisper: Turn our desolation into something memorable. That it may not have been in vain to lose what little we owned. Make for our lost children a chime of gentle sound that they might follow it and escape, one day, from the plateau of war.”(5)

We have lived long in a war and weapons mentality with tremendous cost in human lives, environmental degradation, and economic waste. Yet, today, in these young years of the 21st century, we are gifted with myriad opportunities to become daredevils for peace and to ring out “chimes of gentle sound” for coming generations. Amid our many pressing and massive problems, we are called to live courageously and practically anew in our fragile yet beautiful world, interconnected with all earth’s inhabitants. As engaged, responsible, global citizens and leaders, we can find solutions through collective, positive action in addressing the world’s common needs and problems. And we can address these issues with a healthy combination of idealism – a vision of what ought to be – and realism, for we have the necessary scientific knowledge and technology as well as keen imaginations. We know there are threats to our global security that loom as large as or larger than a nuclear conflagration or terrorist actions – environmental consequences of climate change that include, for example, lack of access to clean, fresh water, creeping deserts impairing agricultural productive capacity, rampant deforestation, and proliferation of hazardous wastes; then there are the issues of population density, increased mass migration due to life-threatening circumstances, human health challenges, lack of women’s advancement, unabashed racism, disparities in educational opportunities, and a pervasive poverty that has created an underclass of nations to name a few. These threats are the result of human choices on the part of ordinary citizens as well as at the highest levels of government and business the world over. If we are to survive as a species and if we are to live sustainably on our planet, we must tackle these threats. Actually, we don’t have a choice not to tackle these threats.

While there has been controversy over the decision by the Nobel Committee to award President Barack Obama the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, I believe the intent of the committee was to call us all to live and act in a new way. In that spirit President Obama accepted the award, in his words, “as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.” Nobel Laureate Shimon Peres praised the Nobel Committee for its choice in these words: “Very few leaders if at all were able to change the mood of the entire world in such a short while with such a profound impact. [President Obama has] provided the entire humanity with fresh hope, with intellectual determination, and a feeling that there is a lord in heaven and believers on earth.” Peres then urges all of us to move together to create a new reality. President Obama calls each of us to action on many fronts, including to continue the critically important effort of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation to stem nuclear proliferation and more, to bring about nuclear disarmament, beginning with calling on the U.S. and Russia to commit to deep cuts in their nuclear arsenals so that others will follow as well as engaging in nuclear dialogue with Iran and North Korea. Obama calls us to become seriously committed to halting global warming and rescuing the long-term future of Mother Earth and its peoples from a catastrophic point-of-no-return in climate change. Obama calls us to “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights…” (6) that Eleanor Roosevelt championed through her involvement in bringing about the ratification of The International Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent human rights documents. He calls us to work tirelessly to ensure that all peoples enjoy the most basic human rights – the right to shelter, food, clean water, basic health care, education, and governance by rule of law.

Following immediately upon the Oslo ceremony, President Obama, with other world leaders, will turn vital attention to the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change. Just as the United States must step up to the plate first in nuclear disarmament, so too must the U.S., with the greatest urgency, lead the way in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Finding solutions to climate change belongs to each of us, so that we can avert climatic disasters such a rising oceans that submerge low-lying islands, cyclones and hurricanes that make cities uninhabitable, and parched, drought-stricken farmlands that fail to provide sustenance. Climate change will loom larger as a factor among the already complex and complicated causes of violent conflict and will cause millions more to be on the move as migrants and refugees. If, however, we garner the moral and political will to act collectively, we will know that polar bears will have solid ice flows, Silverback gorillas will thrive in lush forests, all creatures will breathe fresh air, and “the fragile balance of life on earth will be preserved.” (7)

Njabulo Ndebele, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town and a committed global citizen, notes of his home country: “Although we have built millions of new houses, we did not build communities.” (8) The wonderful African notion of ubuntu leads us to building community. The lives and actions of both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, champions of South African reconciliation and building cultures of peace, have been profoundly influenced by the notion of ubuntu, wherein a person is a person only in relation to other persons. This world-view values affirmation and acceptance of the other, interdependence, participation, openness, and concern for the common good. To live in a world of ubuntu assumes forgiveness, reconciliation, and building cultures of peace within oneself and among all the peoples of the world and the whole of creation. Desmond Tutu, whom you have honored here, in his book, No Future Without Forgiveness, says: “[T]his universe has been constructed in such a way that unless we live in accordance with its moral laws we will pay the price for it. One such law is that we are bound together in what the Bible calls ‘the bundle of life.’ Our humanity is caught up in that of all others. We are human because we belong. We are made for community, for togetherness, for family, to exist in a delicate network of interdependence.”(9)

May we live in a world of ubuntu, joining together as a human community, as engaged, responsible global citizens, so that we might move toward creating a peace and openness that can take root and flourish in our homes, our communities, and our world. May we make “chimes of gentle sound.” We can effect change if we envision that we do belong to one another; if we are willing to be ‘daredevils’ for peace, and if we see, in the words of poet Archibald MacLeish, that “we are brothers [and sisters], riders on the earth together.” (10)

1. Marian Wright Edelman, “Standing Up for the World’s Children: Leave No Children Behind,” Architects of Peace: Visions of Hope in Words and Images, Edited by Michael Collopy (Novato, CA: New World Library, 20000), 33.

2. Warren Zimmerman, Origins of a Catastrophe: Yugoslavia and Its Destroyers – America’s Last Ambassador Tells What Happened and Why (New York: Times Books, 1996), 238.

3. Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa in Architects of Peace, op.cit., 102.

4. George Steiner, Language and Silence (London: Faber and Faber, 1967), as cited in William Shawcross, The Quality of Mercy: Cambodia, Holocaust and Modern Conscience (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 13.

5. Patricia Schonstein Pinnock, Skyline (Cape Town, David Philip Publishers, 2000), 9.

6. Center for the Study of Human Rights, “United Nations Charter,” Twenty-Five Human Rights Documents (New York: Columbia University, 1994), 1

7. BBC Film, Earth (2009).

8. Njabulo Ndebele, “Of pretence and protest,” Mail and Guardian, September 23, 2009, 20-21.

9. Desmond Mpilo Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 196.

10. Archibald MacLeish, Riders on the Earth (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), xiii-xiv.

Judith Mayotte is the 2009 recipient of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s World Citizenship Award. She is a refugee advocate and a visiting professor at the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre and The University of the Western Cape.

November 7, 2009
2006 Annual Dinner Speech: World Citizenship Award to Bianca Jagger

Let me state the obvious: We are living in deeply troubling times. Having learned little from our mistakes in Vietnam, we repeat them in Iraq. Having learned little from the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have moved again to the nuclear precipice. Our cities, our country and civilization itself remain at risk of catastrophic nuclear devastation.

The North Korean nuclear test did not happen in a vacuum. It happened after continued failures to negotiate in good faith with the North Koreans and after failures of our country to lead in fulfilling our obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It also happened after our government performed 1,054 nuclear tests, and has continued to the present to conduct sub-critical nuclear tests. Current US nuclear policies are leading us in the same direction with Iran, and other countries will follow if we do not change these policies.

At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are convinced that we cannot trust the future of civilization and humanity itself to political or military leaders. We must bring about change – change in vision and in leadership. Our work is to educate and inspire you and others throughout the world to become the leaders we have been waiting for so that together we can change the barren landscape of nuclear arrogance, threat and absurdity to a beautiful global garden, alive with diversity, which assures a future for our children and all children, including those of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. We will not be safe until all the world’s children are safe, and this cannot happen in a nuclear-armed world.

In the past week, the Foundation sponsored its third Think Outside the Bomb Conference, bringing together more than 150 young people to learn about nuclear dangers and to develop the tools of leadership that they will need to change the world. I’d like to ask our Youth Empowerment Director, Will Parrish, who organized this conference, to stand and be recognized. Next week Will travels to New York, where he will lead an East Coast Think Outside the Bomb Conference with more than 100 young leaders. Let me also ask the rest of our committed and hardworking staff at the Foundation to stand and be recognized.

I’ve recently returned from Japan where I participated in the 3rd Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The event was sponsored by the city of Nagasaki, and reflected the desire of the people of Nagasaki to assure that they would remain the last city ever to be destroyed by nuclear weapons.

At the conference, there was considerable concern expressed about the North Korean nuclear test, which took place very much in the neighborhood of Japan. Rather than seek heavy sanctions on North Korea or push for Japan itself to develop a nuclear force, the desire of the Global Citizens’ Assembly was for the creation of a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone to include all the countries in the region as well as the nuclear weapons states, such as the United States, with nuclear forces in the region.

The conference concluded with the adoption of a 15-point Appeal. I’d like to share with you just two points from this Appeal.

The first point stated: “We strongly proclaim that nuclear weapons are the most barbaric, inhumane and cowardly of weapons, and we call upon the governments of all countries, without exception, to renounce the practice of seeking security through nuclear weapons.”

The final point of the Appeal stated: “We call upon citizens everywhere to add their voices to those of the Hibakusha [atomic bomb survivors] in calling for the total elimination of nuclear weapons before these weapons destroy our cities, our countries and civilization itself.”

The survivors of the atomic bombings speak as World Citizens, as does our honoree for our World Citizenship Award tonight.

A World Citizen recognizes the fundamental unity of humankind, and the increased need to embrace that unity brought about by the dangers of the Nuclear Age. A World Citizen recognizes that our greatest problems can neither be contained nor controlled within national borders. Solving all the great problems of our time – from preserving the environment, to halting global warming, to upholding human rights, to living in peace and preventing war, to ending the nuclear threat to humanity – all of these require global cooperation that must be built on a foundation of World Citizenship.

Bianca Jagger was born in Nicaragua and witnessed first-hand the terror and brutality of the Somoza regime. Witnessing the greed and injustice of this regime set her on a lifetime path of speaking out and working for the oppressed and dispossessed of the world.

Ms. Jagger has traveled the world in support of the poor, the infirm and the disadvantaged, those whose lives have been torn apart by war and environmental devastation. Wherever she has gone she has taken a strong and outspoken stand for peace and justice. She has put her life at risk in war-torn countries, and used her celebrity to be a voice for those who would not otherwise be heard or even noticed.

For her tireless efforts, she has received many awards, including the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. She honors us with her presence this evening, and we are very pleased to present her with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2006 World Citizenship Award.

David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.

November 14, 2006
Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba’s 2004 World Citizenship Award Acceptance Speech

Memorial Hall, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, October 8, 2004

Dr. David Krieger, honorable guests, colleagues and friends. It is my greatest honor to represent 619 member cities of the organization Mayors for Peace in accepting this year’s World Citizenship Award from such a prestigious organization as the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

It is indeed a pleasure to be recognized here in Hiroshima by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation among such prestigious leaders in the movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons. This organization, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, has spearheaded our movement by showing us the direction to follow. It has also given us concrete examples by taking specific measures that have been effective in accomplishing our goal.

The recent Nuclear Age Peace Foundation campaign called “Turn the Tide” is an excellent example of a job well done, one that will have a great effect on the world.

I also would like to add that we are fortunate to find a leader in the person of Dr. David Krieger as well as in the persons all of us here, leaders in a joint effort for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

I would like to take this opportunity to summarize what our organization, Mayors for Peace, has been trying to accomplish and what we are aiming to accomplish. To start my review, I would like to mention one trend that is very important, at least in my mind.

The problem of nuclear weapons was created by science and technology. Partly because of this, our movement to abolish nuclear weapons is firmly based on science, scientists, scientific thinking and all the relevant facts.

Here I am using the words “science,” “scientists,” and so forth broadly. Let me mention a few examples that might be noteworthy. In the 1980s, a great movement was created, the nuclear freeze movement, largely through the efforts of physicians. Medical science, one of the scientific realms, declares that there is nothing these powerful scientists can do once nuclear war erupts.

Environmental scientists also show us clearly that from the environmental and ecological points of view that nuclear war is not preventable. The only way to get rid of this danger is to abolish all nuclear weapons.

Other scientists and experts can tell you from their areas of expertise that the only way is to get rid of all nuclear weapons.

Here I would like to add another component to this list of experts’ opinions about nuclear weapons. That is, the perspective of mayors or city managers.

Actually there is an American president who describes what I am going to say very well. Let me quote him first. The president is Abraham Lincoln. He said, “You may fool all of the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time. But you can not fool all of the people all of the time”.

In a sense, this is an abstract statement but it is most true on the level of running a city, dealing with daily lives of citizens. For example, in lofty or high places, one could argue whether weapons of mass destruction exist or not and can get away with not saying the truth.

But on the level of issues that mayors deal with, when garbage piles up on the streets there is no denying it. You cannot just lie. We have to deal with daily lives of citizens at that level. That is why mayors really see the facts clearly. We see the truths that surround us very clearly and we base our judgment on those facts and truth.

Last October, in Manchester England , Mayors for Peace held an executive committee meeting. The discussion was based on facts that we have to deal with on a daily bases. We have come to the conclusion that nuclear weapons will have to be eliminated as soon as possible. We have set the deadline for the year 2020.

Although some people said that wouldn’t be doable, we set the year 2020 partly because of the hibakusha. Hibakusha is the Japanese word for survivors of atomic bombs. As a matter of fact, after we announced the deadline we received warm words from our hibakusha friends. Their only complaint or criticism was that 2020 was not soon enough because they may not alive to see the day.

To honor these hibakusha , we would like to stick to that goal and work harder in order to realize our goal no later than the year 2020. To start a summary of our activities let me start with what the hibakusha themselves have done. I believe it is very important to mention this. The World Citizenship Award, I am sure, has been given to Mayors for Peace because we do represent the voices of hibakusha.

In the Peace Declaration of 1999, I summarized and pointed out three important contributions that the hibakusha had made by that time. The first one is the fact that they chose to live under circumstances in which they could not have been blamed had they chosen death. They not only chose to live, but to do so as decent human beings. This is quite an accomplishment that we tend to take for granted.

The second accomplishment is that they effectively prevented a third use of nuclear weapons. When we tell their stories of August 6 and August 9, we feel like we live them. Certainly, anybody who went through that experience wishes to avoid telling it. Despite that fact they kept telling the world what would happen if another nuclear weapon should be used.

The third important accomplishment is that they created and live a new world view. This is what Dr. Albert Einstein believed. Although he thought it did not exist, it does in the minds of hibakusha and it has spread all over the world by now. I would like to express that value as “reconciliation” instead of “retaliation”. The hibakusha themselves say simply that no one else should go through the experience they had. This spirit has been captured in the Memorial Cenotaph in the Peace Park , as well as in the Japanese Constitution.

These are the footsteps on which the Mayors for Peace base our decisions and future activities.

The first activity that the Mayors for Peace launched actually occurred in April this year in New York .

Mayors and deputy mayors gathered in New York City to attend the Preparatory Committee meeting of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference, speak to the national delegates from various countries, make speeches, speak to city council members in New York City, speak to journalists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and so forth. It was a series of very important activities, some of which were extremely effective.

I would like to quote a deputy mayor who summarized the activities in April. Jenny Jones is the deputy mayor of London . She said, “At the beginning of the experience in New York I was not sure what would happen, but the entire experience was invigorating. I am recharged with energy and feel I can work even harder for the abolition of nuclear weapons once I go back to London “. She was pleased, energized and energetic. London will be represented at the NPT Review Conference next year in May. I’m hoping Mayor Ken Livingston himself will join us.

The consensus among participating mayors and deputy mayors was that although not all of the comments from national delegates were encouraging, after we went through the experience, we believe that it is possible to abolish nuclear weapons by the year of 2020.

The second step of our activity is basically the one-year period between August 6 of this year till August 9 of next year, although we will put more focus on the period between August 6 this year until the NPT Review Conference in May next year.

During this period we would like to sponsor concerts, symposia, and other activities to raise public awareness and to gather more momentum worldwide. There are many different activities happening all around the world on a daily basis, and more mayors are joining the Mayors for Peace organization. Other organizations and NGOs are holding their own activities to help us gather forces together in May next year in New York .

The important component of our campaign is for mayors and NGOs to approach their respective governments to get them to help us induce the NPT Review Conference to adopt formal documents outlining our proposal for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Our aim is to have a universal nuclear weapons convention signed by the year 2010 and ultimately abolish all nuclear weapons by the year 2020. We also have a contingency plan in case our present course does not materialize. But I am not going to tell you about that because we would like to concentrate on realizing our goal rather than fearing that we may not be able to accomplish it.

The third step is the NPT Review conference itself, which will be held in May next year. By the way, next year is 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings. We would like to have at least 100 mayors from Mayors for Peace cities and also at least 1000 NGO representatives representing various voices grassroots movements from around the world in New York during the NPT Review conference.

I also would like to tell you that our efforts have been doubled, tripled or quadrupled – actually enhanced one hundred-fold by people of various organizations and NGOs around the world who have worked so hard. Let me just point out a few things that did not happen in the previous movement for abolishing nuclear weapons.

Our efforts – grassroots movements and civil society movements – quite often have been ignored by formal governmental structures. In February this year, the European Congress actually adopted a resolution supporting the Mayors for Peace emergency campaign. In June in Boston , the US conference of Mayors consisting of 1183 American cities adopted by acclamation a resolution whose content was even stronger than that of European Congress. Many governments, including those who sent their ambassadors to Hiroshima in recent years, have endorsed our emergency campaign.

In the area of NGOs, International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which won the Nobel Prize in 1985, has also recently adopted a resolution endorsing our emergency campaign in Beijing.

And today we have honor of receiving the 2004 World Citizenship Award from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which is another way of endorsing our campaign in an effort to expand this effort to abolish all nuclear weapons by the year 2020.

In 1945, just after the atomic bombing, some people claimed that no life would grow in Hiroshima for 75 years. Of course you see the trees and flowers now, so this statement was not true. But in a different sense, as long as we have nuclear weapons on this earth, one could claim that no real life is actually thriving on the earth. We do not have life actualizing its fullest potential as long as there are nuclear weapons. Therefore, let us make sure that the year 2020, 75 years after the atomic bombings, will be the year real life is born again by abolishing nuclear weapons.

When Mr. Nelson Mandela was released from the prison after 28 years, he was asked by a journalist, “What are you going to do next?” I suppose the journalist wanted to hear some important political action that Nelson Mandela was planning at the time. But Nelson Mandela answered “I would like to listen to classical music while watching a beautiful sunset on a beach.”

So in that spirit I would like to promise you that Mayors for Peace, and I personally, will do our best to accomplish our goal by the year 2020. And I know that all of you will join us, so that in the year 2020 we will be able to listen to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and rejoice that finally peace has come while watching the sun set beautifully into the Seto Inland Sea over Hiroshima. Let’s work together.

Thank your very much.

October 8, 2004
2004 World Citizenship Award Presentation to Mayors for Peace

World citizenship has become essential to our survival as a species. Our powerful technologies have made our problems global, and the solutions to these problems must also be global. If the Earth is destroyed, no country, no matter how powerful, will be spared the devastation. We all have a vested interest in preserving our planet. Our time calls out for world citizenship.

On our planet today are many greedy plunderers, individuals and corporations that would use up the Earth’s resources for their own short-term profits, polluting the air, water and land without regard for the good of the planet and its inhabitants. These plunderers, who often seek out the weakest national link to gain greater advantage in enhancing their profits, are destroying our wondrous life-supporting planet.

Some governments have stockpiled thousands of nuclear weapons, the worst of all weapons of mass destruction, weapons that are capable of reducing our great cities to rubble. Despite obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, these governments have clung tenaciously to their large nuclear arsenals, threatening the survival of the human species and most life on Earth.

Finding global solutions to global problems demands a worldwide constituency for change, a constituency of world citizens, who put the problems of the planet ahead of their concerns for their particular geographic portion of the planet. The number of world citizens on the planet is relatively small, but growing. The growth curve is in a race against time to save the planet from plunder and destruction and to achieve sustainability for future generations.

In 1998, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation began presenting an annual award for World Citizenship. Previous honorees have been media innovator Ted Turner; Queen Noor of Jordan; poet and philosopher Daisaku Ikeda; artist Frederick Franck; and entertainer and humanitarian Harry Belafonte. This year’s honoree is – for the first time, an organization – Mayors for Peace.

Mayors for Peace was selected for their innovative approach to the abolition of nuclear weapons. They have initiated an Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons by the year 2020, which they call Vision 2020. Witnessing the strain on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by the failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their treaty obligations for nuclear disarmament and recognizing the dangers that nuclear arsenals pose to all cities, the Mayors for Peace created their Emergency Campaign. The Campaign calls for initiating negotiations for nuclear weapons abolition in the year 2005, concluding these negotiations in the year 2010, and completing the process of eliminating these weapons by the year 2020. The Emergency Campaign brings the issue of nuclear disarmament to cities throughout the world through the commitment of mayors who have a responsibility to protect their constituents.

In 2004, the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign brought 16 mayors and deputy mayors from 12 countries to the United Nations in New York for the Preparatory Committee meeting to the 2005 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (NPT). The organization is currently making preparations to have more than 100 mayors and deputy mayors at the 2005 NPT Review Conference. Their presence made a strong impact in 2004 and will undoubtedly make an even greater impact in 2005.

The superb leadership of Mayors for Peace has come from its president, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba of Hiroshima , and its vice-president, Mayor Iccho Itoh of Nagasaki. It is altogether fitting and proper that the leadership of this organization and campaign should come from these cities that suffered the devastating consequences of nuclear weapons dropped on them. We hope that the survivors of the bombings in these cities, the hibakusha , who are ambassadors of the Nuclear Age, will take particular pride in this World Citizenship Award and the efforts of their mayors for a world free of nuclear weapons. We also hope that this Award will help in mobilizing additional mayors to join in the global effort to eliminate nuclear weapons.

It is my honor and pleasure to present the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2004 World Citizenship Award to Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba representing the Mayors for Peace.

David Krieger is a founder and the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org)

October 8, 2004