In the Powszechny Theatre, after the screening of the film “Human Energy” in 2019 I met Ewa Dryjańska, PhD in political sciences, who has been participating actively in the debate against the nuclear power from years and who has been observing with attention and sadness the madness of the Polish pronuclear narration. Ewa confirmed the activity of prof. Malinowski in the social media and told us how the surface and pressure of the media lobbing of the nuclear power in Poland looked like. How she and the like minded people are dispersed.
EWA: My love for the Far East and my PhD thesis on the Chinese-Japanese relations compounded my shock after the catastrophe in Fukushima in 2011. Even today I remember this heartbreaking feeling of following the coverage of the 50 workers who sacrificed their health to prevent even bigger disaster in the Fukushima Daiichi NPP. First I was helping my Japanese friend at organizing charity actions and then I started organizing events raising awareness on the situation in Japan.
In 2012 during a symposium on the nuclear catastrophe a PhD candidate of physical chemistry Yasuhiro Igarashi described the development of the symbiosis of the energy companies, political class and media. This SYMBIOSIS was even given a name “nuclear village”. The Japanese scientist presented the examples of the propaganda stunts enabling the brainwashing and imprinting a faith in the absolute safety of a nuclear power plants.
Their conscious location far away from the big agglomerations speak a lot about the real risk. But even their workers were being persuaded that “a catastrophe could have happened in the Soviet Chernobyl but not in Japanese reactors from the West”. You feel even bigger anger when you hear analogical slogan in Poland: “We don’t have tsunamis”. As if only a tsunami could be a cause of a failure…
I was being reached out by horrendous information on contaminated areas and the bodies of abandoned livestock, which died of hunger, people who were evacuated to the places of much higher radioactive emissions by the totally unprepared authorities. Right after the catastrophe the government increased the allowed, annual dose of radiation for civilians from 1 to 20 mSv, what was met with criticism from such organizations as International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health and the UN Special Rapporteur on hazardous substances.
Till today a lot of people have been living in contamination zones. The vision of the Olympics in 2020 was more important. In June 2012 a group of mothers from Fukushima went to protest. Unfortunately in vain. The restarts of the earlier turned off NPPs were forced through. The detached from the international norms criteria of evacuation were also maintained. All this happened when 3 commission examining the catastrophe, recognized that it was man-made – it took place because of neglecting safety.
Women’s “Die-In” against the Restart of Ooi Nuke Plant (Jun/07/2012)
The culture of Japan is an abidance of adversities and also a culture of accordance, harmony and not dazzling with emotions, where an individual is raised to submit to a collectivity. And this is why over one-hundred-thousand march demonstrating resistance to the nuclear, meant approximately the same as if in Poland half of the country would go out to the streets.
The PPJ – The Polish Nuclear Program announced in Paris by Donald Tusk in 2009 reached its peak of the nuclear hypocrisy in 2012 (after the Japanese catastrophe) in a disinformation campaign “POZNAJ ATOM” (ang. “Come to Know the Nuclear”). As part of its “scientificism” the campaign in a manipulative way was comparing the health consequences of living close to a NPP to eating a banana. From the published on the Internet “THE CONCEPT OF THE INFORMATION CAMPAIGN CONCERNING NPP. (…)” the section 2.6 “Analysis of enemies and friends” quickly disappeared. Besides right now it is hard to find this document online at all.
In “THE CONCEPT” different methods of social engineering were blended together, like smuggling pronuclear content in TV series, contests for children, or wining over persons of the public trust professions like teachers, local authorities, firefighters, priests. And enemies were to be treated “like in Orwell” with dirty tactics. Which year does this text come from: from 1946? I saw the hazard for Poland resulting from this crass propaganda and at the same time I was observing the situation in Japan. Right after the catastrophe the incumbent prime minister – Naoto Kan ordered the closure of all the reactors but his successor – Yoshihiko Noda decided to restart one of them saying that he “took responsibility in case of any event”. A peak of arrogance.
The Polish propaganda however, imitating the Japanese one from half a century ago, was even more infantile. The governmental proxy on nuclear power of that time said patronizing the society, that the decision on nuclear “should lie in the domain of the ruling elite. The society should not be burdened with the decisions of such kind”. Only “the good” news from the “nuclear front”. No reporting from the Belarusian orphanages full of abandoned children with multiple illnesses and genetic mutations. The money from this campaign upgraded someone’s material status. I wonder how the denialism of these monsters affects the children of Chernobyl. Because all type of action bears consequences.
The deepening of the feeling of nuclear surrealism came in November 2013. As part of “Five Flavors” Asian Film Festival together with Yasuhiro Igarashi I organized the screening of 2 films: “The Crawling Nuclear Power Plant” and „A2-B-C” on the situation of the families of the children in Fukushima, examined for the changes in their thyroids. After the screening together with its director Ian Thomas Ash we were harshly attacked by one of the viewers as manipulators spreading disinformation. I recognized an employee of the ministry of economy in this person and right away I retorted that “it is rather he who could explain us the blockade of information on Fukushima in the information campaign”.
Then he turned red, small, sat down and didn’t say any other word till the end of the event. The next viewer from the ministry introduced himself right away and revealed his afiliation and then he started talking taking several minutes paeans on nuclear which we were forced to interrupt. In another location of the lounge sat the employee of the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology who was disavowing the utterances of the persons speaking in the film with a patronizing tone. Report of Ian Thomas Ash
Not long afterwards thanks to the contacts of my friend – Barbara Henmi and the help from the Italian journalist from Tokyo as well as the support from various organizations and people of good will we managed to invite the former prime minister Naoto Kan with the delegation of experts to Poland through the Muses Foundation. Disappointing, incomprehensible and downright puzzling was this complete lack of interest of the mainstream media. However, thanks to our initiative the prime minister was invited to the parliament by the Parliamentary Group on Energy under the chairmanship of MP Andrzej Czerwiński.
During the meeting with the MPs and inhabitants of Warsaw the Japanese politician mentioned how he faced the probable possibility of the evacuation of 50 million people (link here) including the Tokyo agglomeration. This account made a big impression on MPs. After the meeting the unusual press conference took place where Kan, Nowicka and Czerwiński spoke together. (link here)
The prime minister visited also Pomerania and the places chosen for the potential locations of the NPP in Poland where he was enthusiasticaly welcomed by the inhabitants opposing the investment. One and half year before in Pomerania a special seminar for the professions of public trust had taken place as part of the “Come to Know Nuclear” with the participation of a lecturer of the Warsaw University of Technology – Adam Rajewski and … a psychologist. (link here). People from the local antinuclear organisations were denied the right to take part.
The only reference of the visit of the prime minister in Poland and his words appeared in the local and Internet media and in the free newspaper “Metro”, handed out on the street. We put an additional effort to arrange time in a tight program for an interview for journalist Jacek Żakowski for the weekly “Polityka”. The prime minister gave it in a VIP Room at the airport at the last minutes before leaving Poland. This interview has never been published.
After the events from 2014 and apparently nuclear silence such organizations as FOTA4Climate bloomed, which push forward nuclear power as the only solution for the climate crisis. The new type of PR let them also usurp the right to stigmatize and insult those having a different opinion, including renowned scientists and ecological activists like even the Norwegian Bellona Foundation, which is one of the very few institutions taking any action on the Russian sunk nuclear wrecks and waste at the bottom of the seas. The members of the pronuclear organization also push forward an opinion that there is no problem with the contaminated water from Fukushima because, although it is contaminated with the radioactive tritium and the smaller quantities of other radionuclides, it is safe… to drink.
The observation of the new wave of the aggressive nuclear propaganda was an even greater motivation for me to take part in the conference on the report on nuclear waste in November 2019, to which I was invited by the Heinrich Boell Foundation. It gave me an inspiration to conduct an interview on nuclear waste with a world renowned expert Mycle Schneider.
When the popular magazine „Krytyka Polityczna” published my interview and posted the text on Facebook an avalanche started… Apart from the “nuclear” organizations accusing me and the editorial board of lobbing on behalf of Gazprom and financing from Russia, some comments from the people associated with the “Come to Know Nuclear” campaign appeared as well as from scientists-authority.
In practice all the comments were emotional and nonsubstantive. I was amused that this suggestion came also from Urszula Kuczyńska – an energy expert of the Razem Party and also a member of FOTA4Climate, who giving interviews for the media doesn’t mention the fact that till recently she was a long-standing employee of PGE EJ1– a partnership created to build a NPP in Poland. And the chairman of FOTA4Climate himself participated in Japan in a seminar organized by the Japanese nuclear industry, which was designed for the promotion of the native technology abroad.
I discovered also a strange chain of comments on myself on a new Facebook group under the graceful, manipulative name “The Green Nuclear” (pol. Zielony atom), arguing that the isotopes from the fires of the contaminated forests of Chernobyl have the same effect as … the radioactivity of a toilet. The group is cultivating the traditions of the “Come to Know Nuclear” Facebook site traditions, passing only the positive news on the nuclear power and disavowing the bad ones. One of its administrators is a member of FOTA4Climate.
I also decided to post my interview at the boasting of its scientific attributes Facebook group “The Anthropological changes of climate and natural environment” (pol. ”Antropologiczne zmiany klimatu i środowiska naturalnego”). I was surprised that persons from FOTA4Climate were openly attacking me for any posted comment or post. When I tried to share any good news my posts were “disappearing”. Then I came to know that 2 of 3 administrators of this group are also members/well-wishers of this organization and the 3rd one is in good relations with its chairman. Then as a result I could not be surprised when on the first days of the April fires of the Chernobyl forests I was unceremoniously attacked by the administration of the group and my post blocked. Many times I had been suggesting the administrators that they should stress out that the group promoted nuclear, but they claimed that it was an objective scientific group…
I was wondering how far the promoters of nuclear can go when on the same “scientific” group, liquidizing my eyes in amazement I read as one of the members of FOTA4Climate and also a member of the Razem Party in a crass way attacked and threatened a painter activist, taking away her right to speak on the subject “she has no idea about”. Only an incidental debater reacted to this behavior. The administration didn’t medle.
Contrary to nuclear lies many prominent scientists are against using nuclear power as a solution to the climate change (among many Prof. Mark Z. Jacobson, dr Paul Dorfman, prof. Christian Breyer, prof. Jan Popczyk, Marcin Popkiewicz…). Against is also Greta Thunberg, whose photos and slogans pronuclear people like using so eagerly, not mentioning of course her real position on this matter. Neither mentioning that they were protesting against the closure of the NPP in German Philippsburg together with … climate denialists. I could multiply such examples over and over again.
The claim of some nuclear supporters including Urszula Kuczyńska or prof. Szymon Malinowski that “there is no such a thing as a nuclear lobby” seems a bizzarre essence of hypocrisy to me. There is a coal, renewable, oil lobby but in some magical way a precisely nuclear one doesn’t exist despite being a well documented phenomenon, as for example in Japan. Leaving out the venom, dough and disappearence of humanity, someone is just insulting our intelligence.
For few weeks “the only right approach” to nuclear is also promoted on the Polish national TV using different manipulations like promoting NPPs next to the statement of a renowned climate authority Marcin Popkiewicz, despite the fact that he thinks that at this moment such construction in Poland would be a mistake. At the end the chairman of the national TV himself is the author of the citation: “The dull-witted folk will buy it”.
