But we couldn’t think that Moscow events would overshadow for a while all the rest. Our society turned out to be ill. The disease is caused by the virus of lie. We all didn’t want to notice the war in Chechnya. We didn’t want it so much that almost started to believe it is not here. But it continued to poison other children, other water, and other air. And now the war came to us.

Today we’re said to learn a lesson vice versa: instead of opening our eyes and see, what’s going on, we’re said to close the eyes.

Militarization and closeness are symptoms of the disease. We thought we were cured from it by time. But consequences of the Kyshtym accident won’t disappear without our energies, plutonium won’t disappear from the soils around the Siberian Chemical Combine within thousands of years, if we do nothing. And we won’t recover from the ulcer of the other war, if we wait until time cures it. Like there is a radiation sickness, there is a sickness of lie. And our society needs to acknowledge this disease to recover.

The Environment & Rights

Editorial staff

Rashid Alimov

Victor Tereshkin

Environment & Rights #3, November 2002