Seeking truth: Kazakhstan’s fight against nuclear testing | Togzhan Kassenova | TEDxBeaconStreet

In this inspiring talk, Togzhan Kassenova uses poignant stories from Kazakhstan’s history as a Soviet Union nuclear test site to encourage humanity to seek truth and act, even in the face of an oppressive political system.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Imagine eating meat
laced with radioisotopes.

Imagine your kids drinking
contaminated milk.

Imagine the walls in your house

getting cracks from the earth
shaking underneath it -

you are so fed up,
you don't fix them anymore.

More than a million people in Kazakhstan
do not have to imagine.

They had lived through this for 40 years

while Kazakhstan was
part of the Soviet Union.

This talk today is my love letter

to the courage of ordinary people.

People who are not afraid
to tell the truth,

even when not convenient.

People who are not afraid
to challenge power,

to challenge oppressive regimes.

My stories today
are the stories of my people,

people of Kazakhstan,

and their fight to stop
nuclear tests on their land.

These stories have inspired me,

and I hope they will inspire you.

I hope they will serve
as a reminder to all of us

that we, the people, can challenge power,

and we can make a difference
to the course of history.

This is all very personal to me.

Kazakhstan's nuclear story
defined who I am.

The family of my father
lived in the city of Semipalatinsk,

just seventy miles away
from the nuclear test site.

When the Soviet Union collapsed,

and Kazakhstan found itself

with a nuclear inheritance
it did not seek,

more than a thousand
Soviet nuclear weapons,

my father,

at the time, the head of the country’s
first analytical institution,

helped the Kazakh government
to make nuclear policy decisions.

My father died young.

Eager to follow his footsteps

and keenly aware how
nuclear politics shaped my country,

I entered the field
of nuclear policy 18 years ago.

I'm thrilled to be part of the community

that works toward ridding
our planet of nuclear weapons.

And just like my father,
but many years later,

I had the honor to serve

as an advisor on disarmament
to the UN Secretary-General.

Soviet leaders rushed
to develop nuclear weapons,

eager to catch up with the United States.

To test their weapons,
they chose the land of my ancestors,

the region that holds sacred place
in the Kazakh consciousness.

Our most famous writers, poets,
intellectuals were born here.

It is on this land
that a nuclear test site,

the size of Israel, was built.

From ancient times,

endless steppe and limitless blue skies
signified freedom to Kazakh nomads.

Depending on the season,

steppe changes color from vibrant green
to golden under scorching sun in summer.

At the horizon, steppe meets the skies,

dividing what you see
in two blocks of color,

with nothing to obstruct the view,

just like a Rothko painting.

Before the Soviet military arrived,

Kazakh shepherds roamed the generous land
that provided food for their cattle.

Soon, the region that prided itself

on supplying the entire country
with the best quality meat, fresh milk -

raising livestock became contaminated,

Nuclear bombs were dropped from the skies,
just like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Nuclear mushrooms became a regular
feature of the steppe horizon.

Nuclear bombs also exploded

underneath the earth
in specially built tunnels.

People started to get sick.

Here is just one testimony from a woman
who lived in a rural settlement nearby,

“Nobody told us

about the harmfulness
of nuclear explosions.

Everything was secret.

Now I'm ill myself,
my son hanged himself,

and only the test site
is to blame for all my ills.

Every single inhabitant in our village

suffers the consequences
of nuclear explosions.”

The rise in suicides and mental illness

was the darkest side of the human tragedy
unfolded in the Kazakh steppe.

Suicide was previously
such an alien concept to Kazakhs,

they didn’t even have a word for it.

The military, of course,

denied that the tests
were doing any harm to local people.

They blamed the deteriorating
health of locals

on living conditions and poor diet.

The Soviet government
fully controlled the narrative.

Nuclear scientists were not allowed
to talk about their work;

doctors were not allowed to diagnose
any radiation-related illnesses.

In this atmosphere
of full control from Moscow,

scientists from Kazakhstan
launched a medical expedition

to examine the health of people
who lived near the test site.

Those scientists worked
for the Institute of Regional Pathology,

part of the Kazakh Academy of Sciences.

For three years,

in the late 1950s,

they painstakingly examined
thousands of people,

going from one village to another.

Those were courageous men and women.

They truthfully recorded what they saw.

And their account
is a very clinical record.

It's full of medical jargon,

but let me tell you,

if you read the dry text

and picture the innocent people
behind the abstract data points,

it will break your heart.

Blood did not circulate properly
in people’s brains.

Those who were exposed long-term
to high amounts of radioactivity

lost their sense of smell and taste.

The neurological pathologies
made people tired,

caused dizziness and headaches.

Many locals were losing
their swallowing reflex,

the body's important defense mechanism
against choking on food.

Those scientists
were summoned to Moscow,

where the representatives
of the military medical establishment

argued with them,
dismissing their findings.

Under pressure from the military,

further efforts of the Kazakh
scientists were suspended.

The Soviet government
classified their data,

and for decades that data
was unavailable to public.

That was the time
of information suppression -

nobody was supposed to know the truth.

Decades later,

I found myself in the library

of the Kazakh Academy
of Sciences in Almaty,

and I was holding in my hands

the original documents
from that medical expedition.

Chill ran down my spine,

and my entire body
was covered in goosebumps,

not only from the profound sadness
I felt for my people

that they had to suffer
through these ailments

through no fault of their own,

but from the realization

that any of these authors
could have been accused of state treason.

They were recording

how the country’s most important
national security project

was ruining the health
of their countrymen.

I will never forget
the emotions I felt that day,

and I will never forget
the courage of those scientists.

What this story represents to me
is the search for truth,

even when confronted
by a repressive regime.

For decades, people
in the Semipalatinsk region

continued to live

under the dark cloud of nuclear tests.

They tried to make politicians hear them,

to no avail.

Their anger, fueled
by pain, reached its peak,

and finally, a window of opportunity
to act opened up for them.

It was late 1980s -

nobody yet could have predicted
the Soviet Union would collapse.

I was too young

and only have very vague recollections
of that particular moment in history,

but I remember the wind of change we felt

when a new Soviet leader,
Mikhail Gorbachev, came to power.

He allowed more political freedom,

but that freedom also uncovered
the depth of the Soviet Union’s decay.

The Soviet republics

and their frustration
of the Soviet republics

with the Moscow rule

could not be contained any longer.

In Kazakhstan, that frustration
manifested itself

in massive protests against nuclear tests.

So it was February of 1989

when yet another underground nuclear test
rocked the Kazakh land.

As the result of the test,

radioactive gas escaped
from underneath the earth -

nothing unusual,

it happened so many times before -

but this time,

because the Soviet government

could no longer fully control
the information flow,

this news became public.

A charismatic Kazakh poet,
Olzhas Suleimenov,

went on national TV and appealed
to the people of Kazakhstan

to rally against nuclear tests.

Three days later, 5,000 people
showed up at the Writers House,

a gathering place for literary
professionals in Almaty.

The hall couldn't even hold everyone,

and thousands stood
outside in the winter chill.

The energy that day in that hall
was galvanizing,

and the world's most massive
public movement

against nuclear tests was born.

They called it Nevada-Semipalatinsk.

Kazakhs added Nevada

because they wanted to feel connected
with the downwinders in the United States

who were fighting to stop nuclear tests
at the Nevada Test Site.

Millions of people of Kazakhstan
joined the Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement.

On the ground in the Semipalatinsk region,

a courageous local leader,
Keshrim Boztaeyv,

appealed to Gorbachev,

asking him to stop
nuclear tests in his region.

From Almaty, the president of Kazakhstan,
Nursultan Nazarbayev,

appealed to Moscow,

asking to spare his nation
from continued tests.

One expects action
from leaders; it is their duty.

What moves me most in this story

is the courage and determination
of regular people -

people who marched for months,

showed up in thousands to rallies -

uniting for one common goal:

to stop nuclear tests.

People were reclaiming their land.

They were standing up for their lives.

Kazakh steppe was alive again.

The Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement

became truly global.

In 1990, about 80 Americans
came to Kazakhaztan,

as well as Russians and Japanese.

Among Americans, there were members
of the Shoshone tribe of Nevada,

downwinders from Utah.

And they all came to support Kazakhs
in the International Peace March,

and so, more than 200 of them

traveled through Kazakhstan
by planes, buses, and on foot,

stopping in villages and cities.

In places where there were not
enough buildings to house everyone,

this international crowd put up the tents
and slept under the open sky.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union
was collapsing under its own weight.

Military leaders in Moscow

had to reduce the number
of tests in Kazakhstan

because of this public protest,

but they were not planning to stop,

at least not well into the '90s,

and they were putting pressure
on the Kazakh government to accept that.

Entire Kazakhstan

including the political establishments,

but, more importantly,

people did not succumb.

People continued to march,

people continued to protest,

and finally, the tireless fight
of millions of people of Kazakhstan

culminated in their victory.

On August 29th of 1991,

Kazakhstan shut down the Semipalatinsk
Nuclear Test Site forever.

A few -

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

A few months later,
the Soviet Union collapsed,

and Kazakhstan found itself

with more than a thousand
Soviet nuclear weapons.

If you look at other countries
that are dying to have nuclear weapons,

you would assume
they would want to keep them,

but no, Kazakhstan chose to get rid
of those nuclear weapons,

to a large extent

because of its experience
with the nuclear tests.

So I want to leave you with this:

If you have a choice to tell the truth,

please tell it!

Like those scientists in Kazakhstan did.

If you have an opportunity
to act on your civic duties,

please act on it.

Like millions of people of Kazakhstan did

when they fought against nuclear tests.

We can make a difference
to the course of history.

We are the makers of our own destiny.

Thank you.

(Applause)