Badass author Haruki Murakami accepted the Catalunya International award last week in Spain and, as is the custom for badass authors, lambasted the Japanese government's response to the Fukushima disaster in his acceptance speech. Murakami stated that Japan should have rejected nuclear power in the first place, and that the current government regulations are more concerned with pandering to business than protecting the citizenry. But he also goes so far as to implicate his compatriots and their complicity in allowing nuclear power to thrive.

This is the collapse of the “technology” myth, of which the Japanese people had been proud, and the defeat of our Japanese ethics and norms, which had allowed such deception. We blame the electrical companies and Japanese government. This is right and necessary, but at the same time we should accuse ourselves. We are victims and assailants at the same time. We have to consider the fact seriously. If we fail to do so, we’ll make the same mistake again.

Murakami pledges to donate his prize money to the victims and end with this bit of idealism.

We must not be afraid to dream. We should never allow the evil dogs named “efficiency” or “convenience” to catch up with us. We must be “unrealistic dreamers”, who go forward vigorously. Human beings will die and disappear, but humanity will prevail and will be regenerated forever. Above all we must believe in this power.

Read a translation of the speech here.