The next transcript was offered by Documenting Ukraine, Institute for Human Sciences, who hosted the occasion in affiliation with Erste Financial institution.
The Europe with a future: Values have to be defended
When you understand historical past, it’s inconceivable to idealize. The 20th century introduced two devastating world wars, horrible colonial wars, tens of millions of deaths, and the entire dehumanization of humankind, which reached its most concrete type within the Holocaust and Nazi focus camps. The horrific classes of the previous demanded decisive motion. Duty for what had been perpetrated was codified within the slogan ‘By no means once more’. Governments created the United Nations system and signed worldwide agreements. The Schuman Declaration inaugurated a unified European challenge. The concept each particular person is free and equal in dignity and rights got here to characterize the brand new postwar humanism.
However evil can’t be vanquished as soon as and for all. Every day we make a alternative. And democracy, the rule of legislation, and human rights have been realized in apply in solely a part of Europe. In the meantime, the totalitarian Soviet Gulag was by no means condemned or punished. There was no accountability. And thus evil retains coming again: the Srebrenica bloodbath; the destruction of Grozny, a metropolis of half 1,000,000 individuals; the Russian bombardment of Aleppo; the firebombing of Mariupol and the our bodies of individuals killed on the streets of Bucha.
Now, within the twenty-first century, how will we defend human beings, their dignity, their rights and their freedom? Can we depend on the legislation – or do solely weapons matter?
I pose these questions not solely because the citizen of a rustic that’s defending itself in opposition to Russian army aggression. I pose these questions as a citizen of Europe.
Europe should reply to the challenges of at present’s world. Europe should fulfil its position in a globalized world that’s seeing a standoff between authoritarianism and democracy, pursuits and values, would possibly and legislation, fast earnings and long-term views. It’s the willpower to behave that offers a society a future.
The Europe that succeeded
The European Coal and Metal Neighborhood was not solely supposed to supply a shared basis for financial growth. The efforts of those that labored to construct a shared European challenge introduced solidarity to international locations whose relations had lengthy been clouded by bloody conflicts. The European Union was capable of overcome that historical past and guarantee peaceable relations amongst member states. Governments’ ongoing efforts to uphold democracy, the rule of legislation, and human rights introduced a long time of secure progress. That is the Europe that succeeded in avoiding battle.
The Europe that succeeded continues down a troublesome path in the direction of discovering itself. It should study to see the poisonous legacy of its personal colonial previous, even whether it is now wrapped in newfound good intentions. Its process lies in constructing unity, however not uniformity; guaranteeing integrity, however not homogeneity. It should discover a strategy to construct solidarity out of range. It should not permit the concepts of authoritarianism and imperialism to take maintain amongst new generations.
Element of the Holocaust Memorial, Judenplatz, Vienna. Artist: Rachel Whiteread. Picture by Robert Scarth through Wikimedia Commons
The generations that lived by means of the Second World Battle are nearly gone. The generations that got here after haven’t been pressured to shed their very own blood. They inherited the values of democracy from their dad and mom. And so they started to take rights and freedom as a given. Individuals behave more and more not because the bearers of those values however as their customers. They’ve begun to know freedom as the selection between varieties of cheese on the grocery store. And so they’re able to commerce freedom for financial achieve, for guarantees of safety, and for private consolation. It ought to come as no shock that in developed democracies we see populist forces gaining energy, forces that solid doubt on the foundational ideas of the Common Declaration of Human Rights.
Our world has grow to be fast-paced, advanced and interconnected. Technological growth, local weather change, invasions of privateness, rising inequality, the devaluation of data and experience, and different world challenges demand solutions that can’t be discovered prior to now. A long time of relative consolation and a rising want for easy options modified the optics of developed democracies. They not notice that peace in Europe can’t be preserved with out efforts equal to the extent of the risk that’s posed.
The European Union doesn’t embody all of Europe. The EU is the a part of Europe that managed to take the precept that peace, progress and human rights are indelibly linked, and put it into apply. After which it discovered itself confronted with the problem of stagnation. The Europe that succeeded ought to help different international locations’ motion in the direction of European values. In an ever-changing world, it’s open methods and transformational cultures that survive. And partitions and borders won’t save us from world challenges. To cease transferring ahead is to perish.
The present state of affairs relies upon not solely on the choices and actions of the Europe that succeeded but in addition on its environment. It’s one factor to be surrounded by international locations which have additionally set the values of democracy, rule of legislation and human rights as their guiding lights. It’s a completely completely different matter to be surrounded by international locations who see these values as inimical. As soon as they’re robust sufficient, they may search to destroy you.
For a very long time, the Europe that succeeded didn’t take accountability in the direction of different international locations within the area and made it attainable for authoritarian regimes to grow to be entrenched. This Europe forgot that states that kill journalists, imprison activists and break up peaceable protests pose a hazard not solely to their very own residents. Such states are a risk to your complete area and certainly your complete world. Europe wanted to answer systematic violations of human rights. Human rights ought to play no much less central a job in political decision-making than financial achieve or safety. This is applicable to overseas coverage as nicely.
One clear instance is Russia, which destroyed its personal civil society step-by-step. However for a very long time, the developed democracies turned a blind eye to this. They continued to shake fingers with the Russian management, constructing fuel pipelines and carrying on enterprise as normal. For many years Russian troops dedicated crimes in a number of international locations. However there have been no penalties. The world scarcely blinked on the annexation of Crimea by army pressure, which was unprecedented in post-war Europe. Russia believed that it might do no matter it wished.
The Europe that failed
In February 2014 Russia started a battle in opposition to Ukraine, occupying the Crimean Peninsula and a part of the Donetsk and Luhansk areas. This was simply after the Revolution of Dignity had resulted in Ukraine. Tens of millions of individuals had bravely stood up in opposition to a corrupt authoritarian regime. They took to the streets throughout your complete nation, demanding that the regime proceed transferring in the direction of Europe, in the direction of real democratic values. They fought for the fitting to construct a state through which the rights of every particular person are protected, through which the authorities are held accountable, through which the courts are impartial, and through which the police don’t beat peaceable pupil demonstrators.
And a few of them paid the last word worth for this. The police shot multiple hundred peaceable demonstrators within the middle of the nation’s capital. Individuals died beneath the flags of Ukraine and the European Union.
When the authoritarian regime fell, Ukraine acquired its likelihood for democratic transformation. And to cease Ukraine’s progress in the direction of real democracy, Russia invaded. Russia started this battle in February 2014, after which in February 2022 it expanded it right into a full-scale invasion. As a result of it’s not NATO that Putin fears, it’s democracy. Dictators concern the concept of freedom.
Now Russia seeks to interrupt Ukraine’s resistance and occupy the nation by inflicting most ache on the civilian inhabitants. Russian forces are intentionally focusing on residential buildings, church buildings, colleges, museums and hospitals. They’re capturing at evacuation corridors. They’re imprisoning individuals in filtration camps. They’re forcibly deporting Ukrainians. They’re kidnapping, torturing and murdering individuals within the occupied territories. Europe didn’t cease this.
This can be a battle of values. Russia is in search of to persuade the Ukrainian nation that its alternative in favour of European integration was a mistake. Russia is in search of to persuade your complete world that democracy, the rule of legislation and human rights are pretend, that they’re false values. As a result of in wartime they don’t shield anybody. Russia is in search of to show {that a} state with a robust army and nuclear weapons can dictate the principles of the sport to your complete worldwide neighborhood and may even change internationally acknowledged borders.
So this isn’t a battle between two international locations, it’s a battle between two methods – tyranny and democracy. The battle is already right here. Individuals solely start to know this when the bombs are falling on their heads, however this battle has dimensions aside from the army one: it’s an financial battle, an info battle, a battle of values. Whether or not we’re courageous sufficient to confess it or not, this battle has lengthy since crossed the borders of the European Union.
Russia has declared battle on Europe. Russia is combating in opposition to the values which are Europe’s hallmark.
Europe should take accountability. Democracy, the rule of legislation and human rights can’t be fought for and received as soon as and for all. The values of recent civilization have to be defended. We’ve got to battle for them.
The Europe that’s afraid
Europe doesn’t know methods to cease the battle. Some voices repeatedly name on Ukraine to simply accept peace.
Individuals in Ukraine need peace greater than anybody else. However peace doesn’t come when the nation that was attacked lays down its weapons. That’s not peace, that’s occupation. And occupation is simply battle in one other type.
Russia has launched a reign of terror on the occupied territories, to maintain them beneath management. Because of this Russian troops and particular forces exterminate native leaders – mayors, civil society activists, journalists, volunteers, monks and artists. With out regard for age, intercourse or well being. Individuals haven’t any likelihood to defend their freedom, their property, their lives and the lives of their family members.
Occupation just isn’t a matter of exchanging the flag of 1 state for that of one other. Occupation brings torture, deportation, pressured adoption, denial of id, filtration camps, mass graves.
In one in every of these mass graves, within the liberated Kharkiv area, beneath marker quantity 319 the physique of Volodymyr Vakulenko was discovered. Volodymyr was a youngsters’s writer. He wrote great tales for kids and whole generations grew up on his books. In the course of the Russian occupation, Volodymyr disappeared. His household hoped till the very finish that he was alive, that he was in Russian captivity, like 1000’s of different individuals. It’s exhausting for them to simply accept the forensic outcomes that recognized his physique.
Sustainable peace means the liberty to stay with out concern, the liberty to make plans for the longer term. We have to cease disguising army threats as ‘political compromises’. Requires Ukraine to cease defending itself simply to fulfill Russia’s imperial appetites aren’t merely misguided. They’re immoral.
Individuals can’t be deserted within the occupied territories to face dying and torture. Individuals’s lives can’t be a ‘political compromise’. Combating for peace means not succumbing to strain from the aggressor, it means defending individuals from its cruelty.
Russia is a modern-day empire. The imprisoned peoples of Belarus, Chechnya, Dagestan, Tatarstan, Yakutiia and others endure pressured russification, the expropriation of pure sources, and prohibitions on their very own language and tradition. They’re pressured to surrender their id. Empire has a centre, however it has no borders. Empire at all times seeks to increase. If Russia just isn’t stopped in Ukraine, it should go additional.
This isn’t one particular person’s battle. It’s a battle waged by a nation whose longing to regain ‘Russian greatness’ has robbed it of the power to differentiate between good and evil. So that they rejoice over capturing Ukrainian territories. So that they denounce one another. 12-year-old Masha Moskalyova drew an anti-war image at college. Somebody knowledgeable the authorities and now her father is in jail and she or he is in an orphanage.
The Russian individuals will bear accountability for this shameful web page of their historical past and for in search of to resurrect their former empire by pressure. Being conscious of this accountability brings sincere individuals to take a stand in opposition to evil and name issues by their names, even when it goes in opposition to prevailing public opinion. In Russia at present there are very, only a few of those individuals, however it’s exactly due to their braveness that Russians won’t ever be capable of say that they didn’t know.
For the reason that full-scale invasion started, Ukraine has withstood due to the readiness of the individuals of Ukraine to defend freedom and democracy, but in addition due to the help of developed democracies. They mentioned, ‘Let’s assist Ukraine not lose’. Now they are saying, ‘We’re with you so long as it takes’. However the paradigm must be modified. Somewhat than serving to Ukraine to not lose, these states must suppose and act in ways in which assist Ukraine win. Rapidly.
The Europe that’s afraid is tempted to keep away from robust selections. Accountable selections. The Europe that’s afraid behaves as if world challenges will one way or the other simply disappear sooner or later. However in actuality, they’re solely getting worse. We’re simply losing time.
The Europe with a future
Battle turns individuals into numbers. The dimensions of battle crimes grows so quick that it’s merely inconceivable to inform everybody’s tales. However I’ll let you know one. The story of Svitlana, who misplaced her total household when a Russian missile hit her constructing.
‘I heard them dying. My husband was respiratory closely, straining as if he was making an attempt to throw the rubble off of himself, however he couldn’t. In some unspecified time in the future he simply went nonetheless. My grandmother and Zhenya died immediately. I heard my daughter crying. Then she additionally went quiet. As for my son, my mom instructed me that he known as for me a number of occasions after which… nothing.’
So long as the army dimension of this battle is confined throughout the borders of Ukraine, the Europe that succeeded can flip off the information of battle crimes. They’ll keep away from trying on the horrifying photographs and movies. Tens of millions of individuals in Ukraine can’t do that. We can’t simply flip off the battle. This horror is now our life.
Individuals are not numbers. We should guarantee justice for all individuals, no matter who they’re, no matter their social standing, no matter the kind of crime and violence they endured, no matter whether or not overseas media and worldwide organizations take an curiosity of their destiny. We should give individuals again their names. And their human dignity. As a result of each particular person’s life issues.
We nonetheless view the world by means of the lens of the Nuremburg trials, the place battle criminals have been convicted solely after the Nazi regime had fallen. However justice mustn’t rely on the sturdiness of authoritarian regimes. In spite of everything, we stay in a brand new century. Justice mustn’t wait.
It’s as much as us to interrupt this cycle of impunity and alter our strategy to justice for battle crimes. We should create a global tribunal and produce Putin, Lukashenka and different battle criminals to justice. Sure, it is a daring step. However we should display that democracy is efficient, that the rule of legislation works, and that justice prevails – even when it’s delayed.
This can be a job for the Europe that determines its personal future. To be European means to display solidarity on this battle for the values of democracy, rule of legislation and human rights. Not placing a pose however taking an energetic half.
It’s not solely a query of how we’ll shield human beings within the twenty-first century. Due to its multiculturalism and its advanced historical past, Europe has the potential to rethink what humanism means in an period of speedy technological progress, and to offer new dimensions to the that means of humanity.
The Europe that succeeded may also help construct a world that succeeds. Europe can play a key position in creating a global system of cooperation that brings collectively developed democracies and states which are on the trail to democracy. This union needs to be decided not by a shared previous, financial growth or geographical continent, however by frequent values and attitudes.
As a result of human rights are a couple of mind-set, a couple of explicit paradigm of perceiving the world, that determines how an individual thinks and acts. So it’s not sufficient to go the fitting legal guidelines or create formal establishments. A society’s values are stronger than any legal guidelines or establishments.
We’d like a brand new humanistic motion that may work with society on the extent of that means, which can concentrate on schooling, which can form mass help and encourage individuals to defend rights and freedoms. This motion ought to convey collectively intellectuals and civil societies from many international locations, because the concepts of freedom and human rights are common.
When the legislation quickly fails, and we can’t depend on it, we are able to nonetheless at all times depend on individuals. Even when we shouldn’t have the political instruments, our phrase and commitments at all times stay. Odd individuals have rather more energy than they themselves notice. The voice of tens of millions of individuals in lots of international locations can change the world sooner than any intervention by the United Nations.
Our future is undetermined and unguaranteed. Twenty-first century Europe can grow to be a world of humanism, or it might once more shock the world with crimes of unprecedented brutality. Europe bears a shared accountability to answer world challenges and embark on a brand new path of mutual understanding.
Europe is much less about geography than concerning the values of recent society. We stay in a world the place values haven’t any nationwide borders. And solely by spreading the concept of freedom can we make our world safe.
