No peace with out freedom, no justice with out legislation

The next transcript was supplied 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 historical past, it’s unimaginable to idealize. The 20 th century introduced two devastating world wars, horrible colonial wars, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and the whole 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 individual 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 had 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 folks; 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 this time’s world. Europe should fulfil its position in a globalized world that’s seeing a standoff between authoritarianism and democracy, pursuits and values, may and legislation, fast income and long-term views. It’s the dedication to behave that offers a society a future.

The Europe that succeeded

The European Coal and Metal Group was not solely meant to offer a shared basis for financial improvement. 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 many years of secure development. That is the Europe that succeeded in avoiding conflict.

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; making certain integrity, however not homogeneity. It should discover a approach to construct solidarity out of variety. It should not permit the concepts of authoritarianism and imperialism to take maintain amongst new generations.

The generations that lived by the Second World Conflict are nearly gone. The generations that got here after haven’t been compelled to shed their very own blood. They inherited the values of democracy from their mother and father. And so they started to take rights and freedom as a given. Folks behave more and more not because the bearers of those values however as their shoppers. They’ve begun to grasp freedom as the selection between forms of cheese on the grocery store. And so they’re able to commerce freedom for financial acquire, for guarantees of safety, and for private consolation. It ought to come as no shock that in developed democracies we see populist forces gaining power, forces that forged doubt on the foundational rules of the Common Declaration of Human Rights.

Our world has turn out to be fast-paced, complicated and interconnected. Technological improvement, local weather change, invasions of privateness, rising inequality, the devaluation of information and experience, and different international challenges demand solutions that can not be discovered up to now. A long time of relative consolation and a rising want for easy options modified the optics of developed democracies. They now not notice that peace in Europe can’t be preserved with out efforts equal to the extent of the menace 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 assist different international locations’ motion in the direction of European values. In an ever-changing world, it’s open programs and transformational cultures that survive. And partitions and borders is not going to save us from international challenges. To cease shifting ahead is to perish.

The present state of affairs relies upon not solely on the choices and actions of the Europe that succeeded but additionally 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 duty in the direction of different international locations within the area and made it potential for authoritarian regimes to turn out 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 menace 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 task in political decision-making than financial acquire or safety. This is applicable to overseas coverage as properly.

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 palms with the Russian management, constructing fuel pipelines and carrying on enterprise as common. 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 power, 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 conflict 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. Hundreds of thousands 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 shifting in the direction of Europe, in the direction of real democratic values. They fought for the suitable to construct a state during which the rights of every individual are protected, during which the authorities are held accountable, during which the courts are impartial, and during which the police don’t beat peaceable pupil demonstrators.

And a few of them paid the final word worth for this. The police shot multiple hundred peaceable demonstrators within the middle of the nation’s capital. Folks died underneath 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 conflict in February 2014, after which in February 2022 it expanded it right into a full-scale invasion. As a result of it isn’t NATO that Putin fears, it’s democracy. Dictators worry the thought 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 concentrating on residential buildings, church buildings, colleges, museums and hospitals. They’re taking pictures at evacuation corridors. They’re imprisoning folks in filtration camps. They’re forcibly deporting Ukrainians. They’re kidnapping, torturing and murdering folks within the occupied territories. Europe didn’t cease this.

This can be a conflict of values. Russia is looking for to persuade the Ukrainian nation that its alternative in favour of European integration was a mistake. Russia is looking for 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 looking for to show {that a} state with a robust army and nuclear weapons can dictate the foundations of the sport to your complete worldwide group and may even change internationally acknowledged borders.

So this isn’t a conflict between two international locations, it’s a conflict between two programs – tyranny and democracy. The conflict is already right here. Folks solely start to grasp this when the bombs are falling on their heads, however this conflict has dimensions apart from the army one: it’s an financial conflict, an data conflict, a conflict of values. Whether or not we’re courageous sufficient to confess it or not, this conflict has lengthy since crossed the borders of the European Union.

Russia has declared conflict on Europe. Russia is preventing in opposition to the values which can be Europe’s hallmark.

Europe should take duty. Democracy, the rule of legislation and human rights can’t be fought for and gained as soon as and for all. The values of contemporary civilization have to be defended. We’ve to combat for them.

The Europe that’s afraid

Europe doesn’t know the way to cease the conflict. Some voices repeatedly name on Ukraine to just accept peace.

Folks 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 conflict in one other type.

Russia has launched a reign of terror on the occupied territories, to maintain them underneath management. Which means that Russian troops and particular forces exterminate native leaders – mayors, civil society activists, journalists, volunteers, clergymen and artists. With out regard for age, intercourse or well being. Folks don’t have any likelihood to defend their freedom, their property, their lives and the lives of their family members.

Occupation shouldn’t be a matter of exchanging the flag of 1 state for that of one other. Occupation brings torture, deportation, compelled adoption, denial of identification, filtration camps, mass graves.

In considered one of these mass graves, within the liberated Kharkiv area, underneath marker quantity 319 the physique of Volodymyr Vakulenko was discovered. Volodymyr was a youngsters’s writer. He wrote great tales for youngsters and full generations grew up on his books. Throughout the Russian occupation, Volodymyr disappeared. His household hoped till the very finish that he was alive, that he was in Russian captivity, like hundreds of different folks. It’s exhausting for them to just accept the forensic outcomes that recognized his physique.

Sustainable peace means the liberty to reside with out worry, the liberty to make plans for the long run. 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.

Folks can’t be deserted within the occupied territories to face demise and torture. Folks’s lives can’t be a ‘political compromise’. Preventing for peace means not succumbing to stress from the aggressor, it means defending folks from its cruelty.

Russia is a modern-day empire. The imprisoned peoples of Belarus, Chechnya, Dagestan, Tatarstan, Yakutiia and others endure compelled russification, the expropriation of pure assets, and prohibitions on their very own language and tradition. They’re compelled to surrender their identification. Empire has a centre, however it has no borders. Empire all the time seeks to develop. If Russia shouldn’t be stopped in Ukraine, it should go additional.

This isn’t one individual’s conflict. It’s a conflict waged by a nation whose longing to regain ‘Russian greatness’ has robbed it of the flexibility to tell apart between good and evil. In order that they rejoice over capturing Ukrainian territories. In order that they denounce one another. 12-year-old Masha Moskalyova drew an anti-war image in school. Somebody knowledgeable the authorities and now her father is in jail and she or he is in an orphanage.

The Russian folks will bear duty for this shameful web page of their historical past and for looking for to resurrect their former empire by power. Being conscious of this duty brings trustworthy folks 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 this time there are very, only a few of those folks, 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 folks of Ukraine to defend freedom and democracy, but additionally due to the assist of developed democracies. They stated, ‘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. Relatively than serving to Ukraine to not lose, these states must suppose and act in ways in which assist Ukraine win. Shortly.

The Europe that’s afraid is tempted to keep away from robust choices. Accountable choices. The Europe that’s afraid behaves as if international challenges will in some way simply disappear sooner or later. However in actuality, they’re solely getting worse. We’re simply losing time.

The Europe with a future

Conflict turns folks into numbers. The size of conflict crimes grows so quick that it’s merely unimaginable to inform everybody’s tales. However I’ll inform you one. The story of Svitlana, who misplaced her total household when a Russian missile hit her constructing.

‘I heard them dying. My husband was respiration 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 informed me that he known as for me a number of instances after which… nothing.’

So long as the army dimension of this conflict is confined throughout the borders of Ukraine, the Europe that succeeded can flip off the information of conflict crimes. They will keep away from trying on the horrifying images and movies. Hundreds of thousands of individuals in Ukraine can not do that. We can not simply flip off the conflict. This horror is now our life.

Persons are not numbers. We should guarantee justice for all folks, 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 folks again their names. And their human dignity. As a result of each individual’s life issues.

We nonetheless view the world by the lens of the Nuremburg trials, the place conflict criminals had been convicted solely after the Nazi regime had fallen. However justice shouldn’t depend upon the sturdiness of authoritarian regimes. In spite of everything, we reside in a brand new century. Justice shouldn’t wait.

It’s as much as us to interrupt this cycle of impunity and alter our strategy to justice for conflict crimes. We should create a world tribunal and convey Putin, Lukashenka and different conflict criminals to justice. Sure, it is a daring step. However we should exhibit 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 exhibit solidarity on this combat for the values of democracy, rule of legislation and human rights. Not putting 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. Because of its multiculturalism and its complicated historical past, Europe has the potential to rethink what humanism means in an period of fast technological progress, and to offer new dimensions to the which means of humanity.

The Europe that succeeded may also help construct a world that succeeds. Europe can play a key position in creating a world system of cooperation that brings collectively developed democracies and states which can be on the trail to democracy. This union must be decided not by a shared previous, financial improvement or geographical continent, however by widespread 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 isn’t sufficient to go the suitable 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 can work with society on the extent of which means, which is able to concentrate on training, which is able to form mass assist and encourage folks to defend rights and freedoms. This motion ought to convey collectively intellectuals and civil societies from many international locations, for the reason that concepts of freedom and human rights are common.

When the legislation quickly fails, and we can not depend on it, we are able to nonetheless all the time depend on folks. Even when we don’t have the political instruments, our phrase and commitments all the time stay. Extraordinary folks have rather more energy than they themselves notice. The voice of hundreds of thousands 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 turn out to be a world of humanism, or it will probably once more shock the world with crimes of unprecedented brutality. Europe bears a shared duty to answer international challenges and embark on a brand new path of mutual understanding.

Europe is much less about geography than in regards to the values of contemporary society. We reside in a world the place values don’t have any nationwide borders. And solely by spreading the thought of freedom can we make our world safe.