Plea for a renewed disarmament
Author: Dr. Franz Alt
Category: Politics
Issue No: 94
Fundamental pacifism and real pacifism are currently clashing in light of the Ukraine war, and their respective supporters do not want to deviate from their respective positions, on the contrary. But Dr. Franz Alt, who has been a pacifist for decades and has been acting as such, advocates both: on the one hand, weapons can save lives, but on the other hand, worldwide disarmament is much more important, in which all sides realize the madness of war and thus finally stop it. Only in this way will peace become possible.
After my appearance at the end of January 2023 on the ZDF program “Maybrit Illner” about the war in Ukraine, many viewers accused me of being a “Putin-understanding”. They are right. If we want to get along with Putin again, we have to understand him better than we do at the moment, where we demonize or downplay him. Putin-Versteher has become a dirty word in wide circles in Germany. That says a lot about us and little about Putin. For me, Putin-Versteher is precisely not “Putin admirer”, but the attempt to come to an end of the war as quickly as possible, even with Putin, so that the immeasurable suffering of this war is ended. If I really want that, I have to understand him first. It is no different with our conflicts in our private lives. We will probably not be able to have another adversary or enemy at the negotiating table for a long time. Anyone who says “You can’t talk to Putin” should not be surprised if there is still no dialogue.
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Russia’s president is waging a criminal, bloody and cruel war against 45 million people in Ukraine in violation of international law. In this situation, Ukraine must be supported humanitarianly, economically, but also militarily and receive help from outside. Even pacifists must not hide behind their old slogan “Creating peace without weapons”. Anyone who now recommends that the Ukrainians “create peace without weapons” is acting cynically. That is a failure to help. The peace movement must also rethink in this situation and direct its appeal “Stop the war” to the right address, namely to the aggressor in Moscow. This is painful real-pacifism in contrast to fundamental-pacifism. Fundamental pacifism today is pacifism in the sense of the aggressor. This distinction was already made by the great pacifist Albert Einstein, who distinguished between irresponsible and responsible pacifism. The true pacifist Bertha von Suttner argued similarly. She said, “Every people has, of course, the right to self-defense.” This is also what the UN Charter says. Fundamental pacifists contradict and write to me, who also pleaded on “Maybrit Illner” for the delivery of German defensive weapons: “All weapons kill,” they say.
I have argued in a similar way for a long time. That’s why I understand this thinking. But especially in recent weeks, it has become clear that defensive weapons from Germany have saved the lives of many Ukrainians. On one day in early January, Russian soldiers fired 82 missiles at civilian Ukrainian targets. Of these, more than 70 were destroyed in the air with defensive missiles. German weapons saved the lives of hundreds of Ukrainians. If we do not want to be ideologically stubborn, we must rethink in this situation and remain capable of learning. However, this must never mean slackening the pressure for dialogue. But: If my neighbor calls for help, I as a Christian and pacifist must not cover my ears when I have effective defensive weapons. That would be the opposite of what all religions and wisdom teachings demand. “Thou shalt not kill” also means, “Thou shalt not cause to be killed, if thou canst prevent it.” That is the primordial ethos of mankind.
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Real politics and real pacifism
The “love of enemies” of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount never means “let yourself be offered everything”. That would mean to declare the wonderful young real-pacifist from Nazareth a fool. “Love your enemy” means: Be smarter than your enemy. Always try to put yourself in his place. Be Putin-understanding, only then you may be able to get along with him and possibly even make reasonable compromises with him.
We must no longer think of ourselves as the absolute good guys and the Russians as the absolute bad guys.
The West has also made mistakes.
I will name three real politicians who have repeatedly reminded the West of its past mistakes toward Putin and Russia:
Mikhail Gorbachev. During the Cold War, he had to empathize with Ronald Reagan, who, God knows, was no pacifist. But together they achieved the greatest military disarmament of all time. And the end of the Cold War. That meant 30 years of peace – a gift for the whole world, especially for Germany. Gorbi was disappointed with the West, which had “never been interested in a stable and democratic Russia.” In 2017, Gorbachev told me in our joint book, “Never Again War,” “The West acted as a victor toward Russia after 1990.”
Gorbi blamed not the “Russian occupation of Crimea” but “Washington’s arrogance” for the deterioration of East-West relations.
After 1990, NATO had 16 members. Today there are 30 and more are to come. This is seemingly no problem for us in the West: but for a fear-driven politician and intelligence man like Putin, and for millions of Russians, this NATO eastward expansion looks quite different. You don’t have to be a psychologist to understand that.
My counter-question to Western hardliners: How would the United States react if Canada or Mexico, as direct neighbors of the United States, entered into a military pact with Russia? We saw that in 1962 with the Cuban missile crisis. The U.S. wanted to prevent Russia from stationing nuclear missiles near the U.S. at all costs. The world was on the brink of nuclear war. And nuclear scientists have just set the “doomsday clock” to “90 seconds to twelve.” Never before have we been so close to the nuclear abyss. A few weeks ago, U.S. President Biden – also a realist – said as much.
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About author: Dr. Franz Alt
He was born in 1938, journalist and book author, since 1968 at SWR, where he hosted the political magazine “Report Baden-Baden” for 20 years. Since 1992, head of the series “Zeitsprung” on SWR and since 1997 of the magazine “Querdenker” on 3sat. Franz Alt is the most awarded German television journalist: Golden Camera, Bambi, Adolf Grimme Award, Siebenpfeiffer Award, Ludwig Thoma Medal, German and European Solar Award, World Wind Award, Human Rights Awards, Golden Lion Heart, Environmental Award of the German Economy, Most Extraordinary Speaker of the Year and many more.
This article has also been published on the German Website: https://www.tattva.de/wir-brauchen-eine-neue-kultur-des-friedens/
