On Saturday afternoon, on the anniversary of the outbreak of the war, a large-scale peace demonstration finally took place in Berlin. The organizers expected many people at the Brandenburg Gate, and there were many. According to the organizers, about fifty thousand, according to the pro-war media, not even ten thousand. In spite of the dreary rain, people from all corners of Germany came from all over Germany who wanted peace and did not want to continue idly watching not only the senseless bloodshed, but also the destruction of Europe.
The call to the demonstration was signed by three people, Sahra Wagenknecht, Member of Parliament of the Linke, Alice Schwarzer, a well-known and respected women's rights activist, and retired Brigadier General Erich Vad. They also initiated the anti-war manifesto, which has been signed by around seven hundred thousand people so far. This number is considered a lot in Germany, where people think a hundred times whether to openly take a stand on any social or political issue, in order not to be stigmatized or accused of being unconstitutional. In any case, whoever raises his voice against the war is serving Russian propaganda, as he wants to prevent the Ukrainians from defending their own freedom, Europe's freedom and democratic values until the last heroic death.
Western democracy is a strange world. One of the organizers of the stand for peace, the well-tried Sahra Wagenknecht, took advantage of her representative status and appeared several times in the public service media. He wanted to draw the attention of the German public to the anti-war manifesto and Saturday's demonstration. It wasn't easy. Each reporter dog felt it his duty to interrogate him as an investigative judge, make comments, not let him express what he had to say, interrupt him and question him. It is as if the journalistic ethics in the German public service media are already different, because instead of impartial information, we constantly perceive propaganda and the intention of manipulation.
Let's see what a balanced debate is like in a model country of media freedom! Wagenknecht, a Ukrainian expert of Ukrainian origin, a Russian fleeing Putin's dictatorship and the young general secretary of the SPD, was invited to one of the podium discussions on the manifesto announcing peace. Wagenknecht knows all forms and tools of political attacks, he went to the studio prepared and received the blows elegantly. He said that they want a cease-fire and peace talks as soon as possible, because the delay means the death of hundreds of soldiers and civilians every day and immeasurable destruction. Moreover, with the continuous arms deliveries, we are approaching a fatal nuclear war. Because Russia and not the West decides when that certain red line will be crossed, and unfortunately the West does not realize that it has already crossed this line several times. He mentioned the peace negotiations between the Ukrainian and Russian sides that started last year and ended suddenly, the study by the Foreign Office, in which they recognize that Ukraine's neutrality is a fundamental Russian interest. The West should not support the Ukrainians with weapons, but should push for peace negotiations as soon as possible.
It is a familiar text, because the politician of the German communist successor party, the Linke, actually presented the Hungarian narrative without reference, almost word for word. What the Hungarian Prime Minister has been saying and representing since the beginning of the war. The Hungarian peace policy has become a point of alignment among those who want an end to the war. We Hungarians have no claim to copyright, we are happy when someone finally starts to think soberly.
From the other participants in the debate, instead of arguments, we could hear accusations and concrete positions: according to them, the peace supporters are not at all interested in the fate of Ukraine, they are instilling Russian propaganda, Putin's narrative into people, Putin is probably paying them for this, they declared individually and together. The Russians cannot be trusted (they are right), Putin is a war criminal, his goal is the subjugation of Europe, and he will not stop at Ukraine's western border. For the sake of momentum, the Ukrainian expert said that Ukraine does not want to become a NATO member, and President Zelensky is not an American puppet. But what should the Ukrainians do if the Russians are mass murderers, ruining their country, raping women and children? Only they really know what Russians are like, what it was like under Stalin, when, for example, his grandparents were dragged to the Gulag for 25 years because they were Ukrainians. In short, all cards were drawn for effect. It was an unequal fight. The arguments of those representing the "good side" eerily reminded me of the arguments and debate culture of the Hungarian opposition. One gets the feeling that they attend joint seminars where they are trained in how to argue for the need for a "just war".
Next to the war. Because no matter how much I open my eyes and ears, I do not hear arguments in favor of peace from the mouths of the official North Atlantic and EU politicians, as if the word peace is missing from their dictionary. Instead, there is war rhetoric, arms shipments and sanctions, whatever it costs.
Back in autumn, Marieluise Beck, the Greens' Eastern European expert, visited Budapest virtually at a conference. I didn't understand then and I don't understand now the incitement to war by the party that once even picked up street stones for peace. Because he said that the war - which was actually grown from a conflict between two neighboring countries - should be continued until Putin is defeated and Russia brought to its knees. How do uneducated politicians imagine? That the world's largest nuclear power will not use nuclear weapons?
There was a war in Europe a long time ago. Generations grew up in peace, relaxed and dumbfounded in a world of prosperity. Nor does politics remember that what the Russians are facing today, the "Vernichtungskrieg" (war of annihilation) was the watchword of Nazi Germany, just like the expansion inherited from the nationalist times, the "Drang nach Osten", in the direction of the Russians. They distanced themselves from these slogans a long time ago, they have nothing to do with it, since the war was not started by the Germans, but by the Nazis and fascists. They only remember the Russians, the red flag with the hammer and sickle on the Reichstag and the shame of capitulation, the raped women. Indeed, they should remember the Soviets, because in that glorious army both Ukrainians and Russians were destroyed.
I was really looking forward to Saturday's peace demonstration, since during the one year of the war, the masses have never once raised their voices in favor of peace. However, many Germans also want the war to end, if for no other reason than the inflation and energy crisis that threaten their existence. According to the media, however, only the pro-Putin German opposition wants peace, primarily the far-right world associated with the AfD, they don't even want to hear about the pro-peace civil movement. That's why you can't protest peacefully next to peace. Fourteen hundred policemen were needed to maintain order, because the leftist activists, the anti-fascists and the mushrooming extremist group interested in subversion - as so many times - tried to disturb the Berlin stand for peace with disorder.
Author: Irén Rab
