In 1915, Rosa Luxemburg was imprisoned for opposing the First World War. In one of her letters from her prison cell, she wrote that: “it is either socialism or barbarism.” Unfortunately, it appears that the world has chosen barbarism.
Being opposed to war has always been dangerous. In June 1963, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech at the American University in Washington
So, let us not be blind to our differences–but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.
John F. Kennedy, COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS AT AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 10, 1963, Commencement Address at American University, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963 | JFK Library
Five months later – in November 1963 – he was not only mortal but dead; his commitment to peace cost him his life. His brother, Robert Kennedy, opposed the Vietnam War and gave a remarkable speech at the University of Kansas in 1968:
The commander of the American forces at Ben Tre said we had to destroy that city in order to save it. So 38,000 people were wiped out or made refugees. We here in the United States – not just the United States government, not just the commanders of and forces in South Vietnam, the United States government and every human being that’s in this room – we are part of that decision and I don’t think that we need do that any longer and I think we should change our policy.
I don’t want to be part of a government, I don’t want to be part of the United States, I don’t want to be part of the American people, and have them write of us as they wrote of Rome: “They made a desert and they called it peace.”
I think that we should go to the negotiating table, and I think we should take the steps to go to the negotiating table.
Robert Kennedy, REMARKS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, MARCH 18, 1968, Remarks at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968 | JFK Library
Three months later, he too had been shot, less than two months after Martin Luther King Jr. had been gunned down. No motive was ever found for any of the assassinations.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream, Martin Luther King I Have a Dream Speech – American Rhetoric (archive.org)
Tragically, the consequences of war are always the same: a lot of innocent people are either killed or horribly maimed. We need to stop this madness. Please read and share the truly heart- wrenching report below.
As humanitarian trauma surgeons we have both seen incredible suffering. Collectively, we were present at Ground Zero on 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti on the first day of these disasters. We have worked in the deprivation of southern Zimbabwe and the horrors of the war in Ukraine. Together we have worked on more than 40 surgical missions in developing countries on three continents in our combined 57 years of volunteering. This long experience taught us that there was no greater pain as a humanitarian surgeon than being unable to provide needed care to a patient.
But that was before coming to Gaza. Now we know the pain of being unable to treat a child who will slowly die, but also alone, because she is the only surviving member of an entire extended family. We have not had the heart to tell these children how their families died: burned until they resembled blistered hotdogs more than human beings, shredded to pieces such that they can only be buried in mass graves, or simply entombed in their former apartment buildings to die slowly of asphyxia and sepsis.
Feroze Sidhwa und Mark Perlmutter, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/surgeons-cruelty-israel-gaza
“it is either socialism or barbarism.”
So einfach ist es wohl nicht, eine Entscheidung zu treffen.
Man kann auch beides nicht richtig finden.
Ein anderes Zitat von Rosa Luxemburg – deren Bedeutung ich nicht unterschätzen
will ist “Sozialismus heisst nicht, sich in ein Parlament zu setzen und Gesetze zu
beschliessen, Sozialismus bedeutet für uns Niederwerfung der herrschenden Klasse
mit der ganzen Brutalität.” (Gesammelte Werke S. 461, nach Harald Jäner)
Und Sozialismus im Zeitraum von Lenin später dann von Stalin – das ist wahrlich
Barbarei. Wie auch im Sozialismus von Mao.
Dieses Zitat hat mit Sicherheit nichts mit Pazifismus zu tun.
Das als kritische Rückmeldung.
Markus Scheuring
Mag sein. Ich wollte nur darauf hinweisen, dass die Friedensbewegung eher auf der linken Seite des politischen Spektrums zu finden ist. Dies macht auch Sinn: Nur Menschen, die bereit sind, ihren Besitz zu teilen, können den Frieden wollen. Die anderen denken eher wie die Amerikaner: «Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. […] We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.» (George Kennan, 1948)
Ausserdem war die Sklaverei keine Aberration, sondern eine logische Konsequenz des Kapitalismus: Gewinnmaximierung einer Gesellschaft, in der ein Menschenleben nichts wert ist. Der Kommunismus hat aus ideologischen Gründen getötet, der Kapitalismus aus Gleichgültigkeit, wie Harari festgestellt hat. Die Anzahl der Todesopfer ist durchaus vergleichbar.
Wir wissen aber jetzt, wieso die Klimabewegung gescheitert ist. Es ist der herrschenden Elite des Abendlandes vollkommen egal, ob die Jugend eine Zukunft hat oder nicht. Wenn diese Leute bereit sind, einen Genozid zu unterstützen, sind sie wohl auch bereit, ihre Kinder zu opfern. Siehe dazu diese Ausführungen von Craig Murray: https://youtu.be/2juV794znnI?si=RXlTP-ErQqoS7t27