This article appears in the April 12, 2024 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
Easter Peace Marches in Germany
Stop the Madness—Build the World Now!
[Print version of this article]
April 4—The natural demands of this year’s traditional Easter demonstrations in Germany, to focus on negotiations and peace, both for Ukraine and Gaza, caused hysteria among politicians in the run-up to the Easter peace marches. “No peace at any price” continues to be the ideological mantra from the “traffic light” parties [parties of the German coalition government—ed.] and also from Federal Chancellor Scholz, who, as his “anti-Taurus” decision shows, should know better. The chimerical military “peace through victory” (Siegfrieden)—rather than a “negotiated peace” (Verhandlungsfrieden), alleged to be shameful—is thus insisted upon once again.[fn_1]
The German government knows that the population no longer supports this dangerous course and, above all, is clearly unhappy with the accompanying destruction of the real economy and the welfare state. Likewise, the horror over Israel’s inhumanity in Gaza and the hypocrisy of Western politics—with its empty words “human rights” and “Western values”—is growing rapidly.
More than 120 Easter marches for peace and many other actions in Germany are important markers of growing resistance, which must still become stronger. Among the activities, a joint Peace Appeal has been supported by 71 organizations and over 2,000 activists this year, more than ever before, according to the network Friedenskooperative.
The role of the “Global South” (the BRICS-Plus, and in particular China and South Africa) in the diplomatic resolution of conflicts, and their importance for a just global reorganization, is coming into focus. In Hamburg, for example, there was a large banner, “Peace with Russia and China—Diplomats Instead of Grenades,” at the Easter march on Sunday, with two thousand participants.
The BüSo party (Civil Rights Movement Solidarity, headed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche) distributed the leaflet, “We Are on the Brink of World War III—We Need a Policy of Peace,” at various locations, including Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt and Munich.
At the Easter march in Berlin, with 5–6,000 participants, which FRIKO Berlin (Peace Coordination Berlin) and other organizations had called for, the BüSo delegation’s banner, “Oasis Plan for the Middle East—Peace Means Development,” with the map for water infrastructure and seawater desalination in Israel/Palestine, led to productive discussions. The BüSo participates in the International Peace Coalition (IPC).
In the Mecklenburg district town of Neubrandenburg, the Neubrandenburg Peace Alliance invited Klaus Fimmen, the second deputy national chairman of the BüSo, as keynote speaker on Easter Monday. In front of an audience of four hundred, he addressed the acute danger of thermonuclear war, and presented the opportunity for a just new world economic order, by building an alliance with the growing BRICS-Plus dynamic. “We must all defend humanity against madness,” he demanded. “Humanity is the only species that, through its creativity, can turn away from the wrong path and find new solutions.”
The last speaker at the rally in Neubrandenburg underlined Fimmen’s remarks with extensive quotes from Yuri Gagarin, the first Soviet cosmonaut, who, like today’s astronauts (Alexander Gerst and others), had recognized precisely this ability of humanity to reason, and the responsibility to work together during their flights into space.
[fn_1]. This is reminiscent of the First World War. If you read bestselling Austrian author Stefan Zweig’s book Die Welt von Gestern (Yesterday’s World), this parallel is clear to see. After three years of war, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was ultimately faced with the question of whether to continue pursuing an unrealistic military “peace through victory,” in alliance with Germany, or to strive for a “negotiated peace” on its own. The personalities in Austria who wanted to leave the war, succumbed to the military-industrial complex of the time as well as the cumbersome oligarchic structures. As a consequence, the former Austro-Hungarian monarchy ended up as a barely viable, amputated micro-Austria, economically, socially and politically destroyed. [back to text for fn_1]
