Peace

The right to have rights.

Editor

The human rights of the individual person and the rights of the peoples are the fruit of long historical efforts and achievements. Today it is a matter of maintaining and further applying existing human rights. The ever-existing inequalities must be processed so that equality and justice prevail for all. International governmental bodies and several local, national, and international human rights organisations (NGOs) are monitoring the implementation of the rights.

We must keep asking: Who has access to rights and what do we mean by human rights? Human rights stand as a triumph of the human spirit and intellect. Rights enhance our capacity to be more fully human.

The adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) of 10 December 1948 is a landmark. “Universal” means that human rights apply to everyone. Rights also means that we have duties and obligations to others. All people are equal, and all should be free and none a slave to others.

Human rights are applied in the context of the nation-state. Today, there are 193 nation-states. The history of nation-states is the history of human rights.

Many individuals, not least philosophers, have pioneered the achievement of basic rights. For instance, French anthropologist Emmanuel Levinas stated: “Human rights do require recognition of the other as a fellow human being who, by his or her very existence and nothing more, possesses the right to have rights.”

Slavery is abolished.

Humankind has succeeded in abolishing slavery after several centuries of action. The conditions of slavery signified the absence of all rights, the opposite of citizenship. Slaves were unfree by definition; they had been deprived of recognition, social death. The possession of slaves was a marker of wealth and status. In addition, that included the clergy. The further up the hierarchy, the more slaves a priest, bishop, or cardinal owned. Today, there are still different forms of slavery, modern slavery such as human trafficking, forced labour, child marriage and more.

The nation-state and minority rights

The Berlin Treaty of 1878 and even more the Paris Peace Conference treaties after World War I were primarily about nation-states and the liberal principles that undergirded them – rights, constitutions, representation, and the rule of law. National belonging became a major criterion to get rights.

World War I began only thirteen months after the end of the Balkan Wars. A war among states, it too swiftly became a war among peoples, and thereby opened all the issues of nation-state creations; majorities and minorities, and who, precisely, would have the right to have rights. The war shattered much in four years, first soldiers’ lives; over seventeen million dead in total, more than twenty million physically wounded many more who suffered psychologically from the experience of battle. Women endured exploitative conditions in war factories, severe food shortages at home, and fractured families.

After WWI, the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations brought the concept of minority rights and protection into the very centre of the international system. The concept of minorities was created from 1878 to 1919 and remains with us today. It is a category of the nation-state. Minorities are an invention of the nation-state. The right to have rights.

Religion and the nation-state

Religion in the past has both limited rights and made rights possible. Religious identity took on newfound political meaning in the age of nationalism mainly developed in the 19th century. For instance, Orthodoxy was the state religion. The identity of a nation and of a religion coincided completely. In some constitutions there was no place left for Muslims, Jews, or other minorities. A minority was always a visible disruption of the unity of the nation, and therefore a “problem”.

After World War II, activists, individual states, and the international community sought to create such a world, one in which everyone – no matter his or her nationality, race, or gender – can exercise human rights, while those who violate these norms are subject to accountability. Equality of women became a founding principle.

Dictatorial nationalism

Our history, however, has also known dictatorial nationalism combined with terror. Authoritarian systems and individual dictators and warlords are among the supreme violators of human rights. For example, the USSR experienced Stalin terror: Millions of people were experiencing denunciations, deportations, internments in labour camps, torture, and execution. Can we talk about human rights in a system that was bloody repressive, that killed, tortured, and deported millions of its own citizens? That allowed over six million of them to starve to death in 1932 during the collectivisation of agriculture campaign.

After World War II, the Soviet Union supported decolonization, nation-state founding’s, and international human rights. This position would win the Soviets sympathy in the Global South, which the USSR actively cultivated through support for guerrilla movements and national liberation struggles as well as cultural exchanges and economic development programmes with newly emergent countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

Human rights dissidents

Later, human rights activists in the USSR demanded the rights of free speech and assembly. They called for freedom of movement, within the country and abroad, including the right to emigrate.

The Helsinki Accords of 1975 marked a critical advance in human rights. “Helsinki” became a banner that activists of all stripes held high together. Many dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe used the Helsinki umbrella to criticize the existing regimes by promoting individual freedom such as the right to free speech.

Andrei Sakharov was a well-known dissident in the USSR. He was one of the “fathers” of the hydrogen bomb. However, later he questioned the usefulness of an underground nuclear test because of the health and environmental costs, which were too high. Sakharov, like Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer, had helped create the weapons of ultimate human destruction and then recalled from what he had done. He focussed on the intellectual freedom. He wrote about human rights. His perspective involved the recognition of the other, of our common future, the fundamental prerequisite for human rights. According to Sakharov, the basic aim of the state is the protection and safeguarding of the basic right of its citizens.

Western countries and dictatorships

Immediately after World War II and into the raging Cold War (1945-1989), Western countries and democracies supported right wing dictatorial regimes worldwide because they would act as a buffer against communism. Many dictators could do their own thing, such as Salazar in Portugal, Mobuto in DR Congo, Pinochet in Chile, Marcos in the Philippines and more. Western democracies such as the USA kept their eyes closed against the apartheid regime in South Africa. Colonial states also held back the decolonization of many countries in the Global South.

Genocide Convention

The UNDHR remains the fundamental document for all human rights endeavours. One day prior to the passage of the UNDHR, the UN approved the convention that defined, for the very first time, the crime of genocide and made its perpetrators liable for prosecution. The Genocide Convention built on the Nuremberg and the Tokyo tribunals, in which leading figures of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were tried for war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. The Nuremberg Tribunal was the more innovative of the two. It established the fundamental human rights principles that individuals, and not just states, can be held responsible for criminal actions. The claims by defendants that they were just “following orders” no longer suffice when the violations against peace and human rights are grave.

Crimes against humanity constituted a new doctrine, one that elevated into intern national law the fundamental principle of personal security against unwarranted and unjust state violence. In addition, at the turn of the twenty-first century the International Criminal Treaty (Rome Treaty) was finally established. Violators of human rights can now be hauled before international tribunals. Truth and reconciliation commissions, pioneered by Argentina and South Africa, have established a new form of transitional justice.

In 2005, the UN General Assembly unanimously passed the Responsibility to Protect (RtP), a resolution that profoundly limits state sovereignty in cases of massive crimes against humanity.  Protecting citizens is first a major task of the nation-state and, when it defaults, it is a task of the international community. This principle has not yet shown its effectiveness.  Powerful states often abuse the principle of RtP, whether through self-interest or power politics.

Since the passage of the Genocide Convention in 1948, genocides have taken place in Burundi and Rwanda, Guatemala, the former Yugoslavia, Darfur in Sudan, among Yazidis in Iraq and Rohingya in Myanmar. The Chinese government has launched a vast “re-education” campaign of Uyghur, placing tens of thousands of them in detention. Much of the world still lives under dictatorial regimes and in conditions of extreme inequality. On a global scale, democracy seems to be in retreat. In addition, today we are witnessing the largest refugee crisis in history, more than 81 million people.

Role of civil society

Every human rights advance, from slavery abolition to minority protection to democracy has been the product of popular movements. We have seen the dramatic growth of NGOs. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others have been founded, some local in character, others well-funded and with a global reach, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, with a high degree of professionalization.

Nation-state citizenship is still fundamental to our ability to exercise rights. The UN General Assembly passed in 2007 the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which affirmed Indigenous peoples’ full enjoyment of human rights and self-determination. Self-determination has become enshrined as a fundamental principle of the modern state system.

Human rights provide a powerful affirmation of the human spirit. They require that people be respected and afforded recognition no matter what their specific gender, nationality, or race. They demand that all people have access to the necessities of life, and have the freedom to express themselves, to work, build, and create as they wish, to join with others, as they desire, and to be free of the scourge of violence and forced displacement. Those are our fundamental human rights. We should demand nothing less from the worlds we inhabit.

Most nation-states have diverse populations. Diversity of all sorts is the intractable reality of human existence. How we can live with that difference is the critical issue.

Antwerp, 25 January 2021

Fr. Paul Lansu

Board Member Pax Christi International

Peace

In Thanksgiving: Remembering Sr. Ardeth Platte in this season of peace

Editor

By Mary T. Yelenick

The night of September 29, 2020, Sr. Ardeth Platte – having spent the hot summer working daily in her garden at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, D.C., supplying people in need with fresh produce; and having, just two days, earlier delivered a rigorous online presentation for a school of theology; and the previous day having stood on the street corner holding a sign calling for the end of nuclear weapons – curled up on her mattress on the floor of the tiny room she shared with her longtime co-activist, Sr. Carol Gilbert. 

When Carol tried to rouse Ardeth a few hours later, eager to share news about the most recent ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (“TPNW”), she was stunned to discover that Ardeth – who was still wearing the radio earphones she usually wore when retiring to bed, in order to keep up with global news – had quietly slipped away.

At the age of 84, Ardeth Platte had lived a life of selfless devotion to the cause of peace.  Over the course of her 66 years as a member of the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, Michigan, she had been a teacher, school principal, director of alternative education, member of the City Council, and Mayor pro tem of Saginaw Michigan. Sr. Ardeth had served the poor, and had advocated for local environmental issues. She worked for more than a decade as coordinator of the Home for Peace and Justice in Saginaw. Eventually, she and Sr. Carol turned their focus to issues of nuclear abolition, and joined the Catholic activist community of Jonah House, in Baltimore, Maryland.

While living at Jonah House, Ardeth participated in four “Plowshares” actions at various nuclear-weapons facilities, including Andrews Air Force base, seeking symbolically to transform “swords into plowshares,” pursuant to the admonition set forth in the biblical Book of Isaiah. Each of those four Plowshares actions drew its inspiration from one of the various aspects of creation threatened by nuclear weapons: water, air, space, and land.

Those actions also entailed spilling her own blood, symbolically representing that of the hundreds of thousands of people already killed by nuclear weapons. 

In  2002, Sr. Ardeth, Sr. Carol, and Sr. Jackie Hudson, dressed as weapons inspectors, entered onto the Rocky Flats “Minuteman III” nuclear missile silo in Colorado. (This action became  the focus of the documentary film “Conviction.”) The trio was arrested, convicted on felony charges, and jailed, with Ardeth being imprisoned for three years in Danbury, Connecticut (where she became the inspiration for a character in the book, later a Netflix show, “Orange is the New Black”). 

Ardeth and Carol also took part in other anti-nuclear actions, including at the Y-2 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for which they were also jailed. Over the course of her life, Ardeth spent more than six years incarcerated for actions opposing nuclear weapons. 

When not in prison, Ardeth persisted in  actively speaking, protesting, and agitating against nuclear weapons. Her tireless work led to articles about her in “The New York Times,” “The Washington Post,” “The New Yorker,” and numerous other publications. 

In recent years, Sr. Ardeth was an active member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (“ICAN”), spending weeks as an ardent campaigner at the United Nations in New York working to advance the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (“TPNW”), which was approved in July of 2017. After ICAN was awarded the Nobel Prize for its work on the TPNW, Ardeth and Carol traversed the country, addressing student and community groups, displaying a replica of the Nobel Peace Prize medal, and explaining the significance of the TPNW.  They also visited global military bases – from Colorado to Buchel, Germany –
hand-delivering to base commanders a copy of, and explaining the significance of, the TPNW.

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Ardeth had also participated regularly  at protests at the Pentagon, and been arrested at “Fire Drill Friday” climate-change actions in Washington. She had also been arrested for participating in a peaceful protest at a Senate office building, calling for an end to the forced separation of refugee children from their parents. When the pandemic forced the cancellation of her travels, Ardeth turned to internet media sources, continuing to advocate fiercely for the social justice, and the global abolition of nuclear weapons.

At the time of her death, Ardeth was eagerly awaiting the crucial 50th ratification of the TPNW, triggering its provisions – which occurred, with the ratification by Honduras, just three short weeks later. A number of anti-nuclear advocates only half-jokingly attributed that ratification to Sr. Ardeth’s advocacy in higher places.

Ardeth Platte was indefatigable. Purpose-driven. Creative. Inspirational. 

Above all, Ardeth was kind. She was interested less in proselytizing, than in having deep conversations – with listening being as important as speaking. She had at her disposal more facts and figures, and had more deeply plumbed the depths of the moral issues surrounding nuclear weapons, than had most of those with whom she engaged in conversation. And yet she did not dismiss those whose beliefs did not align with her own. Instead, she shared what she knew and believed, and invited others to do the same. 

As she told “The Denver Post” in 2017, “I refuse to have an enemy.  I simply won’t.”

While, at the age of 84 – having been subjected to multiple arrests and incarcerations over the course of her life – she suffered from a very painful and debilitating arthritis, she never complained. Instead, to deflect others’ concern when they observed her involuntary winces, she would simply crack a joke, her gentle eyes gleaming. Her smile, and her deep joy, were infectious. 

In the end, Sr. Ardeth passed from this earth – which she had worked so assiduously to improve – in the same manner as she had lived: raising a ruckus. Because she died at home, the 911 call resulted in the responding police unit cordoning off the room where she died. As Sr. Carol later stated, only half in jest, “Even in death, Ardeth ha[d] to make a scene, making our bedroom a crime scene.” One can only imagine the deep chuckle, and crinkled-eye smile, which that observation elicited in heaven.

____________

Mary T. Yelenick is a member of the Pax Christi International delegation at the United Nations. She is also a member of the Pax Christi USA Anti-Racism Team (PCART).

Peace

A Militarising Asia Pacific: A Modern Threat to Peace

Editor

Caesar D’Mello*

Pax Christi in Australia recently organised a webinar on Sustainable Peace or a Militarised Asia Pacific? to address growing militarisation of this region within the framework of the Nonviolence Initiative (CNI). Is the militarist mindset of nations the way to sustainable peace?

As the centre of contemporary geopolitics and economic activity continues to shift to the East, developments here will have serious implications for peace or instability globally. Already hosting the three biggest economies in the world – the US, China and Japan – India will join them in a few years to form a quartet of the world’s top economies based in Asia Pacific.

Comprising nearly 2/3rds of the world’s population spread across several countries, this region is again impacted by strategic rivalries, especially between the US and China. As alignments and alliances multiply, countries are divided along adversarial lines.

Alliances  The QUAD, or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, is a source of much regional anxiety. Involving India, Australia, Japan and the USA, it was initiated by Japan in 2007 as an “Asian Arc of Democracy” but ceased operating a year later. However, on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) meeting in 2017, US President Donald Trump urged a new security strategy for the democracies of the region that he designated “Indo-Pacific”, a term now widely used. The Indo-Pacific is promoted as “a zone of peace and prosperity”, as “free, open, inclusive and stable”. Nevertheless, the QUAD’s diplomatic objectives go hand in hand with military objectives, the two becoming interchangeable. QUAD countries participate in regular joint naval exercises called the Malabar exercises, while each country’s increased defence outlays and bilateral agreements within it strengthens it further.

Australia, for instance, warned of  “a dangerous future” by its Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has allocated US $300+ billion to upgrade its military technology and hardware over the coming years, in addition to the annual budgetary amounts for defence. Inter alia, it has signed a 10-year secret Defence Cooperation Agreement with the US that will bolster a US military base in Darwin in northern Australia. There is already a longstanding top secret US-Australia satellite surveillance facility known as Pine Gap near Alice Springs.   

The most recent defence pact in the region was signed (17 November 2020) between Japan and Australia. This landmark agreement will allow more maritime war games, military aviation exercises, the stationing and deployment of troops in each other’s countries more quickly and with less red tape. China has expressed its deep unhappiness at the pact.   

Focus on China All these moves and negotiations between the countries speak of security without naming any country in particular, but it is broadly understood that China is their focus. The reference to the two oceans in ‘Indo-Pacific’ serves to put pressure on China, with whom each QUAD country is in conflict. China has repeatedly attacked the invigorated alignments between the four countries, considering them as a strategy for its “encirclement” or “containment”. It views the QUAD as an Asia Pacific NATO structured against its rise. As suspicion and mistrust grow, the consequence of all this is a tit for tat Arms Race as well as dispute in other arenas, especially trade that affects people’s livelihoods.

Visionary diplomacy is urgently needed to de-escalate the tension and reverse the direction of the parties away from the brink. In the circumstances, awareness of China’s history, and of what it  considers its more than a century long “Age of Humiliation” at the hands of Western powers would help greatly. The reinstatement of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, and his interpretation of Chinese-style Marxism have provided the impetus for China’s presentday economic pre-eminence and enable it to recover its standing in the world. There is particular sensitivity when actions and policies by Western powers (and its allies) today are perceived as reminiscent of its past. A spokesman recently declared, “If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy.” Kowtowing to China and not holding it accountable for its Human Rights and other violations is not what is suggested, but more sophistication in how we deal with a complex power is.

Just before the Japan-Australia defence pact was signed, the world’s biggest regional trade deal known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was announced. It brings together the ten Southeast Asian nations and China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, and over time will eliminate tariffs and quotas on 65% of goods traded in the region.  Covering 30% of the world’s population, and accounting for nearly 28% of global trade in 2019 figures, some hope that RCEP will offer a platform for resolving differences. Time will tell if geopolitics will play a bigger role in this regard.    

The Pax Christi Nonviolence Initiative, inspired by Pope Francis, asserts that militarism does not secure lasting peace, that violence invites violence. Leaderships that place their trust in weapons and military preparedness, without acknowledging that investment in arms has not made the world safer, will only lead us to more insecurity. Policy making that meaningfully incorporates the soft diplomacy of mutual trust and confidence building, the systems and institutions committed to peace-making, and voices advocating nonviolent ways of transforming conflict is a better and humane pathway to genuine peace.       

Caesar D’Mello is a member of Pax Christi Australia, and formerly led Church and ecumenical international aid, development and justice agencies.            

Photo: Royal Australian Navy photo by POIS Andrew Dakin via Flickr Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Peace

“No More War”

Editor

 Armistice Day 11 November 2020

On Wednesday 11 November 2020, the human community will once again remember and reflect on the end of the First and Second World War. Armistice Day. The number of dead and casualties from both wars are countless. The damage caused was confusing and the reconstruction was accompanied by many human tragedies.

Besides the two great world wars, we also know the many-armed conflicts in the world. Military might and strength continue to play a role in international relations, even if no one wants war and all parties know that war does not solve anything, on the contrary: “In War There Are Only Losers” (Pope John Paul II).

Importance of the numbers

The way of warfare has changed drastically in recent centuries. In the past, the large number of combatant soldiers in a war or battle played a decisive role in ensuring success. Carl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian strategist and Napoleonic general, regarded numerical superiority as the most general principle of victory.

It was 17th century French philosopher Voltaire who emphatically stated that God was on the side of the great battalions. The battle, therefore, was covered in a religious veil. Voltaire was known as one of the most important philosophers of the Enlightenment.

Others argue that ultimately it is not so much numerical superiority in battle as the will to win. Frederick the Great (King of Prussia, 18th century) already stated that the size of the population determines the wealth of states, including in terms of war victories.

The relationship between population growth and that of industry and the economy as a whole became of great importance in wartime, and even more directly so with the relationship between population growth and military power, especially on such battlefields as the First World War. Pure work force could prevail over strategic genius. Therefore, the power of the number was decisive in a military clash between advanced industrial powers. The power of the number, the number of combatants, turned out to be convincing to ultimately win a conflict.

Juvenile violence

Demographics not only influenced the outcome of the war, but also determined its causes. Rapid population growth made European societies very young, especially those of Germany and Russia. These countries had what would today be called a youth surplus, a phenomenon associated with war and aggression.

There is, therefore, a connection between the youthfulness of a society and its bellicosity. Large, young, enthusiastic populations supported the most belligerent politicians and urged them to take it one-step further. It was the young people who thronged the streets to celebrate the start of the war, and it was the young people who eagerly enlisted, in many cases sealing not only their own fate but also that of their continent.

In the 1950s, about half of all armed conflicts still took place between states and the other half within states. In the 1990s, conflicts within states are six times more common than conflicts between states.

Many believe in the naturalness of war. Politicians can take a possible war for granted. As if a nightmare has been set in motion that cannot be stopped, whereby the mind is set to zero and alternatives are hardly ever discussed.

Need for peace experts

The word “expert” is derived from the Latin “experiri”, or to experience. In this sense, our planet has produced far too many experts in genocide. Even in the recent past, following the breakup of Yugoslavia, extreme nationalists usurped territory where they settled old scores through ethnic cleansing and terrorist campaigns.

In 1994, Hutu extremists massacred their fellow citizens in Rwanda. In 1995, there is the massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia & Herzegovina. Later that decade, terrible civil wars broke out in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and East Timor. In the early years of the 21st century, the Sudanese government repressed opposition groups in Darfur with brute force.

The prevention of genocide seems to me to be the common shared human responsibility par excellence. It is important to intervene in time to prevent catastrophic situations from developing. There is the responsibility of the political authorities and of the international community to protect civilians first and if possible with nonviolent means.

Conflicts and tensions between people and peoples are normal phenomena and customs and jurisprudence such as international humanitarian law have been developed to deal with this. Conflicts arise when people draw boundaries: this far and no further. Conflict is about what cannot be tolerated, especially in the field of self-protection. The human being has the right to self-preservation.

Defensor pacis

It would be much more efficient and cheaper, and much more humane, to resolve tensions and conflicts through dialogue, negotiation and arbitration. Invest in diplomatic resources, including economic aid, nonviolent conflict mediation, and support for political pluralism and human rights.

Avoid and detect conflicts early and act in such a way that conflicts are avoided. Restrict the arms trade and ensure that legislation on arms exports is watertight. All this requires more investment in peace education and peace building.

Reconciliation and peace is better than struggle. We know that we are all different. How can we live together without giving up our spiritual independence? People are always looking for new balances, especially after a disruption. The human being is a homo compensator. Seeking balance. Conflict resolver. Converting evil into good. Choosing the “right way” of living.

The peacemaker or Defensor pacis then puts an end to the Babylonian confusion of tongues, the disputes, the war of each against each, the fratricide, or the eternal war of words that can always get out of hand. Ending disagreement.

Preventing armed violence because every person is important. The Jewish tradition holds that saving one life amounts to saving the world. Our world needs more Defensor pacis, peace experts.

Armistice Day 11 November 2020. We do not forget. We remember.

Brussels/Antwerp, August 2020

Fr Paul Lansu

Board Member Pax Christi International and Pax Christi Flanders

Peace

Poverty and pandemics are just as deadly as war

erinpax

Misery and trouble in the world does not just happen. Daily life remains human work. Conflicts, violent confrontations, world wars are also human work.

How many wars have not started because considerations of prestige prevailed over reasonable thinking and rationality? A well-known example of this is the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648).

Thirty years of religious violence

The Thirty Years’ War was the longest, bloodiest and most devastating ever fought on German soil, and it maintained that reputation until the end of the twentieth century. Fear of death was accompanied by fear of life, which had become tainted by the constant misery of war, malnutrition and disease.

During that time period it was also extremely cold. Rivers and even ports on the Mediterranean were frozen until spring, allowing entire armies to move across the Danube during the Thirty Years’ War. Speaking of climate change! The harsh winters were unimpressed by the murderous religious drive, however. In this three-decade war between Catholics and Protestants, a third of Europe’s population would perish.

Peace was not achieved by a victory of one of the warring factions, but by exhaustion. It is not only the physical exhaustion of the extremely brutal war, but also the mental exhaustion of the spiritual worldview. The nation states will take over sovereignty themselves in 1648 (and no longer the churches or religion). The sovereign unit or nation / state is then the highest authority. Human rationality became more important.

The Peace of Münster (Westphalia) was concluded in 1648. End of the war and the nation states took control of their own hands based on sovereignty and rational or reasonable thinking.

The German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) would later speak of the “disenchantment of the world”. That says that the moral basis of society rests more on rational arguments than on belief, more on an ethics of human rights and procedural agreements of democracy than on the ethics of the Bible, because the latter failed not only in the Thirty Years’ War but in so many other circumstances as well.

After the war the plague

In the wake of the war came the plague, one epidemic after another. People were so weakened by hunger and hardship that they became easy prey for the germs carried by the armies. The plague claimed more lives than the Thirty Years’ War itself. The painter Rembrandt van Rijn painted the mournful reality of death at the end of the plague epidemic in 1668.

The Spanish flu also broke out after a war (WW1). WW1 became the first truly industrial modern war. The infamous Spanish flu pandemic originated in Europe (1918/19), mostly in army units that had to spend the last months of the world conflict in particularly uncomfortable and unsanitary conditions. The number of fatalities was enormous and in many warring countries comparable to the number of people who died from the violence of war itself. Poverty and pandemics are just as deadly as war.

Some historians speak of a “second Thirty Years’ War” and that is the period from 1914 to 1945 of last century. From one world war to another. Millions of people died, cities and entire economies were in ruin, and countless lives were destroyed.

Pandemics, like wars, famines and natural disasters, have repeatedly affected human history throughout the ages. Due to increased globalisation and massive international air traffic, a global pandemic is one of the biggest security risks. Hunger and epidemics can only be tackled properly on a global scale. These are challenges that require an internationally coordinated approach.

One major trauma

A century ago, hundreds of thousands of young men went to war voluntarily or compulsorily, even though they knew they were risking their lives and their health without obtaining any economic benefit. At the time, people identified themselves in a strong social transcendence, in God and emperor and fatherland and decency and self-sacrifice.

How many people would still act like that today? How many people would seriously consider the prospect of being killed in the field of honour for even one moment? In addition, what does a society lose and what gains if its members are hardly willing to die and kill for an ideal?

To take the matters into one’s own hands

Countless people were victims of war, epidemics or famine in the last century. One big and collective trauma. Western societies responded to the murders of two world wars by attaching additional value to renewed cooperation, redistribution, peace and international solidarity.

Common stories and political projects arose based on common interests. Two examples of this are the United Nations and the European Union. Both would guarantee the functioning of the rule of law, international peace and security, human rights, development and sustainable ecological coexistence.

Brussels/Antwerp, September 2020

Fr Paul Lansu, Board Member of Pax Christi International and Pax Christi Flanders

Photo by Adam Axton via Flickr

Our Stories

The Assumption of Mary and the Birth of Pax Christi International

Editor

Bishop Marc Stenger, co-president of Pax Christi International, celebrates the 2020 feast of the Assumption of Mary in Kevelaer. In his sermons, he reflects on the importance of Kevelaer for the beginnings of the Pax Christi International movement. The town of Kevelaer’s special bond with the Pax Christi International movement has its origins in 1948, when the first Pax Christi congress on German soil took place in Kevelaer. The bridge-builder of peace was the Bishop of Lourdes, Pierre Marie Theas, who began his welcoming speech with the words: “I greet the whole of Germany and bring it the brotherly kiss of Christian France, a kiss that grants forgiveness and seeks such, that is: the kiss of reconciliation.” 

PREDIGT

Liebe Pilgerinnen,

Liebe Pilger,

Das Leitwort für die Wallfahrt 2020 ist gerade in der Zeit der Covidpandemie, die immer noch unseren Alltag prägt, ein Wort der Ermutigung : « Ich bin, da wo du bist », nach dem Philosoph, Martin Buber, der so die Worte Gottes an Mosè (Exodus 3, 14) übersetzt, also eine Zusage, die auch heute  Christen  Trost und Kraft schenkt. In diesem Jahre  kann die Wallfahrt zu der als « Trösterin der Betrübten » verehrten Gottesmutter nicht ganz wie sonst erlebt werden : weniger Leute,  berufliche Ängste,, schwierige menschliche Situationen, und auch strengere Regeln für das Sammeln. Aus diesem Grund wollen wir umso mehr unser Vertrauen auf die Gottesmutter legen und Ihr unsere Menschheit, die Hoffnung braucht, anvertrauen.

In einem seiner Bücher schrieb Martin Buber: « Zu jeder Zeit ruft Gott jedem Menschen zu : Wo bist du in deiner Welt ? Von denen, die dir zugeschrieben werden, sind so viele Tage vergangen und so viele Jahre. Wie weit bist du. Bis wo bist du in der Zwischenzeit in deiner Welt gekommen ?

Wenn Gott solche Fragen stellt, geht es ihm nicht darum dass der Mensch ihm etwas erzählt, das er noch nicht wissen würde. Er will im Menschen etwas provozieren, er möchte ihm in Herzen berühren und ihm bewusst machen, dass er den Austausch mit ihm sucht.

Schon im Garten Eden, im Buch des Genesis, fragt Gott Adam : Wo bist du ? Er weiss, dass  Adam sich versteckt, um die Entscheidung, die verbotene Frucht zu essen, nicht rechtfertigen zu müssen, um der Verantwortung für sein Leben zu entgehen. Er versteckt sich nicht nur vor Gott, , er versteckt sich vor* sich selbst. Mit anderen Worten, er sieht  seinem Leben nicht ins Gesicht, er rutscht weg, er bleibt stecken. Er berücksichtigt sein Leben, seine Geschichte nicht vollständig. Um das zu tun sollte er, wo er angekommen ist, die Stimme Gottes, die Gegenwart Gottes erkennen, die ihn befragt, der zu ihm sagt : Wo du bist, bin ich… um dich aus deiner Sackgasse herauszubringen.

So gross die Freude eines Menschen über beruflichen oder privaten Erfolg,  so bedeutend seine Macht, wie kolossal das Werk seines Lebens auch sein mag, all das  kann Ihn nicht auf den richtigen Weg bringen, wenn er in seinem Leben und in seinem Leisten die Stimme Gottes, die ihn ruft befragt und leitet, nicht erkennt. Adam steht vor der Stimme Gottes, er erkennt die Stagnation, er gibt zu : « Ich habe mich versteckt » und dort beginnt für ihn ein neuer Weg des Menschseins

Die Jungfrau Maria ist das genaue Gegenteil Adams. Sie weiss und nimmt mit Freude an,  dass Gott Teil Ihres Lebens ist, wie des Lebens eines jeden Menschen. Sie versucht nicht davon abzuweichen. Im Gegenteil, sie dankt für alle die Wunder, die er vollbringt, und wenn ihm durch die Vermittlung des Engels die aussergewöhnliche Mission anvertraut wird, Mutter des Sohnes Gottes zu werden, ist ihr Vertrauen in diesen Gott , der das Wohl jedes Mensch will und ihn auf seinem Weg begleitet, absolut.

In Maria können wir also entdecken, was der Mensch im Gottesplan ist. Die Menschen wissen nicht, was der Mensch ist, so verschieden sind die philosophischen und religiösen Vorstellungen. Wir Christen können es wissen. Gott sagt es uns. Was ist der Mensch ? Ecce Maria -seht Maria : das ist der Mensch, der Euch gegeben ist, damit ihr ihn  nachahmt. Liebe Pilgerinnen und Pilger, In Maria ist alles ausgedrückt, was Gott über den Menschen denkt und plant. Sie ist der vorbildlicher Mensch., weil überall da, wo Sie ist, Gott in Ihrem Leben ist. Gewiss ist auch schon Jesus Christus  in höchster Potenz das Vorbild aller Menschen, er ist aber mehr als Mensch. Er ist der Erlöser der Menschen. Aber Maria ist wie wir Erlöste. Wenn auch vor erlöst, weil Ihr ja die Erbsünde erspart blieb, aber sie ist eine Erlöste und deswegen steht Sie uns ganz nahe, sowie Gott Ihr anz nahe steht.  Und deswegen können wir bei Ihr Christus spüren.

So sehen wir die Wahrheit unseres Lebens in der Aufnahme Mariens in den Himmel ausgedrückt. Sie gibt uns Zuversicht und Mut, weil wir wissen dadurch, es ist nicht zu Ende , wenn unser Leib zerfällt. Es gibt ein anderes Leben und Gott hat uns eine Wohnung bereitet, in die wir eingehen dürfen. Das ist die Grösse und die Würde des Menschen. Was uns durch Maria gesagt wird ist, dass Gott den Dialog den er mit den Menschen einmal begonnen hat, nie mehr abbricht. Diese Würde hat der Mensch sich nicht selbst erobert, erworben, erarbeitetwird ihm geschenkt. In Maria heisst : ich bin, wo du bist, : « Grosses hat er an mir getan, der Allmächtige. » Und Grosses will er an uns tun, wenn wir nach dem Beispiel Mariens leben, wenn wir unser Leben in der Treue zu Gott und in der Ergebenheit gegenüber Gott verbringen. Weil Maria die demütig Empfangende war, wurde sie zur Vollendung geführt. Das  Beste, das Höchste,, das Unvergängliche wird uns nicht durch unserer Hände Arbeit erworben, wie Adam es meinte, sondern es wird uns von Gott geschenkt. Und der Mensch kann nur Mensch bleiben, wenn er sich  von der Gnade führen und über seinen eigenen Grenzen hinwegtragen lässt.

Ein wesentlicher Punkt des Dogmas der Aufnahme Mariens in den Himmel mit Leib und Seele, ist , dass « Ich bin wo du bist »,  nicht nur die Würde der Seele, sondern auch des Leibes bedeutet. Der Leib. mit allem was dazugehört hat seine Würde von Gott. Gott hat den Leib geschaffen, und er hat Ihn uns geliehen, damit wir in ihm unser Heil und das Heil der Menschheit wirken , und er will diesen Leib verherrlichen. Maria, Gottesmutter und Gottesgebärerin, hat auch leiblich reagiert.  In ihrem Leben hat sie auch vieles ertragen und gelitten. In Ihr begreifen wir auch besser, um was es geht mit dem Leib, der nicht nur die Hülle der Seele ist, sondern seine eigene Würde im Plan Gottes hat. Der Leib ist so zu sagen das Werkzeug, mit dem wir die Welt gestalten sollen.. Mit unserem Leib sollen wir wirken , Güter schaffen, Anderen helfen, die Erde bebauen und auf dieser Weise zur Verherrlichung Gottes beitragen. Der Leib ist auch ein Ort des Ausdrucks der Schönheit, zum Beispiel  der spörtlichen Entwicklung. Der Leib vermittelt auch die Begegnung  der Körper und die Vermehrung der Menschheit.  Abhängig von der Beziehung, die wir zum Körper haben können wir aber auch dem umgekehrten  Weg der Verherrlischung folgen. Mit Mariens Aufnahme im Himmel mit Leib und Seele lässt Gott uns die unendliche Würde  des menschlichen Leibes erkennen. Diese Würde wie keine anders ist nur richtig zu verstehen, wenn man sie mit der Lehre der unbefleckten Empfängnis verbindet. Der Leib Mariens, Gottesmutter, war von Anfang an vor Sünde bewahrt und dieser Leib, der nie in das Verhängnis der Erbsünde hineingezogen war, sollte nicht der Verwesung überliefert werden.

Maria spiegelt die Berufung unseres eigenen Leibes. In dieser Zeit der Covid-19 Pandemie haben wir  uns alle gewünscht, auf uns selbst aufzupassen . Dass gilt nicht nur für unsere Gesundheit ; es ist auch ein Aufruf diesen Leib zu respektieren und zu verehren.

Durch Maria verkündet die Kiche, dass der Mensch mit Leib und Seele fähig ist zur Aufnahme in der Herrlichkeit Gottes. Das kann aber nicht ohne Erkennung  des grossen Wertes des Leibes geschehen. Der Mensch hat  so tiefe Würde, das sie nicht zerstört werden kann, selbst wenn menschliche Bosheit das tut und immer wieder neu versucht. Die Botschaft der Aufnahme Marien in den Himmel ist das Gegenzeichen ! Ein grossen Zeichen gegen alle Grausamkeiten die bis zur Stunde  menschlichem Leben angetan werden. Übertragen wir das bis in unser Leben und in unserer Gegenwart hinein, dann dürfen wir fragen : « Bin ich mir selbst meiner Würde  als Mensch bewusst, welche Kosbarkeit mein Leib ist »

Danke der Gottesmutter, die uns den Preis unseres Menscseins  mit Leib und Seele gezeigt hat. Sie ist so zu sagen der Gotteswegweiser zur unsere Verherrlichung als Vermittlerin seines Rufes : Wo bis du ? heute in Kevelaer und jeden Tag.

Kevelaer, 15. August 2020

Marc Stenger

EINFUHRUNG

Es ist eine besondere Ehre und eine grosse Freude für mich, am 15. August, an diesem aussergewöhnlichen Ort der Basilika von Kevelaer die Eucharistie zu zelebrieren. Dieser Ort ist für mich, als Präsident von Präsident von Pax Christi Frankreich und jetzt Co-Präsident von Pax Christi International, ein Stammort, ein Quellort. Er verkörpert den Willen zweier Völker, das deutsche und das französische – und von da ab  noch viel mehr – einander zu vergeben, sich zu versöhnen, einander zu lieben, und für das Gemeinwohl der Menschheit zusammenzuarbeiten, wo Hass, Spaltung, Gewalt und Vernichtung der menschlichen Person solange vorherrschten.

In Kevelaer fand  1948, drei Jahre nach dem Ende des zweiten Weltkrieges, in dem so schrecklichen Vergehen erlebt worden sind, der erste internationale Kongress von Pax Christi statt, auf dem Bischof Theas, der Ursprung von Pax Christi war, diesen denkwürdigen Satz von grosser historischer Bedeutung sagte : « Ich grüsse das versammelte Deutschland und bringe ihr den brüderlichen Kuss aus dem christlichen Frankreich, ein Kuss der Vergebung gibt und um Vergebung bittet, der Kuss der Versöhnung genannt wird. »

In Erinnerung an diese für die Völkerverständigung so beteudende Begebenheit ligt in der Mitte dieses Wallfahrtortes eine Pax Christi Kapelle, deren Altar im 1982 geweiht wurde, und in derer Raum sich das Eigentum des Pax Christi Forum, Ort der Begegnung, des Gebetes und des Nachdenkens über die Zukunft unserer Gesellschart. Sie Könnent, vermute ich, gut verstehen, dass meine eigene Pilgerfahrt auch durch diese symbolischen und geistliche Orte hindurchgehen wird.

Sowieso hier in Kevelaer kommen wir, um zu Maria zu beten, die Trösterin der Betrübten. Maria liess sich im Dienst  von Gottes Pläne für die Menschheit. Noch immer wollte Er die Rettung der Menschen. Heute haben wir so sehr Gründe uns Sorgen zu machen, als wir immer noch in den unsicheren Zeiten einer anhaltenden Pandemie stehen, als Gewalt, Unterdrückung der Schwachen, Katastrophen, Rassismus und Ausgrenzung immer mehr zunehmen. In diesr Zeit sendet uns aber die Gottesmutter eine grossartige Botschaft von Ihm :

« Ich bin, wo du bist »

In deinen Situationen der Trostlosigkeit und des Zorns, in denen du lebst, bin ich da, um dich zu erheben und mit meiner Kraft zu füllen. Grosse, heute notwendige Ermutigung, die wir von Gott durch die Jungfrau Maria. Môge diese Botschaft das geistliche stichwort unseres gesamten Pilgerreise sein.

Marc Stenger

Photo: Gerard Stoke via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)