What kind of world do we want to live in?
by Petra Erler and Günter Verheugen
While the West is stylising the battle between democracy and autocracy as the decisive battle of our time, attention is being lost on the all-important question: Will humanity reach the end of the 21st century together, and if so, in what state and in what spiritual condition? This is the overarching political and moral question. Will we still exist as a civilisation as we know it today, with all its flaws, but also all its hopes?
Will a well-protected island of the blessed and rich become firmly established, of those who cannot even imagine the additional vices they might wallow in, as all the money in the world does not eliminate the hunger for ever more power, ever more exclusivity and ever new pleasure? In the last century, the film La Dolce Vita dealt with this topic, albeit, in retrospect, in a very well-behaved way. And how will “the rest“ live? Every year, Oxfam documents the development of the social situation around the world, and the American Democrat Bernie Sanders summarised this in a stirring foreword to the report: There is a rapid movement toward global oligarchy. Never before in human history have so few owned so much. Never before in history have we seen a billionaire class with so much political power. In the United States, three people own more wealth than the bottom half of society, while over 60 per cent of workers live pay check to pay check. (views-voices.oxfam.org.uk) It is still the case that around 80 per cent of humanity is much poorer than the 20 per cent in the rich North. None of this can be attributed to the natural, spontaneous effects of market economy laws or different political structures. These are the results of a policy that relies on dominance, war, discord and hatred both internally and externally and which, as if by the by, has designed minority rights first and foremost as protective rights for the smallest minority that can possibly exist: in favour of the few super-rich, in favour of the financial sector and a few economic giants in the corporate sector.
There are no Western policies for the “many“, they exist nowhere, even if many people in Western countries are of course still doing much better than the vast majority in the global South. But what do we mean by “doing well“ if we also include other criteria such as stress, psychological problems or loneliness? What does “doing well“ mean if your employment is precarious or if all your publicising on social media does not fill your emptiness? What does “doing well“ mean when in times of crisis, such as the pandemic, there is not only a great deal of humanity that appears, but also a great deal of contempt for humanity and a lack of ethics? Where did the latter come from?
For the reorganisation of state relations, we must have a vision of the future based on history and not on stories and distorted perceptions.
In Africa, for example, nothing is forgotten. Victims remember much more than perpetrators. We are not even fully aware of how deep the wounds of the past go there, or that new wounds were added to old ones during the pandemic. For example, Africa remembers who did not supply vaccines, who did not release patents and what devastating consequences the policy of lockdowns and flight bans had for the great continent. Many people who had barely escaped poverty were thrown right back.
We do not realise the huge efforts China and India are making to tackle global poverty reduction by having drastically improved the living conditions of hundreds of millions of their people. Moreover, there is a difference between governing just over 83 million people, as in Germany, on a relatively assessable territory, with a relatively assessable history, and, for example, having to hold together an empire as old and large as China, with 1.4 billion inhabitants, which implies a completely different quality of demands on national and social cohesion.
China offers practical solutions to other countries internationally. It does not come across as lecturing or with the urge to now turn everything upside down. We could learn from this, but all we see is a grab for power, the power of an all-dominant controller.
But somehow, we will have to fit in with the emerging world, which will no longer be dominated by the West.
Worldwide, the BRICS states are economically on the rise. They now account for 29 per cent of global wealth, while the G7 account for 42 per cent, when measured in dollars. In terms of purchasing power, however, BRICS have now left G7 behind (32.1 to 29 per cent). But in per capita terms, it is clear that there is still a large gap between G7 and BRICS. Wealth is clearly concentrated among the inhabitants of the G7 countries. Whether and how the BRICS countries can catch up depends on many factors. Catch-up development is extremely difficult. So far, there are not many examples of countries that have successfully catapulted themselves forwards. But science, research and the ability to innovate are also likely to be important in the future. The BRICS have strengths and weaknesses in this field. Firstly, their strength lies in their population size. If they manage to guarantee good education and training opportunities nationwide and to utilise these, they will have proportionally more talent at their disposal. China, but also Russia, seem determined to follow this path. Russia has steadily improved in the Pisa ranking (it was apparently not included in the 2022 ranking). China, which boasts very impressive scientific achievements, has made further gains since 2018. This is all the more impressive because many countries’ results have deteriorated significantly during this period.
It will also be important to see how the concept of a successful modern society develops. The underestimation of industrial performance that prevailed for decades made Germany, with its high proportion of industrial production, look like a dinosaur. Yet the real economy is something like the salt of the earth. It produces what people really need and, by modern standards, should also have all over the world: from high-quality, environmentally friendly food to state-of-the-art healthcare and education systems. It is a highly unhealthy development that we have a bloated financial sector, detached from any material basis, which speculates with any- and everything it can get its hands on, and which constantly invents new vehicles to make even more profits for itself. It does not care who wins a war as long as it knows in good time where the race is heading, so that it can bet for or against a country. It has become a global producer of crises, and the effects of 2008 hang like millstones on the necks of so many countries in the form of huge mountains of debt. It is high time we asked ourselves fundamental questions about how ethical and future-proof we think it is to speculate on raw materials and foodstuffs or to allow wars to drive the prices of defence company shares higher. Such questions have not just been on the table since yesterday. How should we react to the current realisation that our politics have caused us to dash with verve into a proxy war for which we lack the material basis? Building up an armaments industry cannot be the answer, as we know at the same time that its products will only lead to the destruction of people, animals and the environment. Warlike conflicts and the necessary ecological and climate policy protection of all life are diametrically opposed.
[...]
After centuries of European-American dominance, we have arrived at the current state of the world. Measured against current global challenges and the peace policy mandate originating from the universal human rights, this is in no way a good condition. The hope of the “many” is to spread responsibility across broader shoulders and so to make things better. We should share this hope in order to help shape the changing times, as equals among equals. Things must not stay as they are. •
Source: Verheugen, Günter/Erler, Petra.
Der lange Weg zum Krieg. Russland, die Ukraine und der Westen – Eskalation statt Entspannung
(The long road to war. Russia, Ukraine and the West – Escalation instead of détente),
Heyne publishing 2024, p. 267ff.; ISBN 978-3-453-21883-3;
the footnotes in the book have been omitted here; reprinted with the kind permission of the publisher
(Translation Current Concerns)
One of the best German-language books on the war in Ukraine
km. The text printed here is an excerpt from the book “Der lange Weg zum Krieg. Russland, die Ukraine und der Westen: Eskalation statt Entspannung (The long road to war. Russia, Ukraine and the West: escalation instead of détente)” by Petra Erler and Günter Verheugen. This book has at least three special features.
It has been printed by a publisher that belongs to the German-speaking “mainstream”. So, it is surprising that its content does not follow this “mainstream” at all. On the contrary, the content of the book stands out refreshingly from what has been published elsewhere, almost as if forced into line, and not just since 24 February 2022, i.e. that the USA, the EU and NATO are on the side of the “good guys” – and Russia and its president are to be harshly criticised. The title of the book, “The long road to war”, is the key message: if you are looking for the causes of the war in Ukraine, you cannot start on 24 February 2022, or even in spring 2014. Petra Erler and Günter Verheugen trace the “failure” of the Western governments (above all those of the USA and the EU states) over the past 35 years very precisely and always with evidence. These governments sabotaged the great opportunity for peace that existed at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. Thus, the creation of a European security order based on what was achieved in 1975 with the Helsinki Final Act and the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) was prevented. Turning away from its initial songs of deceptive harmony, the West then rigorously presented itself as the victor of the Cold War, and made clear it was not prepared to allow relations on an equal footing with post-Soviet Russia. And the more Russian policy, especially under President Vladimir Putin, called for this kind of equality and acted accordingly, the more aggressively the governments of NATO and EU countries reacted and the more perfidious the plans to strategically weaken Russia, in order to eliminate it as a player in world politics, have become and continue to become. Indeed, the statements made by Petra Erler and Günter Verheugen are among those that might even allow us to express the opinion that the West has deliberately provoked the war in Ukraine. Both authors speak of a “proxy war”. What is particularly tragic is that the governments of the EU member states are following instructions from Washington like unfree vassals – even though they have a primary duty to maintain peace and should therefore emancipate themselves from US policy –this applies to Germany, in particular, not least because of its history.
But the book goes beyond the war and its causes. The authors also formulate political conclusions and place the Ukraine war in the context of global politics and global political change: away from a unipolar and towards a multipolar world. This is not an automatism, but a global political challenge and task for all states. We must avoid further sacrifices and lay the foundations for an equal and peaceful coexistence. There is enough to do! So the authors do not stop at the diagnosis, but explain once again in detail why further escalation in the war would be a murderous dead end and why there is no sensible alternative to a renewed policy of détente – here, with regard to Germany, the authors refer to the policies of Willy Brandt, Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder. Specifically, they critically analyse the German policy of today, which has completely distanced itself from this policy – a particular tragedy for the Social Democrats in power.
Throughout the book, Petra Erler and Günter Verheugen always argue objectively, substantiate their claims and refrain from any polemics. But they also show where their hearts lie: on the side of peace.
The second speciality is the prominent authors. Petra Erler, born in 1958, was born in the GDR, studied and completed her doctorate there at the Institute for International Relations at the Academy for State and Law in Potsdam, was part of the peaceful opposition and, after the Volkskammer elections in spring 1990, was initially a (non-party) advisor and member of the planning staff of Foreign Minister Markus Meckel (GDR Social Democratic Party), then State Secretary in the office of Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière (CDU). After the turnaround of 3 October 1990, she worked from 1991 as Head of Division for EC Policy at the Brandenburg Representation in Bonn. In 1999, she became a member of the inner circle of Günter Verheugen, who was EU Commissioner at the time. Between 2006 and 2010, she was his “Head of Cabinet”.
Günter Verheugen, born in 1944, was initially a politician in the German Free Democrat Party, but left the party in 1982 when it swung away from the governing coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD) in favour of one with the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU). Verheugen became a member of the SPD. From 1983 to 1998 he was a member of the German Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee, and with the change of government in autumn 1998 he became Minister of State in the German Foreign Office (until September 1999). He was an EU Commissioner from 1999 to 2010 and Vice-President of the Commission from 2004 to 2010. I can still remember his commentary on the coup in Ukraine in February 2014. At the time, he was the only well-known German politician to openly criticise the fact that things were no longer going according to plan in German politics. How was it possible that the current German Foreign Minister Steinmeier had helped to draw up and sign an agreement with the incumbent President Yanukovych on a peaceful transition in the country – yet the same German Foreign Minister recognised a coup government just two days later?
The third peculiarity: although the book by Petra Erler and Günter Verheugen does not fit into the German “mainstream” at all, it has been on the non-fiction bestseller list of the news magazine Der Spiegel for eight weeks. Obviously, there is a broad interest, also in German-speaking countries, in finally reading, hearing and seeing something different from the everyday anti-Russian propaganda: because the latter lacks any objectivity and works almost exclusively with half-truths, polemics and agitation. It is a good sign that more and more people are getting tired of propaganda and are looking for solid, trustworthy information. That gives us hope. Peace is what suits humans, not war.