Letters to the Editor

The modern media, especially television, are a welcome gift for warmongers. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the term “war” can only be combined with “war of aggression” when referring to Russia. It is clear: Russia and Putin are the unprovoked aggressors! In this way, the reader is constantly being bombarded with the “constant dripping wears the stone” method so that he donates weapons and money to the helpless Ukrainians. I have to admit that such propaganda unfortunately works, even though the term “Lügenpresse” (lying press) is well known. What can we do? There are still a few honest sources of information; I am a happy subscriber to Current Concerns. But you have to make the effort to search, opposition events, for example, are treasure troves. And there are books that open your eyes. One is already 130 years old, “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind” by Gustave le Bon. Or a new book by Johannes Menath with the title “Moderne Propaganda – 80 Methoden der Meinungslenkung” (Modern Propaganda – 80 Methods of Opinion Control). The author has read diligently for years to reveal the dishonest tricks to us readers. Now the average citizen should put aside novels and the easy-to-read tabloid “Bild”. That would be progress on the path to more peace!
  In Germany and elsewhere, there has never been a shortage of warning voices. I am thinking of Erich Kästner, Heinrich Böll, Karl Jaspers, Bertolt Brecht and, and, and. Such people did not lack the necessary imagination to recognise the future from the present. Bertolt Brecht warned that a third world war would surpass the horrors of the Second World War. Compared to the Third World War, the latter was “a walk in the park”. In the meantime, weapons technology has become even more terrifying, with the atomic bomb as the key word. The German writer Wolfgang Borchert, who returned home in 1945 as a terminally ill young soldier, urged everyone whose job is responsible to “say no!” Priest, say no if they want you to bless weapons! Journalist, say no if they expect you to conceal the truth.
  Borchert listed other professions and ended with “If you don’t say no,” and told the story of the last survivor of the nuclear war. He wanders through the contaminated, uninhabitable desert that was once the Earth, stammering one word: “Why?”
  Yes, why? Everyone in our time should think about this and use their imagination to picture the horrors that are often trivialised.

Ernst Udo Kaufmann (97 years old),
 Müllheim i.M. (DE)
 

“SAY ‘NO’ ”
by Wolfgang Borchert

You. Man at the machine and man in the workshop. If tomorrow they tell you you are to make no more water-pipes and saucepans but are to make steel helmets and machine-guns, then there’s only one thing to do:
  Say NO!
  You. Woman at the counter and woman in the office. If tomorrow they tell you you are to fill shells and assemble telescopic sights for snipers’ rifles, then there’s only one thing to do:
  Say NO!
  You. Research worker in the laboratory. If tomorrow they tell you you are to invent a new death for the old life, then there’s only one thing to do:
  Say NO!
  You. Priest in the pulpit. If tomorrow they tell you you are to bless murder and declare war holy, then there’s only one thing to do:
  Say NO!
  You. Pilot in your aeroplane. If tomorrow they tell you you are to carry bombs over the cities, then there’s only one thing to do: Say NO!
  You. Man of the village and man of the town. If tomorrow they come and give you your call-up papers, then there’s only one thing to do:
  Say NO!
  You. Mother in Normandy and mother in the Ukraine, mother in Vancouver and in London, you on the Hwangho and on the Mississippi, you in Naples and Hamburg and Cairo and Oslo - mothers in all parts of the earth, mothers of the world, if tomorrow they tell you you are to bear new soldiers for new battles, then there’s only one thing to do:
  Say NO!
  For if you do not say NO - if YOU do not say no - mothers, then: then!
  In the bustling hazy harbour towns the big ships will fall silent as corpses against the dead deserted quay walls, their once shimmering bodies overgrown with seaweed and barnacles, smelling of graveyards and rotten fish.
  The trams will lie like senseless glass-eyed cages beside the twisted steel skeleton of wires and track.
  The sunny juicy vine will rot on decaying hillsides, rice will dry in the withered earth, potatoes will freeze in the unploughed land and cows will stick their death-still legs into the air like overturned chairs.
  In the fields beside rusted ploughs the corn will be flattened like a beaten army.
  Then the last human creature, with mangled entrails and infected lungs, will wander around, unanswered and lonely, under the poisonous glowing sun, among the immense mass graves and devastated cities.
  The last human creature, withered, mad, cursing, accusing - and the terrible accusation: WHY?
  will die unheard on the plains, drift through the ruins, seep into the rubble of churches, fall into pools of blood, unheard, unanswered,
  the last animal scream of the last human animal -
  All this will happen tomorrow, tomorrow, perhaps, perhaps even tonight, perhaps tonight, if - if -
  You do not say NO.

Source: https://www.oikoumene.org/resources/documents/say-no-by-wolfgang-borchert

Now a man – the prototype of finance capital – has been elected and appointed Federal Chancellor. He always presents himself as close to the people, down-to-earth and rooted in the Sauerland region. But what does this man really stand for when you consider that he worked from 2016 to 2020 for BlackRock, the largest capital organisation in the world, as chairman of the supervisory board of the subsidiary of Black Rock Asset Management Germany? BlackRock, based in New York, moves shares and other financial products such as derivatives back and forth at high frequency (nanosecond range) in the deregulated financial market worldwide with the help of 5,000 mainframe computers and 2,000 IT specialists in order to generate very high returns for its mostly very wealthy investors from all over the world. This financial player is the world’s largest and has total assets of 9.5 trillion dollars. This is almost three times the GDP of Germany. In the meantime, BlackRock has also entered the real economy and now holds shares in all 40 DAX companies and is the largest shareholder in eleven of them. This includes Vonovia, Germany’s largest rented housing group, which owns 355,000 flats.
  BlackRock and other financial players are increasingly determining the jobs, wages and labour rights of the employees working there. With shareholder value in mind, many people are losing their jobs, workers’ rights are being eroded and wages are being squeezed.
  Furthermore, like all other parties currently represented in the Bundestag, Merz is focussing on armament and wants to promote escalation with Russia through Taurus missiles, thus increasing the risk of a third world war fought with nuclear weapons.
  Can such a man really represent the interests of our citizens, namely peace at home and abroad? Can he be a representative of the common good who faces up to Germany’s social issues and offer solutions for our future?

Werner Voss, Wiehl (DE)

30 April 2025 marked the anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam. An incredibly murderous and destructive war ended 50 years ago. Eliane Perret’s article in Current Concerns No. 10 from 3 May which is well worth reading, is an impressive and powerful reminder of the end of this war, which was not really the end of the war. This war continues to claim its victims, and numerous traces can still be found in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. In this context, Eliane Perret refers to the exhibition by Roland Schmid: “War without end. The toxic legacy of the Vietnam War” and the new edition of Peter Jaeggi’s book on the subject.
  A few months ago, we went on a study trip through Cambodia and Vietnam. We were deeply impressed how these countries were able to recover from war, violence and terror and how an admirable reconstruction was possible from the ruins of war. The terrible consequences of the war, which continue to this day due to the poisoning and mining of the countries, are being dealt with by the people practically on their own; they are barely visible to tourists, but are still present everywhere. People do not want to forget history at all. The many museums worth visiting are proof of this. But despite continuing widespread poverty, they want to move forward into the future with self-determination and independence, and nothing but peace.
  When neutral Switzerland was still a major diplomatic power in the midst of the Cold War, it organised the Indochina Conference in Geneva in 1954. Peace after the first Indochina war was within reach, but the USA actively prevented all-Vietnamese elections. The result was the second Indochina War, which lasted until 1975. Today, Vietnam maintains its neutrality and could work with Switzerland to promote neutrality among non-aligned countries. However, this requires Switzerland to reaffirm its own neutrality.

Elfy and René Roca,
 Oberrohrdorf-Staretschwil (CH)

The historical overview by René Roca in Current Concerns No. 10 of 3 May 2025 on the history of Switzerland from the Helvetic era to the founding of the federal state is the cream of the crop I have read recently in connection with the debate on neutrality, easy to understand and free of emotion and ideology. Thank you!
  Since the USA has turned its back on Europe, there has been a great opportunity for Europe/the EU to reorient itself and renounce the bureaucratic juggernaut. Switzerland’s special path can serve as a living, exemplary model for this process.

Hans-Jacob Heitz, Anwalt/
lawyer/former federal administrative judge,
Männedorf (CH)

The demands to finance nurseries in crèches with millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money and to provide free nursery places in the canton of Bern for parents working 160 per cent of full-time hours criminally neglect the needs of the youngest members of our society.
  The important language development, answering the many questions that arise and the motor development (climbing walls, balancing or jumping into water) of the children is preferable to the socialist model of collective childcare through one-to-one supervision – for the benefit of the child.
  The bond with the primary caregiver is also by nature very close at preschool age. Studies show that separation from their caregivers causes day-care children to release the stress hormone cortisol, which can weaken the immune system, increase infections, impair memory and emotional development, and lead to long-term consequences such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders and learning difficulties.
  The high costs of childcare for under-threes are lamented, but parents providing care themselves is not valued, there are no tax breaks, and the shortage of skilled workers is blamed on part-time workers who look after their children themselves.
  This short-sighted thinking is outrageous, as if more nursery places would not require additional carers.
  It is not the economy that needs more women and men as skilled workers, but our children who need their parents.

Sabina Geissbühler-Strupler, MD,
 Herrenschwanden (CH)