Krieg

„Zugunsten des Krieges kann man sagen: er macht den Sieger dumm, den Besiegten boshaft. Zugunsten des Krieges: er barbarisiert in beiden ebenfenannten Wirkungen und macht dadurch natürlicher; er ist für die Kultur Schlaf- oder Winterszeit, der Mensch kommt kräftiger zum Guten und Bösen aus ihm heraus.“ (Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches Nr. 444 S. 668).
Wir werden der Ukraine ermöglichen, ihre Kultur zu erhalten und gestärkt durch den Krieg zu bringen. Das können wir ermöglichen und gleichzeitig der von Putins Russland eingeleiteten Barbarisierung seiner eigenen Bevölkerung entgegen wirken. Nietzsche hatte das recht klar durchdacht und die Gefahren des Krieges kühl berechnet. In seinen aphoristischen Betrachtungen (u.a. Menschliches, Allzumenschliches) nachzulesen, lohnt immer mal wieder. Es schärft den Blick für zu schnell Vergessenes.
Die Einen dumm, die anderen boshaft gemacht. Es lässt sich damit nichts zugute des Krieges sagen, außer es werden Tendenzen, negative wie positive, verstärkt. Der Prozess der Zivilisation (Norbert Elias) wird auf barbarische Zeiten zurückgeworfen. Nur mit Erhalt und Förderung der Kultur kann dem begegnet werden. Die Ukraine ist auf einem vielschichtigem, demokratischem und kulturellem Weg in die Zukunft. 

Repair 2

Ever since the visit to the exhibition “Care, Repair, Heal” at the Martin Gropiusbau in Berlin the image of flying protheses rests with me. Repairing the human body is feasible in many fantastic ways. The inner wounds, however, are less visible and sometimes hurting even more. In recognition of the thousands of victims again in the Russian war on Ukraine’s territory and the atrocities causes by mines to injure humans, we have to assist in caring, repairing and healing. This has not changed since the Great War or the Nazi-induced mass murder and mutilations. Humanity is unable to bann such landmines despite international conventions trying to achieve this.
The strong image produced by the protheses as clouds in the sky (Kadar Attia) remind us of the lasting effects of war. Images we had associated with the mutilated soldiers and civilians of the 2nd world war, many still around us in the 60s or 70s, are coming back to Europe. Writing about the 20th century, Aurélien Bellanger described in words a similar traumatising vision of flying protheses in his story of the lonely poet and philosopher. We cannot repair history, but we can work towards reducing useless additional suffering. It is part of the absurdities of our world that technology has created masterpieces to assist us and reduce suffering, but at the same time technology is applied to create the worst suffering as well. Rather than thinking of this relationship as 2 sides of the same coin, I prefer to hope for dialectic evolution towards a better synthesis solution using enforceable international law. Yes, I still have a dream! …

10s

The 1910s have been eclipsed completely by “the Great War” between 1914 to 1918. The 1st world war certainly was the most horrific period of the decade of revolutions and mass arousal. From a global history perspective the years preceding and shortly after the humanitarian disasters deserve more attention, if we were to derive lessons for prevention of other world encompassing wars of imperialist states. The numbers 1st, 2nd, … 3rd (?) world war suggest an unescapable numbering of events. We no longer can think in this trivialising logic of war or historical determinism. Empires go to war more easily than democracies. This was the social scientists’ consensus after the Great War. It took several years for many European states to turn more democratic, allowing women to vote, or introduce more robust health and social security systems. Powerful aristocracies would not cede power easily, only the widespread poverty after the Great War and the human losses discredited many aristocratic regimes throughout Europe. The imperialist dominance of the beginning of the 1910s produced a spirit of ruthless conquest and exploitation of colonies around the world. It took another global war and almost half a century to dismantle these regimes. To understand global alliances and impediments of wars in the 21st century, the early 1910s are instructive as they inform the restitution of artefacts debate in the 2020s. In the history of ideas, the 1910s are probably best characterised as the period of attempting to turn “grand ideas” into political facts on the globe. The rise of Marxist ideology, liberal and fascist counter movements started to take powerful roots at the end of the 1910s. All these ideas and factual changes of the maps of power still seem to govern a lot of international politics even today.