We Protest
against the Military Parade
of
the British armed forces in
We remember the year 2001, when soldiers from
the Bundeswehr took their oath on the square of that
same City Hall. Today, as then, we are apparently expected to regard such
military displays as something normal, treating them like some innocuous piece
of folklore.
We won’t let ourselves be
toyed with. Many in this city, along with us, know very well: Wherever the army
stands, you can be sure there is war beneath its feet.
After
World War II people said, “Never again war!”. Today,
supported by public cultivation of the military’s image, war preparations are
praised as an obvious foreign-policy measure, as the so-called “securing of the
peace”.
In the case of
Two nationally-known opponents of war from
have found clear
words against such militarism:
Eugen Drewermann
We must oppose war, because war consists in
preparing people for murder. In the framework of the military and war, what
people can do to people – indeed, are expected
to do to people – that is the horror of it. What our own leaders make out of
us, in order to get us to the point that we are ready to kill – that is the
evil.
Right down to the core of
its being, war entails the destruction and cancellation of all human laws. I
repeat therefore: It is all the more ludicrous and monstrous to justify war, or
exploit it, as a means for achieving supposedly humanitarian goals. That is
precisely what war cannot do. One cannot summon the dove of peace through a sea
of blood.
Arno Klönne
Hunger stalks the
poverty-stricken zones of the world – and huge sums are squandered on
weapons-production for preparing and making war. Nowhere do military incursions
bring a solution to global problems. What is the function of army parades? They
camouflage the bloody reality of war as it is. Since the time of Kaiser
Wilhelm, such processions have served to seduce people into agreeing with
militarism. Protest, in such a case, is a necessary method of enlightenment.