Ever-fragile peace ” “and the lesson of Ukraine

“A united Europe was not achieved. And we had war”. It is one of the “shocking” statements contained in the renowned Schuman Declaration of May 9 1950, considered the cornerstone of European integration. The establishment of peace, of a long-lasting peace in Europe, was one of the main reasons underlying the commitment of the French Minister alongside with German chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Italian Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi for the building of a future of peace, to give European nations a common destiny of solidarity and peace. Almost seventy years of peaceful coexistence in Europe. Our continent has never experienced such a long period of peace. Several generations have grown up without experiencing war in first person. Today the war in Europe is viewed as matter for history scholars, novelists or film directors. War remains a reality of our times, but in “distant” places, for peoples who have not reached our level of “civilization” nor democratic organization. Still, we have to remain vigil. History teaches that peace is always fragile, also in Europe. In the 1990s the Balkans were devastated by a war that left in its wake the remnants of hatred and suffering. A few days ago the front page of a French daily bore the headline: “Ukraine: the machinery”. A horrible headline one hundred years after the outbreak of World War I. Moreover, the media are disseminating the idea that war is a possibility, and that it might be even desirable given widespread Russia-phobia grounded on yawning ignorance of the Russian history and of what Ukraine represents for the Russian people. Fortunately, contemporary European media are not as aggressive and warmongers as they were one hundred years ago. But they do nothing to promote the idea of peace, while the same elements that were present a century ago recur also today: nationalism, quest for power, hatred lingering on from the past, undefined borders, popular exaltation, provocations, armaments ready for use, diplomatic rashness. The attack on the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo is a remainder that a spark is enough to suffocate intelligence and caution in a context of exasperation, to set into motion an equally mortal and senseless “machinery” as that of the summer of 1914. Indeed, 1914 saw the failure of diplomacy, overcome by the logics of armed conflict. An infernal spiral swept away the possibility of a negotiated solution, of a reasonable agreement; it staunched all those who tried to stop the march towards war. The preeminent voices of peace were silenced, whether coming from religious or non-religious personalities. The words of Rome’s Pontiff Pius X in the months of August and July, followed by those spoken by Benedict XVI, by the Swedish Lutheran bishop of Uppsala, Nathan Söderblom, soon became unperceivable, while great Socialist leader Jean Jaurès, who proposed a European strike by all workers in potentially belligerent countries to prevent the latter’s involvement in the war, was brutally murdered. After the attack in Sarajevo of June 28 1914 against the heir of the Austrian Empire and his wife nobody managed to stop the hellish cycle based on the absurd grounds of the treaties among the various powers, which relentlessly escalated until the outbreak of war, involving in the armed conflict all those Countries that had no ties with Serbia. Today’s diplomats must be competent, they must have a deep knowledge of Russian and Ukrainian culture and mentality, they must be determined to control the hawks avoiding drifts, supporting moderate forces in all fields. It’s an enormous challenge to peace in general and for the future of Europe as a whole. The political path of negotiations must be pursued, in the quest of solutions not only to prevent the outbreak of war in the present but also to lay the cornerstone of authentic peace based on friendship and reconciliation. What was impossible in 1914 was finally achieved after 1945 between Germany and France, after two world wars, two tragedies with dozens of millions dead. It’s lesson for today that must be fully understood.