I don’t know about you, but most of my basic beliefs seem to be shattered. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on the 24^th of February 2022, my life feels totally altered. No day passes without bouts of despair. Of course, my point is not that my despair is anywhere near that of the Ukrainians (it is not), but merely to make sense of my experience. Having grown up during the Cold War with parents who lived through WW II, I feel like I’ve come full circle. The reason I find this noteworthy is that I feel fairly alone when considering many compatriots and people around me. Perhaps I’m mistaken in this, but for me this is a war on Europe and everything I believe in. While many people seem to take the question whether Europe is actually under military attack very seriously (and, of course, we should), my feeling is that “my world” has been invaded already.

Let me get one thing out of the way: If you look for clever analyses, look elsewhere. I have nothing important to say. Being a German citizen, I am deeply ashamed of the government of my country, for it does too little to support the Ukrainian people. (Here is a petition that you should consider signing.) But I happily leave political and strategic analyses to people more competent. All I’m attempting is to share my grief and some impressions – in the hope that this might be soothing or whatever to others.

So what is it that’s getting to me? Somehow there seems to be so much hatred in the world that it might become uninhabitable. What does that mean? Climate change is threatening to make the world uninhabitable in terms of heat etc. But there might also simply be too much hatred. – I come from a working class family in what was called Western Germany. My parents were poor and timid, in the way that refugees from the East seem to feel out of place, but they always inspired love and hope in me. Although I’ve hardly kept contact to family members from Eastern Germany, I always felt a strong bond with them, and when I moved to Hungary in the early 90s, I felt very much at home. The same was true of other European countries: wherever I came I felt at home. Europe was home. And it was, despite all shortcomings, a beacon of hope and progress.

The first time I thought something was off was after people voted for Brexit. (Of course, there are many other events that were bad and sinsister, but for some reason this held a special weight.) From my early days onwards, I grew up with a love for Britain. This love was intensified through music and, later, through briefly joining the academic world there. When I crossed the border, I felt like coming home. Brexit has taken that away. It felt like people were spitting me in the face saying “you were mistaken”. The election of Trump was another such event. Yes, a lot is rotten in the world, but certain places held a promise for me that has been diminished since 2016.

Looking back at this today, these events feel like a preparation for what was to come. People who know me know that I felt and feel a very strong bond to Eastern Europe. I don’t know why, but visiting countries like Hungary and Romania always felt a bit like coming home. Although I was mainly an onlooker at the time, 1989 defined my understanding of my place in the world. In a nutshell, you might say that I experienced 1989 as real progress. Not the end of history, for sure. I am very much aware that much went wrong and that the “former East” was clearly colonised by the West. But still, things seemed to get better.

In 1945, when my mother was five years old, her home was invaded by Russian soldiers. One of them directed his machine gun at the children huddled against a wall, shouting “one, two, three, I shoot you!” My mother never told me what precisely had happened. But whatever else she (or my father for that matter) might have left out of their accounts, I never would have thought that Europe would return to a state of being a source for these kinds of stories. – This dream was shattered, of course, with the war in former Yugoslavia. But, it seemed, this wasn’t fatal for the European idea. Note again please that I’m not trying to diminish anything here. I’m talking about my experience. Not world history.

Anyway, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, all these dreams seem shattered. I am grateful that my daughter Hannah, who is five years old now, does not (yet?) have to undergo what my mother might have lived through at the same age. But I begin to realise that her world is very different from the one that I had the privilege to spend the last fifty years in. It is a world where Europe is filled with war and hatred. And now this world is becoming even smaller by the hour. Smaller like eyes narrowed by hatred.

Although I’m suffering from anxiety, it’s strange that the current situation doesn’t instil fear. Rather, it leaves me with a strange and perhaps futile determination. The courage of the Ukrainian people is inspiring, as is – for very different reasons – the spirit of my students. Reading the news these days mainly reduces me to tears. My life and most things that matter to me, it seems, are put on hold until this war will be over. At times it feels like there is nothing left, nothing worth living for, in the face of these atrocities. My hatred for Putin and his supporters seems endless. But then, there is my daughter and all the young people for whom we must remain hopeful.

I have often cynically thought that the idea of progress is a sham. Call me pathetic, but listening to President Biden’s speech and thinking of the wonderful people I know gave me hope.

We must stand with Ukraine. It is not just a manner of speaking when people say that they are defending our freedom.

Evelina Miteva and I have initiated the petition “Stop the import of primary fuels from Russia”. Here is a brief explanation. Please sign by clicking this link.

Putin has cruelly escalated the war against Ukraine through numerous attacks against the civilian population. Threatening to use nuclear weapons, he is simultaneously trying to keep the rest of the world in check. No one should be allowed to get away with something like this. Germany, too, is called upon to do everything sensible to stop this painful war.

What have we done so far? Well, Germany has eventually managed to help suspending SWIFT and delivering some weapons. However, we continue to buy oil and gas from Russia. This way, we pay hundreds of millions into Putin’s war chest every day. By contrast, many experts and politicians now recommend stopping imports of primary fuels or at least Nord Stream 1 as a first step.*

A common objection is that this would be quite expensive. However, this overlooks how much more expensive an escalating war and possibly Germany’s entry into hostilities would be. We must act quickly. Please sign to make the German govement reconsider the options of an embargo.

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* Here is a summary of some recent analyses.