We, the free Citizens of Europe have not only an inalienable right but also a solemn duty to stand up for and shout at the top of our lungs in the name of those brutally deprived of their voice, their dignity and sometimes even their very lives by the terrorist Russian state under the undivided rule of the former KGB officer, Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Putin.
For 70 years now, Western European countries, joined by the Central and Eastern European states upon the emergence of the latter from behind the Iron Curtain that had been drawn in an act of cowardice, betrayal and appeasement of Stalin and his barbaric Soviet Union, have been undertaking a concerted effort to confirm, implement and defend the fundamental rôle, in the post-WWII and post Cold-War order, of human dignity, of human rights derived from it and of the rule of law serving to protect them, and to support democracy and a peaceful and constructive cooperation of free nations sharing a common civilisational paradigm and a dream paid in the suffering and blood of the previous generations. This was not a mere pragmatic political choice – it was a deep, formative act reflecting a historical and, more generally, cultural self-awareness, as well as a bold and indispensable investment in the future of the grand European project. This was also and remains the standard candle of human relations shining the light of hope
into the darkness of the post-WWII Soviet and Russian tyranny – the light to which the political nations of Eastern Europe
have looked up and continue doing so, with – alas! – the idealistic trust undermined by the recent political decisions.
These days, the candles burn in Ukraine. These are the candles of an unbounded determination to live in dignity at long last, the candles of un unfaltering faith in the fundamental values at the root of the European project, the candles of an organic understanding of and radical devotion to freedom, candles of an awe-inspiring courage and endurance. But these are also the candles of death – in Crimea and in Donbas. And representatives of the country that has brought and keeps bringing that death upon Ukraine sit in this chamber today, having been invited by members of `the continent's leading HR organisation' – invited by you, that is, and cynically bathing in the splendour of the anniversary celebrations!
At this dark and dangerous hour of the 70th Anniversary of the Council of Europe, we are faced with a Faustian bargain
between the European political leaders and the Kremlin tyrant. Ignoring the uninanimous informed stance of
Central and Eastern European delegations, the Council of Europe has opted to embolden the tyrant at the expense of the
oppressed Sisters and Brothers in Ukraine, Crimean Tatars, Georgians, Belorussians and… Russians themselves, oppressed by
their own authoritarian government.
We know all too well from not so remote a history how the illusions entertained by the politicians who boldly declare to have secured “peace for our time”, “peace with honour” inevitably end. Indeed, we could measure precisely the distance from that Neville Chamberlain’s quote to the barbed-wire fences of Auschwitz and Camp de Rivesaltes, to the manhunt of Kristallnacht, Vel d'Hiv, Jedwabne – it is but few handshakes, several signatures, a couple of looks the other way and one or two `small further steps' in the direction set by the political decision. In fact, that same short and slippery path towards the abyss of bestiality had been traversed by Western intellectuals before – it had led to the evil silence and the heinous negation at the times of the (Soviet) state-ordered great
famine in Ukraine – the Holodomor, and the brutal deportation of the Crimean Tatars – the Surgun. Apparently, the lesson has not been learnt – while Putin and his cronies continue disrupting even the oldest and best-protected democracies and demolishing the young and vulnerable ones, while they fund or carry out directly political and military operations that violate the sovereignty of European countries, and murder those they consider inconvenient (e.g., using chemical weapons on the UK soil), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe twists its rules so as to allow the readmission of the sanctioned Russian delegation.
Shame on you, Delegates! For this here theatrical spectacle of mock democracy in which you join, in full awareness of the fact and its ramifications, with the representatives of the terrorist Russian state, ruled by the former KGB officer, Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Putin.
Shame on you, Western Europe! For your disdainful disregard for the unanimous stance of the representatives of the Central and Eastern European region, with its still vivid historical memory of the barbaric Russian oppression and ample fresh experience of the barbaric Russian hybrid foreign policy and hybrid war, fueled by the sick ideology of Ilyin, Dugin and Surkov. Shame on you, Western European advocates of rapprochement with the Kremlin régime, for your permanent indifference to the victims of the Russian hatred and aggression in the East!
Whoever does not condemn – acquiesces, as Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, the co-founder of the Council to Aid Jews in the German-occupied Poland, poignantly noted over 75 years ago.
Shame on you, European political leaders! For your delusions of grandeur to which you dare to hold Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians, Georgians, Belorussians and Russians hostage – the prisoners of conscience, the occupied, the displaced, the impoverished, the humiliated, the orphaned, the killed. For your abominable holidays with Putin, Monsieur Macron, through which you have deprived yourself of the right to lecture the representatives of national parliaments and – above all else – the Citizens of Europe on human dignity, democracy, human rights and similar `commodities' that you traded at le Fort de Brégançon.
Shame on you, Western Europe! For this here new chapter of your policy of appeasement of dictators, with a long tradition and dramatic hitherto consequences, reminding us sadly of the tragically mistaken Western policy of appeasement with regard to the rising totalitarian régimes of the previous century: Hitler's nazi Germany and its often-forgotten partner – Stalin's bolshevik Russia and Soviet Union whose fall has been so movingly declared by Lieutenant Colonel Putin as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the XXth century – these are words of the head of the state that puts itself in the rôle of a proud successor of the Soviet Union, that is of the state that bears direct responsibility for the attrocities of the Holodomor, of the invasion – hand in hand with Hitler – on a number of Eastern, Central and Northern European countries, of the Surgun, of the Gulag, of the almost fifty years of a cultural devastation and
civil repressions against the societies of the region. The previous rounds of your cooly calculated Realpolitik towards Hitler and Stalin cost humanity over 70 million lives, an unimaginable suffering and a cultural devastation of unprecedented proportions. And yet today you have the audacity to appease, discuss, celebrate and trade – yes, trade! – with Putin while our Sisters and Brothers in Ukraine – in Crimea and Donbas – fight an unequal fight for what you ought to stand for.
You trade - they fight, they suffer, they die!
For those who advocate – whether out of historical illiteracy, cynicism or infantile naïvté – appeasement of (aka normalisation
of multilateral relations with) the Russian terrorist state nowadays, we have the apparently long-forgotten words of George
Orwell that sadly have not lost any of their validity over the years: Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don't imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet regime, or any other regime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.
We, the free Citizens of Europe, urge you to find in your minds and hearts the decency and courage to stand up to the Kremlin rashism, a system directly responsible for
– death of thousands of people and displacement of millions;
– kidnapping, encarceration, torture and other forms of repressions against individuals and groups on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, as well as civil and political convictions and activity;
– waging deadly and materially devastating wars against as well as creating frozen conflicts within the neighbouring countries, carrying out lawless and brutal Anschlüsse of foreign territories, which results in deaths, forced displacement and a vast infringement of fundamental freedoms;
– inducing ethnic and religious antagonisms, hate crime and open physical aggression;
– supporting financially, logistically and ideologically organised groups of integral nationalists,
neofascists and – not unrelatedly – religious fundamentalists who seek to actively weaken and ultimately destroy the European model of a modern society, based on reason, knowledge, respect for the individual's autonomy and his or her dignity, on openness and appreciation for diversity – that is, on the true idea of democracy sensu largo;
– instigation of and active participation in the observed demolition of Western democracies
through installation of pro-authoritarian régimes and destructive propagandist activity.
Europe is currently visibly weak with the weakness of its political representation. But Europe never ceased to be strong with the strength of its Citizens, culturally, historically and geopolitically aware, caring for one another and for those in need. And radically attached to Reason, Dignity and Freedom - that’s why we are here to protest and to shout as loud as we can, while there is still time for counteraction, in support of Human Rights!
This is Europe, not a bazaar!
The Kremlin rashists shall not pass!
¡No pasarán!
#LiberateCrimea
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