Speech by Gerardo Femina at the meeting in Prague on 11 January 2025 on the theme of nonviolent conflict resolution.
Good evening everyone and thank you for the invitation to this fantastic meeting.
I would like to talk about the issue of desertion, not in an exhaustive way, but only as a point of reflection.
The stimulus to address this topic came to me when I read an article about the 155th mechanized brigade ‘Anna of Kiev’ of the Ukrainian army. The training took place in France from September 2024. Already at the beginning, 50 soldiers decided to desert. Once they returned to Ukraine, 1,700 men deserted, more than a third of the entire brigade. However, the brigade was sent to the front in precarious conditions. The final balance sheet speaks of heavy human losses. It represents the failure of Macron’s warmongering policy and shows the cruelty with which people are sent to their deaths. However, the stimulus could also come from news of desertions, for example, in the Russian or Israeli army.
Then I reflected on the fact that the word ‘deserter’ is usually associated with something very negative, a very grave and profound betrayal. As if there is nothing worse in the world than being a deserter.
But on the other hand, it is also true that it is thanks to deserters that societies have progressed. One example: American deserters during the Vietnam War made an important contribution to the growth of the peace movement, which in turn put great pressure on the government to stop the war.
Then I remembered some statements by the Nazis.
General Göring: ‘The common people do not want war: not in Russia, not in England, not even in Germany. That is a fact. But, after all, it is the leaders who decide the policy of the various states and, whether democracies, fascist dictatorships, parliaments or communist dictatorships, it is always easy to drag the people along. Whether they have a voice or not, the people can always be subjected to the will of the powerful. It is easy. Just tell them they are about to be attacked and accuse the pacifists of lacking patriotic spirit and wanting to expose their country to danger. It always works, in any country.
Hitler: ‘War is an expression of the will of the nation. Every citizen is obliged to fight to defend the fatherland’.
Goebbels: ‘Pacifists are the traitors of the nation’.
It is chilling to read these statements because, in other words, we have listened to them in Europe in recent years….
The deserter is considered a traitor to his homeland, conceived almost as a sacred, metaphysical entity to which he essentially belongs. Therefore, betraying one’s homeland is perceived as an act of great gravity, similar to betraying God or the gods. And that is why we feel morally obliged to defend and serve our homeland.
But the homeland is actually a historical and cultural invention, subject to change over time. For example, in 1990 a person born in Prague identified with the Czechoslovak homeland; a few years later, this identity became the Czech one. States change and the notion of belonging associated with that state also changes. So let’s remove this halo of sacredness around the concept of homeland!
As Göring explains, wars are orchestrated by a minority that uses the concept of homeland to manipulate and win the support of the population.
These manipulators impose their will with violence, but they also exploit a need we all have. As human beings we are not islands but deeply connected to each other and to a community. The need to belong is very important. Then, perhaps as humanity, we are in a position to develop a new concept of homeland, a homeland to which we really belong, the homeland of all humanity! And this belonging is essential, it does not depend on chance, on where and when we were born. Because we are human, regardless of where we were born and to which family we belong. Being French, Czech or Kenyan depends on when and where we were born, but this only refers to the ‘’body‘’. Important but not essential ‘’body‘’.
From this point of view, the real deserters are those who foment war, who do everything they can to increase their power over others, creating pain and suffering, because they betray the true and only homeland to which they truly belong.
Today we are immersed in a great militaristic propaganda. A group of Western oligarchs are losing power, failing in their plans and becoming more rabid by the day. They want to push society into what they call ‘total war’.
Thus, the deserter is the hero of these times; he is the one who opposes violence to save his own life and the lives of others, to defend his consciousness and to remain faithful to his true homeland.
This homeland does not deny different cultural identities; on the contrary, it thrives on the richness of diversity. This homeland is made up of all past, present and future generations. If the particular identities of a community or a nation originate in the past, in language, in traditions, this homeland, as humanity, originates in the future. It is a project driven by profound aspirations for peace, compassion, love and freedom. In short, what unites us in profundity is not what has been, but what we desire: a human world free of pain and suffering. And this project breaks through all the barriers and all the fences called State and Nation in which we are imprisoned.
This universal human nation, as Silo calls it, is already present as an intuition and aspiration in the consciousness of many people, especially the new generations, who show a sensitivity towards the world as a globality.
This aspiration is strengthened by all the activities carried out against all forms of violence and truly aimed at peace for all peoples.
I close with a question: What contribution do each one of us want to make to build a better humanity?
