From Anne Applebaum's speech during her awarding of the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade on October 20, 2024 in Frankfurt, Germany.
Reference:
Anne Elizabeth Applebaum (English: Anne Elizabeth Applebaum; born July 25, 1964, Washington, D.C.) is an American journalist and author and publicist. She has written books and articles on the history of communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2004.
The Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is an annual international award for literary, scientific and artistic figures for their contribution to the development of peace and mutual understanding between peoples. It has been awarded since 1950.
Excerpts from Anne Applebaum's speech
(source: official website of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade)
• Let me remind you Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Although assaults of this kind have different names, the process is always the same: It means the imposition of arbitrary autocratic rule: a state without the rule of law, without guaranteed rights, without accountability, without checks and balances.
• At the same time, the invasion of Ukraine paved the way for harsher politics inside Russia itself. In the years after the Crimean invasion, opposition was repressed further, independent institutions were completely banned.
• But what about us? What about all of us in the rest of Europe - what should we do? Our voices are not restrained or restricted. We are not jailed or poisoned for speaking our minds. How should we react to the revival of a form of government we thought had disappeared from this continent forever?
• Ukraine needs to be supported with arms to achieve a military defeat of Russia. Because if there is even a small chance that a military defeat of Russia can help end this terrible culture of violence, as military defeat once ended the culture of violence in Germany, we should take advantage of it.
• At the start of Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, aid and support quickly turned into action, whereas now, “faced with the greatest challenge to our values and our interests in our time, the democratic world is starting to wobble. Many wish the fighting would somehow, magically, stop.
• Some call for peace by solemnly invoking the “lessons of German history”. Since I am here today accepting a peace prize, (it) seems to me an appropriate moment to point out: the phrase “I want peace” is not always a moral argument.
• Taking pacifism to its logical conclusion will mean that we must agree to the military conquest of Ukraine, to the cultural destruction of Ukraine, to the building of concentration camps in Ukraine, to the abduction of children in Ukraine.
• Those who advocate ‘pacifism,’ and those who would surrender not just territory but people, principles and ideals to Russia, have learned nothing from the history of the twentieth century at all. The true lesson of German history [is] not that Germans should never fight, but that Germans have a special responsibility to stand up and take risks for freedom.
• I urge Germans not to be people who condemn war or conflict in any form. On the contrary, we have known for almost a century that demanding pacifism in the face of a progressive aggressive dictatorship can simply mean appeasement and acceptance of that dictatorship.
• Do not let skepticism decline into nihilism. It is today that we must now affirm – and act upon – our shared belief that the future can be better, that the war can be won and that dictatorship can be defeated once again; our shared belief that freedom is possible, and that true peace is possible.
Anne Applebaum, October 20, 2024.
Cover photo: Anne Applebaum, by RFE/RL, source: Antikor
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