BüSo Address to the Neubrandenburg Easter Peace Rally

‘There Is a Lot To Do—Let’s Get On with It!’

by Klaus Fimmen

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The following is a translation from German of the April 1 keynote speech by Klaus Fimmen, Second Deputy Chairman of Germany’s BüSo political party (Civil Rights Movement Solidarity), given at the Neubrandenburg, Germany, Easter peace rally. The event, organized by the Friedensbündnis Neubrandenburg (Neubrandenburg Peace Alliance), was held in the main market square of the city and attended by about 400 people, according to official counts.

Dear friends of peace,

First of all, greetings from the Berlin Easter march, which on Saturday, under the motto “Warlike—Never Again!” brought 5–6,000 people onto the streets. I would also like to thank the Neubrandenburg Peace Alliance for inviting me here to express some thoughts on the highly dangerous situation.

I would like to say right at the beginning: we have never been so close to a world war and the possible self-destruction of humanity as we are today. However, we also have also never been so close to a New Just World Economic Order. The old order is coming to an end and a new world is emerging—the world of the BRICS-Plus and the countries of the Southern hemisphere.

Let us put a stop to the madness!

The proverb says, “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad!” Isn’t it madness when French President Macron wants to send ground troops to Ukraine? Isn’t it madness when German generals plan to deploy the Taurus against the Kerch Bridge? Or when the war-mongering agitators in the Bundestag want to deliver the Taurus and attack the Chancellor, who has so far remained steadfast on this issue and will hopefully continue to do so?

Whether Taurus or ground troops—both would make us a party to the war in Europe and a legitimate target for Russian counter-attacks—the threshold to the third and final world war would be crossed. Have these self-appointed experts, such as Hofreiter, Kiesewetter or Strack-Zimmermann, not understood that Russia has hypersonic weapons that NATO cannot match?

Why We Need To Understand Putin

At this time, we need more people who understand Putin [become “Putin-Versteher”—ed.]! Because President Putin has clearly defined Russia’s red lines, including the conditions under which Russia would use nuclear weapons: Firstly, if Russia were to be attacked with nuclear weapons and secondly, if Russia’s existence as a state were to be endangered. People who understand Putin are intelligent people! They not only hear the message; they also understand it—but that does not mean that they approve of everything they hear.

We also have to be neocon-understanders. These are the American neoconservatives who have been talking about the U.S.A. as the sole world power since 1991—the so-called Wolfowitz Doctrine. This says that no other state should be allowed to become stronger than the U.S.A., either economically or militarily. That is why, after sanctions and economic warfare, they are preparing for a possible war—first against Russia, then against China.

To this end, the “Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum” is being used, among other things, to split the Russian Federation into some 10 to 40 mini-states—powerless entities in which the West could then appropriate the wealth of raw materials there at will. This also includes the various color revolutions that have been instigated in the former Soviet space in recent decades. Well, these are all plans. But the reality now looks very different:

Russia is not economically weakened—on the contrary, it can boast economic growth that the “West” can only dream of. In terms of purchasing power parity, China is now economically stronger than the U.S.A. Together with the other BRICS-Plus countries, Russia and China now represent almost half of the world’s population—But more on that later.

More and more voices are now admitting that the war in Ukraine is already lost for Ukraine and thus implicitly for NATO, and that no new miracle weapons from the West can change that—not even the Taurus. (Even the generals admitted this in the wiretapped conversation.) The additional equipment can only increase the number of casualties on both sides of the front.

The Time To Negotiate
Is Now

It is a truism: every conflict ends with negotiations. It is high time for a negotiated peace. How many more opportunities are to pass? The Russian weapons campaign could have been prevented as recently as December 2021—if NATO had taken Russia’s security concerns seriously and started negotiations. It was rejected outright! Then, at the end of March/beginning of April 2022, when a peace agreement was roughly negotiated in Istanbul, Boris Johnson intervened to scupper it.

Who is going to rebuild Ukraine one day if an entire generation is burned out in a trench war? The Germans and French already experienced this in Verdun during the First World War.

So, let’s talk about humanity! If truth is the first to die in war, humanity is the second victim. Propaganda aims to do both: first demonize the enemy through exaggeration or outright lies in order to spread fear or even hatred among one’s own population. Then, it is believed, there is no longer any need to take international law or the law of war into consideration.

We are currently experiencing this in Israel’s destructive fury in the Gaza Strip. The International Court of Justice in The Hague therefore ruled at the end of January that there were “plausible grounds” for the risk of genocide against the Palestinians and called on Israel to take measures to protect the civilian population and ensure their supply of food, clean water, electricity and medical care. The UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, put it even more bluntly last week, because Israel has ignored everything, as well as all UN resolutions in the past.

Now more people in Gaza are at risk of dying from hunger and disease than from the war itself. There are over 100,000 victims, including at least 32,000 dead, about a third of them children. The fact that the U.S.A. and Germany are still supplying weapons to Israel is a scandal and has cost us the last remnants of our credibility in the world. As witnesses to these atrocities, we must keep a cool head and our humanity! Because this is the only way we can resolve the conflicts and achieve a just peace. But what does it mean to be human or humane? Certainly empathy with others—but there is more to it than that.

‘Creative Insight into the Laws of Nature’

Humans are the only species known to us that can willfully improve their own living conditions through reflection and creative insight into the laws of nature. Humanity also includes recognizing the human potential in others—even in enemies. After all, all diplomacy is ultimately based on this. This is what encouraged Rabin and Arafat to shake hands at Camp David in the early 1990s and subsequently to sign the Oslo Accords. The assassination of Rabin—by an Israeli, mind you, not a Palestinian—put an end to the peace process.

At that time, the BüSo and the international Schiller Institute presented a reconstruction plan for the entire Middle East region, which we called the “Oasis Plan.” Because it is about water—water that is not available in sufficient quantities and is therefore the number one object of dispute. The Oasis Plan envisages channeling salt water from the Mediterranean and the Red Sea in two canals into the Dead Sea, 3–400 meters below sea level. Desalination plants could then be built along the canals and enough fresh water could be produced for agriculture, industry and the population. In a word: greening the deserts. In addition, railroad connections and other infrastructure could be built—not only in Israel/Palestine but also in all neighboring countries. This would transform the entire region from a geopolitical powder keg to a hub between Africa, Asia and Europe.

With this plan, Israelis and Palestinians can be given a choice: Either you carry on as before and the killing will never stop, or you choose the Oasis Plan and then you and your descendants will have a future. “Sounds good, but it will never happen,” I can already hear some skeptics objecting. That’s what we were told in the 1990s and early 2000s with our plan for the World Land-Bridge or New Silk Road. And—thanks to China—it is a reality today. And that brings me to the positive outlook for the future.

My cautious optimism is fed by two facts:

The trans-Atlantic dollar-centered financial system is hopelessly bankrupt and neither the U.S. nor Europe have anything positive to offer the world. All they can do is war.

‘Epochal Shifts’ to Overcome Colonialism

With the BRICS-Plus countries, we are facing epochal shifts in power that mean overcoming geopolitics and colonialism. What began some 70 years ago with the Non-Aligned Movement and the spirit of Bandung is now being taken up again by the overwhelming majority of states, especially in the southern hemisphere. China has shown how 800 million people can be lifted out of poverty—this is an incentive for many countries to follow suit. This is why more than 150 countries and organizations are now working with China to implement the New Silk Road.

The breathtaking speed with which the “traffic light” coalition government [made up of the SPD, FDP and The Greens parties—ed.] is de-industrializing Germany—over 27,000 bankruptcies last year—will ultimately also make the envisioned war economy a failed project. Because how—I mean we don’t want this, of course—how can we make steel with solar energy? Where are the supplier industries if they all emigrate and no longer produce in Germany? Then the rearmament will only become more expensive, but ultimately only mean inflation. And this policy, which will then be financed with the population’s income, will lead to impoverishment here.

That is why now is not the time to wait and see. We must and we will raise our voices against war and the war economy and stand up for social justice. We will advocate the creation of a new international security architecture which takes equal account of the security interests of all states, large and small, and which is based on economic development.

If Germany is to have a future, we must work together with the BRICS-Plus and the other states of the Global South—for a new, just world economic order. This is the only way we can maintain productive jobs here. The positive role that Germany could play, with a sensible government, would mean keeping industry in the country and what we have been respected for in the world for many, many years: productive SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises], mechanical engineering—these are the hidden champions, some of which bring unique technologies to the global market and are therefore unrivaled. We must not gamble away this substance, because if it is lost, it will either not be rebuilt at all or it will definitely take a very, very long time.

And this is the only way we can regain the world’s trust. There is a lot to do. Let’s get on with it!