“We must finally look deeper into such crises again”

“There should be no call for a blanket renunciation of the use of military force in the case of genocide,” emphasized Frieder Otto Wolf, President of the Humanist Association of Germany, in Berlin on Monday evening with regard to the political controversies surrounding military intervention in Syria, which is shaken by an ongoing civil war. He emphasized that lawful interventions require a mandate from the United Nations Security Council. “The use of poison gas is a heinous crime that should leave no one untouched,” continued Frieder Otto Wolf. Those responsible for the obvious use of poison gas in Syria must be brought to trial at the International Criminal Court. In view of recent history and existing institutions for just sanctions, a forgotten massacre must not be allowed to happen again. Wolf: “I am deeply saddened by the many human lives that have already been wasted in Syria. I do not believe that only one of these many so-called victims was necessary and I am convinced that not a single human being should simply be called a victim in the future either. We should set limits to any religious and mythical interpretation of the loss of human life if we want to see things clearly.” At the same time, with reference to the media staging of the civil war in Syria, which has now also come to a head from an international perspective, he reminded us that several hundred thousand people have died on the neighboring African continent in the last two and a half years due to insufficient nutrition. Wherever suffering and death are simply accepted, moral nihilism prevails, says Wolf: “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations after the terrible horrors of the Second World War actually makes no distinction between people in Syria, Africa or Europe.” All international political measures must be measured against this if they want to be judged in history as an authentic commitment to peace and the protection of human rights: “I welcome calls that are now committed to opposing premature military interventions and mobilizing against armed solutions,” said Frieder Otto Wolf. “But even here, it is not enough to prevent escalations if the fundamental mechanisms and structures of the conflicts are not openly and impartially taken into the focus of sustainable attempts to find solutions.” Finally, he emphasized that people are capable of lasting peace and solidarity. The majority of social and public reflection should therefore be invested in how this ability can actually be developed, especially in view of the conflicts in Syria. “We must finally look deeper into such crises again,” said Frieder Otto Wolf. “Then we can see what we can really contribute to the goal of enabling the vast majority of humanity interested in peace to create and maintain the necessary civilizational foundation in which neither UN Security Council mandates for the use of military force are necessary nor people are reduced to mere victims.”