Men sacrifice themselves in battle, it’s again about the people and the nation. These are terms that no longer had anything to do with our lives, but which we now suddenly accept again. That’s understandable, but it’s confusing, says Gunnar Schupelius.
Women, children and old people from the Ukraine come to Berlin, but men between the ages of 18 and 60 do not. Husbands, boyfriends, fathers and brothers are missing. They are taken off the trains by the Ukrainian border guards and handed over from the cars and the military. President Zelenskyj ordered general mobilization.
Men are not allowed to flee, they have to fight even if they are not soldiers, women bring the children to safety. This is an archaic idea for us, but it is not further questioned and readily accepted.
There are some critical voices. “Men also have a right to run away,” wrote Juliane Frisse in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and asked: “Is only a fighting man a good man? How inhuman!” Gereon Asmuth called for an “appeal to the Ukrainian government to allow all conscientious objectors to leave the country immediately” in the “Tageszeitung” (taz).
In fact, it doesn’t fit with our thinking that you keep men captive in your own country just because they’re men. Our attitude to life doesn’t go with the fight. We haven’t known of any major conflicts that affect us personally for a long time.
From year to year we acted more and more progressive, international, we lived completely globalized, individually, with less and less commitment. Everyone should be at home everywhere, borders were no longer important, homeland and nation certainly not. The simple question “Where are you from” was already considered discriminatory.
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Everyone should be able to live where they want, not be obliged to anyone, not even to any state. Everyone should shape their life without any restrictions, also determine their gender themselves, we believed in that.
But now suddenly everything is different. In Ukraine, which we are showing our support with waving flags, gender is by no means selectable, it is a matter of life and death. We actually expect men to sacrifice themselves.
Now only the fatherland counts, or even ethnicity, a word that we no longer use. Here is an example: A German-Iranian from Kyiv reports that he was allowed to leave the country with his family, while the man behind them was taken away because he had a Ukrainian passport.
Suddenly it’s all about national affiliation, also when dealing with the Russians, when we ask them to publicly declare themselves politically or when they are suddenly no longer allowed to perform as athletes or musicians – just because they are Russians. We no longer regard them as individuals in international life, but only as members of their people.
We are quickly breaking with the norms that we were so proud of only yesterday. War may require it. And yet I feel uneasy. If we shed beliefs so quickly, what’s next?
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