Russia’s army attacked Ukraine. There has been war in Europe for a few days – many had hoped that the pandemic would be overcome and that the time would be more carefree. What can encourage you now?
Berlin/Hanover – turning point, caesura, Putin’s war – these are words that are used to describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Well over 100,000 people took to the streets against the war in Berlin alone on Sunday. At peace rallies, many carried blue and yellow flags in solidarity with Ukraine.
“Russia, stop your monster!” was written on a poster in Hanover on Saturday. It shows a caricature of President Vladimir Putin, who pointed out Russia’s nuclear power at the beginning of the war and most recently had the weapons of deterrence put on alert.
After two years of the pandemic and the long winter, many had hoped that spring and the relaxation of the corona virus would bring a more carefree life. But television and social media are bringing war into the living room in near real time. People in Ukraine are fighting for survival, men are going into armed struggle for their country and the preservation of democracy, women and children are fleeing across the border, Germany is supplying weapons.
Doctors: Acting in solidarity is required
What do the pictures of the war, which is only about a two-hour flight away, do to the people in Germany? Is the generation afraid of the future coming now?
“It is completely justified and understandable to be afraid now,” says Andreas Heinz, director of the clinic for psychiatry and psychotherapy at the Berlin Charité. Putin’s cold-blooded attack, the war on his own doorstep, also worries him personally, especially since the Cold War is still very present to him as an older man. “If fear is the drive to think about what to do, something productive can come of it,” said the doctor. Solidarity is now required in many areas.
Will there now be a wave of helpfulness like there was seven years ago when thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan came? Or are many now too busy with themselves and their own worries?
For many young people, mental stress and fears about the future have intensified during the pandemic. The “JuCo III” study by the Universities of Hildesheim and Frankfurt/Main provides indications of this. In December 2021, 54 percent fully agreed with the statement that they were particularly mentally stressed. A year earlier, this proportion was still 41 percent. 6,200 randomly selected 15- to 30-year-olds were surveyed online. Psychiatric clinics, health insurance companies and therapists are also reporting an increase in treatment cases.
The environmental activists of Fridays for Future put the threat to the planet on the agenda just before the pandemic. Global warming is already leading to catastrophes around the world, as people in the Ahr Valley and other places in West Germany experienced in a frightening way in July. For the last two years, we have also been confronted with the number of corona deaths in the statistics on a daily basis. And now a war in Europe.
“We woke up in a different world today,” said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock as a first reaction to the Russian attack. Baerbock is a protagonist in the new book by Berlin writer Nora Bossong. “The Supple Ones: My Generation and the New Seriousness of Life” is the title.
New dimension of threat?
“My generation grew up in a Europe that was largely certain of peace,” said the 40-year-old Bossong of the German Press Agency. The Kosovo war shook this peace at the end of the 1990s. “But the war aggression of Russia, a nuclear power and veto power in the UN Security Council, has an unprecedented dimension of threat. The supposed security that has characterized our lives up to now, at least in Germany, is being called into question.”
Bossong hopes that those who grew up in peace will now see it as their duty to show commitment and take responsibility. “In the best-case scenario, my generation can draw strength from the trust they learned early on in a world that is becoming more stable,” she says. “In the worst case, we don’t find any suitable options for action, withdraw into our private sphere, and perhaps fall into feelings of helplessness and powerlessness.”
The feeling of hopelessness can also arise when dealing with climate change. Katharina van Bronswijk from Psychologists for Future prefers to talk about climate emotions than climate fear. They included anger, outrage at inactive politicians and mourning processes, said the Hamburg psychologist. “It helps to talk to others, to act together and to find solutions to problems.” This applies to all crises and, since a few days, also in view of the war in Ukraine.
Youth researcher Simon Schnetzer also hopes that young people will become active: “Unlike the virus, the war is man-made,” said the author of the “Young Germans” study. He would like new formats in which young people from different countries mobilize from below against war.
The environmental activist Luisa Neubauer from Fridays for Future was one of the speakers at the big peace demo on Sunday in Berlin. “As a globally networked movement and generation, we see how the crises are connected,” the 25-year-old told dpa. “As long as our energy supply depends on coal, oil and gas from Russia, we will continue to finance the Putin system – and with it these wars.”
A consistent exit from coal, oil and gas and a radical, fair entry into renewable energies must follow from this war. Still hoping for improvement does not change things, said Neubauer. From the student’s point of view, people are increasingly recognizing this – and that’s why they are taking to the streets in such large numbers. dpa
