Politicians pray for Europe
Not since Munich in 1938 has Europe been in such straights as now. Russia demands land from Ukraine to end the war. Sections of the population in the areas in question, (Donbas, Kherson and Zaporishzhia) are Russian speaking and practice Russian culture. There are 3.5 million Russian speakers living in Donbas. They make up a third of the population and are the result of migration of Russians seeking industrial jobs here when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. "The Soviet Union developed the Donbas into an industrial area that set the pace of Soviet industrialization," says Markian Dobczansky at Harvard University.
So, Putin says they need to be part of Russia. Hitler used the same argument when the British Prime Minister Nevil Chamberlain met with him in Munich in September 1938: The people in Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia are German, so their area needs to be included in Germany. Chamberlain agreed and thought he had secured “peace in our time.” A year later Hitler´s troops crossed the border into Poland in search of more land, and the Second World War was on.
This analogy is not lost on European politicians. The EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said recently that “If we walk into this trap that we are putting pressure on Ukraine…then we will see this again, because aggression will pay off,” (Anadolu Agency). The same agency is quoting the Finnish Foreign Minister as saying: If, in negotiations, part of Ukrainian territory or elements of its sovereignty were to be sacrificed, we would not solve the fundamental problem but potentially deepen Russia´s aggression.”
The American peace proposal currently being negotiated is precisely that: Peace will come if Ukraine gives up territory to Russia.
This is the backdrop for the 28th European Prayer Breakfast at the European Commission in Brussels on 2-3 December. Hosted by members of the European Parliament, politicians and participants from other European institutions are meeting for prayer and fellowship. Even though this annual event is not a political discussion, but a time of fellowship, I assume that the current war in Ukraine will be on everybody´s mind, as these people seek the Lord.
Prayer has been central before crucial European events earlier also. Robert Schuman, the French Foreign Minister, wanted to treat the defeated Germans different in 1945 than they were treated in 1918. Then the victorious powers humiliated Germany with their demands. This gave Hitler the platform on which he spoke of revenge and restoration of German power an honor.
As a Christian, Schuman wanted to extent a hand of reconciliation to the defeated neighbor. Together with the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, also a committed Christian, and the Prime Minister of Italy Alcide de Casperi, these Christian politicians met in secret at the German monastery Maria Laarch on the river Rhine in 1951 for prayer and fellowship. The question was; how do we prevent the two main European powers, who had started two devastating wars in the recent past, from doing it again? Coal and steel would be the key to prosperity in postwar Europe and was also the fundamentals if one were to start another war.
So, in the hallowed halls of the Benedictine monastery, the idea of a European Coal and Steel Union was discussed and prayer over. The winners and the losers of the war joined forces and could raise the new Europe from the ashes of the most devastating war the world had ever seen. The idea of a common future caught on and developed into the European Common Market and later to the European Union, now with 27 member states.
A war between France and Germany is now unthinkable, but in Eastern Europe Russia is waging war on innocent civilians and demanding that they become Russians.
Again, Christian European politicians turn to the Lord of Peace for guidance and ideas.
ENDS/
