The brutality and aggression of the most dominant geopolitical powers these days is disheartening and frigthening. This is why it is more important than ever to reflect on the great complexity and depth of human power.
We know that human power is brutal. As Europeans, we all have memories of the Second World War passed down from parents or grandparents. Memories of a violent, loud kind of power that kills and destroys, evolving through time from class divides, economic struggles, and the decline and rise of nation-states.
I have my own memories that I feel very present these days. When writing my last book, I spent some time digging into these recollections. In truth they are not my own, but passed down to me by people like my grandmother Tove Rasmussen. She told me that in the late morning of the 9th of April 1940 she was on the tram when discovering that the country had been invaded and was now occupied. A few hours earlier, German soldiers had entered from the coastline at the Copenhagen harbour. They were now in the streets, accompanied by the noise of military tanks, motorcycles, army orchestras and 28 military planes sent to show off the superior military power of the Third Reich. There were only a few sporadic and poorly coordinated fire exchanges between German and Danish soldiers on Bredgade, among others, the street where the tram ran, and then the Danish state capitulated just a few hours into the morning. I have this memory of my young grandmother riding through Copenhagen crying inside one of the small tramcars in the old tram system above the ground, as she told me. Passing through Kgs. Nytorv, where Hotel D’Angleterre had been turned into Nazi headquarters, and a flag with a swastika was raised side by side with the Danish flag.
Indeed, brutality and dominance are key characteristics of human power. And even if you are so lucky not to be directly affected by the sound of bombs or the fear of persecution as many people are right now, memories like these are suddenly very vivid. But please remember that human power is double-edged. We must insist on not confusing our human potential with the aggressive and oppressive use of power by the few. Because if we focus exclusively on the explosive and loud power of a few people, we overlook the enormous potential that humans have to also create change and reach each other.
Human power is a memory, and it is love. A memory that becomes a condition. A love that is best expressed in the active engagement with other human beings. The philosopher Hannah Arendt, who lived through the Second World War, argued that strength and dominance are not power. Rather, humanity’s greatest potential, our power, she said, is a human creative limitless force that is best expressed in “undisturbed” human collective action.
The time has come to really utilize this unlimited human power to stand against and unite against brutality and domination.
Please
Join together – Understand the current historical moment together with other human beings.
Remember – Do not rely on the stored computer memory, passed down by a machine that cannot actually remember or recall. Use your own memories, passed down through generations of human bodies.
Write – Don’t just “prompt”. Don’t deskill yourself. Upskill yourself.
See – Use your eyes to see for yourself.
Love – Create true loving diplomacy – not the bullying methods of brute force. As we have done so many times before in history.
International human rights are the best example of true loving diplomacy in practice. The drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights between 1947-1948 was a loving exercise in cross-cultural understanding. People from eight different nations worked together to create a common value-based basis for future international engagements. They worked together through active engagement with each other, real attempts to “see” and understand their different cultural perspectives on the inherent value and dignity of human life. This was a fundamental step towards international peaceful engagement in years to come.
U.S. first lady Eleanor Roosevelt later described the process in her memoirs. No cameras. No attacks. No bullying and coercion:
“As we settled down over the teacups, one of them made a remark with philosophical implications, and a heated discussion ensued. Dr. Chang was a pluralist and held forth in charming fashion on the proposition that there is more than one kind of ultimate reality. The Declaration, he said, should reflect more than simply Western ideas and Dr. Humphrey would have to be eclectic in his approach.
His remark, though addressed to Dr. Humphrey, was really directed at Dr. Malik, from whom it drew a prompt retort as he expounded at some length the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Dr. Humphrey
joined enthusiastically in the discussion, and I remember that at one point Dr. Chang suggested that the Secretariat might well spend a few months studying the fundamentals of Confucianism!”
This historical depiction is the perfect image of what we need today and what I see playing out in the EU right now where fortunately it seems that old ties with the UK are being mended. Today I am grateful for being European.
“… if love is a human power that enables humans to connect with other human beings, our planet and nature, we can also think of love as a different kind of agency. We can, and I want you to join me in this, think of love as a different foundation for our politics. Make love not war…”
