Fwd: Resisting All Wars in Ukraine and Everywhere Else

[Yurii Sheliazhenko]

Спротив всім війнам, в Україні та повсюди

Пацифістський опір – це спротив усім війнам як одній з найпотворніших форм людської поведінки. Це опір культу славних воїнів, сліпій вірі в міфічні дива, досягнуті насильством та погрозами насильства, одержимості нарощуванням армій, веденням війн, мобілізацією для війн, гонкою озброєнь та військовими союзами, страхом і ненавистю до певних націй, незграбними виправдовуваннями масових убивств та порожніми надіями на те, що війна якимось чином може принести мир. У своїй лекції для словенського фестивалю Grounded 2025 Юрій Шеляженко розповідає про квакерське мирне свідчення і звертає увагу на негідні спроби прийняти війну як нормальну частину повсякденного життя назавжди, спроби підтримувати війну, нав'язувати її іншим та боротися з тими, хто не підтримує війну, ніби вони вороги чи симпатики ворога. Він стверджує, що сучасна світова політико-економічна система допустила російську агресію, і тому цю систему потрібно змінити.

Лінки на відео та текст англійською дивіться нижче.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
Від: Yurii Sheliazhenko <shely...@gmail.com>
Date: вт, 26 серп. 2025, 14:27
Subject: Resisting All Wars in Ukraine and Everywhere Else
To: EMES Peace and Service Network <emes-peace-and-se...@fwccemes.org>

Resisting All Wars in Ukraine and Everywhere Else

By Yurii Sheliazhenko, PhD, director of the Institute of Peace and Law (Kyiv, Ukraine) – for the Grounded festival, August 24, 2025

Video: https://youtu.be/zZWwqyjyrNU

Text: https://worldbeyondwar.org/resisting-all-wars-in-ukraine-and-everywhere-else/

Description:

Pacifist resistance is resistance to all wars as one of the most ugly forms of human behavior. It is a resistance to a cult of glorious warriors, blind faith in mythical miracles achieved by violence and threats of violence, obsession with build-up of armies, waging wars, mobilization for wars, arms race and military alliances, fear and hate to certain nations, awkward apologies of mass killing and empty hopes that war somehow might bring peace.In his talk Yurii will draw attention to attempts to embrace war as a normal part of everyday life forever, attempts to support war, to impose it on others and fight those who don’t support the war as if they are enemies or enemy sympathizers. He will argue that current world system allowed Russian aggression, and it needs to be changed.

Selected quotes:

"United Nations and Council of Europe’s human rights commissioners reported detentions and tortures of conscientious objectors in attempts to force them to change their beliefs. The European Bureau for Conscientious Objection (EBCO) published an annual report which calls to release all prisoners of conscience in Ukraine, including those detained on Russia-occupied territories and those who suffered abuses because of harsh military mobilization for Ukrainian defensive war against Russian aggression. The report outlines 15 names of conscientious objectors detained in prisons and military units, all of them Christian pacifists, some served alternative service before, that are deprived of liberty for their faith and must be immediately released by Ukrainian government. I reported this in the Free Civilians media outlet and sent letters calling to release prisoners of conscience. Official responses received from authorities indicate no willing to release them. Prosecutorial offices wrote that the prisoners of conscience were, in their view, duly sentenced. Parliamentary committee wrote that conscientious objection is a crime of draft evasion. Parliamentary commissioner for human rights wrote conscientious objection is a threat to national security. The DESS, regulator of religion and minority affairs, wrote that the draft law on alternative service in wartime is not ready yet; their “interdepartmental working group” created in 2024 didn’t produced any changes in legislation necessary to provide alternative service during the war. Three complaints of conscientious objectors are stuck in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine that is reluctant to implement recent recommendations of the Venice Commission to recognize a right to conscientious objection, and the Supreme Court is reluctant to change its opinion that pacifism is a crime because of the army’s pressure."

"I belong to the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers, who are determined, in the words of founder of our church George Fox, “to walk cheerfully around the world answering that of God in everyone”. I cannot kill a person who, even if behaves badly, still has this sacred light within, that might overcome darkness of evil behavior in any moment. History knows many stories of great sinners repented. I take seriously the commandment “you should not kill” and new covenant of love invoked by Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. I perceive this covenant not as exclusive connection between the Lord and believers, but as a universal value that makes all peoples united in diversity regardless of their religion or belief, nationality, gender, or any other identity. Being not only a Christian but also a scholar, I could discuss this covenant in secular terms because people of different views and traditions famously wrote in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that all humans are one family and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood... In our small religious community, Meeting of Friends of Ukraine, two Quakers suffered forced mobilization."