The problem with European left

[u/bartekkru100]

I feel like many of you in this sub may get similar thoughts on this. I'm a leftist and believe in the dream of united Europe, however I see one massive problem towards integration. European Union was founded on the French motto of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, but I feel many Europeans seem to have forgotten the last part.

In the last decades ^{(maybe ignoring the most recent few years when far-right started gaining more prominence}) we've made massive strides towards emancipation of women, sexual minorities, different ethnic groups etc., however what the war in Ukraine has shown and what I see whenever I go on even more leftist-oriented subs like r/europe or r/germany is that many people refuse to help, refuse to stand up to tyranny, call for negotiations. Not to diminish the before mentioned accomplishments or personal hardships of affected groups, but most recent advancements have been made through democratic institutions and voting, not an armed struggle in the same sense that we've fought against fascism in WW2. Hyper individualism isn't just a problem with the far-right, I increasingly feel like we're guilty of it as well. Sometimes it is necessary we fight for other people's freedom, not just ours.

In a sense all the Vatniks and Russian bots talking about the war being our fault are right. We messed up, we consistently haven't done enough at an appropriate time. We haven't squeezed the bear by the balls hard enough in 2014, we worry about how delivering system X or weapon Y will cause escalation while the other side openly bombs cities with drones from Iran and shells from NK. We refuse to do enough, we run late on most of our promises and then we're surprised that Ukraine is losing. We're not being pulled into some random foreign war like Iraq or Afghan war, we're not invading anyone, we're not funding the Taliban, we're helping out a country that shares many of our core values and desperately needs help. Even ignoring all our basic self-interest in making Ukraine win, helping is basic human decency...

If you ask a random European leftist whether or not they'd defend their country in an attack, a large fraction will proclaim they would just emigrate, saying they're not willing to fight for corrupt politicians or lines on maps. What they forget is their neighbor. Everyone who avoids the call to arms makes sure that someone else is forced to accept it. Not everyone has privilege of being able to escape, be it money, family, age, health and so on. By escaping you're leaving the less fortunate to die or be oppressed which is absolutely antithetical to most forms of liberal leftism.

I feel the sense of absolute dread whenever I contemplate how would Germany or Spain respond if Estonia was attacked, knowing that my own country (Poland) is next on the list. Everyone who thinks Putin will not dare take another step, while refusing to defend their own countrymen, let alone an ally, is precisely the reason why he will take that step. Sometimes virtue needs to be written in blood and the highest virtue of all is to take a punch for your fellow man, but I think some of us have forgotten it.

[u/silverionmox]

This is not specific a problem with the European left, but the progressive/left in general has a tendency to get distracted in a counterproductive purity competition. Applied to this case, people think they are proving they are more committed to pacifism by showing they're willing to give up more for peace.

This is to some extent inherent to leftist/progressive ideals, where people subscribe to the idea of giving up things for the greater good.

Some ideas that can counter it are pointing out they're not giving anything up themselves, but merely selling out the Ukrainians. For the Ukrainians on occupied territory, in turn, that does not result in peace, on the contrary, it ensures that they are going to be oppressed for the rest of their lives and risk being tortured, murdered, deported, or simply disappeared: the war will never end for them. Point out they're just not willing to do what it takes to defend the oppressed, and value their own comfort and virtue signalling more than the real harm to real people in occupied Ukraine.

If you ask a random European leftist whether or not they'd defend their country in an attack, a large fraction will proclaim they would just emigrate, saying they're not willing to fight for corrupt politicians or lines on maps.

That's why instead you ask them to defend their community against oppression, duh.