Timothy Garton Ash: "We must strengthen civil society for the day when the apprentice dictators come to power."

OxfordI arrive at the Centre for European Studies at St. Anthony's College, Oxford University, and am greeted by historian Timothy Garton Ash. Exactly one year ago, we met in the Ukrainian capital on a solidarity mission for writers, and today he greets me beneath a large banner of the Polish trade union Solidarność. That European meeting in Kiev in May of last year began with the presentation of the Ukrainian version of his book. Europe. A Personal Story (in Catalan to Ed. Arcadia). As soon as I met him, he told me that he had been with his colleagues from Lviv and Kiev again the previous week.

How have you seen the situation in Ukraine developing?

— For me, it's essential to visit often, because Ukraine is experiencing the greatest development in European history today. I've found Ukrainians grimly realistic about what awaits them. Outside of Ukraine, everyone talks about peace, about an end to the war. They know full well that the war will last a long time and that the key to Ukraine's future is receiving sufficient economic and military support from Europe, now that they can't expect it from the United States. This is the conclusion of my visit, apart from watching with fascination how war is becoming more and more a part of everyday life.

What connection exists between the Ukrainian population of cities like Lviv or Kiev and those resisting at the front?

— This is the problem. The writer Andrei Kurkov told me there are five Ukraines. First, there are the Ukrainians in the territories occupied by Russia, about five million people. Two, the internally displaced persons (IDPs), about four million. Three, the soldiers and veterans, who, although it's hard to believe, currently number more than three million. Four, the people who continue to live ordinary lives at home in the rest of the country. And five, the six or seven million who have gone abroad.

How are these realities communicated?

— The big problem will be the day the guns fall silent: the different Ukraines will clash with each other. The young men in the east of the country, who have been fighting for more than three years, will return home, if they still have them. They will return with their wives and children, if they still have them, because perhaps their wives and children are in Germany and have started a new life. The young men will return from the front, where they have been fighting heroically to save their country, and they will meet that smart guy who left Ukraine illegally, paying a little underhanded, who made money in Düsseldorf and now arrives driving a BMW and living the good life. The potential for social tensions the day after the war will be explosive. Maintaining the country's unity will be as much of a challenge as, if not greater than, the war itself. How can we maintain social cohesion? How can we prevent politics from becoming completely bitter, full of recriminations against one another? Even against the West, which causes them so much bitterness.

Is there any possibility of a cessation of hostilities that would allow Ukraine to breathe easy, knowing they've managed to stop Putin?

— In a broader European context, we had this opportunity in the fall of 2022. The Ukrainians were in the midst of a counteroffensive, having recaptured Kharkiv and large swathes of territory. If at that time the American administration, the Schölz government, and the rest of Europe had wanted to help them win, they probably would have recaptured much more territory. Then yes: there would have been a less ambiguous sense of victory. But now the Russians are very well entrenched. With this war, we have discovered that new technologies, especially drones, are even more beneficial to defense. As Clausewitz said: defense always has the advantage. With these new technologies, even more so. So, it will be difficult for the Ukrainians to recapture territory.

What alternatives exist?

— I've spent a lot of time talking to people, and I can confirm that it's not about territories: it's about homes, families and their livelihoods, your neighbors, the citizens of your country. When people in Western Europe so casually say that peace must be exchanged for territories, I would ask them: why don't you give your house to Vladimir Putin?

When we met a year ago in Kiev, I visited the exhibition Invisible force, on nonviolent resistance in the territories occupied by Russia. You could see the myriad ways they have of trying to convince the Russian occupiers that the Ukrainian population has not submitted.

— The suffering is unimaginable. It's brutal. Absolutely comparable, for example, to the Soviet occupation after World War II, even comparable in some respects to the German occupation. There's a danger we'll forget this.

The Human Rights Watch report on the relentless persecution of the Ukrainian and Tatar languages in occupied Crimea has received widespread attention in Catalonia: public harassment, bans from schools, torture of teachers, abuse of students who use their languages...

— We are witnessing a real attempt to erase a culture. It's not just political repression, it's Russification. Putin's intention is for these regions to become part of Russia for centuries to come. For Ukraine, the Tatars are primordial: they were the first inhabitants of Crimea. In my book, Europe. A personal story, I recount my meeting with Putin in 1994, when he told me that Crimea had always been Russian. No, it wasn't: the first Crimeans were Tatars, until Stalin deported them. And this is essential for the future as Ukrainians envision it, as they want to maintain the country's multicultural diversity. It's the difference with the Russian project.

How does the arrival of Donald Trump to the US presidency disrupt this situation?

— We are facing a completely new period in European history, which began on February 24, 2022. According to my analysis, what has finally woken Europeans up and made them get out of bed are four shocks. The Putin shock, the Orbán shock, the Xi shock, and the Trump shock. The Putin shock is obvious. The Orbán shock means we have a full-fledged EU member that is not a democracy and is siding with Putin in the war. The Xi Jinping shock means China, but also India, Turkey, Brazil, and South Africa: all those middle powers that also have no problem doing business with Russia despite it waging a neocolonial war in Ukraine. On top of these three shocks, we have been hit by the cruelest one, the Trump shock: the discovery that not only can Ukraine no longer trust Trump because he might switch sides, but that Europe itself can no longer rely on the United States as we have done for our security for the past 80 years.

Where does this change in the United States' direction come from?

— This is the long-term trend of the United States after the Cold War, when it thought Europe was too much of a burden for them and they should focus on nation-building at home, as Barack Obama did, or pivot to Asia. A trend that is multiplying with the arrival of the narcissistic, egomaniacal abuser Trump, who is putting the turbo on. The good news is that, for the United States, this is a danger; it will be a disaster. For us Europeans, it is a crisis but also an opportunity. Will we be able to defend ourselves, not only militarily, but also economically? Will we be able to do so in the digital space, democratically, combating disinformation? Will we be able to unite more closely to defend our values and interests? At the same time, it is an immense threat and an immense opportunity for Europe.

Will Europe know how to respond?

— For now, the forces of integration and disintegration seem more balanced than ever. We've had the largest response to COVID, the European Union's Next Generation funds, and now the growing European involvement in response to the war in Ukraine. We have Keith Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz, and Donald Tusk united in a single cry and traveling together to Kiev. All of this exists, and it's very good news. Everywhere I go in Europe, people say we need to seize this moment to make ourselves stronger.

And the forces of disintegration?

— Across Europe, we also have Vox, Chega, Reassemble National, Reform UK, AfD, Law and Justice in Poland, Robert Fico in Slovakia, and a nationalist far right that nearly won the presidential election in Romania. So, we have forces of disintegration.

When you heard the President of France proclaim that the benefits of peace had ended for the current generation of Europeans, what did you think?

— Who knows how long it will take for peace to return? My argument is that postwar Europe—in Tony Judt's sense—and post-Mur—the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall—ended, at the same time, on February 24, 2022. It's not just Europe that's suffering its worst war since 1945, but we're surrounded by wars. There's the war in Gaza and the one in Sudan. Plus the incredible tensions between two nuclear powers like India and Pakistan. A major war in Europe, then, and all the wars surrounding it.

Where will the impetus to move Europe forward come from?

— Two questions arise. First: will we Europeans be able to restore peace to our continent? It's about Ukraine's entry, and then about our ability to defend ourselves against a revenge-seeking Russia, because there, power will be vindictive for decades, beyond Putin. The second question isn't limited to asking whether we'll be able to find the funds for our defense budgets to reach 3.5% of GDP, or whether the electorates of Spain, Catalonia, and Portugal will accept it... No, we must ask ourselves whether we will find within ourselves the necessary fighting spirit summed up in the Ukrainian word. wanted to, which means both freedom and the will to fight to achieve it. I don't mean that we should now become militarists, passionate about marches in uniform, but that we must understand that defending peace means fighting to maintain it. Defending freedom is a constant struggle. This is the key point of this whole conversation: it's not a question of budgets, it's a spiritual question.

In your book, you recall that Havel said that the Maastricht Treaty was very well reasoned, but that what we needed was a spiritual defense of Europe.

— Exactly. You have vivid memories of the Franco dictatorship in Spain, when Europe was a spiritual cause, a passion intimately connected to the cause of freedom. It was the same in Central and Eastern Europe, and it is today in Ukraine. We must recover some of that spirit, something quite difficult on a continent where most people under 40 have only known a Europe of peace, prosperity, and freedom of movement.

What role can culture play?

— Liberalism has a big problem, which a friend of mine summarizes by saying that liberals don't sing. They have no music, no poetry, they don't appeal to the emotions. Even more so in the version of liberalism of the last forty years, which has been economistic, technocratic, and cold. The role of writers and artists could be to rediscover the poetry of Europe and connect the passion for Europe with the passion for freedom. Which is, of course, the history of 1848, the history of the Resistance, that of the oppositions during the fascist dictatorships in Spain, Portugal, and Greece, and of all of Eastern Europe during the communist dictatorships. It is also the history of Ukraine in the last 20 or 25 years.

What role can civil society play?

— The problem is that we often think of the history of Europe as the history of European states. However, we have a history full of peoples who, for long periods, have not had states. Catalans know what I'm talking about. The case I know best is that of Poland, which had no state for 120 years. The heart of the nation was, therefore, civil society, what in Polish they call "the spiritual government." This was true again under communism. In both Poland and Czechoslovakia, civil society was at the heart of the individual and collective struggle for freedom. That's why the massive demonstrations in defense of Ekrem İmamoglu—the detained mayor of Istanbul—in Erdogan's Turkey, the equally huge demonstrations in Orbán's Hungary around an opposition party, and the very impressive protests in Serbia, led by the president, are such good news.

In countries bordering Russia, such as Sweden, Finland, the Baltic states, and Poland, there is a keen awareness of the danger that goes beyond political decision-making. Civil society and its institutions in these countries are making preparations and having plans in place for war. In contrast, in some countries in the rest of Europe, awareness is much lower, and solidarity is languishing. How can this gap be bridged?

— First answer, pessimistic and realistic at the same time: as the Polish poet Antoni Slonimski said, nothing clarifies your ideas like two good blows to the head with a police baton. In other words, nothing can compare to personal experience. It's interesting that the countries you mention are in northeastern Europe. They are Poland and the Baltic States, but also Sweden and Finland, that is, countries with experience of the Russian Empire. The optimistic view, which I subscribe to because it is the optimism of the will, is that all this can be conveyed through words and images, with films, theater, through education... People can wake up and become aware of the danger even if they live 2,000 km away, on the other side of Europe.

Is it necessary, then, to hinder a pan-European discourse?

— Yes, but knowing that we will never have a single European audience, because we speak different languages. I am in favor of any pan-European initiative, but we must avoid the danger of it being only in English and at most one or two others. We must keep the conversation going in our own languages. That's why I dedicate so much time to maintaining an informal European network of newspapers. I know that The Guardian, in English, is probably the most widely read quality newspaper across Europe. Right now, my column has just appeared in the online version of the newspaper, and I know hundreds of thousands of people will read it. But it's essential that it also be published in Italian, Spanish, and also in Catalan in the ARA, and in French, German, and Danish... Our intellectual, emotional, and personal lives are lived in our own languages. Let's return, then, to the idea of the poetry of Europe: it's necessary to awaken passion, emotion, and experience in the hearts of a young person from the Iberian Peninsula, or Italy, or Ireland. These are places far from Ukraine. They also have their own dramas, like yours in the Iberian Peninsula. And in the Mediterranean, the drama of Maghreb immigration and the new Iron Curtain. It's necessary for the Baltic States, Poland, and Scandinavia to also be aware of this in order to identify with them.

In the face of new authoritarian powers, how can civil society and the press be protected?

— I know very well that Catalonia has a very active and vibrant civil society, because I have participated in various forums, such as those of the CCCB. Right now, it is crucial that we prepare. We must think about how to strengthen civil society everywhere, along with universities, the media, and publishers. We must strengthen other pluralist institutions such as the courts of justice, the audit courts, and the civil service. Let us prepare for the moment when authoritarians come to power. Look at the United States: in the universities, who stopped to think in advance about where the attack would come from? We must think everything through in advance. We have the experience of Orbán, of Law and Justice in Poland, and now of Trump... So let us strengthen civil society and all pluralist institutions for the day our apprentice dictators come to power. How will we do this then so that liberal democracy and civil society, pluralism, and the culture of tolerance can survive?