Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-10-22-Speech-3-444"
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"en.20081022.24.3-444"2
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"Madam President, this is a very special debate. As a political body, the European Parliament is asked to legislate and to provide executive decision-makers with political guidance for properly coping with the challenges, opportunities and dangers of our present times. In other words, we are history-builders and not historians. We are not asked to judge the past, but to build the present, and are supposed to be judged by the future.
Therefore, the Socialist Group reluctantly accepted to subscribe to a resolution which apparently aims to establish a historical truth about a tragic event that took place in Ukraine in the past.
We did that, however, because we understood that solidarity with the Ukrainian people and their sufferings could mobilise Ukrainians in their efforts to unite their country, to democratise it, modernise it and bring it inside its natural family which is the European Union. At the same time, we understood that if the tragedies and crimes of the past are forgotten, the danger of their being repeated is overwhelming. Historical condemnation of crimes cannot provide reparation for the victims thereof or their heirs, but it is moral compensation. Moreover, it is an intellectual and political guarantee against repetition of the crimes and resurrection of the bad instincts that lay at their origin.
By condemning old totalitarian crimes, we not only shame the criminals of the past, but also those who might think to apply the same criminal methods in the future. Awareness that impunity is impossible might very well stop them doing so.
We must proclaim today that there is no state rationale, no social objective and no ideological principle that can excuse a crime such as the Holodomor, the artificial famine which caused so much suffering for so many innocent people in a crazy attempt to destroy the moral dignity, national pride and biological existence of the great Ukrainian people.
At the same time, while condemning the crimes, expressing solidarity with the victims, and denouncing this attempt to destroy a whole people, we cannot put the blame for those crimes on another people.
The Holodomor was the product of a totalitarian political regime. All the peoples that were subject to that regime were victims of various similar crimes and hardships. The discussion today should not only remind us that we must always stay united against totalitarianism, but also that the present Ukrainian generation, on behalf and in the memory of the Holodomor victims, must eliminate from their country and their history all authoritarian instincts, inclinations and practices. They have to consolidate their national unity and accomplish together their democratic ideals.
Likewise, our expression of solidarity should inspire the Ukrainians to solidarity and reconciliation, both inside and outside their country. Inside, with their countrymen, who belong to different ethno-cultural groups, and outside with our neighbours.
That is one of the best ways in which they could become members of the European Union, and, if they choose to take that way, it means that our debate this evening has not been futile. EU membership for Ukraine would be the best historical reparation that the Ukrainians themselves can offer to the victims of Holodomor."@en1
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