Despite protests across Europe, there is still an element of confusion among protesters and the media

Mobilisation is developing in Europe to end the war in Ukraine. In London, Berlin, Brussels and elsewhere, demonstrations have been organised in favour of de-escalation and searching for a sustainable solution to the conflict. In Berlin, people demonstrated and gathered signatures against sending weapons.

On Sunday February 26, the Peace for Europe platform, which was set up last year shortly after the war started, and which brings together dozens of associations ranging from Christians to far left-wingers, including the two big workers’ unions, organised a demonstration in Brussels. DiEM25 in Belgium is part of the platform against escalation and for searching for a sustainable solution.

But another demonstration took place the day before, on Saturday February 25, in Brussels, in support of the Kiev government’s war effort and NATO – therefore, for the continuation of the war, although many participants did not understand this and only wanted to show their sympathy to the Ukrainians.

While the two big workers’ unions, members of our platform, were participating in Sunday’s demonstration, some of their leaders were marching in Saturday’s! The French-speaking Greens are in favour of continuing the war, but Flemish Greens joined us with their flag.

And this is not new: it was more or less already the case 30 years ago during the war in Yugoslavia. The media coverage of these demonstrations was totally confused.

While Belgian media gave mixed reports, a lot of media in France and even Canada only spoke of support for Kiev and NATO. From the English-language media, The Guardian and Al Jazeera English presented videos of total confusion.

In Belgium, French-language television and newspaper Le Soir published a long analysis of the “division of the left” or “the division of the pacifists”. They underlined the weak mobilisation: a few thousand people for each demonstration, whereas 40 years ago, it was hundreds of thousands of pacifists that took to the streets.

So we have a lot of work to do in order to remobilise people and to make ourselves heard, against the voice of those profiting from the war.

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