No pasarán: Spanish anti-fascist slogan takes on new significance in Ukraine crisis
When the anti-Putin activist Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of the Pussy Riot punk group, was tried for blasphemy in Moscow in 2012, she wore a T-shirt emblazoned with a defiant raised fist and the Spanish slogan “no pasarán”: they shall not pass.
The phrase is associated with the Spanish civil war, which Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has made terrifyingly relevant – especially as volunteer fighters from across the world gather to defend the country from his attack.
No pasarán became a slogan for the 35,000 volunteers of the International Brigades who travelled to Spain from more than 80 countries to defend its legal government from fascist-backed aggression. About 2,300 or more set out from Britain and Ireland. Another 2,800 left the US, forming the Abraham Lincoln Battalion – the first racially mixed US military unit led by a Black officer, Oliver Law.
The brigaders chose the right side of history. Both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini sent troops to fight alongside the violent rightwing reactionaries led by Spain’s future dictator, General Francisco Franco. Like Putin, they wanted to demolish democracy across Europe.
In Ukraine, the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, also wants a volunteer “foreign legion” to join the war. “This is the beginning of a war against Europe, against European structures, against democracy, against basic human rights, against a global order of law, rules and peaceful coexistence,” he said. “Anyone who wants to join the defence of Ukraine, Europe and the world can come.”
The bad news for Putin is that some are already on their way, abandoning cozy homes and loving families in North and South America, Europe and Asia to fight in a foreign field. Over the past few days, I have been talking to the Canadian paramedic Anthony Walker as he travels through Poland towards Ukraine. The 29-year-old from Toronto is in contact with dozens more people who are also travelling, including military veterans from Canada, the UK and the US.
He has left a “distraught” wife and three children behind and hopes to become an army paramedic. “I guess I’ll spend half my time healing people, and the other half shooting at people,” he told me as he stocked up on supplies at a Polish medical store.
Like many International Brigaders, Walker believes he will be protecting his own family back home from the global spread of Putin’s fascist-style violence if he is not stopped now...
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