This year on the 22nd of March, the Bolivian Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal (PCT) rejected the right of conscientious objection as an alternative to its obligatory military service. This has occurred in spite of the generally agreed-upon...
From children's shows to national war drills, a discussion on militarism in Israeli society and gender equality in the army.
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On Wednesday, June 22nd, Israel held the largest war exercise in its history. The Real News' Lia Tarachansky interviewed Rela Mazali, the founder of New Profile, an organization working to demilitarize Israeli society, and Alex Cohn, a war resister who served five months for objecting to serve in the army. Cohn analyses a children's show that portrays a typical interaction between soldiers and Israeli children as part
Police fired tear gas Wednesday to disperse youths rioting in central Mozambique after reports of forced conscription as the military battles a revived rebel group, a rights group and residents said.
Security forces clashed with protesters in central city Beira, according to the Human Rights League (LDH).
"There is a revolt on the part of the population. The police have been using tear gas," LDH representative Helder Jafar told AFP.
There were "many injuries and arrests", he added.
Residents confirmed police fired tear gas in several outlying neighbourhoods of Beira while protesters threw stones at a police station.
"There are barricades in the streets and cars are being burnt," said Stella Santos, who lives in Manga, one of the affected Beira neighbourhoods.
"They say they (the military) are conscripting the young people," she told AFP.
A study by the Mozambican youth organisation Parlamento Juvenil found that young people in the country see conscription as a waste of time. The study also recommended professionalising the country's military, and making military service voluntary.
According to the military service law, conscription in Mozambique is obligatory for men and women between 18 and 35 years, and military service lasts for two years.
All citizen from age 19 on need to have a military service card, which shows that a person complied with his or her military service obligations, and without this card it is not possible to obtain a driving licence or to gain access to higher education.
Image: In this ad, LG is announcing a special promotion wherein soldiers are invited to a shopping mall where LG representatives will do their laundry for them, so as to, quote "Take the load off of mom".This ad is invoking the role of mothers as supporters in order to align their product with the war effort.
Ad by Yarkoni, 2010
Recently I received a petition, created by a group of 40 mothers, stating very clearly, “We do not wish to hand our boys to the IOF” (Israeli Occupation Forces), and calling for social responsibility and the end of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. This document is uplifting1.
While the bombs fall on Gaza and the majority of Israeli society seems to support the continuance of the military attack on Gaza, we, as Israelis horrified by the actions of our government, find our voices lost. What can we say and do? What value might this have? How can our echoes have any impact on the situation now?
“A true Israeli doesn't dodge draft!” [1] – this slogan stands at the centre of a large-scale publicity campaign in Israel. The campaign was not run by the Israeli military, and it was not aiming to add more soldiers to the dwindling ranks of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Israel has (at least de jure) universal conscription, for both men and women. But this slogan did express, and strengthen, how most Israelis understand the role of military service in the life of an Israeli – a true Israeli.
The most recent manifestations of the conflict in Colombia date back to 1948, when the presidential candidate Jorge Eliecer Gaitán was assassinated, cutting off the possibility that socialist-leaning ideas might have a place of decision and power in the Colombian state.
When examining militarisation and young people in this country, we must necessarily look back and take into account the hundreds of years of militarism in the area's history: land occupations and violence by European colonists, construction of the 'national heroes' to motivate patriotism, legislation of obligatory military training, exponential military spending versus the social spending diet, introduction of of military training in civilian schools, and mutation of the armed forces according to the dominant economic model. All of these measures have targeted sectors of the population that are economically vulnerable but are also potentially quite strong in political terms: the boys and girls and young people of this country. The vulnerability of this sector of the population allows militarisation to settle in comfortably and then neutralize possible pockets of resistance.
New Profile, the feminist movement to civil-ize Israeli society, wrote Minister of Education, Gideon Saar, this morning, strongly condemning his recent instructions to prohibit its members' participation in high school debates convened by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) on questions of human rights and freedom of expression.
New Profile wrote the minister that his act had exposed the government's true stand on civil rights and freedom of expression, also belying the Education Ministry's professed respect for tolerance.
“The minister's step was taken in tandem with the decision he took to send yet more military personnel into schools—a move designed to increase enthusiasm for fighting,” New Profile advised in its letter.
WRI's new booklet, Countering Military Recruitment: Learning the lessons of counter-recruitment campaigns internationally, is out now. The booklet includes examples of campaigning against youth militarisation across different countries with the contribution of grassroot activists.