Hugo Estrella Tampieri (Argentina); International Humanist and Ethical Union
I can only refer to this subject departing from our particular experience in Latin America, and deriving to general principles from particular cases. Unfortunately it's not an irrational way to work it out, cause our societies carry the blue print of their national armies almost from the very beginning of their existence.
In Argentina, after decades of civil wars, the creation of a national Army, under the central control of the President was a token of national unity. And the creation of the modern military academy was a means for civilizing a country that had been torn apart by regional leaders ("caudillos") who battled for their existence as in Feudal times. The law establishing compulsory military service, was also a way to unite a nation otherwise dispersed geographically and socially. Military service was the complement of egalitarian laws for secular education, secular civil register and other ways to integrate both native population with immigrant masses. It was the final requisite to act as an equal citizen. A modern army for a modern country, used as a tool for integration and not as a belligerent institution.
Only with the raise of fascism, Argentine Military institutions received the influence of Prussian mindset. And with the crisis of 1930, the big change came. The first coup d'Etat on September 6, 1930 Constitutional order was broken, and the Army became a mix of aristocracy, anti-Communist front and political party. A tradition of professional soldiers, respecting popular will was abandoned, as the national independence regarding non-alignment with foreign countries. Argentina, that had established a position of egalitarianism in foreign affairs, questioning the Versailles Treaty or refusing US intervention in Central America, became a country occupied by its own armed forces. Torture, political imprisonment, repression of social protests, and a confusion with Roman Catholic Church's views were the new reality that lasted for over half a century. They were also the main cause of a disastrous outcome that ended in the invention of the figure of "Desaparecidos", economic destruction of the once fifth world's wealthiest country, and a war with Great Britain.
The latter was the Argentina I lived in my youth. Hundreds of boys of my age were killed in the unthinkable war of Malvinas Islands in 1982. The previous generation, the one of my parents, was burdened by exile, political persecution and death.
What was the chance for us, dissenters from such a mindset?
Humanist philosophers like Thoreau or Bertrand Russell had paved the way for our challenging of that system. If Thoreau understood that jail was the proper place for a free man under similar circumstances (After all, the state can only seize the body not the mind. If the consequence be prison, then "[t]he true place for a just man is also a prison,"), Russell clearly showed how this kind of repressive institutions work on people's minds.
For a Humanist there is basic alienation from military institutions. The basis of any military corps is the defense of a supra-human or non-human entity: the State. And the mean to defend a non-human entity is "naturally" destroying the enemy, who happens to be, no matter how ill defined by nationalistic propaganda, a bunch of Human beings. In the course of any conflict there are, of course, losses. But as usually God's on the side of the fighters (both, in general) they are not really dead, but ejected to God's and the Fatherland's glorious Pantheon of heroes. This can act as a consolation for brothers, parents, widows, fatherless children. But it's not quite convincing for Humanists.
So what we have in the end, according to a Humanist view, a group of human beings killing and being killed by other humans for the sake of non-human or non existing entities. Moreover, the uses of war imply the direct effect of making a nightmare of the lives of those who are not killed: destroying power plants, poisoning crops and fresh water resources, bombing civilian populations, etc.. Intolerable, but how to oppose? The label of antipatriotic, traitor, communist or fascist (according to where you stood regarding the Iron Curtain), queer, coward, anarchist, atheist, whatever the label used to diminish and equal the dissenter with the enemy. An enemy worse than the one beyond the border, cause this one was someone who, having lived the glories of our Nation, chose to stand "against" it during difficult times. This was the fate of Bertrand Russell during WWI, driving him to jail.
Back to my frame of references, (you can apply your own, I don't think there are basic differences) what entitled being a recruit or attending compulsory military service?
First, you were forced to abandon any sign of individual personality. You became a servant of the Fatherland (no State, no Government), and had to prove your submission to whoever was a part of its Most Glorious Institution (be it the Army, the Navy or the Air Force, according to the number you got from a sort of lottery performed every year). So, you were a servant of a Sergeant, or a Lieutenant. If you were lucky, or well connected, you might even be blessed by serving a Captain or a Lieutenant Colonel, driving their cars, bringing their children to school or helping at home. There are thousands of stories on how officers wives showed their gratitude to young soldiers, but we cannot believe everything that's said, especially in a strict Catholic environment. Cause belonging to the armed forces meant to be part of the religious pride of the corps. All of us had to show allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church. Many Jews, who were mistreated or Protestants, who were not precisely popular, had to take part of the daily religious ceremonies directed by Catholic chaplains. They gave moral strength to the Holy wars that took place. They identified the enemy, vilified and demonized it. They also eased the weak conscience of our officers in cases such as the "dead-flights", when political prisoners were dropped, unconscious, to the sea. Or blessing the kidnapping of children born from imprisoned mothers, eventually killed. Those children are still around, not knowing who they really are. Their grand parents are looking for them. With the help of science, and realizing many of them will pass away before finding their grand children, a DNA bank is being created to perform tests to those who having doubts, decide to find out who they really are.
This legacy equals those from every other modern conflict: former Yugoslavia displaced populations, ethnic cleansing in several countries, the ominous case of genocide in Rwanda. I believe that is not strange that whoever is forced to resign his/her personality for the sake of an institution, is not in a position of valuing much other's rights to their own personality. Inhuman behavior being tolerated and promoted as a part of military rules and a practice in warfare, will still be among us for the time we accept wars as a way of resolving dispute.
Therefore, the only way to achieve Humanism as a civilized allegiance to each other, is undoubtedly, resigning war.
Can we think of a war-free world? Can we achieve it?
A force in international relations leading to wars is fear. Fear of being deprived of or belongings, our freedoms, our life style, our families. What does war bring us in return? It deprives us (as member of the Human species) from our belongings cause they are destroyed or lessened by the taxes we have to pay for war to happen. We loose the freedom of movement, of speech or dissent under the threat of challenging the required "national unity" to stand in conflict. We have to modify our every day practices to reduce the chances of being attacked, we are forced to participate in support of those who are fighting, or those who are victims, but we are no longer able to live outside the rules of conflict. we are searched before boarding planes, our e-mails are certainly monitored. And in the worst case, we or our beloved ones are killed, injured, torn apart from what our little human complex used to be.
So, war takes from us what its supposed to defend for us. Its the most expensive way to become poor and miserable. But the most prestigious one.
The crime of attacking civilian populations, like New York City, Guernica, Hiroshima or Dresden cannot be justified. Nor can be justified the tactic of carpet-bombing, supporting bloody dictatorships or establishing blockades that result in deaths of hundreds of children. What can we do, instead?
First, following the beautiful as courageous words of Albert Camus, say NO. (I said Camus, read my lips, not Mrs. Reagan, please!) Rebel man is simply the one who says: no.
There's no need to be a gifted person to understand whatever is wrong. Especially when it entitles killing, destroying. But it takes a high level of courage to stand in the middle of the crowd, and say NO! No, I don't want to kill. No, I don't want to be killed. No, I don't want you to take my children away from me to be thrown into a damn battlefield. And as important: No, I won't pay for your expensive ways of playing with life and death.
We are a part of a society. there's a basic contract linking us. I resign part of my freedom, part of my income, part of my natural instincts to live with others. And I want and deserve something in return. For centuries this relation has evolved to ensure more and more personal rights, civil rights, human rights. It's been accepted that we have the right to live in a safer and healthier way, because it's better for all. It's been accepted that democracy is better than totalitarianism, and secularism is better than fundamentalism. And we pay a price for all this. Hospitals, schools, even jails are support at our expense. Judges' salaries ensure our rights to be respected. Or should be. If someone kills another, has to be put to jail, after a fair trial. But at the same time, with the same money we are putting our fate as species in the hands of a bunch of "leaders" who have the legal right to decide, in the blink of an eye's time, that all of us have to perish in pain and horror. I can't buy that!. But we all pay for it.
Humanists have taken stances against this situation. Several IHEU's resolutions call for the end of war, the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, the strengthening of UN. Even more, Three Humanist Manifestos have called upon the urgency of a new civilization, based on confidence and not in horror. In shared needs and challenges, instead of cannibalistic competition. Following the thinking lines of Russell, Emerson, Thoreau and many others, Humanists have challenged the criminal political systems such as Apartheid, and all kinds of wars and terrorism. They have all been bright words and actions from organized Humanism. Like when back in 1965 it was stated clearly:
(Humanism stands for:)"The right of every person to work that she or he considers to be meaningful. Humanists support programmes that encourage participation in the political and economic life of the community while at the same time defending the right to refuse to participate on grounds of conscientious objection. (Humanists) Have a duty to observe such laws that are or have been democratically established as well as to participate in the process of changing inadequate laws and rules through democratic procedures, employing civil disobedience as a last resort"
But they are not successful unless more and more actual humans decide to act according to such principles.
The movements against globalization are a token, a magnificent on, of what I mean. There is a need for global thinking. There is necessity of less nationalistic power, whether to attack others or to prevent international justice to happen, like the Pinochet case. And those cases which need to be globalized. Justice, equality, labor standards, environmental sound policies, Human Rights. That was the declared funding purpose of United nations. But UN have been put aside by other organizations, with different or even opposite goals: IMF, WTO, NATO. They are endangering UN to become a new League of nations. And we all know what happens next. Something's wrong, and young people are reacting to that. The more we study Political Science, the more we know we have to trust a younger generation when it makes the decision to stand for something. It happened to Suharto in Indonesia, to the blind communist system of the Czech republic, and now it's happening in Western Developed Countries.
A younger generation is saying NO!.
And no matter what the powerful from Earth want to do to force a division between good and evil; those who defend life, a clean environment and fair relations between rich and poor, are not on the evil side.
For generations and in all countries, education was used as a means for taking a child and make him or her a sort of recruit. An empty brain in which deposit values, love and hate for what the State decides, religion, sexism. In our view, following Bertrand Russell, that's not education. That's a lack of respect.
In the end, we need to be clear in refusing the diverse steps that during a person's life make her or him a blind servant, ready to kill and die for what they have not been able to understand. Offering in holocaust a precious and unique self they are not aware of being. Authoritarian education; social violence and inequality; armies, powerful organizations of "defense"; military-industrial lobbies; all steps on the line of building a uniformed killer.
We have the choice, and under certain circumstances of knowledge and commitment, the duty of opposing them. If we want to survive, of course.
To oppose them we have several ways. Humanists, as I quoted before, have signaled the democratic participation in changing laws. Or civil disobedience. Civil disobedience can be a stance of refusal to physically join an army, as conscience objector. This is a figure most EU countries have recognized. This is to be world wide spread, through the ratification of treaties providing it. But there is also the obligation of avoiding forced recruitment of those who, like so many children, are every day forced to become soldiers.
On the other hand, Humanists have also proposed the imposition of a special tax for weapons commerce. They said it several years before the idea, we support wholeheartedly of imposing the Tobin Tax. If Tobin Tax some day is established, most of the world's commerce of weapons will be unfolded. And in the meantime, we as concerned citizens, have the right to oppose paying taxes that are going to be used for military purposes. Quoting Thoreau: "Must the citizen even for a moment, or in the least degree resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think we should be men first and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate respect for the law, as much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right"
There is a basic principle of law, that says "Whoever can do the most, can do the least". According to this, if we can personally avoid participating in military activities, seasonably, we can refuse to pay taxes to be used in military purposes. But now I realize what can become a paradox: The legal motto says "the most" and "the least". According to our view, "the most" is the personal side. "The least", the financial one. I don't think a collector's mind would accept it without changing the terms...
Throughout this paper I have pointed out the assumption of individual responsibility. At some point I mentioned the Anti-global movement. To sum up, I would like to quote Willard Uphaus, who suffered imprisonment during Mac McCarthy times. He devoted his work Conscience and Disobedience to Thoreau, making a distinction between individual and social action I would like to finish this work with:
"Finally, at one point, I am not sure whether I understand Thoreau or enter into his experience. I believe with him, with my whole heart, in the power of the one, but I cannot follow, without question, his belief that "there is little virtue in the masses of men." How can I separate the one from the many? The ones are sometimes the projection of the unspoken hopes and consciences of the many. I cannot think of the one as a leader apart. Is he simply leading, or is he being thrust forward? I cannot speak of my own experience-the long years of legal struggle and the year of imprisonment-without becoming eloquent about the everlasting "we," knowing that any moral and political victory was won through the sacrifice and prayerful efforts of the many."
Thank you very much.