Most of the two-day seminar was dedicated to conflict resolution and the TRANSCEND method, using the book 50 Years: 100 Peace & Conflict Perspectives (TRANSCEND University Press, 2008).

Peace Service is No. 2 of those perspectives (No. 1, as one may guess, is peace research).  Permit me to quote:

“With military service came conscientious objection to that service.For objection to prevail over the duty to the state the reason would have to be rooted above the state, like in God, in a super-state like the UN, or in Reason itself. For the duty to be compelling the reasoning would have to be made public, like in applications for COstatus in some countries.  And the reasoning would have to be universalizable (Kant), applicable to all on the same situation.  If compelling and universalizable to most, then in a democracy conscription is dead.”

Let us look backward, recovering a narrative well known to those of uswho have lived parts of it, less known to others.

Phase 1:  Obligatory military service means exactly that.  The alternative is death by execution as traitor to the national cause and/or as deserter/coward.  A non-man.  The milder version would be social death, expulsion, loss of citizen rights.

Phase 2:  Objection is criminalized, handed over to civilian courts,and the punishment is imprisonment in times of war and in times of peace.  Repeated objection is seen as recidivism and the reaction is repeated imprisonment.

Phase 3:  The absurdity of Phase 2 becomes increasingly clear to increasingly many and stimulates a search for transfer to an alternative service for those who felt Thou shalt not kill as generally valid, not only an in-group morality, like as non-combatant in the armed forces (like ambulance service, keeping the risks at about the same level as for the combatants).

Phase 4:  However, it soon becomes clear that the objection for most was not only to the combatant role where they might have to kill, but to the military institution as such.  The conscience testing remained. The search for an alternative service was on, if not with the same risks as military service at least with the same costs: away from normal civilian life in the family, at school, at work, heavy like logging and drainage of swamps, or menial social work, and 1.X longer duration that military service; X to be debated and adjusted.

Phase 5: The absurdity of phase 4 became obvious.  More and more objectors requested peace service, were willing to refuse non-peace alternative service and to suffer imprisonment for that second order objection.  The content changed, like toward research assistance in peace research institutes and development service abroad, similar to the (a misnomer) Peace Corps.

And that is about where we are today.  So, let us now look forward and extend the narrative into the future:

Phase 6:  The peace service becomes ever more attractive, not as an act of omission (non-killing), but to accommodate countless acts of commission: peace-building between parties in conflict, nonviolent inter-positioning, mediation, conciliation. With the opening of military service to young women comes peace service for young women. The whole service may not always do that much good, but at the very least it does no harm.

Phase 7:  The absurdity of war and the military becomes ever more clear to ever more people.  At the very least those who choose the military option will have to have good reasons for killing, maiming and destroying.  Justification for joining the military will have to be rooted in higher purposes and be presented publicly for a commission. “I enjoy killing” is for individual benefit, and so is “killing an Iraqi for Green Card,” “killing two Iraqis for college education.” They learn correct answers: kill Iraqis-Afghans for freedom-democracy-human rights.

Phase 8:  The German word Gewissen means conscience, the word Wissen means knowledge.  Gradually the commission testing the would-be soldiers includes actions and their consequences, good intentions being insufficient.  Please tell us in detail about the consequences of the last wars – – -, but also of the last non-resistances, including non-nonviolencies.

Phase 9:  War service looks more and more dubious.  To deter people from choosing that option they have to serve 1.Y peace service, now X+Y more than the original military service.

Phase 10:  War as a social institution no longer has democratic legitimacy, young men and women have voted with their choices. Majoritarian pro-military sentiment can be located in older niches of the population, say 65 and above. Fighting is made more compatible with more advanced age.

And with them war as a legitimate social institution follows slavery and colonialism to the garbage heap of history.  Resquiat in pacem. There will still be violence.  But not massive violence supported by massive legitimacy.