I have in front of me the 120 members of the SwissZulassungs-kommision who decide whether a young man who refusesmilitary service should be accepted as conscientious objector and betransferred to Zivildienst, civil service.\u00a0 Criteria: is theirconscience, not necessarily religious, compelling, and is the youngman’s construction of reality, from inner conscience-intentions to theouter actions-consequences contradiction-free? \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Their work is nowcoming to an end: the Swiss parliament is about to operationalize theGesinnungs-Pr\u00fcfung, conscience-testing, down to a simple figure, 1.5:\u00a0is the young man willing to accept 50% longer service?\u00a0\u00a0 And – if thenew system works to the disfavor of recruitment to the army, does hetake even 1.8?<\/p>\n
Workshopthemes: what are the findings of peace studies, and what are theexperiences from peace work?\u00a0 So I present my conclusions: violence isin general a monument over unresolved conflict.\u00a0 Hence, [1] solve theconflict, nonviolently, with empathy and creativity and [2] have apurely defensive, non-provocative defense where people can choosebetween conventional military, militia and non-military defense, and weshould be in reasonably good shape.\u00a0 To do this be attentive not onlyto direct but also to structural and cultural violence, and not only tothe intentions behind warfare but to the consequences.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mostof the two-day seminar was dedicated to conflict resolution and theTRANSCEND method, using the book 50 Years: 100 Peace & ConflictPerspectives (TRANSCEND University Press, 2008 – seewww.transcend.org\/tup).<\/p>\n
PeaceService is No. 2 of those perspectives (No. 1, as one may guess, ispeace research).\u00a0 Permit me to quote:<\/p>\n
\u201cWith military service came conscientious objection to that service.For objection to prevail over the duty to the state the reason wouldhave to be rooted above the state, like in God, in a super-state likethe UN, or in Reason itself. For the duty to be compelling thereasoning would have to be made public, like in applications for COstatus in some countries.\u00a0 And the reasoning would have to beuniversalizable (Kant), applicable to all on the same situation.\u00a0 Ifcompelling and universalizable to most, then in a democracyconscription is dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Let us look backward, recovering a narrative well known to those of uswho have lived parts of it, less known to others.<\/p>\n
Phase 1:\u00a0 Obligatory military service means exactly that.\u00a0 Thealternative is death by execution as traitor to the national causeand\/or as deserter\/coward.\u00a0 A non-man.\u00a0 The milder version would besocial death, expulsion, loss of citizen rights.<\/p>\n
Phase 2:\u00a0 Objection is criminalized, handed over to civilian courts,and the punishment is imprisonment in times of war and in times ofpeace.\u00a0 Repeated objection is seen as recidivism and the reaction isrepeated imprisonment.<\/p>\n
Phase 3:\u00a0 The absurdity of Phase 2 becomes increasingly clear toincreasingly many and stimulates a search for transfer to analternative service for those who felt Thou shalt not kill as generallyvalid, not only an in-group morality, like as non-combatant in thearmed forces (like ambulance service, keeping the risks at about thesame level as for the combatants).<\/p>\n
Phase 4:\u00a0 However, it soon becomes clear that the objection for mostwas not only to the combatant role where they might have to kill, butto the military institution as such.\u00a0 The conscience testing remained.\u00a0The search for an alternative service was on, if not with the samerisks as military service at least with the same costs: away fromnormal civilian life in the family, at school, at work, heavy likelogging and drainage of swamps, or menial social work, and 1.X longerduration that military service; X to be debated and adjusted.<\/p>\n
Phase 5: The absurdity of phase 4 became obvious.\u00a0 More and moreobjectors requested peace service, were willing to refuse non-peacealternative service and to suffer imprisonment for that second orderobjection.\u00a0 The content changed, like toward research assistance inpeace research institutes and development service abroad, similar tothe (a misnomer) Peace Corps.<\/p>\n
And that is about where we are today.\u00a0 So, let us now look forward andextend the narrative into the future:<\/p>\n
Phase 6:\u00a0 The peace service becomes ever more attractive, not as an actof omission (non-killing), but to accommodate countless acts ofcommission: peace-building between parties in conflict, nonviolentinter-positioning, mediation, conciliation. With the opening ofmilitary service to young women comes peace service for young women.\u00a0The whole service may not always do that much good, but at the veryleast it does no harm.<\/p>\n
Phase 7:\u00a0 The absurdity of war and the military becomes ever more clearto ever more people.\u00a0 At the very least those who choose the militaryoption will have to have good reasons for killing, maiming anddestroying.\u00a0 Justification for joining the military will have to berooted in higher purposes and be presented publicly for a commission.\u00a0“I enjoy killing” is for individual benefit, and so is “killing anIraqi for Green Card,” “killing two Iraqis for college education.\u201d Theylearn correct answers: kill Iraqis-Afghans for freedom-democracy-humanrights.<\/p>\n
Phase 8:\u00a0 The German word Gewissen means conscience, the word Wissenmeans knowledge.\u00a0 Gradually the commission testing the would-besoldiers includes actions and their consequences, good intentions beinginsufficient.\u00a0 Please tell us in detail about the consequences of thelast wars – – -, but also of the last non-resistances, includingnon-nonviolencies.<\/p>\n
Phase 9:\u00a0 War service looks more and more dubious.\u00a0 To deter peoplefrom choosing that option they have to serve 1.Y peace service, now X+Ymore than the original military service.<\/p>\n
Phase 10:\u00a0 War as a social institution no longer has democraticlegitimacy, young men and women have voted with their choices.\u00a0Majoritarian pro-military sentiment can be located in older niches ofthe population, say 65 and above. Fighting is made more compatible withmore advanced age.<\/p>\n
And with them war as a legitimate social institution follows slaveryand colonialism to the garbage heap of history.\u00a0 Resquiat in pacem.\u00a0There will still be violence.\u00a0 But not massive violence supported bymassive legitimacy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have in front of me the 120 members of the SwissZulassungs-kommision who decide whether a young man who refusesmilitary service should be accepted as conscientious objector and betransferred to Zivildienst, civil service.\u00a0 Criteria: is theirconscience, not necessarily religious, compelling, and is the youngman’s construction of reality, from inner conscience-intentions to theouter actions-consequences contradiction-free? \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}