Students on strike against military service: “You’re not a coward if you don’t want to die for Germany!” : Peoples Dispatch
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Tens of thousands of high school students in Germany went on strike against compulsory military service, pushing back against the government’s militarization agenda.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6969914

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12183

Tens of thousands of high school students in Germany went on strike against compulsory military service, pushing back against the government’s militarization agenda.

The post Students on strike against military service: “You’re not a coward if you don’t want to die for Germany!” appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

Around 55,000 high school students skipped school on Friday, December 5, and went on strike in 90 cities across Germany, after a broad alliance of organizations, including local student councils, called for a school strike against compulsory military service.

The strike had been organized for weeks: students founded strike committees at their schools, painted posters, wrote speeches, mobilized their friends and resisted the repression by school administrations across the country. The strike was called for December 5 to coincide with the time when the federal cabinet passed the so-called Military Service Modernization Act. Germany’s new modern armed forces

As part of the general armament campaign Germany is currently undergoing, Boris Pistorius, Federal Minister of Defense, set ambitious goals for the German army, the Bundeswehr: to meet NATO requirements, it will need to grow to 460,000 soldiers. But lately, the armed forces have not attracted many people to join their ranks on a voluntary basis; there are currently only about 180,000 men and women in active service – and they are aging.

Apparently, Germany’s new army will be built through a carrot and stick approach. As late as Thursday, Pistorius took to Instagram to convince German high schoolers that a strike was unnecessary because no one would be forced to join the Bundeswehr. But, even if they were forced to sign up, the argument seems to go, protesting would be unpatriotic at best – and surely undemocratic.

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  • LovelyMover@lemmy.zipEnglish
    15·
    7 days ago

    This is rubbish. They couldn’t join NATO, russia had invaded them, as well as a bunch of other countries I might add. This special operation was to stop them joining the EU.

    A failing dictatorship cannot have a neighbour have free elections, vote in who they want, & be economically prosperous. Thats the beginning, middle & end of it.

    All this bs about nato this & nato that is a lie & you’re either a troll, delusional, or both.

    Dictatorship needs an enemy to hide its failed corruption.

    • ClathrateG [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      71·
      7 days ago

      The pro-western proxies in Ukraine were vying to join NATO long before the Russian invasion as early as the 90’s

      I agree with you on many points if not every detail, a failing empire like the US could not allow a vassal to move away economically, thus their motivation for overthrowing the democratically elected Yanukovych government

      John McCain tells Ukraine protesters: ‘We are here to support your just cause’

      The US & the Ukraine conflict : Recorded conversation between Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt

      To think this conflict is completely insular and that geo-politics and the worlds most powerful(and implicitly anti-Russian) military alliance didn’t, doesn’t and will not play a major role in the run-up to, waging of and aftermath of the war is either incredibly naïve, wilfully ignorant, delusional or the product of a propagandised mind to whom ‘vibes’ are more important that objective fact and reality

      • LovelyMover@lemmy.zipEnglish
        12·
        7 days ago

        So you’ve moved away from it simply being NATO, to now saying its a vassal moving away & politically & economically, which is exactly what I said. I didn’t say the “west” had nothing to do with it, you’re saying that.

        So how about you make your mind up?

        • ClathrateG [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          4·
          6 days ago

          So you’ve moved away from it simply being NATO, to now saying its a vassal moving away & politically & economically

          Why do you see these things as mutually exclusive? NATO is an arm of US empire.

          My position as been consistent throughout this conversation. Yanukovych’s Ukrainian government was moving economically towards Russia, the US used various means to coup their vassal’s government and install one that was more aligned with their interests and against Russia’s, this was one of the major impetuses for the war.