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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if you don’t want to die for
germanyZionistsBecause you kbiw where this is gonna go.
At least they still have the right to protest. There’s no protesting against compulsory Russian language education.
They don’t though. They do not have any right to do this protest during school hours at all. They literally disobey orders and risk being kicked out of school for participating. Those brave children are being threatened and punished by principals, teachers, parents, politicians and the police. All of whom have abandoned them to be grinded into mush at the eastern front for a pointless war. And the children stand up for live and peace anyway against the coming of the fascist death cult. Don’t let them stand alone. Read Karl Liebknecht.
I agree, but they are not children. We shouldn’t be infantilising adolescents and young individuals. They are as capable as adults - and for that we should be aiding and supporting their motives. Don’t be ageist, be supportive.
You’re right, maybe adolescents would have been a better word. “Child” can be meant as developmentally before puberty (which wouldn’t fit here), but in most English countries it also has a legal meaning of being under 18 (or 21) years old - that’s what I had in mind.
The participants of the protests are mostly underage and objectively lack the many privileges and rights of autonomy which our society awards older people. That they protest despite that is all the more impressive.
They made russian illegal though? That’s what kicked off the civil war back in 2015 or so?
The ‘Ukraine banned Russian and that’s why Russia invaded’ line is straight Kremlin copium from 2014. The law was never even signed, and the war started because Moscow sent in the little green men, not because of language classes.
The Banderite and US Supported(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/john-mccain-ukraine-protests-support-just-cause) post-coup government effectively banned Russian speakers from the education system( as you say there was no law that de-jure banned Russian, however it was legislated that educational establishments; schools etc required that Ukrainian be the only language of education at all levels, 1/3 of Ukrainian’s are Russian first language speakers so this law de-facto stopped a third of students from being able to enjoy their UN mandated fundamental right to education and along with other legislation shows that the post-coup governments (the initial directly selected by the US one) and Zelensky’s later were systematically biased against the Russian speakers concentrated in the east) and started renaming streets etc after Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera
Azov and the other far-right paramilitaries (later they were integrated into Ukraine’s regular armed forces) were killing civilians in the Donbass prior to Russia’s ‘little green men’ entering Ukraine
Russia invaded because NATO broke their agreement not to expand ‘one inch eastward’( it maybe useful to imagine the US reaction if Mexico or Canada tried to join CIS, they had already almost destroyed the world in a nuclear holocaust because the soviets dared to match the threat of the US’s nuclear tipped missiles deployed in Turkey) and Ukraine was making noises about joining which would have allowed the placement of strategic NATO assets inside Ukraine; a real and present danger to Russia’s national security. But not to deny Putin et al agency Russia ultimately share’s a large portion of blame for invading when they could have allowed the countries bordering them to join an aggressive(yes NATO has only every engaged in offensive operations such as supporting the genocidal KLA, the invasion and annexation Iraq, not surprising when its pedigree of leaders include people like WWII Wehrmacht General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Heusinger) military alliance who’s purpose is inherently anti-Russian(as the Russians found out when they tried to join in the 90’s),
The US is also majorly at fault for overthrowing the democratically elected pre-Maidan government and selecting the post-coup government, the UK and Boris Johnson in particular also have blood on their hands for sabotaging the spring 2022 peace talks in Turkey
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
By vote in who they want you mean that: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LUCCR4jAS3Y?
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Meanwhile in Russia, there are car stickers which read “To Berlin, for German women”
It’s not compulsory though, is it?
There’s a law being discussed to bring compulsory military service back.
It’s been kinda “opt out” since the 70’s, so you could write a letter along the lines of “I was raised a pacifist and cannot point a gun at anybody” and do non-military service instead. Like in an old folks home or a hospital. If they bring back military service the way it was (until around 2012 I believe?), that’s completely fine I think.
They already passed the law that will bring back compulsory military service under the pretense of only resorting to it if not enough young people volunteer.
It’s only not compulsory if enough people volunteer. It’s like robbing someone and telling them at gunpoint: “I’ll only take your money by force, if you don’t give it to me out of your own free will.” “We’ll force half a million of you to die and kill for the oligarchy unless of course you volunteer to do that. (And by the way, we just destroyed the economy and the job market and brutally cut social services, so…)”
I think they are worried its not compulsory for now but could be later. To be fair I would be more willing to die for germany right now than the us.
