Armies and Citizens: from civil disobedience to conscientious objection<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Hugo Estrella Tampieri

 

Our societies carry the blue print of their national armies almost from the very beginning of their exi tral control of the President was a token of national unity. Military service was the complement of eg ulation and immigrant masses. It was the final requisite to act as an equal citizen.

 

But with the rise of fascism, Argentine Military institutions developed the Prussian mindset. And with the crisis of 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. Argentina had established a position of egalitarianism in foreign affairs questioned the Versailles Treaty and opposed US intervention in Central America, but now became a country occupied by its own armed forces. Torture, political imprisonment, repression of social protests, and a confusion with the Roman Catholic Church’s views were the new realities 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 what was once the world’s fifth 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?

 

Humanism as option

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 means 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, naturally, losses. But as usually God is 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, is a group of human beings killing and being killed by other humans for the sake of non-human or non-existing entities. Moreover, war implies a nightmare in the lives of those who are not killed: destroying power plants, poisoning crops and fresh water resources, bombing civilian populations, etc. Intolerable, but how are we to oppose? The label of antipatriotic, traitor, communist or fascist (which side of the Iron Curtain are you?), coward, anarchist, atheist, whatever the label used to diminish and equate the dissenter with the enemy. An enemy worse than the one beyond the border, because 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 World War I, driving him to jail.

 

A War-Free World

The only way to achieve Humanism as a civilized allegiance to each other, is undoubtedly, by renouncing 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 our belongings, our freedoms, our life style, our families. What does war bring us in return? It deprives us of our belongings because they are destroyed or lessened by the taxes we have to pay for waging. We loose the freedom of movement, of speech or dissent. We have to modify our every day activities 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 or torn apart from what our little world.

 

So, war takes away from us what it is supposed to defend for us. It is 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 carpetbombing, supporting bloody dictatorships or establishing blockades that result in deaths of hundreds of children. What can we do, instead?

 

First, following the beautiful and courageous words of Albert Camus, say NO. There is 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.’

 

Humanists have taken stances: several IHEU’s resolutions call for the end of war, for the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, for the strengthening of the UN. Even more, three Humanist Manifestos have urged us to think of a new civilization, based on confidence, not steeped in horror. On shared needs and challenges, instead of on cannibalistic competition. Following 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’

 

We have the choice, and under certain circumstances of knowledge and commitment, the duty to oppose. If we want to survive, of course. We have several ways in which we can oppose. Humanists prefer democratic participation in changing laws. Or civil disobedience. Civil disobedience can be a stance of refusal to physically join an army, to be a conscientious objector. This right is recognised in most EU countries. This is to be spread world-wide, through the ratification of treaties providing for 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.

 

Also, Humanists have proposed the imposition of a special tax for the arms trade. They proposed it several years before the Tobin Tax, which we support wholeheartedly. If the Tobin Tax is established some day most of the world arms trade will collapse. 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’

That is what the assumption of individual responsibility implies. That is what Humanism is all about.

 

Hugo Estrella is Director of the Humanist Association of Argentina, an IHEU Member Organisation. This is an edited version of his speech delivered as IHEU’s representative at the Launch Conference of the European Network for Peace and Human Rights. Hugo Estrella’s participation was facilitated by a travel grant from IHEU member organisation HIVOS.

 

As a Peace Partner of UNESCO, and on the strength of its pioneering work campaigning in Europe for the Right to Conscientious Objection to Military Service, the IHEU had been involved in the Conference planning.