When examining militarisation and young people in this country, we must necessarily look back and take into account the hundreds of years of militarism in the area's history: land occupations and violence by European colonists, construction of the 'national heroes' to motivate patriotism, legislation of obligatory military training, exponential military spending versus the social spending diet, introduction of of military training in civilian schools, and mutation of the armed forces according to the dominant economic model.

The German Bundeswehr in the struggle for the hearts and minds of the German people

Small and ready to fight. In spite of a general reduction in personnel, the German Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) should in the future be more fit for action: 10,000 German soldiers should be able to be deployed abroad at any time, instead of the current 7,000 . But since the suspension of conscription, the German Armed Forces have to meet their recruitment needs entirely by persuading the civilian population to join in: 170,000 (career soldiers, soldiers on contract, reservists), plus 5,000 (soldiers recruited for voluntary military service), plus X (less than 10,000 additional soldiers recruited for voluntary military service) – equal less than 185,000 soldiers. This calculation was presented by German Minister of Defence Thomas de Maizière (Christian Democrats) in a policy speech in Berlin on 18 June 2011. Presently, it does not seem to be a problem for the German Bundeswehr to find 5,000 new recruits every year. But it is less clear whether they can meet the more ambitious target of 15,000 new recruits annually, because conscription was only suspended in summer 2011 and up to now not all the figures on new recruits (and drop-outs) of the last quarters are available.

Rafael Uzcátegui

Content

• Conference programme
• About the workshops

• Countering the Militarisation of Youth - A new area of work for War Resisters' International
• Counter-recruitment in the USA

Analysing militarisation

• Publicity campaigns in public spaces

Emad El Dafrawi in May 2011On 12 April 2012, Emad El Dafrawi declared his conscientious objection to military service, and thus became the second publicly known conscientious objector in the country, after Maikel Nabil Sanad. In his conscientious objection declaration, Emad El Dafrawi writes: "I’m pacifist and anti-militarist, which means that the military activities including holding weapons and using violence contradict my beliefs. I’m a conscientious objector to the military service. I refuse to obey military orders and I consider all wars to be crimes."

War Resisters' International is looking for a Right to Refuse to Kill programme worker (full-time)

The RRTK worker will share the responsibility for organising work from WRI's international office and have specific responsibility for running WRI's international work on conscientious objection and military recruitment. A commitment to pacifism, good computer skills, and language skills are essential.

Salary: £24,136.26 per annum.
Deadline for applications: 31 May 2012
start date: 1 September 2012

International Study Conference, Darmstadt, Germany 8-10 June, 2012

War Resisters' International is organising an international study conference on countering the militarisation of youth, in cooperation with German partner organisations and supported by the German teachers union (GEW). The conference will not just look at military recruitment and counter-recruitment actions, but will take a much broader view on the militarisation of youth, the creation of a culture and value system favourable to recruitment.