feminist

$1,917,000,000,000. Or $1.9 trillion. Any way you write it, that’s a lot of money. All of which has been spent on militarism: on weapons production and development, on soldiers, on wars, on bases, on command and support systems, on repression.

Exciting news! Piecing it Together, the WRI's Feminism and Nonviolence Study group's extraordinary pamphlet of 1983 has just been published in Catalan by the Institut Català Internacional per la Pau.

Samantha Hargreaves from WoMin - an African gender and extractives alliance - speaks to Andrew Dey from WRI about the links between gender, extractive industries and militarism in Africa, and what this new network is doing to counter it.

“Every bomb that is dropped, every bullet that is fired, has to be made somewhere. And wherever that is, it can be resisted.”

Smash EDO

For anyone involved in anti-militarist campaigning, the Seeds of Hope action has almost mythical status. Not only as an extremely radical and inspiring action; but as an example of how a jury's verdict can be decided on moral grounds on the basis of trying to prevent a greater crime. I have been running direct action trainings for a few years and I don't think there's a single one where Seeds of Hope didn't get mentioned, and its reach extends far beyond the anti-militarist movement.

Statement of the feminist collective TO MOV (Greece) co-signed by the Association of Greek Conscientious Objectors

At a time when the democratic demand is the abolition of compulsory military service, the ministry of Defense, on the contrary, seems to wish the extension of this service to women.

According to publications, a new bill is prepared for the foundation of military secondary schools (lycea) in which all those planning to follow military or police professions will enrol, and also the women enrolling such lycea will have to subsequently perform “voluntary” military service, in order to be eligible for exams in the respective academies. We are faced with a proposal for radical and reactionary reform of the education system in the second grade, which must not pass. What does the Minister of Education say? Does the Minister of Defense decide alone for his own ministry? On what right?

Return to Conscientious Objection: A Practical Companion for Movements

Ferda Ulker, one of the first Turkish women to publicly declare herself a conscientious objector, writes about how gender and militarism intersect in the particular context of Turkish society, though her insights also have a broader application for any  patriarchal  and militarised society – which is to say, most if not all societies.

Jasmin Nario-Galace

In 2014, according to the IHS Global Defence Trade Report, global defence trade increased to $64.4 billion, up from $56.8 billion the previous year. The report underscored that the US supplied one-third of all exports followed by the Russian Federation, France, UK and Germany. Seven of the top 10 defence importers were from Asia-Pacific: India, China, Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, Indonesia and Pakistan. The top 5 company exporters are Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Airbus Group and UAC. The first three are US companies while the last two have headquarters in France and Russia, respectively.1

SIPRI reported that global military expenditures in 2014 reached US$1776 billion with China, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia on the Top 15 of countries with the highest military expenditures.2

We're delighted to add a new publication to WRI's online book store! Against All Odds: Voices of Popular Struggle in Iraq, from Ali Issa of War Resisters League.

Collected from dozens of interviews with, and reports from, Iraqi feminists, labor organizers, environmentalists, and protest movement leaders, Against All Odds presents the unique voices of progressive Iraqi organizing on the ground. Dating back to 2003, with an emphasis on the 2011 upsurge in mobilization and hope as well as the subsequent embattled years, these voices belong to Iraqis asserting themselves as agents against multiple local, regional, and global forces of oppression.

You can find the accompanying Organizing & Study Guide here.

Buy it here: /node/25212

Our CO-Update this month is a reminder that, as we work together as an international movement against war, the repercussions of resistance to militarism is often felt by individuals refusing to fight. Our Finnish friends have written of the history of the movement in Finland where resistance to conscription began, in some form, in 1901.

Position paper originating at the women’s workshop at the Counter Summit “No new Wars - No to NATO”

Newport, 1 September, 2014

As women of the No to War, No to NATO international action network we join in wholehearted condemnation of NATO as an aggressive, expansionist, nuclear armed military alliance. Its creation fostered decades of Cold War, its continued existence has perpetuated armed conflicts and wars, and its intention is clearly to assure long-term worldwide control by the USA and its allies in the interests of global corporate capital.

[video:http://vimeo.com/93260597 autoplay:0]

This webinar discussed meanings of concepts including Patriarchy, Security, War, Peace, Nonviolence, Gender, Sexualities, Consciousness and Intersectionalities, and motivated for nonviolent action to ensure compassion and justice for all.

It was led by Bernedette Muthien (see bio here).

This webinar was the third in a series of webinars by and for the African Nonviolence and Peacebuilding Network. It took place on the 28 April, 2014.

This series is open to all, and leading up to the July 2014 international conference: Small Actions, Big Movements: The Continuum of Nonviolence, taking place in Cape Town.

Register to join our webinar entitled "The Patriarchal War Against Women and Others