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	Countering the Militarisation of Youth an article by War Resister's International (abridged) Video: War Resisters International The international study conference on Countering the Militarisation of Youth, which took place from 8-10 June 2012 in Darmstadt, Germany, was a great success. With the conference we made an important step towards more cooperation and exchange among groups working on militarisation of youth in a range of topical areas and countries. For the conference, we brought together 65 participants from 14 countries and four continents, which in itself has been a great achievement. Our discussions enriched our understanding of militarisation, and helped to inspire us how to resist this militarisation. click on photo to enlarge The conference developed several proposal on how to improve our understanding of the militarisation of youth, and exchange experiences of resistance: 1. Educating Against Militarism / peace education: The idea is to collect and share information on peace education, including curricula, specific materials, resources of interest, including experiences using those materials in classrooms and contacts of speakers who can go into schools, such as migrants from a conflict region, who can be resource persons for lessons or a speaking tour. 2. Winning the war of images: The creativity of the peace movement is such that we should rise to this challenge by producing designs and images that can also speak to young people which can then be distributed through social media and other networks in order to cast new light on the issues of militarisation within the circles that young people are familiar with. . . 3. Conscientious objection to military registration was suggested by a mostly German group, based on the situation in Germany, where data is passed on automatically by the registry office to the military, but where the law provides a right to “opt-out” of this data transfer. The idea is a campaign of conscientious objection to the (automatic) draft registration, but it also became clear that for an international campaign more research on how (automatic) draft registration functions would be needed. 4. In Germany, there will be a week of action against militarisation of universities from 24-29 September 2012 (more information – in German – at http://www.dfg-vk.de/thematisches/schulfrei-fuer-die-bundeswehr/2012/754). At present, the idea is to produce appealing visual materials and posters to promote the week of action, but also with simple messages to raise the issue. . . 5. Military out of schools: This proposal focuses on the militarisation of schools, and what can be done about it. It became clear that more information is needed, not only about how schools and militarisation are being militarised, but also about the legal framework governing this militarisation – e.g. about a schools right not to allow the military into school, etc. . . War Resisters' International will continue to expand its work on the militarisation of youth, and more information will be available here.		DISCUSSION Question(s) related to this article: How do we motivate citizens to stand against the culture of war?, * * * * * LATEST READER COMMENT: I very much applaud the stand that these Nebraskans are taking against the Culture of War - especially the monthly vigils to commemorate the dropping of the first atomic bombs.   This post was dated back in March or April and I am only hearing about it by participating in this Forum today, in July.  And that, I'm afraid, is a large part of the problem posed by this Forum's question:  "How do we motivate citizens to stand against the culture of war?"  I'm sure that I am like many others in that I would be willing to take a stand, to make the effort, to take the time, and to become engaged, IF I felt it would be effective.  But our society has become so deluged with information, that all of our actions are just datum.  The media cannot communicate the actions of everyone and so it relies on a filter of only communicating what is biggest.  And we only find out if we are embedded in the Peace subculture so that outisde of the provincial sphere of the activity, these actions only are addressing the already converted. We need to determine what we can do that will be effective.  Perhaps we need a new paradigm of defining effectiveness.  Perhaps we should only look for effectiveness within our first degree of separation rather than the sixth degree. . ...more.
This report was posted on August 10, 2012.