To intervene or not to intervene? |
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Presentation at the roundtable "Europe without Armies -
the Struggle for Peace"
at the international meeting at Bern, Switzerland, March 22nd
1997.
- The world today
- What to do? From protests to projects
- Our future projects
1. The world today
For more than 50 years during the Cold War, the world was divided into two camps. The threat of nuclear war endangered the entire world and especially Europe. The next war would be the last one, the final exit, there would hardly be a "day after". Politics were dominated and controlled by the two superpowers.
Also the peace movements during those years followed the dynamics of a divided world. Peace activities were often reduced to fundamental analyses about the world situation on the one hand and to protests against militaristic policies on the other. Peace work was all too often a very defensive undertaking: struggling against the Cruise missiles or initiating local projects without any hope of getting out of this framework of a divided world. Security was considered by most people a state and military issue.
In the last years lots of things have changed. Instead of being threatened by the big and final war, we see wars going on also here in Europe. But these are conventional conflicts, with many of the aspects of civil war, at least in regard to the number of human lives and civilian victims. Instead of heading for a peaceful century, the world appears to be falling apart even here in the formerly stable Western states. Many of these changes are due mainly to a shift in perception. The world has perhaps changed not all that much, at least for people living in the Southern hemisphere; but the way we in the Northern/Western hemisphere look at things and have to conduct politics has changed fundamentally.
Today, war is no longer the universally accepted means of solving conflict, not even to the ministries of defence. The consequences of the present-day wars weigh too heavily on the world. Not only the refugee problems but also the instability of the markets are not at all in the best interests of a strong and profitable capitalism. Also security is controlled today by competitive free-market economics: Who guarantees what security for what price? Obviously the armies have a good chance to win such a race by promoting themselves as the new instrument for global security, but they have not won the game yet.
The old myth of the Cold War was that a "balance of power", with the required armies and armaments, could make the world secure. Armies were built up and maintained in order not to be used. Today all of these formerly useless armies pretend to be the most useful for security and stability. The new myth accepts the fact that the world is falling apart, that the gap between the rich and the poor is getting bigger every day, that the environmental disaster is going on every day, that the social stability cannot be guaranteed by cutting down on social welfare bit by bit. But the new myth pretends that with enough police and security, such problems can be kept under control. The new armies, looking for a legitimisation and for new tasks, pretend to exercise a global and collective control, a globally controlled security, and global stability through international co-operation between armies. Instead of taking the old and useless armed forces under clear political control (cf. the OSCE taking command of NATO), the militaristic structures extend more and more into politics (NATO P4P, NAC). Armies are considered the most stable structures in collapsing societies and thus, for example, the democratisation of Russia is somehow expected to happen through a co-operation between Western and Russian military commanders. And if ever things go wrong, the armies can still go back to their old business: warfare.
Seen in this perspective, security and stability are still affairs of state, executed through the ministries of defence and the armed forces.
2. What to do? From protests to projects
How can the peace movement answer these developments? We do not view peace, security and stability as state affairs, but as the tasks and obligations of society, as the concerns of transnational social policy, as the responsibility of each and every citizen. Peace is based on social justice, on human rights, on legal security. Peace is more than the absence of war, as we used to say in our 1989 campaign to abolish the army in Switzerland.
Peace movements have learned in the past few years to adapt to the changes in world policy. Many organisations have shifted their activities from protests to projects, getting more and more involved in the concrete, daily work for peace and the social conditions necessary for stability. The end of the Cold War opened up this field. Before, it was hardly possible to set anything in motion because of the fear of a final war and the political control of the world by the superpowers. But the wars occurring since then, and especially the wars on the territory of former Yugoslavia, have pushed the peace movements onto the battlefield. Political and social interventions have become an everyday duty, going beyond humanitarian aid, helping people in the field to struggle against nationalism and racism and to find their way to a life worth living after the war.
The actual and recent wars have made intervention not only possible but in fact vitally needed. Projects have replaced protests in the daily activities of peace activists, and have taught them a great deal about the concrete problems and their possible solutions. Civil intervention has become not only much more popular, but also much more sophisticated and skilled.
We have learned that instead of waiting for the big changes, we have to work with the people in the field, to empower them to change their own conditions. Instead of merely talking about the world economy, the worldwide systems of exploitation and worldwide means of repression, we have started building up small projects to overcome these obstacles, knowing that all our attempts are far from sufficient to really change the world.
3. Our future projects
Knowledge concerning civil intervention and conflict transformation has steadily developed during the past years. In the meantime there are some institutionalised places for this work, some peace academies, some foundations and some small networks. Still, all this work and knowledge remains hidden behind the official policy. The military approach, which is the immediate "solution" of any problem through armed stability, still dominates world policy and national politics.
We are struggling to overturn this logic. We are pledged to civil responsibility instead of military intervention. We challenge the new myth of global control with our knowledge that conflicts are part of every life and every system, but also that social justice and democratic structures are the indispensable roots of a stable future. We know that it is not a question of abolishing conflicts but of building these social foundations and learning to deal non-violently with conflict.
Think globally, act locally; we apply this old slogan in our work, linking the vision of a non-violent future with the concrete work and the necessary instruments to build that future.
These are the ideas leading to the decision by the Group for a Switzerland without an Army to launch two new initiative campaigns. Next spring we will start collecting the 100,000 signatures of adult Swiss citizens needed to force the government to hold a popular vote: we want to abolish the Swiss army and we want to establish a Civil Peace Service to be anchored in the federal constitution. The concrete formulation of these two demands will be discussed separately, but at this time we would like to share and discuss with you the vision behind our decision; with all of you, around the globe, who are discussing, campaigning and working to achieve the concrete instruments needed to bring about a world in which our influence is felt and our ideas are given a chance.
Thank you for your attention.
Roland Brunner, GSoA