Around 7:00 on the evening of April 19, 1999, a U.S. Navy pilot launched two 500-pound live bombs from his FA-18 jet at a target on the Navy bombing range in Vieques, Puerto Rico. The bombs missed their target, destroying the Navy's observation post and killing David Sanes, a civilian Navy security employee, and injuring several others.
Bojan Aleksov
The turning point in my life came when I joined the Yugoslav People's Army in September 1990 to do my compulsory military service. I had neither a genuine understanding of the political situation in Yugoslavia nor developed pacifist beliefs. Soon after I enlisted, the state of military preparedness of my unit, based in Osijek, Croatia, was raised. I could feel and would soon participate in the dissolution of--and bloody war in--former Yugoslavia.
Background to Bougainville
Bougainville is in the South Pacific, approximately 1,000 km. northeast of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, and is part of the Solomon Islands group in Melanesia. It has a land area of some 10,620 sq. kms. Bougainville comprises two large islands, Buka to the north and Bougainville less than a kilometer to the south, and about 168 smaller groups of islands and atolls scattered over 450,000 sq. kms. of the Solomon Sea. At its southern end, Bougainville is barely 20 km.
As a participant in an action of the "Sebastian Acevedo Movement Against Torture" shortly before the plebiscite in 1988, we gathered in front of the National Library located in the heart of Santiago, the capital of Chile. The action was planned for 12 o'clock sharp and it was supposed to last not longer that 3 minutes. It all started perfectly and, as soon as we started, we heard the police cars and the doors of the library closing up. Fear was immense. What would happen?
Although international cooperation among political movements is as old as the movements themselves, it has become more important in times of economic globalization. Since the UN Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, solidarity has entered official discourse in discussion of an international "civil society." Rather than add to that discussion and the growing NGO-ization of popular movements, I want to examine the experience of one movement--War Resisters' International (WRI)--with international cooperation through the lens of empowerment.
Look back at an experience of empowerment. I wonder if the experience now seems that it was just a passing feeling you had at the time. Back then, you or your group somehow gathered the strength to make a difference--or at least feel that you made a difference. You may have changed something permanently, but the feeling was ephemeral. It wore off. A sense of empowerment is something that needs to be recreated continually.
Collective identities--"we" as queers, or whatever group you like--are often perceived as empowering by providing a sense of belonging. At the same time, by the very existence of these collective identities produce new boundaries of "in" and "out" and new norms of behavior that limit people's freedom to be and to do. Thus, identity can be disempowering and even threaten people's lives, in the case of nationalist or homophobic attacks.
It isn't easy to think about the kind of power we want, especially when we believe in a freedom that is opposed to any kind of authoritarianism. It becomes even more difficult because, over the centuries of human history, the word power itself has been contaminated with notions of authority and domination.
Buzz words. You catch them here and there--in peace, environmental or women's initiatives and United Nations documents. They change from season to season, from year to year. "Empowerment" has appeared in the language of my colleagues who are working on social change as an attempt to explain to ourselves and to others what we are actually doing.
What are the values to legitimise the military? In Germany through the process of nation building military service was made to be valued as "duty", linked with the right of citizenship. "Nation", (bourgeois) masculinity and citizenship were closely connected. After World War II "democracy" was the main value, linked with the need for military defence. Since the end of the 80s again a change can be identified, linking military with the "increased international weight of Germany" and the need to defend human rights everywhere.
The WRI Women's Working Group met on 7 August and again on 12 August last year during the WRI Council in Germany. The women came from Croatia, Ireland, France, Germany), India, the UK and US. The meeting began with older members pairing with newer members for introductions, and sharing some of the WWG's history. An update of developments since WRI's last triennial (in 1998 in Porec, Croatia) was given.
1..CONCODOC (Conscription and Conscientious Objection Documentation Project.)
A. "Refusing to bear arms"