Students on strike against military service: “You’re not a coward if you don’t want to die for Germany!”

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12183

Tens of thousands of high school students in Germany went on strike against compulsory military service, pushing back against the government’s militarization agenda.

The post Students on strike against military service: “You’re not a coward if you don’t want to die for Germany!” appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

Around 55,000 high school students skipped school on Friday, December 5, and went on strike in 90 cities across Germany, after a broad alliance of organizations, including local student councils, called for a school strike against compulsory military service.

The strike had been organized for weeks: students founded strike committees at their schools, painted posters, wrote speeches, mobilized their friends and resisted the repression by school administrations across the country. The strike was called for December 5 to coincide with the time when the federal cabinet passed the so-called Military Service Modernization Act. Germany’s new modern armed forces

As part of the general armament campaign Germany is currently undergoing, Boris Pistorius, Federal Minister of Defense, set ambitious goals for the German army, the Bundeswehr: to meet NATO requirements, it will need to grow to 460,000 soldiers. But lately, the armed forces have not attracted many people to join their ranks on a voluntary basis; there are currently only about 180,000 men and women in active service – and they are aging.

Apparently, Germany’s new army will be built through a carrot and stick approach. As late as Thursday, Pistorius took to Instagram to convince German high schoolers that a strike was unnecessary because no one would be forced to join the Bundeswehr. But, even if they were forced to sign up, the argument seems to go, protesting would be unpatriotic at best – and surely undemocratic.

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