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Students strike across Germany against military service (www.bbc.com)

submitted 3 days ago by schizoidman@lemmy.zip to c/europe@feddit.org

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[–] wizzor@sopuli.xyz 35 points 2 days ago (22 children)

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

In Finland we have mandatory conscription. It is a very good way of getting a military, whoch is dofficult to use for expansionist adventures, but very good for defence.

It is not cheap. Putting a million people through the training represents a significant loss of GDP, but imagine trying to attack a country where half the population has even some serious military training.

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[–] kossa@feddit.org 13 points 2 days ago (14 children)

It is a very good way of getting a military

It is a very effective way of getting a military, allright. But good? No! It's like "slavery is a very good way to build some pyramids".

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[–] 666dollarfootlong@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Its not mandatory in the way slavery is, you can choose to do a civilian service instead. I do think there is some good value in having people serve their societies in less voluntary ways, I think the unifying social effects of that alone is really valuable, in this increasingly individualistic age we live in

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[–] kossa@feddit.org -3 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Cool, I can "chose" to which kind of labor I am forced (but only whether the labor is done with or without a weapon in my hands).

Crazy, I know, but you can train solidarity in a society in other ways than forcing people to work (or train them to kill and be killed).

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[–] varyingExpertise@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago* (1 child)

in other ways than forcing people to work

Great, show me the country that has a working, sustainable implementation of that. The share of people that will take out more from any kind of society than they put in is too large for any group to work without at least some pressure to enforce that equilibrium.

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[–] kossa@feddit.org -2 points 1 day ago

Yep. That is what people always said towards societal change

Abolishing slavery won't work, who would do the work?
Health insurance cannot work
Social security cannot work
Automation will not work, everybody is going to starve
...

You know, the state has crazy influence on its citizen. Where? In school. But the whole educational system is not build on community, solidarity and compassion. It's build on competition. And when you finish some 9-13 years of competition, is it strange that you end up looking for your own advantage? I doubt it. And that kind of education is eradicated magically if we then force people to rob through mud one year and further teach them how to kill? Yep, that'll work 😅

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[–] 666dollarfootlong@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (2 children)

My friend who did the civil service spent a few weeks at a camp learning about first aid, fire safety among other emergency skills. Then the rest of the year they just worked at an art school (because they was allowed to choose where they work at) updating computers and hanging around with youths. Yea, the pay wasn't amazing but it was experience none the less, and I am really glad to live in a country where regular people have at least some readiness to help and keep the society running during wartime or any other massive crisis. This system isn't due to authoritarian governmental malevolence, its to prepare us all for a war that is unfortunately a possibility due to our neighbour.

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[+] kossa@feddit.org -6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 child)

I know a guy for whom it was A-OK, that's why forced labor for everyone is a good thing

Ok. I was a conscript, I'd say it was Ok for me as well, doesn't make it right.

Reminds me of the one heir of Germany's Balsen dynasty. She made some headlines some time ago saying something like "Forced labor during WW2 in our company was not too bad. We paid the workers and, as far as I know, treated them well."

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[–] 666dollarfootlong@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

I mean of course we wouldn't have this system in a better world, but that is just what living next to russia demands. For me the trade off of 0.5 - 1 year of service in exchange for societal safety is worth the temporary lack of freedom.

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[–] susieq0044@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago (1 child)

I like your example, as the pyramids weren’t built by slaves.

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[–] kossa@feddit.org 0 points 2 days ago

But, Ackchyually, ackchyually, slaves built shit in Ancient Egypt, they even had "conscripts" (funnily enough called explicitly forced labor in the Wiki article). So, all good, we pay our forced laborers some token amount, which they can't even negotiate, and then it's fine! Guess who used that argument to whitewash forced labor? You wouldn't believe it.

Anyways, to concede to your historical accuracy, I'll rephrase:

It is a very effective way of getting a military, allright. But good? No! It's like "slavery is a very good way to produce cotton".

Because my sentiment was about the correctness of the result of forced labor, not about the forced labor itself 🙄.

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[–] wizzor@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 days ago (4 children)

The conscription military only works when people feel their country is worth defending. There are plenty of people who declined to serve for moral reasons. There are plenty of reasons to criticize the system (gender equality rises to mind).

I think part of the reason the Finnish political system serves the people more than some others is because it needs to. We have our problems of course, a lot of the population is old, so prioritizing young people doesn't always happen the way it ought to. Still, most people are OK with going, very few support abolishing the system because we know we all are needed to make attacking us fucking suck.

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[–] kossa@feddit.org 0 points 2 days ago (3 children)

What I never understand about this reasoning...when "most" people feel this way, why is it compulsory and needs fines? If everybody and their grandma is happy defending the country, they could go voluntarily. Who cares about the threefiddy people who don't go? They would be shitty comrades in the trenches anyway. So, why are people forced, then?

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[–] trollercoaster@sh.itjust.works 3 points 18 hours ago (1 child)

What I never understand about this reasoning…when “most” people feel this way, why is it compulsory and needs fines?

Well, what are you doing to give back to society, apart from posting on Lemmy about every form of compulsion being slavery?

People increasingly treat society and the state as a giant free-for-all where everything has to be provided by an abstract entity rather than a community where you participate.

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[–] kossa@feddit.org 1 point 17 hours ago

Well, what are you doing to give back to society

😅👍

For once, I served as conscript. Even did three months extra. Funnily enough that is not so much what I consider my most interesting contribution to society.

"Community" and "participation" are the keywords here. I feel like being bullied to do something is not very "participate in something". It's just being bullied.

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[–] wizzor@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 days ago

Tragedy of the commons, no individual downside encourages freeriding.

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[–] CharlesDarwin1809@piefed.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 child)

I think there is value in Finland's system, when Russia clearly is a huge threat to Europe.

Maybe every part of Europe should have a system like that. Perhaps everybody, rich or poor, and perhaps even older as well as younger (not kids or pensioners though) could be trained to contribute in some way to national defence. This could include training for building weapons in factories for example. Look at how important Ukraine's weapons companies are currently, when it comes to their national defence.

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[–] Reality@feddit.org 2 points 2 days ago

Germany got rid of it 15 years ago

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[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago

Swede here, I went to muster back in the early 2000s, but my hearing was too bad, and I was failed out.

At the time I was happy, I wasn't ready for it, but these days I think it would have been a great source of self dicipline for me.

Eh, in either case, from what I have heard/read, mandatory conscription will also boost social cohesion of a population which makes sense.

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[–] 666dollarfootlong@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 child)

Now we just need to have the whole conscription-programme counted as defence expenses, to meet the rising Nato demands and hopefully reduce the need for weapons from problematic countries...

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[–] wizzor@sopuli.xyz 1 point 2 days ago

Yes, I do think it should be.

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[–] BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk 2 points 2 days ago*

Germany is no Finland though, Finland also largely have had mandatory conscription due to not being a member of NATO;

Germany would have an easier time maintaining an army alike the way France does, a fully professional large army and riot police basically being intended for maintaining occupied areas (Gendarmerie). Germany can in theory have a 1 million strong force, fully volunteer based. While Finland can have 3 million in the reserves, by forcing everyone and their nan a mandatory conscription service.

Conscription is the cost effective option if you think numbers is everything, but for larger countries you'll get stronger militaries by keeping soldiers stay in professional lifetime careers

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[–] teebeutel@feddit.org -2 points 2 days ago

The current regime makes politics for old people, dances around "difficult questions" and acts surprised if they are called out for it; For one, only men get draftet, but this is okay, because of reasons; In the past you could aquire stuff like drivers licences or certificates when you did your mandatory service; Now you get nothing, only wasted time;

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