Conscientious Objectors Building Transnational Nonviolent Community

Attenders of International Conference for COs join “Silence of the Dead, Voices of the Living” Demonstration in Washington, DC, May 2006. Photo: Terry Foss

I got started as an activist after realizing I was a conscientious objector a quarter of a century ago. It was my objection to killing \that propelled me to examine my conscience and begin working to help create a nonviolent world.

Yet until the weekend of May 13-15, 2006, I had never participated in an international gathering focused specifically on conscientious objection (CO). Meeting and talking with resisters from Latin America, Europe, and Israel (unfortunately, resisters from Eritrea and South Korea, two countries with egregious records of abusing COs, were denied visas), I was startled by just how parallel our struggles are.

I anticipated learning about struggles against conscription. I hadn’t expected to hear about so many victories. To provide just a few examples, in Paraguay, in 1993, there were only five conscientious objectors. There are now over 15,000 COs recognized each year. After long struggles to promote conscientious objection across ethnic lines, Bosnian anti-militarists succeeded in repealing conscription early in 2006. Macedonia’s CO movement achieved a similar victory a mere week before the conference.

Participants from widely different countries emphasized the importance of training youth to become peace activists. I was happily surprised to learn that activists in many countries used participatory games as a vital training technique, and our impromptu game swap was fascinating (and fun). Many speakers stressed that the goal is not merely the rights of individual COs, but the demilitarization of society. Participants from Israel, Colombia, and Bosnia, in particular, discussed how, despite the overwhelming militarization of society, feminist anti-militarist organizations are creating the political spaces to confront patriarchal violence in many forms, including conscription.

While in DC, conference participants also joined the “Silence of the Dead, Voices of the Living” silent demonstration against the war in Iraq, and thrilled to a special showing of Sir! No Sir! a documentary feature on the GI Resistance movement within the US armed forces during the US war against Vietnam.

This year marked the 20th anniversary of International Conscientious Objectors Day, May 15, coordinated by War Resisters International’s Right to Refuse to Kill campaign. Each year, the struggles of COs within a particular nation becomes the focus of the campaign, with US military COs this year’s focus. For a report on US policies, and a profile of US COs, see www.wri-irg.org.