On June 21st in The Hague the heads of government of the NATO countries will meet to decide in detail how much to spend on weapons production and with what money.
The EU has already invited the states to “develop educational and awareness-raising programs, especially for young people, aimed at improving knowledge and facilitating debates on security, defence and the importance of the armed forces …”. The meeting most likely will set the tone for the Atlantic allies’ war mongering plans, specifically to reallocate these immense resources through draconian social budget cuts.
On that same week and specifically on June 21st in all the capitals, networks of associations, committees, pacifist and political groups converge together to protest against it. The Stop Rearm EU European campaign will soon launch the dates of June 21st to the 29th as a week of agitation all over the continent. An international converging date is planned at The Hague on June 21st with a counter international forum.
Stop ReArm Europe is an international campaign started by various civil society and political groups which so far in Italy and Spain alone counts more than 600 associations, groups and political parties. Focused on anti militarism and the European commission politics of rearming and war, the campaign is autonomously organised in each city, place, country and it’s a great chance to converge under a main common issue.
The Concept for the Deterrence and Defense of the Euro Atlantic (DDA), conceived and implemented by the North American think tank The Heritage Foundation, serves as a guideline for the Nato allies’ capabilities to operate in peace, crisis and war. The relative peace dividend of the EU countries which went into social and civil infrastructure is down to about zero thanks to the U.S.A. and allies’ plans. “Confronting a deteriorating security environment” is the main propeller for such national, international and abroad plans.
Such claims translate into locally locking into the discipline, the order, and the authority of the ruling classes over the rest of society.
In the words of Simon Weil on deterrence: “What is defined as national security is a chimerical condition: in which a country would preserve the possibility of making war by denying it to all others” (Reflections On War, 1933-1943).
Authoritarianism and warmongering clearly go hand in hand, as we can see in Italy with the DL Sicurezza a securitarian law that heavily criminalises social conflict in any shape and form, and which just passed by a process of pre-imposed trusting votes by the government, while not been discussed at all in the parliament.
Similarly, we witness in Germany various dubious resolutions aimed at ethnically discriminating and repressing specific members of the population. The current chancellor is implementing the militarisation of the locomotive industry as for the Rheinmetall case. The remilitarisation of German society is felt in the abnormous violent repression against the peaceful pro Palestine movement as well as towards the dissent for the ruling class from the radical left. Meanwhile dissent expressed by the radical right and nazis is often left untouched.
In Italy and Spain, it is clear to the participants and supporters of the campaign that to be for peace is to be anti-militarist, anti-NATO, anti-fascist, anti-colonial, and anti-genocide. In the North of Europe especially in Germany these intersectional and internationalist issues don’t always go together.
The recently organised national dissent campaign No DL Sicurezza in Italy has brought together different generations and a variety of groups rarely seen in the last 5 years. Old school 70+ years old internationalists, whether feminists or autonomous insurgents, are sharing knowledge and organisational practices. 50+ years old people from the ‘no global’ movement at the turn of the millennia are sharing tactics with the 20+ and 30+ year olds of the XR and LGBT+ movements, supporting the 40+ years old workers of the GKN factory worker’s strike in Campo Bisenzio, and updating language and awareness with the massive NUDM transfeminist movement.
Berlin has an even richer chance to converge to include the many international struggles and experiences of the Palestinian, Kurdish and Syrian diaspora, the Arab Spring and Occupy assemblies of the 2010s, the recent and traditional Latin American grassroots movements, dissident Israelis, the former Yugoslavian Non Alignment heritage of the Balkans and so on.
Any form of fascism, capitalism and patriarchy supporting a genocide will generate more domination, violence, repression and censorship based politics everywhere, unless it is opposed, delegitimised and stopped. It is crucial to include the issues of freedom for Palestine, and the responsibilities for the genocide happening in Gaza, the wars in Sudan and in Congo, in the core of these bottom up European based movements to internationally organise and coordinate resistance based on anti militarisation, anti-fascism and freedom from war, exploitation and colonisation economies.
Most importantly, we must remember that war itself is the exact opposite of solidarity, sustainability, equality and the growth of civil and social rights towards the commons, which define societies living in just peace and foster liberation for all.
Stop ReArm EU and the dates around June 21st are a great opportunity to organise and converge in Berlin to continue and expand the antimilitarist protests that started (again) with the Welfare not Weapons demo at Gesundbrunnen last May.
