Conscientious Objection: Resisting Militarized Society - Hardcover

Özgür Heval Çinar; Coskun Üsterci

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1848132778 ISBN 13: 9781848132771

Publisher: Zed Books, 2009

Synopsis

Refusing to take part in war is as old as war itself. This wide-ranging and original book brings together four different bodies of knowledge to examine the practice of conscientious objection: historical and philosophical analyses of conscientious objection as a critique of compulsory military service and militarization; feminist, LGBT and queer analyses of conscientious objection as a critique of patriarchy, sexism, and heterosexism; activist and academic analyses of conscientious objection as a social movement and individual act of resistance; legal analyses of the status of conscientious objection in international and national law.

Conscientious objection is an increasingly important subject of academic and political debate in countries including the US, Israel and Turkey. This book provides a much needed introduction and tool for making sense of the history of nation-states in the 20th century and understanding the political developments of the early 21st century.

About this title

About the Author

Özgür Heval Çinar is a lawyer. Currently he is a Ph.D. candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Law Department at the University of Essex. He has also worked at several NGOs, including the Istanbul branch of the Human Rights Association of Turkey and Human Rights Watch on a voluntary basis. He is the author of The Effects of European Court of Human Rights' Decisions on the Turkish Legal System" as well as a number of journal articles.

Coskun Üsterci is a peace and human rights activist. Graduating from the Department of Economic and Commercial Science at the Ege University, he was a founder of the Izmir War Resisters' Association. He is currently a member of the Human Rights Association, and has been working since 1992 at the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, where he is a board member. In addition, he runs workshops on anti-militarism, conscientious objection and non-violence."

Excerpt. İ Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Conscientious Objection

Resisting Militarized Society

By Özgür Heval Çinar, Coskun Üsterci

Zed Books Ltd

Copyright İ 2009 Özgür Heval Çinar and Coskun Üsterci
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84813-277-1

Contents

Acknowledgements, vii, 
Preface | Cynthia Cockburn, viii, 
Introduction | Cogkun Üsterci and Özgür Heval Çinar, 1, 
ONE | Conscription and resisting conscription in a militarized society, 
1 The militarization of society: conscription and national armies in the process of citizen creation | Suavi Aydin, 17, 
2 Patriotism and the justification of inequality in the construction of militarism | Melek Göregenli, 37, 
3 Refusing to serve by other means: desertion in the late Ottoman Empire | Erik-Jan Zürcher, 45, 
4 Sand in the wheels? Conscientious objection at the turn of the twenty-first century | Ulrich Bröckling, 53, 
5 The morals and politics of conscientious objection, civil disobedience and anti-militarism | Nilgün Toker Kilinf, 61, 
6 The philosophical grounds of conscientious objection | Taha Parla, 73, 
TWO | Conscientious objection as a critique of patriarchy, sexism and heterosexism, 
7 Where are the women in military conscientious objection? Some feminist clues | Cynthia Enloe, 81, 
8 Refusing to identify as obedient wives, sacrificing mothers and proud warriors | Ayse Gül Altinay, 88, 
9 Conscientious objection and masculine violence | Serpil Sancar, 105, 
10 Rotten report and reconstructing hegemonic masculinity in Turkey | Alp Biricik, 112, 
THREE | Conscientious objection in the world: experiences and problems, 
11 Experiences of conscientious objection movements: South Africa, Greece and Paraguay | Andreas Speck and Rudi Friedrich, 121, 
12 Military conscription, conscientious objection and democratic citizenship in the Americas | Matthew C. Gutmann, 131, 
13 Conscientious objection in Chile | Pelao Carvallo, 145, 
14 Conscientious objection in Spain: disobedience | Cthuchi Zamarra, 149, 
15 Conscientious objection in Israel | Tali Lerner, 156, 
16 Refusing to serve in the army for reasons of conscience in Greece | Alexia Tsouni and Michalis Maragakis, 160, 
17 Conscientious objection in Turkey | Cogkun Usterci and Ugur Yorulmaz, 168, 
FOUR | Conscientious objection and law, 
A International law, 
18 A view on international implementation of the right to conscientious objection | Ozgür Heval Çinar, 183, 
19 International standards on conscientious objection to military and alternative service | Rachel Brett, 198, 
20 European standards on conscientious objection and alternative service | Friedhelm Schneider, 206, 
21 Conscientious objection in international law and the Osman Murat Ülke case | Kevin Boyle, 212, 
B The case of Turkey, 
22 Conscientious objection and the Turkish constitution | Osman Can, 227, 
23 The criminality of conscientious objection in Turkey and its consequences | Hülya Üçpinar, 242, 
Notes on contributors, 257, 
Index, 259, 

CHAPTER 1

The militarization of society: conscription and national armies in the process of citizen creation

SUAVI AYDIN

§ Conscription and the 'army of the masses' are relatively new historical phenomena. Appearing in Europe for the first time as an important tool in the processes of citizen creation in nation-states, this phenomenon hit other countries' agenda towards the end of the eighteenth century, progressively establishing the system whereby each male of a certain age group gets conscripted. In this respect, the system made possible both the establishment of giant armies and the popularization of 'national consciousness' to a large mass of people via a large uneducated segment of society.

Conscription and the army of the masses were at the same time necessitated by a new kind of war – total war – that came about owing to the technological transformation underpinning the industrial society and the bourgeois society's desire for economical-political expansion. Total war also meant that the masses assumed to form the nation were to become soldiers as a whole. This state of conscription does not only pose a quantitative issue, but also manifests as a phenomenon that encompasses all stages of human life and involves the recruitment of groups that were previously not expected to serve in the military – such as women and children – or causes them to be directly affected by the conditions of war. Thus a new process had begun whereby a nation in its entirety became the actor of war and the state devoted all its attention to mobilizing these masses with feelings of patriotism and keeping them ready for war.

From this point of view, the creation of nation-states, the recognition of the citizen as the legitimator of sovereignty and the conscription-based army of the masses that makes soldiers out of all are different facets of the same reality. After the French Revolution, when all individual citizens who lived on a politically determined piece of land – that is, 'the people' – were accepted as the direct source of sovereignty, military service, or, rather, the right to carry weapons, ceased being a privilege of the nobility and military rank ceased being a status bought with money. The right to carry weapons was granted to all citizens, thus establishing the people's army The military success of Napoleon, which left its mark on the first two decades of the nineteenth century in Europe, owes much to this new military concept and to the definition of the members of this military as missionaries who spread the revolution with a kind of 'national consciousness'. Thus soldiers had replaced the heavenly missionaries who strived to spread the religious ideal worldwide, turning into secular missionaries spreading the revolution worldwide.

After Napoleon's dream of a world empire collapsed, military service was defined in accordance with the ideology of Napoleon's army, as a narrower type of guardianship designed to protect and preserve the nation-state, as a mission devoted to this new but worldly sanctity for the interests of this state. The generalization of this mission in doctrine as a duty that embraces all citizens presumed to form the nation is only natural. Within this framework, the granting to all citizens of the right to carry weapons and the right to fight has turned military service into a right as well as a sacred duty for all citizens.

In pre-revolutionary aristocratic France the right to be a soldier as well as military ranks were bought and were not available to ordinary people. The revolution and the following Napoleonic era reversed this formulation and included military service within the collective rights and duties of citizens. Since this right and duty does not promise any individual or direct benefit, as it did in the Middle Ages, it requires an ideology. Naturally, the ideology of a territorial nation-state will be nationalism and its base will primarily consist of the concept of 'homeland'. As William McNeill pointed out:

[t]he French revolutionaries broke away from ... ancient patterns, however, by summoning all Frenchmen to the defence of the patrie in 1793. During the next twenty years innumerable French victories demonstrated the new power that mass armies could command in an age of incipient industrialism ...

From this point on, the construction of a framework in which conscripted citizens still say 'long live our country' in the face of all manner of material and emotional losses would require the indoctrination of those to be conscripted towards this end, and, more importantly, persuasion to commit altruistic acts in the name of this abstraction. In fact, it has been necessary to turn the losses suffered 'in the name of the country and the nation' into a matter of honour, privilege and respectability in social thought.

Parallel to this new military model, a new front was opened which was previously unknown to the militaries of the nineteenth century. Before the French Revolution, domestic security matters were of secondary importance and a low priority for European armies. Beginning with the Napoleonic era, governments developed a different awareness, considering their own people as a new element of threat from two directions, as mass rebellions of city dwellers estranged from the armed forces on the one hand and on the other rural revolts stemming from local problems, such as the cases of Spain, southern Italy and Poland under Russia's rule. It was thus considered necessary to keep a standing military even during peacetime with sufficient numerical strength to deter all kinds of rebellions. The nineteenth century in Europe saw both nation-states and this new military doctrine come into existence.

While we saw the first example of this new doctrine in the Napoleonic army, the establishment and consolidation of the doctrine took place during the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian war. Additionally, a strong tie was established between the Germanic union under the leadership of Prussia and military reform. It is also conceded, however, that I. Wilhelm, known as the leader who realized the Germanic union, had learned a lot from the Napoleonic experience. Taking the Napoleonic experience one step further, Prussia has become the model for the modern military system that is based on conscription. Many other countries followed the example of Prussia and constituted their own military reforms. This was the driving force behind the absolute victory of Prussia in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian war. This process was also the transformational process of Prussia, and later the Germanic Empire, on the way to becoming a 'military state'. Throughout this process, the military granted itself autonomy from parliamentary control, the influence of the General Head of Staff on the cabinet increased, and military officership ceased being a 'noble' profession under the monopoly of the feudal classes and diffused into the middle classes. Further, the military population was kept as high as possible during peacetime.

From the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey

The era of the Ottoman Empire Such ancient empires of multiple religions and multiple ethnicities as the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire were affected differently by this process. These empires were on the one hand striving to keep up with the developing powers of Europe by trying to modernize, and on the other resisting the separatist challenges of the different groups within them. So the real problem was mostly internal, not external. On the other hand it was essential to be powerful towards the outside world in order to consolidate the internal situation.

Modernization and the effort to keep the empires intact, however, conflicted as rather paradoxical processes. The demanding military agenda, taxed by military modernization and the necessity to preserve the empire, required conscription. As a result of the leaps of that same modernization, however, different ethnic constituents experienced a 'nationalist awakening' and imperial ideology became an insufficient basis for the new ideological stance that had served as an example to Europe since the time of Napoleon, and which was required by conscription. For all these different ethnic and religious groups the idea of a 'nation' inclusive of all imperial subjects was far fetched and the idea of a 'homeland' did not have much import. The bankruptcy of Ottomanism, which rested on the idea of a large Ottoman nation as an ideology, was a consequence of this conjuncture.

For, in an age when the source of sovereignty had been secularized, the basis of the ideology called Ottomanism necessarily imputed to the dynasty, and this dynasty referred to nothing but a 'despot' in terms of the emergent nationalisms of various people within imperial lands. That is, the true enemy, and the concept of 'homeland' denoting land occupied by military and civilian powers, connected to the dynasty.

This was precisely the paradox Ottoman rulers faced immediately after the Crimean War as a result of military exigencies, not the least of which was the need for a modern military illustrated by this war. An event described by Ahmet Cevdet Pasha is the most striking testimony in this regard. At that time, mere enlistment of the Islamic subjects could not meet the military needs of the empire and it had become the top priority of the government to generalize the enlistment system in a way that could extend to non-Muslims. When this issue was discussed by a commission formed under the leadership of Grand Vizier Fuad Pasha, Ahmet Cevdet Pasha, who was also in the commission, expressed the difficulty of this expansion in the following words:

If soldiers from the non-Muslim subjects are mixed with the Muslim soldiers, it will be necessary to keep a pastor in the unit in addition to an imam. I would say there was no harm in this if it required only one pastor. However, we have many varieties of non-Muslim subjects. Apart from being differentiated into Orthodox, Catholic, Armenian, Jacobite and Protestant, even the Catholics themselves are split into various denominations such as Latin and Armenian Catholics and Greek Catholics called Melkites and Maronites and Syrians and Chaldeans. And although they both recognize the Pope, the Melkites and Maronites are enemies of one another. Even the Bulgarians, although they too belong to the Catholic sect, have come to hate the Greeks for some time. All of these groups will request different pastors. The Jews will request a Rabbi. It will thus be necessary to keep a great number of clergymen at the military unit. The Muslims have their Ramadan, and the Christians have their own fasts on various days. How can such a mixed group be managed? And when the commander is hard-pressed he resorts to military rhetoric, exciting the soldiers' patriotic vein to encourage patient perseverance and urging them to demonstrate immense altruism.

Also, for Muslims the most effective words in this regard are 'either a hero or a martyr, forward children for the sake of religion' and Muslims have been instilled with the words hero and martyr in their ears since they were in the bosoms of their mothers; and later having learned in school what elevated ranks hero and martyr are, this religious stimulation obligates them to choose the road of self-sacrifice. ... What will the Major of a mixed unit say in order to inspirit the soldiers in case of necessity?

It is true that in Europe patriotic zeal has taken the place of religious zeal. However this has ensued after the termination of centuries of feudalism and their children too have heard this word and only after many years has the phrase 'in the name of the country' come to impact on their soldiers.

However, if the word 'country' is uttered here the soldiers will merely remember the public squares of their villages. Even if we introduced the word 'country' now, and even if in time it acquired in public opinion the power it has in Europe it still could not be as powerful as religious zeal. And it could not take its place. Its attainment would require a lot of time. Until that time our armies would remain soulless.

When the representatives in the commission remind him that their options have considerably narrowed and that they will soon have a shortage of recruits, Ahmet Cevdet Pasha mentions that it is always the Turks who are recruited and thus weakened, proposing to take into consideration other Muslim communities of the empire that have been previously exempt from conscription:

However, we have plenty of communities exempt from military ordinances and regulations. If they were to be drafted to the military then conscription offices shall expand and our principal subjects, the Turks, shall take a deep breath of relief. Bosnia is but one example. By recruiting in Bosnia, the number of reservists will reach fifty thousand in ten years.

The solution to the problem was not, however, as easy as Ahmet Cevdet Pasha thought it to be. For when the Conscription Resolution copied from the French conscription system and introduced in 1847 was being implemented, many rebellions ensued in the regions of Rumeli (the European part of the empire), Anatolia and Arabia. For instance, the Albanians in Komanova and Köprülü revolted, saying 'we shall give no soldiers'.

Ever since the Ottoman — Egyptian War, the Ottoman government had favoured the French model for its land force owing to the military successes of Napoleon's army and had adopted the system of conscription by lots. In addition to this, a 'redif' (militia) system was in use which was beginning to be developed by the then minister of war, Hüsrev Pasha, with the help of the Prussian captain Graf Helmuth von Moltke, a consultant to the Ottoman army.

With the defeat in the 1877–78 Russian war, the French model was entirely abandoned, and from 1882 on, experts from Germany were brought in for the training and organization of the land army. For the conscription model, the implementation of the Prussian-inspired mobilization and reservist system was continued. The view that the Prussian model was the best practicable one in every aspect had dominated Europe, especially after Prussian success during the Franco-Prussian war. That is, this was not an issue which influenced the Ottoman Empire alone. The military successes demonstrated by the Prussian army during the wars of German Unification (1864–71) had turned into a 'paradigm' for all European armies, as best evidenced by the formation of the office of the Heads of Staff.

The first German commander to visit Istanbul in this context was the cavalry colonel Köhler. Abdülhamid II had made Köhler a general and his private consultant. Upon the death of Köhler Pasha in 1883, Staff Lieutenant Colonel von der Goltz was sent from Germany in his stead. Von der Goltz was also assigned to the rank of general and the pasha was also made the commissioner of military schools. The innovations introduced by von der Goltz in military training in particular and also the concepts of tactics and strategy played a great role in the success of the Ottoman army in the 1897 Greek War. At the same time, having been their instructor at the Military School, von der Goltz had an important influence on and was admired by the cadre that later went on to establish the republic. This influence and admiration extended further than Goltz's person, and turned into a great admiration for Germany in general; the entire army slowly beginning to be shaped in accordance with the German idea of the state and military, which had a very strong influence on the Ottoman military bureaucracy.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Conscientious Objection by Özgür Heval Çinar, Coskun Üsterci. Copyright İ 2009 Özgür Heval Çinar and Coskun Üsterci. Excerpted by permission of Zed Books Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1848132778
• ISBN 13: 9781848132771
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 280
• Editor: Özgür Heval Çinar, Coskun Üsterci