Sympathising with soldiers?

#32

Deezer

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Joined: 2-10-04

Sep 6 2005 22:44

RebelForums.org wrote:

Only in a country where young people are conscripted whether they hate the army or not, I sympathise with them, but in Britain they volunteer to fight for that government and should be prepared for that governments actions.

Right, this is pretty complex really. I can understand why someone from the Falls Road or anywhere else where people have been on the receiving end of actions by troops would find it a lot harder to 'sympathise'.

In the case of people who decide to volunteer for paid standing armies there are broader, more immediate and often much more pressing conditions than wanting "to fight for that government" leading them to volunteer as soldiers.

The point about conscripted and volunteer armies is one I've made in the past myself, I still reckon that conscript armies are more prone to fracture and rebellion along class lines in certain circumstances - but that doesn't mean the class structure is not reflected (exaggerated even?) in volunteer armies like the British Army. But in terms of volunteer soldiers many people here are looking at this from a different perspective to yerself and are asking something that gets to the heart of a question about the nature of class society - namely the recognition that economic conscription plays a huge role in the decision of many working class people to enlist.

Coming from a different "community background" to yerself I knew a lot of people who joined the British army, airforce and I think one who joined the navy (a couple of them were 'catholics' - though not from the Falls Road). The joining to "fight for that government" may come into some peoples reasons for joining up but there are many other reasons, the strength of which vary from person to person. I know people who joined up to "get a trade", to "see the world", "get out of this shit hole", because they reckoned they wouldn't get any other job, because they reckoned they "were crap at school", to get away from problems at home and most of them went through with joining up because back then if you were from Norn Ireland ye didn't have to serve in Norn Ireland.

The other thing you have to recognise is that different working class people have different experiences and, well, political indoctrination going on. In one part of Belfast the troops are "occupying Brits" (the problem being that they are 'foreign' is more important than them actually being being soldiers serving in a volunteer army) and yet just a few feet away, across the road, they're "your own" soldiers from different parts of "your country/state".

I don't think anyone is naive enough to be calling on people not to fight back if troops are used against them but surely that doesn't mean that all sympathy for some workin' class kid who you might have grew up with (granted thats not likely on the Falls Road post about 1974) should go out the window? Particularly if they get maimed or killed in a conflict that really isn't of their making - we're talking sympathy for individuals here not condolence of military aggression by the state (or any other group for that matter). And although I'm no fan of governments/states, capitalism or the military I'd still feel sympathy if I heard someone I knew years ago had got maimed or killed in service.

RebelForums.org wrote:

Quote:

I have no sympathy for civil servants, I don't see how you could forget your political ideology/allegiances and push paper for anyone, and I live on the Falls Road in West Belfast and grew up when Brits beatin youths was a regular occurence.

Eh? People need jobs, shit loads of people from the Falls Road work in the civil service - I know civil servants who are active members of Sinn Fein (but thats besides the point). And what sorta state would the Falls Road and other 'nationalist' areas be in if this type of attitude was seriously persued. I mean there'd be no dole offices for a start, what about water service workers. I don't know that many people reckon an admin assistant in the water service or an engineer who comes out to fix a water mains are stooges for the state. But I fear yer problem is that its the British state and that you wouldn't be consistent in this approach and apply this reasoning to civil servants in for example the Republic of Ireland. The fact of the matter is however that people need jobs and that many branches of the civil service do carry out functions necessary to all our day to day lives.

No sympathy for the girl in the Falls Road dole office who saw Gino Gallagher have his brains splattered all over the partition in front of her, no sympathy for public service workers (civil servants the lot of them) taking strike action as a result of their fellow workers receiving death threats from paramilitaries (of loyalist and republican persuasion), no sympathy for the civil servants who are facing mass redundancies as a result of water reform and privatisation, no symapthy for the civil servants (along with health workers and education workers) in NIPSA who voted to commit their union the call for non-payment of water charges when they come in????

That is just mental. And yer not young enough to get away with that just being stupidity - if you grew up while 'Brits' beating up teenagers on the Falls was a regular occurance yer not as young or spotty as lots of the folk who post on here but they've a hell of a lot more wit.

C'mon, think about it a bit more.

circle A red n black star

#33

Choccy

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Joined: 9-12-04

Sep 7 2005 14:38

Boulcolonialboy wrote:

The other thing you have to recognise is that different working class people have different experiences and, well, political indoctrination going on. In one part of Belfast the troops are "occupying Brits" (the problem being that they are 'foreign' is more important than them actually being being soldiers serving in a volunteer army) and yet just a few feet away, across the road, they're "your own" soldiers from different parts of "your country/state".

that's a good point. Republicans and nationalists I went to school with (in west belfast, case yer wondering Rebelforum) certainly would have objected to joining the british army obviously, but they definitely would not have had an ideological objection to joining the "free state" army. So what you're talking about again is an objection to soldiers in an "occupying force" - not an objection to being part of the armed wing of the state.

I'd imagine class stratification would be more emphasised in a volunteer army. With conscription yer not gonna have a choice, but in a volunteer army the demographic make-up would of course be different as those with a bit more dosh, better education and more connections wouldn't be as limited in their career options so could avoid joining the army (though obviously some still do but they'll go in at officer level rather than pleb level).

#34

kalabine

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Joined: 27-03-04

Sep 7 2005 15:55

i have lots of solidarity with rank and file working class soldiers, especially given the number of my mates who have signed up at some point or other

we should be recruiting them not slagging them

#35

Seumus

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Joined: 23-04-05

Sep 8 2005 08:24

"I have a lot of solidarity with rank and file working class soldiers".

It used to be that working class people who joined the forces were thought of as too dum to hold a job or too lazy to work!. This was before the last war. That event changed everyones outlook. Conscription gave a lot of people a chance to widen their horizons and in the mind of younger people legitamised both the state and the military. When the Labour Government brought in Conscription it confirmed the new attitude. Similarly with the polis. If a working man joined he was considered a traitor to his class/ friends. A spy in the community, consequently he was shunned or sent to coventry,in a mild way. It is only since the war and the Labour Governments that either the military or the police became respectable. We should return to the old attitudes and eschew the modern thinking.

#36

cantdocartwheels

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Joined: 15-03-04

Sep 8 2005 09:47

Well no thats a bit over the top really, the reason people sympathise with the police or respect them more is because the police force as a whole is more integrated into society in the last 50 years of capitalist development in western europe. The establishment of large civil wings of the police such as traffic cops who are hardly a 'bulwark of reaction'' and of course the police's connections to other emergency services, both of which make it far harder to discuss the nature of the constabulory under capitalism and the police and judicial systems role without sounding a bit nuts, because going around calling traffic cops the class enemy is quite clearly mental. So saying we should treat the police exactly the same as in the 19th century isn't exactly being very realistic.

This kind of discussion always makes me think of when someone pointed out (maybe it was lazy riser i can't remember) that one of the key problems with anarchism was its failure to discuss a constabulary and other issues to do with punishment and judicial proceedings in an anarchist society, instead of relying on the typical lefty bollocks of ''all crime is just socially constructed'', which is of virtually no practical use whatsoever.

#37

Lazy Riser

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Joined: 6-05-05

Sep 8 2005 12:50

Hi

I think it was Catch. I agree with him though.

Love

Chris

#38

Steve

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Joined: 27-06-06

Sep 9 2005 09:15

SEUMUS wrote:

"I have a lot of solidarity with rank and file working class soldiers".
It used to be that working class people who joined the forces were thought of as too dum to hold a job or too lazy to work!. This was before the last war. That event changed everyones outlook. Conscription gave a lot of people a chance to widen their horizons and in the mind of younger people legitamised both the state and the military. When the Labour Government brought in Conscription it confirmed the new attitude. Similarly with the polis. If a working man joined he was considered a traitor to his class/ friends. A spy in the community, consequently he was shunned or sent to coventry,in a mild way. It is only since the war and the Labour Governments that either the military or the police became respectable. We should return to the old attitudes and eschew the modern thinking.

That’s a rich statement from someone who conducts prayers for the health of the Queen and royal family, the armed forces and the police.

#39

Irp

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Joined: 21-09-05

Sep 21 2005 03:20

This is an interesting debate that I've seen go round and round.

____________

Related topic:

Check this out, I found this surreal: An Interview with A Russian Anarchist Chechnya War Veteran I think this interviewer crossed the line in not calling the vet on his nationalism and racism.

[edit to fix link]

#40

wld_rvn

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Joined: 22-04-04

Sep 21 2005 09:37

Hi,

This is an important question, because again it returns to the question of internationalism and the class response to imperialist war. We hope you don't mind if we quote from an article we wrote in April 2003, before the fall of Saddam's regime, entitled ‘Our boys’ have no interest in dying for capitalism

Quote:

“Whether or not you agree with this war, surely now our troops are involved we have to support them?”
In other words: the best way to support ‘our boys’ is to support them being used as cannon fodder in an imperialist war. Could there be a more idiotic argument than this?

And who, exactly, are ‘our boys’?

Although in the wake of the Vietnam experience the ruling classes of America and Britain are careful to use only professional soldiers for their military adventures, the majority of these troops are still economic conscripts, proletarians in uniform. The ‘us’ they belong to is therefore the working class. But the working class has no country. Therefore ‘our boys’ also include the Iraqi conscripts whom the US and British soldiers are being urged to slaughter. And we - communists who defend the internationalist traditions of the working class – don’t think our boys should be killing each other for the sake of their exploiters, for the imperialist interests of the UK, America, or Iraq.

On the contrary: faced with the slaughter, we insist on reaffirming these traditions. In particular, we can recall that in the first world war, the proletarians in uniform – supported by strikes and uprisings on the home front - began to turn against the horrors of the war and took their fate into their own hands. They fraternised with the ‘enemy’ troops, mutinied, formed soldiers’ councils and joined forces with the revolutionary workers. The ruling class was so terrified of the spectre of revolution it brought the war to a rapid end.

Today the bourgeoisie is very vigilant about snuffing out even the merest hint of rebellion against war, as it was at the end of the first Gulf conflict. In 1991, the uprising in Basra began when mutinous soldiers fired at posters of Saddam. It seems that, at the beginning, the revolt had a popular and spontaneous character. But it was soon crushed by a sinister alliance of bourgeois forces. Columns of fleeing Iraqi soldiers, who might have joined the rebellion, were obliterated by the US and British forces on the Basra-Baghdad road. Saddam, however, was allowed to keep his elite Republican Guards intact and they were used to put down the rebellion in blood. In the north Kurdish nationalist gangs, in the south the Iran-backed Shi’ite religious organisations, took control of the movement and tried to use it as a bargaining counter for their own petty imperialist claims. These claims would have led to the break-up of Iraq and this ran counter to US interests. So Saddam was permitted to stay in power as the sole guarantor of ‘order’.

Today both sides are even better equipped to put down any opposition. Saddam’s terror squads are implanted in all the cities and throughout the regular army, ready to deal with any reluctance to back the war-effort. At the same time the arrogance of the Coalition does Saddam’s work for him by driving many Iraqis into the patriotic mind-trap. Besides, memories of the ‘betrayal’ of the 91 revolt are still very fresh in peoples’ minds, and they don’t want to be caught out again. And if any anti-Saddam revolt does occur, the Coalition forces and their media are on hand to hitch it to their imperialist bandwagon. We have even seen them making up revolts that didn’t really happen.

And yet, there is dissent in the armed forces. A US marine faces jail rather than go and fight in Iraq. Three British soldiers are sent home for criticising the killing of civilians. Desertion from the Iraqi army increases. There is no imminent mass revolt in Iraq, no immediate prospect of fraternisation across the national divide. On the other hand, neither have the ruling classes of the warring regimes succeeded in totally brainwashing their foot-soldiers.

This is a small indication that the bourgeoisie may not always be able to do what it wants with its own troops. If the class war hots up in the centres of world capitalism, the workers will once again be able to ‘support’ our boys by showing them the road to revolution.

World Revolution.

#41

cantdocartwheels

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Joined: 15-03-04

Sep 21 2005 10:05

Irp wrote:

Check this out, I found this surreal: An Interview with A Russian Anarchist Chechnya War Veteran I think this interviewer crossed the line in not calling the vet on his nationalism and racism.

What the fuck are you talking about?! How exactly is this guy a racist? He's just not pulling any punches and actually telling people what happenned in the Chechen War.

''B: So when you finally left Chechnya, what happened?

A: I was the leader of my group, and if there were five soldiers like me, together we could destroy an entire city. I had opportunities to fight in Daghestan and Yugoslavia, but I could not live with all the blood on my hands. In Chechnya I had to use drugs to stay mentally and physically active. After Chechnya, I couldn't sleep for two or three years. Always, I would remember more and more of what happened. I still get nightmares to this day, but not as terrible as the first two years after I returned to Russia. I got no medals or honors in Chechnya, but only one special ring. I was paid only 660 roubles (US$100 at the time), instead of 6,600 roubles (US$1,000) which I was supposed to get. This happened to most soldiers in the first Chechen war. The Officers would steal the money, and give us next to nothing. I was a killer without a salary. In the second Chechen war, soldiers received all their money. But money was not the reason I was in the war. So I wasn't disappointed about the money. For a time I fought revenge for all the Russians who had died before me. The state gave us no medicine or money for it. After the war I have illnesses in my lungs, legs, and perhaps my brain. I need medical help, but don't have the money for qualified help. I was not the only one used as a soldier in a political game. So many people didn't realize why they were really fighting. Now so many soldiers are invalids, beggars, junkies, alcoholics, junkies, homeless, criminals, and insane. After the first Chechen war, the government had no rehabilitation, mentally nor physically.

B: What did you do with yourself?

A: I finally stopped drugs, but then the nightmares came back, so I started drinking a lot. Eventually I knocked off the booze, and now I drink very rarely. After three years of being apolitical, I joined the Russian National Unity (Ultra-right wing militia), I even took part in some of their actions. But they did not have the answers for me, and I soon realized this was not what was needed for Russia. It was just another form of oppression. By chance I happened to pick up a copy of X_____, an anarchist magazine. My aims and beliefs are centered around equality and peace between different peoples I wanted to get rid of all borders, so that I can travel around and meet different people, and see what their living conditions are like. . So the anarchists interested me. I wrote them a letter, and we met a few times to discuss their ideas and actions. I realized this is what I had believed. I now have comrades of different nationalities, which has opened up a lot to me.

We believe in people, the Russian government wasn't interested in their soldiers. That war was worse than the war in Afghanistan. In two years in Chechnya, 20,000 Russian soldiers died. In ten years in Afghanistan only 16,000 died.''

#42

bigdave

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Joined: 25-07-04

Sep 21 2005 13:22

Revol68, are you saying that Martin McGuiness and Ian Paisley are also correct in what they say because they were brought up in Northern Ireland (or "Ulster" as the colonialists have misrepresented the six counties that they retreated to when independence loomed - I'd love to have seen that in India with independence being declared and all the white colonials retreating to a wee corner with their servants and calling it Northern India like it was a legitimate country!)

As far as I can see the "Troubles" are the last attempts by the English/British establishment to put down the move for Irish independence/Republicanism by the "bloody natives". I think if the people of Ireland at the time of invasion had different-coloured skins, the situation would be a lot more fucking obvious.

Stands back and waits for hysterical, rhetorical and misguided personal attack....

#43

revol68

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Joined: 23-02-04

Sep 21 2005 13:58

mate that argument is soo ridiculous, do you have any fucking clue about Irish history? Firstly no one retreated to the 6 counties, the protestant population had been there for many generations and in earlier times had fought at the head of the of the republican movement in 1798.

Your attempt to present the north east as some sort of settler outpost overlooks the amount of inter marriage eg do you think Gerry Adams got his name from his Gaelic lineage? It also downplays any internal dynamic to sectarianism and instead wrongly placed it at the foot of westminster, who believe it or not don't particularly give two flying fucks about Northern Ireland, other than seeing it as a embarrassing mess on their doorstep.

You also miss the fact that Ulster is not an invention of dirty orange unionists, but is one of the kingdoms on the island of Ireland which existed as a polity way before an Irish nation was anything more than a gloat in Padraig Pearses Paedophile eye. Of course Ulster is made up of 9 counties historically but sure whats abit of revisionism and myth making between unionists and nationalists in Ireland, secondly who the fuck wants Cavan? And as for Donegal well if it was part of Northern Ireland then half the falls couldn't claim to have been abroad this summer.

If you came to northern ireland and looked at how the vast majority of the unionist population lived you would find it laughable to compare them to British colonialists in India.

Quote:

I think if the people of Ireland at the time of invasion had different-coloured skins, the situation would be a lot more fucking obvious.

what invasion? Normans? Vikings? The deployment of troops after the battle of the bogside, the troops who were being called for by the nationalist community?

Your a fucking cretin!

#44

Irp

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Joined: 21-09-05

Sep 21 2005 14:33

cantdocartwheels wrote:

Irp wrote:

Check this out, I found this surreal: An Interview with A Russian Anarchist Chechnya War Veteran I think this interviewer crossed the line in not calling the vet on his nationalism and racism.

What the fuck are you talking about?! How exactly is this guy a racist? He's just not pulling any punches and actually telling people what happenned in the Chechen War.

You didn't quote the passage I was talking about - if you read the whole thing, he goes on to assign charactaristics to the Chechens as a people that are absurd. He says something like 'they're a cruel people' and he elaborates by saying they always were. The interviewer doesn't challenge him at all.