Report on a visit to Colombia in May/June 2010

Andreas Speck, War Resisters' International's Right to Refuse to Kill programme worker¹, visited Colombia from 19 May until 12 June 2010. During his visit, he spoke at two conferences on conscientious objection, and visited groups and individuals working on CO in Bogota, Sincelejo, Medellin, Cali, Villa Rica, and Barrancabermeja.

A las once y media de la mañana de hoy miércoles 12 de mayo, una docena de personas accedieron al lugar donde se celebra la Feria Juvenil de Empleo “Educ@emplea”, que como cada año tiene lugar en el recinto de la Institución Ferial Alicantina (IFA) de Torrellano. Ante la atónita mirada de los miles de jóvenes y profesores presentes, y ataviados con batas blancas y mascarillas, procedieron a rodear el stand en el que el ejército español se hace a sí mismo propaganda y se ofrece como siniestra salida laboral para jóvenes que terminan sus estudios.

Book launch, 23 April 2010, 7pm, Housmans Bookshop

Women Conscientious Objectors — An AnthologyWar Resisters' International is proud to finally publish "Women Conscientious Objectors - An Anthology", edited by Ellen Elster and Majken Jul Sørensen, with a preface by Cynthia Enloe. As WRI's chair Howard Clark writes in his preface: "In several senses, an anthology such as this is long overdue. First in the sense of acknowledging this part of the relatively hidden history of antimilitarism. Second for War Resisters' International organisationally. Founded in 1921, WRI has for much of its history been male-dominated, despite the prominent role of women in various affiliates and with certain exceptions at the international level such as long-serving WRI General Secretary Grace Beaton. Since 1972 conscious efforts have been made to change this — first the introduction of inclusive language (s/he, etc), and then, beginning in 1976, the organisation of special women's gatherings, usually in conjunction with WRI's “elder sister” the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. The second gathering in Scotland served as a prelude to the resurgence of an international women's peace movement in the 1980s, and produced a forceful statement on Women as Total Resisters. The British women involved in these gatherings formed the Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group and WRI later co-published their book Piecing It Together (now online at http://wri-irg.org/pubs/Feminism_and_Nonviolence). Then in 1986 the WRI Women's Working Group was formed to take this work forward and to provide a welcoming entry point for women activists, while WRI's 1987 seminar on Refusing War Preparations: Non-cooperation and Conscientious Objection was a response to feminist prompting to look at 'the wider implications of conscientious objection'. That seminar reflected new interest in the Anti-War Plan presented to WRI in 1934 by Bart de Ligt, but it took a decidedly more feminist approach. Activities central to war refusal — war tax resistance, refusing war work and opposing cultural preparations for war — are all areas where women have been and remain at the forefront."

Refusing militarism is not possible without refusing hegemonic masculinity

• Andreas Speck, War Resisters' International

“Questioning the militarist value system and its practices which are identified with military service, one is also obliged to question the hegemonic understanding of masculinity. In Turkey, military service is a laboratory in which masculinity is reproduced. The patriarchal system is solidified through military service.