Children of the fatherland

The FameWorks are in Sweden next week, so we’ve been keeping our eye out for anything interesting going on in that culture.   It turns out they’ve just this month re-introduced conscription, which seems a little counter-intuitive for such a progressive, socially-conscious kind of milieu. How could they possibly countenance all that square bashing and bad food?  The answer lies in a changing security environment in the Baltics that requires a little more critical mass in the military.  Still, it won’t come with the kind of patriarchal baggage one traditionally associates with the draft; men and women will be treated equally,  and not everyone will get whisked off to the barracks.  Rather, 13, 000 people born in 1999 will be assessed, and from these, 4, 000 willing, interested and motivated individuals will be selected for stints of 9 to 12 months.  It all sounds terribly reasonable.

Whilst conscription is in decline, there are still many other places around the world where it’s almost certain to be part of the life experience of the people you meet. Unsurprisingly, countries in unstable zones, or with neighbours perceived as aggressive, still have it.  Both Koreas, Israel, Cuba, Jordan, Taiwan and Cyprus are obvious examples.  But why would Switzerland or Austria?  There are hardly massed ranks waiting on the borders of either country.  And why is France considering it?

In the case of Switzerland, Max Frisch thought of it as a kind of metaphorical bracket holding together a country of four different language communities. This makes some sense, though it’s notable that women don’t get to take part in this collective act of nation-forging.  For Austria, the short answer is that there was a referendum on the subject in 2013.  Some on these shores would argue that short answer and referendum should never appear in the same sentence, and like Britain’s recent referendum, the Austrian one seems to have divided young from old, bitterly in some cases.

But it’s not always the case that young people everywhere hate the idea of the draft.  We’ve met young, progressive Turks with modern, outward-looking attitudes who talk positively about how military service brings individuals into contact with compatriots they’d not necessarily meet otherwise, and enhances the sense of pride in one’s country.  These are not people who relish the crack of the rifle and the dawn revally for their own sake.  There are a few divided nations that could perhaps benefit from a bit of shared national purpose.  And that seems to be a key motivation driving Emmanuel Macron’s odd idea for a reintroduction of some form of conscription.  (It’s worth noting, however, that the army, with plenty of staff and plenty to be getting on with, take a rather dim view of his plans.)

For people in rich countries, for whom conscription is but a distant memory, it’s a useful cultural facet to consider for any national context being studied.  How long does it last?  What are the foundational motivations and social contracts that legitimise it? Are these internal or external forces?  Is it for both sexes or just for men?  Can it easily be substituted by some other social service?  What do individuals think about it? How does that vary by demographic?    They’re all interesting questions, whose answers, in the round, can give a rather subtle view of the agency of the individual and the structure of the state, wherever you may find yourself.

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