A-Infos (en) Greece, APO, Land & Freedom: Thessaloniki, Against the conscription of women - NOT ONE HOUR IN THE ARMY (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The recent call by the General Staff of the Army to women aged 20-26 for 
voluntary conscription could not fail to be accompanied by the phrase 
"the responsibility of the homeland concerns me too". And in this very 
phrase is condensed the way in which the state attempts to extend its 
control over our bodies and lives, demanding not only consent but also 
our active participation in the reproduction of its sovereignty. In 
particular, the announcements, which are part of the EU's Territorial 
Agenda 2030, in fact invite women to join the ground army for a pilot 
period of 12 months, starting in April with 200 "volunteers" at the war 
material training center in Lamia.

It is certain that the conscription of women is not a step towards 
freedom or equality, but an extension of the same violence that 
organizes the world of the state and capital. It is not a "right" to 
participate in war, but a death knell, another attempt to normalize the 
idea that we all must be available for the needs of sovereignty. It is 
no coincidence that this voluntary enlistment in the army is presented 
as a constituent element for national independent existence, as a 
term-"opportunity" and at the same time as a legal continuation of the 
"glorious Greek past" and a responsibility in a period where "constantly 
changing conditions create new demands." Precisely in these conditions 
of the generalization of modern totalitarianism, of everyday 
impoverishment and the crystallization of the dystopian mosaic of 
exploitation, the so-called gender equality, under the cloak of 
democratization, is exploited by the state and its mechanisms as a tool 
for reproducing hierarchies and extracting consent. This method is used 
to bridge social conflicts under the umbrellas of "inclusion", "national 
honor" and "offering", while at the same time regulating our bodies, 
preparing the social base as "destined" to be part of a collective 
military machine. In this way, women are supposedly reestablished as 
active subjects, while in reality they are invited to integrate 
precisely into these needs of state and capital dominance and to guard 
the conservative network of social relations that calls us to take up 
"battle positions."

Moreover, overall we understand that in order to safeguard the plans of 
territorial sovereignty and military and economic expansion that are 
covered under vulgar cloaks of "social welfare" and "common good" but 
also to normalize the sirens of war that are starting to whistle again, 
states methodically establish and reinforce this network of discipline 
and subordination that permeates every aspect of social life. From 
school to camp, bodies are trained to obey, align themselves and 
integrate into hierarchical structures, while violence is internalized 
as a necessary means of maintaining "order" and cohesion. In other 
words, militarization is not limited to the spaces of the armed forces, 
but permeates everyday life, transforming society into a mechanism where 
surveillance, fear, and compliance become normal, and where preparation 
for war is identified with the very organization of life.

At the same time, militarization cannot be separated from the broader 
reality of exploitation and exclusion. The same mechanisms that now call 
on women to defend the homeland are the same ones that leave working 
women in precariousness, that turn migrants and refugees into cheap and 
expendable labor, that cultivate and reproduce gender-based violence and 
social exclusion. Consequently, we should not be under the illusion that 
these mechanisms that are structurally and a priori programmed to 
implement and reproduce gender oppression, repression and exploitation 
in every field of private and public life, could express any 
sensitivity, even if only under pretense. After all, power can manage 
and disguise itself, however, its structural element will always be its 
need for control. And it is clear that the homeland for which we are 
called to fight is not a common place of freedom, but a field of 
exploitation and death.

We refuse, therefore, to be turned into "meat" in the hands of a 
mechanism that produces death, destruction and subjugation. We stand 
against and fight daily against the nationalism that wants us to 
identify with the interests of the sovereign, against the patriarchy 
that extends its control even through "integration". Even in times when, 
in the face of borders, transnational capital formations and war, human 
life is clearly devalued, it is the dignity of existence that could 
never be appeased nor limited to the tight confines of EU spatial 
planning, proclamations and professional "bonuses" of the General Staff.

And at the same time we create our own statements, proposing another 
perspective: that of internationalist solidarity between those who 
experience exploitation, which transcends national borders and 
artificial divisions imposed from above! As we have nothing to defend in 
this world of inequality, wars and oppression, exploitation and death. 
Nor could we ever recognize any responsibility towards states that 
organize life in terms of domination and death.

Because the responsibility we assume is towards each other, towards 
every person who resists, towards the very possibility of a life free 
from exploitation, borders and power. And so we unwaveringly keep the 
promise that in the face of intensifying totalitarianism, barbarism and 
death, freedom could not be fought for, but on the contrary is built 
through struggle, a total struggle destined to crush all power, the 
anarchist struggle that will not stop until we uproot oppression, the 
state, capitalism, patriarchy from the foundations, until we build a 
world of equality, freedom and dignity.

INTERNATIONALIST STRUGGLES AGAINST PATRIARCHY, THE STATE AND CAPITAL
IN NATIONALISM, FASCISM AND WAR

Free Women of the Collective for Social Anarchism - Black & Red member 
of the Anarchist Political Organization - Federation of Collectives

https://landandfreedom.gr/el/agones/2258-thes-niki-enantia-stin-stratefsi-gynaikon
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