Monday, March 26, 2007
Just Say No
As it turns out, there was a memorable N30 long before the one in Seattle 1999. On 30 November 1943, 300 SS detachments attempted to arrest all male students at Oslo University to ship to a camp in Germany and on to the Russian front as conscripted soldiers. Forewarned by the resistance, some ten thousand students in the region fled to the woods and mountains where they survived in makeshift shelters until they could be smuggled into Sweden and trained as police for the post-occupation reconstruction of Norwegian sovereignty.
While their refusal to fight for fascists was distinct from the present situation in the US, it was not entirely dissimilar from the current campaign to remove military recruiters and JROTC from public schools as part of the overall movement against militarism in America---it's just that the imperial forces in Norway were foreign, as opposed to domestic here.
Had it not been for the prescient, organized efforts earlier by teachers, clergy, and parents against mandatory national youth service, these thousands who later participated in Norwegian liberation would have been sacrificed against the Allies. Allowing our young today to be used in committing war crimes and crimes against humanity is nothing short of unconscionable.
While their refusal to fight for fascists was distinct from the present situation in the US, it was not entirely dissimilar from the current campaign to remove military recruiters and JROTC from public schools as part of the overall movement against militarism in America---it's just that the imperial forces in Norway were foreign, as opposed to domestic here.
Had it not been for the prescient, organized efforts earlier by teachers, clergy, and parents against mandatory national youth service, these thousands who later participated in Norwegian liberation would have been sacrificed against the Allies. Allowing our young today to be used in committing war crimes and crimes against humanity is nothing short of unconscionable.
