East German women
Q. What do you expect to gain from these peace actions? Do you hope to have an influence on the relationships inside oppose military service Hungary?
A. It should not be forgotten that this is a very new movement. It has no ideology, nor any worked-out methods, nor hardly even plans and perspectives.
Q. Are you in contact with Father Bulanyi's peace group?
A. Organizationally, we have had no ties with it. It is also very difficult to develop contacts. These people are quite reserved. They do not want to get pushed into any political corner. They are committed to peace on religious grounds and oppose all forms of violençe.
In fact, most draft resisters come from these Catholic groups of believers. In our group, there has been a lot of discussion about the question of draft resistance. But the more moderate members won with the argument that we should not let ourselves be divided right away over such a bone of contention but should confine ourselves in the beginning to the question of ending the arms race in the West and East.
Q. How do you expect the state to react if you carry out your planned activities?
A. We cannot predict that exactly, the state reacts quite irrationally to such things.
At present, there is sort of a compromise between the government and the op position, between the state and society. The state tries not to intervene as long as no taboo subjects are put up for discussion, such as the presence of Soviet troops in Hungary, the question of the Hungarian minorities in the neighboring countries, or the 1956 uprising. All other questions can be discussed without the state stepping in. Just recently, however, things have begun to change. Thus, some samizdat materials have been seized.
The following appeal to East German hundreds of East German women, published December 6 by the German weekly magazine Der Speigel, from which we have translated it.
It is evidence of the growth of the peace movement in East Germany and its close connection there and elsewhere in the Stalinized countries with demands for democratic rights, the right of public discussion and the right of citizens to participate in public life and have a voice in political decisions.
In this letter, we would like to explain to you some of the thoughts that have occurred to us about military service for women since the passage of the new military service law on March 25, 1982. Among us are women both with and without children, Catholic and Lutheran women, afd women without any church affiliation. Some of us have known war. Others have been spared this terrible experience. But we all have one thing in common. We are not willing to stand by accept the imposition of new obligations on women that we can not reconcile with our consciences.
- We women want to break the vicious circle of violence and refuse to have anything to do with violence as a means of solving conflicts.
- We women see military service for women not as an expression of equal rights but as something that opposed to our feminine consciousness. We do not see equality as standing side by side with the men who take up arms but rather beside those who have realized that fighting against the abstract enemy destruction of human life,
- We women see readiness for military service as a threatening gesture that of moral and military disarmament and which smothers voice of human reason and replaces it with military obedience.
- We women feel a special interest in defending life, in aiding the old, sick, and the weak. Working against war and for peace can only be in the areas of social welfare and education, so as not to fail the rising genera-
- We women do not want to have to stand one day in the ranks of the National People's Army and defend a country that would become uninhabitable, even after a conventional war, and in Europe that would probably end in a nuclear
- We women believe that humanity stands today on the brink of an abyss and that the piling up of more arms is insane and can only lead to a catastrophe.
Such a dreadful descent into destruction can perhaps be avoided if all the tasks this situation poses for us can be discussed publicly. According - to Article 65, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution of the German Democratic Republic, before being passed all proposed basic laws are supposed to be discussed publicly, so that the result of this public discussion can be incorporated in the final version.
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In our opinion, the law in question is a basic one, both because of its subject, and also, and not least important, because it directly concerns half the population of the German Democratic Republic.
- We women declare that we are not prepared to accept universal conscription, and we demand a legal option for refusing to serve. The right to refuse to serve is essential, because the passage of this law imposing military service on women infringes our freedom of conscience.
Since no public discussion of this law was possible, some of us have petitioned for such a discussion. Others hoped to participate in such discussions when they a question that concerns us so vitally.
The Arbatow at the World Religions Peace Congress in Moscow greatly encouraged us to turn to you with our questions. We ask that those responsible for the new military service law show a willing. ness to conduct a public discussion. You are no doubt familiar with this speech. In any case, we would like to a few sentences. psychological and moral allies of the arms race and mentions the myth that the accumulation of arms and military forces can contribute to security.
terminology incomprehensible to the layperson. I don't rule out the possibility that these things have been specially invented to gain some distance from ordinary people. It is often said that ordinary people should not be allowed to concern themselves with the question with the problems of war and peace, because they would get everything confused and do harm.
"But in my opinion, that is the most dangerous and harmful myth. ..This problem has to be solved with the active participation of all. if we want to serve humanity and not the arms
We could not find a better defense
"All these myths promote the arms of our petition.
Unfortunately, these were permitted.
expectations have been dashed. Because notions and riddles, using to conduct a public discussion.
we could find no one willing to discuss race. Today, they try to conceal it with complicated
We ask you to give us the opportunity