What is
the moral difference between abducting children and forcing them to become soldiers, and luring them into the military with
opportunities they missed out on because of systematic injustices? In the last
week there has been much deserved media hype
surrounding the use of child soldiers by Joseph Kony in Uganda.
Invisible Children have created a highly effective Alinsky-like media campaign
complete with key targets and actions. While I believe the cause they are
advocating is worthwhile, I feel that it has brought to light some deeper
contradictions in my nation's heavily militarised culture.
It
strikes me as peculiar that society has deemed it appropriate for a child who
is 17 years of age to join the Australian Defence Force (ADF) yet this same
child is not allowed to purchase alcohol or drive a car. Children have various
restrictions on what they can and cannot do because they are not complete in
the moral development and capacity to hold responsibility. While some children
develop at different rates, I believe that these restrictions are in the interest
of the children affected, as well as the wider society.
What I cannot
come to terms with is the perception that it is permissible to teach children
to kill other human beings when they are still impressionable in their moral
development. This may seem paternalistic, however that Is a mistaken
assumption. Killing is not and should never be a normal facet of life. This is
the distinction between paternalism and abuse. Children who are taught to kill
at a young age become desensitised to violence. And when they have finished
their service society expects them to fit back in.
When I completed my VCE in 2009 I was tempted
by the ADF Gap Year offer of an ‘attractive adult salary’ while being able to
‘enjoy a terrific lifestyle’[1]. I
thought I could get by without earning $50,000 in a year so I turned down the
offer. However, if I came from a socioeconomically disadvantaged background it
would not be a matter of choice, but rather a matter of necessity. Martin
Luther King, Jr. found it problematic that during the Vietnam war, America was
‘taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending
them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties’ which they had not
experienced locally[2]. I fear that he would feel the same way about
the current situation in Australia.
Professor
Frater of the University of NSW at the ADF Academy claims that ‘46 per cent of
students (attending the ADF Academy) come from families where no other family
member has gone to university’ [3] . It
may seem benevolent of the military to take in so many new recruits from such
backgrounds. But in fact, it is quite the opposite. Our defence force needs
socioeconomically disadvantaged youth to survive. Those who control vast
amounts of wealth are in no hurry to defend their country yet they rely on the
poor to defend their fortunes. This creates little inspiration for our
government to alter the status-quo. It seems as though we must keep the poor in
poverty in order to secure ourselves.
In the
midst of worldwide outrage at the use of child soldiers by foreign militia, it
seems easy to focus on how immoral our opponents are. However at the same time,
our nation’s children are going to war to defend a country and a people who
have let them down.
There
are three steps we must courageously take to overcome this contradiction.
First, military advertising must be kept honest. Second, the ADF must stop
targeting low socioeconomic areas for recruitment. With less spending on
defence our nation will easily be able to invest in the education of
disadvantaged youth. Third, we must stop using child soldiers, and raise the
military age to twenty-one.
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