Antimilitarism has always been one of the battlefields of the anarchist movement. Today like yesterday, facing the massacre of the First World War, the fight against war is firmly rooted in the struggle for social transformation.
The war scenarios are multiplying. In Libya there is a war in progress, in which the Italian government is fully involved: in the country 400 units of the Italian armed forces are already present, even according to the official figures of the MIASIT military mission. Meanwhile, diplomats are organizing an international conference in Rome to decide the future of the country. Italian military intervention is not limited to Libya, but is extended to various African countries, to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Indian Ocean and other missions. This is a commitment in continuity with previous governments and coherent according to international alliances.
As always, the economic weight of these war-mongering policies is discharged on the community: a large part of the Italian government maneuver planned for over thirty billion euros will be destined to increase military spending. The government, in fact, will respect the commitments made to NATO by previous governments, which plan to bring arms spending to 2% of the gross domestic product, 24 billion of euro will be added to the current € 16 billion.
The profits of the military sector are growing against this impoverishment. Italy is ninth in terms of the quantity of arms exported from all the countries of the world, and is fifth among the European producers. The Italian Anarchist Federation refuses any exchange between work in Italy and destruction and death on abroad; we also denounce that fact that arms production brings wealth to only a privileged few. War production, absorbing raw materials, means of production and labor force, steals resources from the production of goods and services, worsening the condition of the exploited as a whole.
War and militarism are a breeding ground for machismo, for the hierarchical and authoritarian ideology that characterizes them, and because they are based on the practice of oppression and violence, are even sexual crimes. Rape is a weapon of war, theorized in the offices of Army Staff, acts violence and acts of feminicide show men in uniform as the main protagonists. The militaristic logic makes women a battlefield, a territory of conquest, domination and power.
Militaristic delirium also manifests itself within the recent legislative proposals on the restoration of mandatory military leverage, such as the one already voted by the Veneto Region, and the one that is being prepared for voting on by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region. Beyond any propaganda, we reiterate that the Armed Forces have never and never will have an educational role.
The anarchist comrades that are part of F.A.I. reiterate their opposition to militarism, and invite everybody to participate in the anti-militarist demonstration of 3th November 2018 in Gorizia.
To stop the militarization of society
To eliminate military expenditure
To close the factories of death
For a world without counties and without frontiers