What If?

Here's an article by Paul that appeared in last week's Stouffville Free Press:

As a member of Community Mennonite Church of Stouffville, a peace church that promotes non-violent, constructive and transforming approaches to conflict, I became quite concerned after hearing that the Canadian military is recruiting in high schools across Canada (including Stouffville). The military is presented as a career option and targets teenagers through offering to pay for higher education if they enlist and recruiters present a career in the military as one of promoting peace-keeping throughout the world. My concern was heightened in hearing that the goal for recruitment is the “Number of recruiters being increased from 300 currently to 30,000 in the short-term to 80,000 in the long term.” (General Rick Hillier, February, 2006). "We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people" -- General Rick Hillier, July 13, 2005. Is learning to kill people being presented as just another exciting career option?

In high school in the late 60's in Markham, I was taught that Canada was an international leader in finding peaceful means to resolve conflicts and was a leader in contributing to a world UN police force. In this new century, Canada has been steadily giving up its special leadership in international peace-keeping. Instead, the militarization (violence) of Canada’s response to international relations has increased and we have become a lower-grade partner with other countries in using military force to try to establish peace (Afganistan). This approach is internationally recognized as ineffective, and in fact increases the cycle of violence.

This change has made me quite sad at what has been lost to my children and to our country. What if Canada was truly in the business of saving lives and reducing conflict rather than having the job of being “able to kill people?” What if, instead of a doubling of the Canadian military budget over the past 10 years to 17 billion dollars, half of that had gone to using peaceful means that actually work in reducing and transforming international conflict? What if only the 2007 military overspending of one billion dollars was put into courses in high school and colleges that teach conflict resolution and transformation and how lives can be saved? What if our teenagers were offered free university education to become international peacekeepers? I expect that many young persons would jump at the chance and take great pride in being international peacekeepers. We all know that we define ourselves as a country by the resources we put into education. Are we putting our resources into teaching war? Or can we put our resources into teaching peace and once again become world leaders in transforming conflicted societies?

- Paul McDowell