In recent months secondary schools across Glasgow have been the focus of British Army recruitment drives. As always it is the schools situated in the most predominantly working class areas that are given the most intense scrutiny. With unemployment figures on the rise, a career in the British Army is once again being touted as the way to escape the decimation of living standards. As an Army representative put it: ‘Employment with the Army represents a chance to see the world, to meet new people and defend the lifestyle you love … it is a wonder that you are not paying us’.
Despite the deceit in this statement it is one which is becoming increasingly appealing for young people. What do anti-imperialists say to this? Don’t join the army, be unemployed and join the anti-war movement? Oh, wait! There is no effective anti-war movement in Glasgow or anywhere else in Britain; the fact that Army personnel can walk freely into schools across the country and spout imperialist propaganda to young people is testimony to the failure of the left to build an active anti-war movement. The struggle is therefore to educate young, working class people as to why they should not sign up. To argue that an attack on working class people in any country that Britain invades be it Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya is an attack on working class people in Britain. That an injury to one is an injury to all.
Thankfully in Glasgow, the British Army’s war on young people is facing small-scale but vital resistance. At an Employment Opportunities festival for Glasgow’s high schools attended by 14 to 16-year-olds, it was little surprise to see that the biggest marquees in the hall were allocated to British Army recruitment teams. The recruiters were even allowed to place their stalls in separate areas to cover each corner of the hall, a pitch each for the British Army, The Royal Navy, The Royal Air Force and even a stall for the Corps of Army Musicians! Nevertheless, this fiasco did not go unopposed. A trio of courageous teenagers decided to place themselves in front of the recruitment officers and speak to their classmates about what was actually happening. To the horror of the recruitment thugs and delight of the protesters the recruiters were soon left isolated, with unsigned forms and untouched leaflets.
Afterwards, an FRFI supporter caught up with two of the successful demonstrators. 14-year-old Ross said: ‘In school we have been learning about the rise of Hitler in Germany and how he targeted the youth to make sure that the next generation would have Nazi politics, I came here today to try and find an opportunity to work and instead am given leaflets about joining an organisation which is responsible for killing millions of innocent people, it may be on a different scale but the ideas are the same and it’s just not on, I wasn’t prepared to stand by and let them brainwash my friends into fighting innocent people for a bunch of millionaires.’
15-year-old Connor explained:
‘I had expected an Army presence and had grown tired of seeing people who I socialise with being enthusiastic about what they were offering. We didn’t disrupt the Army’s stall but merely uncovered it, so to speak – after a classmate had been at the stall or spoken to by one of them we spoke to them, asked them simple questions and they actually talked themselves out of it. That’s the thing, really, it’s not that young people are ignorant to what the Army is but more that there is a rainbow put over the atrocities which have been committed by the Army. I mean, why is it that in subjects like history we are taught almost solely about Britain’s involvement in World War Two and not their campaigns across Africa, the Middle East or in Ireland? It is easy to paint the Brits as heroes when their blood-drenched past is wiped from the course of history which is effectively what happens in school. Already people have been asking me and the others about what we were doing and why, and the majority agreed with it. The task is to be proactive about this and try and make sure that when the next time an event like this happens the Army cannot even enter the venue to spread their deceit. This requires real education in schools which will be left down to the students. Glasgow City Council will also be receiving a letter voicing our discontent, with the disrespect that they have shown towards young people in the past though I won’t hold my breath on a reply!’
FRFI applauds the work of these students and condemns the cowardly recruitment drives of the British Army.
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism 228 August/September 2012
Matt Kelly
