Dear participant,
We are about to commence the second ever peace exercise Baltic Glory 18. But let’s start with something about the exercise and the need for it.
In all our countries we see a rise in militarism. The expressions and levels of militarism might differ between the countries. But make no mistake. The militarism is one, at constant war with itself and ultimately against humanity. So far the movement for a radically different future – for lack of words called antimilitarism – is far from united and perhaps not even a movement.
This is what the Baltic Glory has set out to fix. Out of the wide range of voices for peace it aims to make a choir. With all the big and small acts of compassionate resistance build momentum. In short Baltic Glory is about to change the world. It is a big – even grandiose – goal, but also the only reasonable one.
Big goals are however useless if they can’t be broken down to steps. Step one is to understand and acknowledge the difficulties in building a antimilitarist movement across the imagined frontier. Throughout all times antimilitarists have been called traitors, foreign agents, spies, useful idiots, fifth columneers or simply enemies. During times of militarist hegemony words have been followed by severe punishments. With this comes a pressure to direct our resistance towards the militarism of the perceived enemy, effectively joining ranks with our own militarist.
The principle to primarily fight militarism within our own countries is based on this conclusion. The conclusion that we have to exercise to be able to act is simpler, derived only from imitation. Militarism is constantly exercised (and financed and propagated and equipped) and would not exist without these exercises. So also the antimilitarist movement has to exercise. And exercising is the concrete and unique focus of Baltic Glory.
Antimili greetings!
Pelle Sunvisson
Ask more: balticglory18@gmail.com.