Militarism report published
A new report from QPSW highlights the growing militarisation of British society
The growing militarisation of British society in recent years has been highlighted in a new report published by Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW). Sam Walton, who wrote the report, entitled The new tide of militarisation, said that although militarism has always been an aspect of British society it has become more so during the past five years.
Sam, peace and disarmament programme manager for QPSW, said: ‘Quakers kept getting in touch with me saying they are very concerned with the military coming into our children’s schools and I am concerned with what the armed forces are doing in our town.
‘So, we started to look into it. We found that there is a government strategy behind all this increased military presence. The Quakers didn’t know about it. I didn’t know about it. Nobody knew about it. So we wrote a report about it which looks at three government strategies and uses their own words to explain some of the concerns these strategies raise.
‘We want people to read the report and find out about these strategies and we need to have a conversation in Britain about these sinister strategies to militarise our society.’
It took about six months to compile the publication. The new tide of militarisation is based on three reports written for government: the National recognition of our armed forces, Future Reserves 2020 and the Defence Youth Engagement Review.
Sam added: ‘One of the most shocking things we found was that the armed forces engage in youth work to boost their support and recruitment. Developing young people is a secondary goal and that’s very worrying because [with] anyone else who does youth work their motivation is developing and looking after young people.
‘I want people to get a sense of the scale and breadth of this strategy of militarisation of society. It’s really quite pervasive. It’s in our education system, our media and our spaces, our culture and in our public institutions. That’s very worrying. The vast majority of people have no sense that the strategy to militarise our society even exists.’
Comments
Would it be possible to include a html link for this report please or explain how to get hold of a print copy?
By Janeee56 on 1st May 2014 - 15:53
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