CALL TO ACTION!

We, the authors and signatories of this CALL, come from diverse continents, cultures and political backgrounds. Regardless of age, what makes us ‘Elders’ is our shared sense of social and moral responsibility and our commitment not to remain passive witnesses to the current disasters and mounting immense risks that find root in militarism.

Militarism— the glorification, endless expansion and aggressive use of military power and armed violence— has enormous impacts on people and nature and makes us all deeply insecure. The physical impact on people, now unprecedentedly conveyed by social media, is horrendous and continues long after conflicts, through disease, disabilities and the breakdown of families. Humanity is diminished by the dehumanizing cruelty, capriciousness and atrocities of soldiers controlling the bodies of ‘others’. Justice is trampled by a myriad of coups d'état, dictatorships, violent repressions and ‘states of exception’ that justify illegal operations at home and abroad.  

Militarism affects also future generations. Via lobbying and corruption, resources are siphoned away from diplomacy, the collective good and preventing damage to nature. Financial capitalism keeps privatizing profits and socializing costs while ‘security budgets’ bypass all regulations and nourish slush funds to maintain power. The impact on nature is immense, as militarism enables extractivism while— systemically—  also requires it for its perpetuation. Meanwhile, the media normalize polarized narratives, obscure history and vilify ‘unredeemable’ enemies. Remarkably, they never ask for accountability for the military debacles that have littered the world since World War II.  Secrecy is essential to militarism. Classified information is for the few who maintain a near monopoly on atrocious means of lethality, surveillance and control, including ties to the underworld of drug and arms traffics.

The military-industrial complex supported by pervasive financial, media and political interests is a self-justified, self-sustaining and self-regenerating system. We know that it reproduces oligarchic power systems and grotesque economic inequalities. We know that it is an unprecedented existential risk for humanity, that it may ultimately deliver our annihilation by nuclear war and nuclear winter, by design, human error or technical malfunction. Yet, many of us remain passive witnesses, as the hegemonic culture of militarism is a pollutant in all the air we breathe. 

The history of imperialism and colonialism is replete with patterns of military gambles and political corruption that generate immense misery for the many and fortunes for the few. Today, as people are massacred, humanity diminished, nature degraded and militarism rewards its supporters, a huge gap is again increasingly separating the super-rich from the billions of dispossessed. The super-rich believe that they will be saved. Those with more experience, or heart, insist that all must be saved. But ‘how? How may we reverse the pervasive waste, violence and greed?

Our first act of liberation is becoming aware of the ‘fog of militarism’. Early on, our family, ethnicity and country softly coach us into separate groups (classes, religions, orientalisms…) justifying ‘defence’ against threats by the ‘others’. Later, our consent is manufactured by education, media, entertainment and political discourse, and reinforced by the material conditions of inequality (disciplinary systems, ‘jobs’) and power (political decisions, covert operations, financial might).

We do not naively believe that conflicts can be made to disappear. But neither that the arrogance of militarism guarantees security. True security requires systemic change. Human beings can be violent, but they also have enormous potential to help one another and to collaborate. We call on everyone to harness this potential and to understand that true security is collective. We can do this by focusing education on our shared humanity and our power to organize; by demanding transparency and accountability in domestic politics; by insisting on diplomatic negotiations and reliance on international law in foreign affairs; by converting military to peaceful industries; by regulating financial markets for the common good; by requiring much stronger involvement of the workforce and the public in political decisions; by nourishing what makes our lives better— health services and theaters, rather than drones and bombs; by investing in true safety for future generations— from justice to climate change mitigation. Crucially, we call everyone to expose our huge and growing military budgets for what they are— profits for the few and misery for the many, now and in the future.

The powerful interests of militarism permeate our institutions and use soft and hard power to coerce and convince us “sheeple” of the necessity to arm ourselves and live in endless conflicts. In solidarity with young people demonstrating against genocide and ecocide, we commit to doing everything in our power – from small individual acts to collective political initiatives – to ostracize militarism and promote collective security through verified mutual disarmament, diplomacy, trade and cooperation. Collective security is based on the health and well-being of people, on the integrity of nature and on institutions capable of cultivating peace.  Our appeal is for everyone to be free from the scourge of militarism, for there to be no limits to peace. 

To sign in solidarity with this CALL  click here

• For more on the facts that informed our CALL, on related resources (e.g., videos and publications), and on groups and organizations that broadly share our aims,  click here 

• For the list of authors and early signatories of the CALL, including videos that illustreate their reasons,  click here

• To develop or participate in a 'node' of the 'Elders' network click here and please also state it specifically in the form you submit with your signature 

• For ideas about what people can do together, click here