Rheinmetall Disarm: “We want Hamburg, which is unwilling to go to war”

Question: Massive rearmament is just one of many issues that generate great pressure to act from a left-wing perspective. Why are you particularly involved in the antimilitarist movement?

Tina Reiß: I see myself as a radical leftist. And that means not making issue policy, but rather having a comprehensive concept of social change. Armament is a particularly pressing issue at the moment because the logic of war permeates many areas of society: young people receive mail from the Bundeswehr, new arms deals and increasing military spending are discussed every day, while social cuts are being made. With its logic of victory and defeat, militarism also promotes authoritarian tendencies and fascisation. Militarization cannot be separated from social struggles or the climate crisis. Resources are finite and the fight for access to resources, raw materials and habitable places threatens to become increasingly violent.

Question: You were at the Rheinmetall disarm camp in Cologne at the beginning of September. What three things do you take with you from there?

Firstly, with well over 2,000 people, the camp was larger and more diverse than in previous years. This shows the growing need to deal with militarization and rearmament and to protest against it. Second, international solidarity with people affected by or rebelling against war was important. And thirdly, many activists from the climate movement, the social protests and the school strike movement were there. This also shows how many areas of society are now affected by militarization and that new alliances are being sought.

Things continue at the end of September: Rheinmetall Disarmen mobilizes against the NATO exercise Red Storm Charlie in Hamburg. How are the preparations going?

The preparations are going well. There have already been protests against the NATO maneuvers in Hamburg in the past two years, which we can build on. The fact that Rheinmetall Disarmen is organizing two major campaigns this year, in Cologne and Hamburg, reflects the urgency of the situation and offers the opportunity to broaden the anti-militarist movement.

What are you talking about with the protests in Hamburg?

Red Storm Charlie is exemplary for us because civil-military cooperation is practiced there at the level of a large city. Hamburg is to be developed and expanded into a logistics hub and hub for a possible war against Russia. We defend ourselves against this. We don't want a war-worthy Hamburg, but rather a Hamburg that is unfit for war and unwilling to go to war. Our focus is on the cooperation of the military with civilian hospitals, emergency services, the employment office and food retailers. We see this as a normalization of war: Civilian institutions are turned into actors in war mobilization and war is presented as a manageable scenario for which one just needs to practice enough. But war is catastrophe.

Why is Hamburg so important for NATO?

It's not just about the port. There is a lot of military infrastructure in Hamburg, such as the leadership academy and the Bundeswehr University. Added to this is the long history of arms production in the Hamburg shipyards. Armaments are also transported to current war zones via the port, and large arms companies are represented there. Rheinmetall has also recently expanded its involvement in the port.

In the past, antimilitarism was primarily an issue for the peace movement. Since the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, parts of the old peace movement have been open to a cross-front. Who is involved in the anti-militarist protests today?

I would start conflict lines much earlier. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, a part of the radical left switched to the self-narrative of the West as a refuge from barbarism and was prepared to accept or justify Western wars. At the same time, the old peace movement after the end of the Cold War remained partly stuck in a schematic comparison of imperialist and anti-imperialist. At the latest with the uprisings from 2011 and the Syrian civil war, this no longer worked. Authoritarian regimes were sometimes protected simply because of their opposition to the USA and Israel. The Rheinmetall Disarm Alliance was founded in 2018 as an attempt to build a new left-wing antimilitarism and to attack the role of its own government in wars and as a weapons supplier. Today, groups from migrant and post-migrant society and solidarity movements, for example from Kurdistan, Rojava or Palestine, belong to the alliance, but also various currents of the radical left, communist, socialist and post-autonomous groups. Increasingly, actors from the climate movement and social protests are positioning themselves against war and rearmament.

There is definitely agreement from the IG Metall leadership, but also from companies, to convert car factories into armaments factories. How do you view the discussions in IG Metall, for example?

The leadership of the member unions, such as IG Metall, are prepared to subordinate themselves to the primacy of the national interest and the business location. Securing jobs becomes an end in itself, regardless of the sector. This is extremely problematic, but at the trade union base there are many currents, company groups, works councils and trust bodies from production, health care to public services and ports that oppose war and rearmament and are active. And unions are susceptible to social mobilization and pressure. What has been achieved on questions of social-ecological transformation can also work with growth of anti-militarist mobilization.

The protests against social cuts, which were mainly organized by the Left Party, were criticized from the left because rearmament was hardly an issue there. How do you see that?

The criticism is justified. However, social cuts and militarization are not one and the same development, but rather independent processes that reinforce each other. If social infrastructure is dismantled, the opportunities for a self-determined life disappear. At the same time, a massive redistribution and political reprioritization is taking place: What is money for, who is taken care of and who is not? This promotes social hardening and authoritarian tendencies. That's why we have to address this connection. In Hamburg we will take part in the “We are Unshortable” demonstration with an anti-militarist bloc on September 26th and raise the question of redistribution and prioritization there.

Your spokesman Luca Hirsch spoke to the taz about a "new German imperialism" and said that the federal government wanted to make Germany "structurally capable of attack in order to have a say on the global chessboard." Isn't it more about not getting under the wheels there?

I think it's both. The Western bloc is losing economic and geopolitical importance. Value creation centers are shifting, countries in the Global South are becoming more self-confident and pursuing their interests more independently. On the one hand, the countries of the Western bloc, to which Germany belongs, are trying to defend their current status, their global market shares and their position of power. On the other hand, it's about more than securing status. The EU wants to become more independent from the USA, and the federal government is openly formulating Germany's claim to leadership in Europe. This also includes building the largest conventional army in Europe, to quote the Chancellor. This is more than not being left behind in a changed world order. 

Source:https://www.akweb.de/movement/wir-wollen-das-kriegsunwillige-hamburg-rhe...

web address: https://rheinmetallentwaffnen.org/ak-Interview: Guido Speckmann, ak 729License of the article and all embedded media:  Creative Commons by-sa: Share Alike