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<\/p>\nBundesheer poster, Vienna, 30 November 2024. Image by Sarah Waring<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The poster needed a double take: three action-ready figures dressed in fatigues could have easily been advertising a film rather than the Armed Forces. Having never seen military propaganda on the streets of neutral Austria, I took a quick reference photo. That was over six months ago when only outlying politicians were touting statements over European mobilization \u2013 before that is J. D. Vance lectured Europe that it should no longer rely on US defence.<\/p>\n
Now European states are increasingly sparring over military spending. In circulating their \u2018manifesto\u2019 for de-escalation, former leading members of Germany\u2019s SPD have challenged the collation government\u2019s proposal to invest heavily in the Bundeswehr<\/em>. Their warning against an \u2018arms race\u2019, advocating for a \u2018gradual return to easing relations and cooperation with Russia\u2019, smacks of remnant Ostpolitik<\/em> despite failed trade relations with an openly imperialist adversary. \u2018How anyone can even imagine closer cooperation with Russia at this stage is completely disconcerting<\/a>,\u2019 responded Boris Pistorius, SPD Defence Minister, during a visit to Kyiv.<\/p>\n Given political polarization, one would think that demilitarization and mobilization have little in common. And yet reading Nela Porobi\u0107 Isakovi\u0107<\/a>\u2019s stance against neoliberal armament alongside Angelina Kariakina and Nataliya Gumenyuk<\/a>\u2019s argument for autonomous enlistment provides a surprising parallel.<\/p>\n Both articles underline the failure of societies to recognize the agency of civilian women in war. Having lived through the Bosnian War, Porobi\u0107 Isakovi\u0107 asserts, \u2018there is the patriarchal assumption that it is masculine (and thus valued) to be the gun-wielding \u201cprotector\u201d, and that women and other feminised groups are \u201cvictims\u201d without agency (and thus devalued).\u2019 Kariakina and Gumenyuk, reporting on Ukraine\u2019s ongoing need for troops, observe how \u2018recruitment communication targets potential conscripts, but families \u2013 wives, parents \u2013 often have the final say.\u2019 Acknowledging the importance of matriarchal political agency flips the tradition gender roles that war otherwise perpetuates.<\/p>\n On a panel discussing how to avoid risks when documenting witness testaments at The Most Documented War symposium<\/a> in Lviv last month, EUROCLIO advisor Nena Mo\u010dnik spoke about contextual discrepancies. Having worked with survivors of sexual violence from the Bosnian War, she was asked to advise on documenting testimonies in Bucha, Ukraine. The intention was to learn from developmental practices cautious of retraumatizing witnesses, especially given the long-term lack of criminal proceedings in Bosnia and Herzegovina. \u2018Transferring knowledge from one context to another doesn\u2019t really work,\u2019 said Mo\u010dnik \u2013 her statement reflecting the symposium\u2019s high level of candid discussion throughout.<\/p>\n According to Mo\u010dnik, one aspect of witness communication that does translate, however, is silence. The moments when an interviewee doesn\u2019t respond directly to a question can be the most telling: \u2018Survivors of war crimes use silence to protect themselves and, therefore, it speaks very loudly\u2019 \u2013 yet another reversal of the dominant perceptions of wartime agency, where a statement is considered evidential.<\/p>\n Speaking on a panel assessing documentary evidence\u2019s role in seeking justice, Nataliya Gumenyuk also described alternative means of acknowledging trauma. The journalist is fully aware of her responsibility to witnesses: \u2018Don\u2019t steal people\u2019s stories without writing about them,\u2019 she warns. \u2018The woman whose husband was tortured doesn\u2019t expect his killer to be found but wants people to know what happened.\u2019<\/p>\n Much of the symposium tackled how to maximise evidence in all its varied forms, expecting to find justice not just in the Hague but via varied forms of documentation. The Reckoning Project<\/a>, involving Gumenyuk and Kariakina, which has filed a criminal complaint regarding torture in occupied Ukraine in the Republic of Argentina, shows just how seriously these journalists take international court proceedings. However, Gumenyuk also emphasizes the high value of delivering evidence that won\u2019t reach a court of law by other means. Anecdotally, she recounts a lawyer who recognizes that their profession has its limitations: \u2018books and films are better.\u2019 And then Gumenyuk paraphrases Salman Rushdie from another event she participated in<\/a>: \u2018I\u2019m not a victim anymore, he\u2019s just a character in my book.\u2019<\/p>\n Vital is not prematurely dramatizing war, however. Nena Mo\u010dnik concerns regarding overcoming trauma acknowledge the importance of time passing. \u2018Speaking of how to deal with recovery is difficult and risky, because we don\u2019t know when the war will end and how,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n Equally important is not retreating into a fictional, protective bubble, pretending that Russia isn\u2019t waging war in Europe. As Jaroslava Barbieri, co-author of the mobilization study informing Kariakina and Gumenyuk\u2019s article, warns: \u2018Today, Europe needs to have an honest and consistent conversation with its societies about the fact that war is already here, to reject the illusion that people are safe, and to finally abandon the old political strategies that tried to include Russia in the European security architecture.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nDemilitarization or mobilization<\/h2>\n
Overcoming silence<\/h2>\n
Rejecting the illusion<\/h2>\n