| From Unity, 11 June 2005 |
War is no sport |
| Europe’s largest youth fair is called YOU and takes place in Essen, Germany, every year. It attracts in the region of 300,000 visitors.
Besides countless and mostly commercial exhibitors, who try to convince young people to buy their products, the German army has been increasingly using the fair for propaganda. A huge stall with flight-simulating games, models of tanks and lots of computer games is designed to portray the army as good fun, as well as a serious employer who gives young people a fair chance. “You can’t find an apprenticeship? Come and join the army!” was one of the slogans this year. Obviously many young people would look at these wonderful prospects in a country where 40,000 young people were left without a place for training last year. The communist youth movement, SDAJ, decided they weren’t going to allow the army to misuse a youth fair for propaganda. Under the slogan “War is no sport” the SDAJ staged a noisy and colourful protest, which ground the army activities to a halt. In their leaflet they said: “What starts with a flight-simulating game at the youth fair will end with learning the bitter lesson that army reality gives you no option to restart the game. It is unreal that the army tries to recruit their cannon fodder at youth fairs. We need proper apprenticeship and more jobs, not soldiers.” Last year the communist journalist Wera Richter was arrested at the event; but in 2005 the large contingent of young revolutionaries and the sympathetic response of visitors to the fair made it impossible for the police and organisers to stop the activity. |
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