I'm sitting in an Evangelical Lutheran congregation building where my generation is being recruited by military to be trained as part of a system that is designed to be as efficient as possible in eliminating enemy threat in a conflict against hostile government. "Hmm... what would Jesus say about this", I wonder as I'm sitting on my chair in God's room among dozens of others born the same year as I: 1998. Many of them are familiar faces from primary school, some of them are my friends, but the most are still unknown to me. We are shown clips with thrilling action of soldiers, guns'n'missiles and tanks. In between some cuts from our old veterans' speeches. I'm starting to get a very uncomfortable feeling in my stomach about the situation revolving around me.
Source
A typical Finnish call up, picture is from an another location than where mine was.
Bound by law
The previous was a description from the draft by military where I was sitting, because as an adult man in Finland, I have an liability to military by law, which is part of the "responsibility of national defence". Every man, excluding the ones liberated from the service on peacetime for their unability to serve based on health issues, must either:
- Attend to military service, which is the majority's choice.
or
- Apply to civil service in the draft or by changing to it from a started military service.
or
- Totally object from both options above, which means breaking the law, leading to a punishment usually in form of a house arrest for a period of maximum of 173 days or equal to the amount that is half of the remaining service days left. A rare choice that is done by 20-80 men yearly.*
*Doesn't actually fulfill the responsibility but an option nonetheless.
The name "liability to military" can be a bit misguiding since army isn't the only choice, like for me as I chose to go with the second option, the civil service, instead. More of why I decided like this, is coming in my future post. This post is more of an brief overview of the liability to military and civil service; explaining it to you also gives an better basis for you to understand my thought process when I get into it.
What is Civil Service?
Civil service has been available as an alternative for military service since 1931 in Finland. By the recent law it is 347 days long and it consists of 28 days long education period from after the servant completes his (rarely her) service as a work in a non-profit organisation owned usually by the government or a municipality.
Each year about 2500 perform civil service either right away or changing to it from the military service which makes it about 7% from yearly age groups.
In the education period one chooses his line of education from the available choices:
Protection of nature and cultural property*
Civil readiness*
Fire, life and citizen protection
Prevention of violence
*It is to be mentioned that the first two are combined in the current education plan.
"Prevention of violence" is not only what the name implies but it also discusses topics like human rights and it teaches some self-conscious skills including emotion control ability. As the nature of the line was connected with my own interests, especially psychology, it was the way to go for me.
Additionally, a course on first-aid is mandatory for everybody and no wonder; its knowledge can potentially save lives in an emergency.
SourcePrepare, someday I could be saving your life, though I hope no situation will lead to a point where that becomes a necessity.
So the nature of civil service is that it offers useful knowledge and skill that can be applied in every day life, compared to military which trains you into a crisis situation. Not that military wouldn't give any skills from which one could benefit in every day life, but the aim of military training is to be trained for a conflict (even though its "usefull skills learned" has been used as an argument to justify the liability to military for all men).
SourceAn overview of the civil service center located in a small municipality of Lapinjärvi in Southern Finland, under 100 kilometers from Helsinki. Everything from food to shelter and education is provided in there during the education period.
The questionable nature of Military Liability in Finland
The Finnish laws considering military liability puts men and women in an unequal position: women do not have liability to army as men have. Whether or not this is justified is a different topic I'm not going to discuss in this write.
The nature of civil service is considered as "punitive and discriminatory" by its length (347 days, which is over double the shortest duration of military service of 165 days) according to Amnesty International. [Source]
United Nations' human rights committee has also criticized the length of civil service compared to military service and it "recommends that the preferential treatment accorded to Jehova’s Witnesses [a full liberation from military service based on their religious beliefs] be extended to other groups of conscientious objectors." [Source]
The actual need to train all the men has been questioned since there is arguably an oversupply of them: the strength of an Finnish army during war has been determined to 230 000 men but in reserve there are 900 000 trained men.
In 1959 civil service became available with other reasons as well than religious beliefs but an investigation board was founded in the purpose of interrogating the ones applying to it. In the process of applying to civil service, one was put in front of a board including a judge, a priest, an officer from military and a psychiatrist, to get his beliefs invested. The following of how they interrogated men in the board is based on anecdotal evidence from one of my teacher's (she herself hasn't gone through it but some of her friends have) knowledge in the civil service center who lectures about the civil service law:
When put in front of the board he was asked: "In a situation where you have a baseball bat and you are threatened by multiple people who are going to rape your girl friend, are you going to prevent the rape happening by using your baseball bat as a weapon against the threats?" If one said "yes" he was put into military, if "no" he was put into civil service.
I don't know if the decision was that polarized but with my teachers words "if you weren't good at talking your way through there that's how the evaluation was made". She also mentioned about guides that excisted for one to give the right answers to get into the civil service.
Luckily the board was shut down in 1987 and applying to civil service became available only with an announcement; there's no need to explain the absurdity of comparing the hypothetical situation above with warfare.
I am a young man from Finland currently on education period of my civil service.
In the near future I will share more of my experiences on my duty.
Check my introduction post if you want a better impression on me.
See you later!
In the near future I will share more of my experiences on my duty.
Check my introduction post if you want a better impression on me.
See you later!