Insubordinate movement in Spain

Broken rifle, main symbol of the Insubordinate Movement.

The Insubordinate movement (Spanish: Movimiento insumiso or Insumisión, Catalan: Moviment d'insubmissió, Galician: Movemento insubmiso, Basque: Matxinada) was a mass antimilitarist movement of civil disobedience to the compulsory military service, which existed in Spain since the early 80s until the abolition of the military service on December 31, 2001.

History

The immediate predecessor of insubordination was the movement of the conscientious objectors initiated in the last years of the Francoist regime, a movement seeking legal recognition of the right of not to perform the, then, compulsory military service on grounds of conscience and moral. Objectors, therefore, refused to join the army and were processed by it, and in many cases ended up in military prisons. In 1984, the Congreso de los Diputados passed a law on conscientious objection, which recognized the rights of objectors, establishing a civilian service of 18 months, called "Prestación Social Sustitutoria" (Substitutionary Social Service, PSS) as an alternative to compulsory military service. The previous objectors were then amnestied and were free from military obligations. A handful of them, however, considering that the longer duration of the PSS penalized objectors, that was forced labor and that eliminated paid works defended that the goal should be the complete disappearance of the military service, thererfore those objectors renounced to the amnesty and returned to be ready to be called up.

When the army wanted to recruit them again, the so-called "Insumisos" (insubordinates) refused both to join the army and to the PSS. By doing so they incurred in a crime and were processed again, but the existence of a largely unfavorable public opinion to the compulsory military service made the judicial proceedings, especially when the penalty included imprisonment, a considerable political cost for the government.

The refusal to perform military service was punishable under the military penal code and was part of the jurisdiction of the army, with a minimum penalty for the offense of a year in jail. The refusal to make the PSS was punished by the ordinary penal code, with two years, four months and one day in prison.

In the following years the number of young people who refused to join the army or that, once recognized as conscientious objectors, refused to do the PSS exponentially increased. If repression of the "insumisos" was difficult, given the broad social support that they had, it was even more difficult when it should be undertaken by the military courts, because the military courts were presented by antimilitarists as "judge and jury" and because the accused had not become part of the army, but remained civilians. Also, the passage of civilians by military courts and prisons evoked to many the Franco era.[1] Thus, the army asked the government to release the institution from the tasks of repressing the insubordination movement, which was finally accepted by the government. Since this the "insumisos" were tried by ordinary courts. Despite this, in the first years the ordinary courts continued applying the military law. Later the ordinary courts would judge the "insumisos" applying a reformed version of the ordinary penal code that included the crime of refusing to do the military service, with an increased penalty to equate it to that applied for refusing to do the PSS.[2]

The Insubordination was a grassroots, nonpartisan and decentralized movement. Despite the nonpartisan character it was supported by several left-wing parties, like the United Left, Herri Batasuna, Republican Left of Catalonia, Galician Nationalist Bloc, Auzolan, Popular Unity Candidates, Socialist Party of Mallorca, Galician Socialist Party-Galician Left, Valencian Nationalist Bloc, Unitarian Candidacy of Workers, Communist Movement, LCR and many others. In all the major cities there were assemblies of "insumisos", that were coordinated with each other in different antimilitarists forums. The most important groups were the Conscientious Objection Movement (MOC), close to the ideas of non-violence, and a constellation of groups generically called Mili KK, more linked to the extra-parliamentary left, although the dividing lines were never totally clear. Anarchist groups also played an important role in the antimilitarist struggle, promoting most of them total disobedience tactics (such as the CNT, CGT and FIJL organizations). In the late 80s and the 90s many antimilitaristic, magazines and groups appeared. On the eve of the disappearance of the compulsory military service the number of "insumisos" exceeded the tens of thousands, probably more than the number of "no-insumisos".

Insubordination was mostly a purely antimilitaristic movement. There were also, however, people who joined the insubordination for different reasons, especially in more recent times: people favourable of a professional army. One of the most important components of the insubordination movement were the Basque, Catalan, Galician or Canarian nationalists, not necessarily anti-military; though the majority were also strong antimilitarists and antiimperialists, specially the Galicians and Canarians, that refused the presence of any military force in their respective territories, and routinely protested against them. In the case of the Basque Abertzale left they also considered the Spanish army an occupation force in the Southern Basque Country, and made campaigns to demand the full withdrawal of the any Spanish army from Euskadi;[3] who refused to serve in a "Spanish" army. Another reason for insubordination was the popular perception of the Spanish army as a fascist and/or francoist institution, perception renewed by the various coup attempts in the 80s, like the 23F in 1981 or the 2J conspiration in 1985. Some people also opposed the military service on religious grounds, like the Jehovah's Witnesses or some pacifist Christians.[4]

Tactics and strategy

Regarding the strategy to follow in civil disobedience, there were also different viewpoints:

Those who couldn't be "insumisos" (for example; men who had already done the military service or women) put up initiatives of "self-incrimination": based on the legal principle that whoever leads someone to do an offense is also guilty, they signed statements accusing themselves of promoting insubordination. Self-incriminations were generally not accepted by the courts. Many people used self-incriminations to establish an active link with the insubordinate movement, among them prominent intellectuals, politicians, filmmakers, singers, actors and other personalities and celebrities.

The Spanish insubordinate movement was a civil disobedience movement unparalleled in any other European country, being its closest precedent in the Western world the disobedience and insubordination to the Vietnam War in the United States.[5] Attempts to do something similar in other countries, such as Germany and France, failed bue to the lack of a social base and popular support. It has the success of insubordination in Spain has been attributed to an antimilitarist sentiment supposedly rooted in the Spanish society and linked both to the resistance against conscription during the Carlist Wars asand during the Rif War between 1909 and 1927, and even some have tried to establish a relationship of this movement to the wide diffusion of anarchism in Spain (very minoritary elsewhere), specially in the first decades of the twentieth century.[6]

Insubordination was one of the main causes of the reduction of military service from 12 to 9 months and, later, of its total disappearance. The other main cause was the 1996 pact between the People's Party and the Basque Nationalist Party and Convergence and Union in 1996, that included the disappearance of military service in 2001.[7]

Chronology of the movement

1937

1960-1970

1970

1971

Pepe Beunza in the prison of Jaén.

1972

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

Insubordination in the popular music

One of the main ways of propaganda of the Insubordinate movement was music, mainly within the punk scene, but also in pop and pop rock, Metal, Ska and other scenes. Antimilitarist music was very popular among the youth during the campaign against Military Service. Some groups like Negu Gorriak even donated their profits to the movement. Among the most notorious songs and hymns are:

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Mario López (2004) Enciclopedia de paz y conflictos. Granada, Universidad de Granada.
  2. ↑ Mario López (2006); Política sin violencia. La noviolencia como humanización de la política. Bogotá. Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios. ISBN 978-958-8165-28-8
  3. ↑ Eoin O'Broin; Matxinada: historia del movimiento juvenil radical vasco. Tafalla, Editorial Txalaparta, 2004. ISBN 84-8136-385-5.
  4. ↑ Arturo García Lucio; Insumisión, respuesta coherente al militarismo. Iglesia viva: revista de pensamiento cristiano, ISSN 0210-1114, Nº. 173 (SEP-OCT), 1994, pages 499-517.
  5. ↑ Insumisión, 25 años de desobediencia.
  6. ↑ Xavier Díez; La insumisión voluntaria. El anarquismo individualista español durante la Dictadura y la Segunda República (1923-1938). Germinal: revista de estudios libertarios, ISSN 1886-3019, Nº. 1, 2006, págs. 23-58.
  7. ↑ El fantasma del Majestic sobrevuela CiU.
  8. ↑ Real Decreto Ley 1/1988, de 12 de febrero.
  9. ↑ Insumisión, 25 años de desobediencia.
  10. ↑ "La insumisión, el primer gran movimiento de desobediencia civil en España"
  11. ↑ Insumisión, 25 años de desobediencia.
  12. ↑ Ejército y Navarra
  13. ↑ Fool the last.
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