“The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service.”
Albert Einstein

Check your ignorance at the door. Before you dismiss our counter-recruitment action as some pointless hippie-shit, open your mind and learn why we did it.

The military has no place at Fanshawe College's Career Fair for numerous reasons. Firstly, there are no military-related programs offered at Fanshawe College and therefore, every student here is studying to become something other than a soldier.

Secondly, the military is sending many young Canadians off to occupy Kandahar, Afghanistan, where they have a higher risk of being killed than American soldiers in Iraq. Thirdly, due to the U.S. military's blatant disregard for human life and the environment, Canadian soldiers deployed in Afghanistan are exposed to extremely unsafe levels of toxic radiation emanating from American depleted uranium ammunition, which is considered a war crime and violation of international law by the U.N. and is known to cause cancer, birth defects and leukemia rates to skyrocket.

Students have a right to learn in de-militarized, war-free schools. We, the next generation of leaders, must resist and refuse military service if we want to be able to ever experience peace in our lifetimes.

Therefore, nearly 20 student ‘peace pioneers' from the Fanshawe Social Justice Club took a stand in front of the Canadian Forces Recruitment Centre at Fanshawe College's Career Fair for the second year-in-a-row, staging a die-in, distributing information, engaging interested students and laying down crosses while naming every Canadian who has been killed in Afghanistan.

For expressing our desire to learn in a de-militarized zone, objecting to the current war in Afghanistan, and naming the names of the Canadian soldiers who've died in a senseless, imperialist war, we had our basic constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly revoked, and ended up being physically dragged, roughed up and arrested. In case you missed it, this is what went down.

After a consensus-based strategy meeting followed by a crafting day, we met in Forwell Hall and planned the final details in the hour before the counter-recruitment action on Wednesday, February 13. Flyers were printed and cut, t-shirts were bloodied using paint and markers, press releases were sent out and cameras were prepped.

At noon we converged on the Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre inside the Career Fair in J Gym and a dozen of us dropped dead as Pete Lebel held up a cross with the name Marc D. Leger (the first Canadian soldier who died in Afghanistan) written on it. Pete then proclaimed the name of the fallen soldier and laid the cross on the ground beside the dozen ‘dead' students wearing bloodstained white t-shirts and blindfolds. As Pete kept listing off the names of dead Canadian soldiers and individually laid down crosses for each one of them, Josh, an American Iraq war vet turned war resister, engaged students in conversation about what military life is really like. Josh, speaking from experience, told students to think twice before considering a stint in the military, while Nick Hardman handed out hundreds of copies of ‘The Top Ten Reasons Not to Enlist' to curious onlookers. If you did not get a copy of this flyer due to the fact that ‘Stinson Security' claimed it was illegal to pass this information on to students, and threatened Nick with arrest if he continued handing out the leaflets, here is the link: (http://operationobjection.org/ACT_CR_Flyer.pdf).

After I was violently arrested and charged with trespassing on my own school's property for holding a sign last year, it was decided that this year we would document the action. We had two video cameras and three other cameras filming every angle to capture any abuses this time around. And of course, there were abuses.

Last year only I was arrested, this year nine students were arrested. Pete was singled out as ‘the leader' and arrested and fined with trespassing by the college on his own school's property as he was announcing the 20th name of the 79 dead Canadians.

It wasn't much longer until security was dragging the rest of us away in cuffs for supposedly ‘trespassing' on our own schools property, and dumping us in the ‘J' hallway where we were searched without consent. Interestingly enough, the first people targeted were punk-rockers Jamie and Steve, and dread-heads Nadeen and John. Followed by Dayn, Sam, Ashley and myself. The self-described ‘middle-class white girls' who took part in the action were left alone by security and never arrested. They even complained that the fact that security arrested most men and left the majority of women alone was unfair and sexist treatment afterwards.

Many of us who were physically removed and arrested were told that we were going to be charged with trespassing. However, after 20 minutes we had our cuffs taken off, and were let go without being charged at all. The arrests were obviously illegitimate, and only occurred because the administration wanted us out of the Career Fair, not because we were doing anything illegal. The only trespassing charge, pressed against Pete Lebel, will likely be dropped, just as mine was last year.

It is crazy to think that once again our fundamental constitutional rights were taken away from us. Once again security was given orders to suppress dissenting students. Once again our rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly were denied. Once again I ended up getting arrested for expressing myself on campus. The difference this time is that we were prepared, we have the footage and we have the witnesses. This time we're not going to let them get away with it.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.