A child who is not made to wash his clothes may never appreciate the work of the mother or laundry guy. He plays in mud and dirt wearing tough and even bright coloured clothes that prove difficult to wash. But when he is made to wash his clothes, the thought of washing his tough clothes makes him careful and protective. Unless you experience and appreciate the difficulty – time, energy and sweat – in building something, you might not appreciate the need to protect it. A soldier or armed-personnel is often classified as a protector of the society’s life and property. To appreciate the life and property of the society he protects, it should be logical that a good soldier must be a good builder.
After 18 years, Israaeli citizens are expected to undergo a two-year militarily training[1] before they continue in any other profession they want. The defence training before production of goods and services prepares citizens to defend their lives and property when necessary. Even those in full-time military service are made to learn other forms of productive activities for other non-military purposes.[2] They train as arms/automobile engineers, teachers, pharmacists and other professions for daily production of the society’s goods and services.[3] This training makes them more invested in building and sustaining their society than in searching for or causing war.
A free society is formed by the agreement of members of the society to collaborate for their common safety and sustenance.[4] They collaborate to develop, multiply, distribute and utilize the human and natural resources in their environments for solving their problems. After organizing their structure of collaboration for common good and stability, they seek to protect both the resources and structure of collaboration. Hence, they form military bodies for protecting the society and structures which they love, and have worked hard to build.
Military training is often aimed at preparing citizens to fight and destroy their invaders and aggressors. It has a destructive outlook, and can turn citizens to agents of pain, hate and bitterness when it is not properly managed. Some trainings are conditioned to supress trainees’ affections, such that they brag about their inability to feel, and their ability to destroy. These trainings often portray affections of love and mercy as weakness, while the show of cruelty and pain as virtues. In this light, inhumane violence and unnecessary aggression are prescribed or permitted as tools for revolutions or fights against enemies.
However, “the true revolution is guided by a great feeling of love”[5] and never from hate or bitterness.
Security vigilance is vital for every society, but there is not always an external aggression to require full military exercise. But there is always a need to satisfy society’s needs through the development, multiplication, distribution and utilization of natural resources. There is always a need to evaluate and balance the structure of social collaboration for common good. And a prosperous society is assured by the citizens’ collaborative and productive capacity, and not the aggression of its military.[6] Hence, prosperous societies gauge their security success by their ability to maintain peace by supporting all the people for harmonious growth in the society, instead of always fighting or suppressing the dissatisfied.
When soldiers are trained for combat without being trained for production of goods and services, their roles in the society becomes limited to destruction. And when there are no wars to fight, the military’s destructive roles for the society declines, along with their budget allocation. Then, exclusively-trained combat soldiers are easily tempted to raise their relevance and budget by creating troubles which they have to fight. Hence, some nations’ military bodies have been accused of sponsoring terrorist groups to increase its relevance and budgetary allocation.[7][8]
Second, soldiers who are only trained to fight, easily lose their sense of humanity and disposition to collaborate without appealing to force. They perpetuate greater percentage of human rights’ violation all over the world. They intimidate, brutalize and humiliate whoever disagrees with their reasoning, mostly unjustifiable reasoning. This disposition to obtain a forced cooperation makes the military service contradictory to the basis of free collaboration within a society.
Despite the need for security vigilance, societies need to emphasize the building and productive aspects of their military trainings. For a good soldier must be a good builder, otherwise he may not value what he is meant to protect. A soldier who did not contribute to building a society will easily abandon the society in times of crisis. He who did not invest in a venture has less need of protecting the venture than the heavy investor.
Hence, societies may decide to seasonally rotate their military formation from defence to production of goods and services. This will give soldiers and citizens the opportunity to invest in, and appreciate the process of producing what they claim to protect. A good soldier must be a good builder, otherwise he becomes a parasite or threat to the society.
Every Nigerian deserve some military training, so that they can protect their interests at any point in time. But more than acquiring military training, every Nigerian deserves to be involved in the process of producing goods and services. The reason is simple: a good soldier must be a good builder.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Israel
[2] Ibid.
[3] Cf. http://www.mahal-idf-volunteers.org/information/background/content.htm
[4] Cf. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan Ed. Michael Oakeshott (New York: Macmillan, 1962).p187
[5] Ernesto Che Guevara, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary
[6] Cf. Barack Obama, Inauguration speech, 20th January, 2009
[7] US Ambassador John Campbell, http://newsrescue.com/nigerian-army-sponsors-boko-haram-us-ambassador-john-campbell/#axzz4th8T7Xyb/ September 6th 2014
[8] Cf. Governor Ayo Fayose, http://punchng.com/seek-your-relevance-elsewhere-army-tells-fayose/