By the time... there will be no time

How can anyone forget the expression our parents used in relation to being drafted in the army. Every time the hot pre-election topic of the draft's service duration was brought up in the political sphere, boys always thought of a future time that will require of them to join the army and protect the rest of us from the evil enemies. ''Ως τον τζαιρό σου εν θα έχει στρατό'' [Until your time comes, there will be no need for an army]. As if the army can just be disregarded from our lives. 

Well, my time came and passed. No sign of the army's demise has appeared up to now. On the contrary, the army justifies the war-dominated narratives. It may be a manifestation of war. We see the Protector cause we don't want to see the Enemy. Then, the image of the enemy is created as an extension of the protector that justifies his own position in the power structure fuelled by the cultural dominance of the fear of the other.

How can the use of the expression be explained? I cannot see how locals could have thought that the army could be discontinued until the boy's time had come to fulfil his national duty. An explanation might be irony. This weird sense of male-dominated sarcasm that diminishes the concerns of the child through a rejection of the manufactured reality. Since, he will not reject this manufactured reality, the statement contradicts the man and can be justified through sarcasm. The apathetic consent to oppression and state terrorism.

In other words, it is not that the man hopes that the army will be dissolved by the time his son will have to join, rather it is his need to have the boy silenced until that time comes. The amount of years needed before the draft, may be detrimental to the state of society. More likely, a continuation of war rather than an everlasting peace. 

I would like to believe, some parents use the expression believing wholeheartedly that the army will be dissolved. Peace will prevail and the absurdity of the army will end. Yet, it is not enough. The child may feel disconnected from the peoples struggles thinking that his time has not come. "Ως τον τζαιρό σου"  signifies a time that has yet to arrive for the child. 

Though, daily life presents the reasons why anyone should join the fight for freedom and many of us do long before our time has come... That is because there is no time to come. It has never finished. All time and every time is an opportunity to resist the manufactured reality and approval of society.

Yet, all things run out of time...