Academics against the arms fair.As we mourn the dead in the latest attacks in Beirut and Paris, but also in wars waged all around the world in the fight ‘against terrorism’, it seems more apt than ever to revisit the demonstrations against the world’s largest arms fair: Defence and Security Equipment International [DSEi]. This year, one of Stop The Arms Fair’s creative protests against DSEi took the form of a direct action by academics. Joining forces with activists, our ‘Conference at the Gates’ aimed to interrogate both the arms fair itself as well as the role of academics in direct political action. The question we asked was how, as academics studying war and conflict, we should respond.
DSEi revisited
Every two years, DSEi sets up shop at London’s ExCel centre, not just tolerated but also explicitly welcomed by the British government, who provide the event with both financial and personal support. This September, 32,000 arms dealers descended on East London for what TripAdvisor reviewer Ian W, giving a mark of 4 out of 5, describes as the ‘Largest display of Big Boys Toys around!’. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon rather more soberly described DSEi as ‘a truly global event… [one that] ensure[s] that the nations represented here can continue to prosper’.
DSEI is far more than a stage on which the queasy complicity between the military and commercial sectors can be harmlessly acted out, as openDemocracy has repeatedly highlighted. The deals done behind these windowless walls have potentially grave consequences, with invited delegates including representatives of countries with questionable human rights records: not only el-Sisi’s Egypt, but also Angola, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Thailand and Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain, amongst others. The last of these, it’s worth repeating was found to be using UK-supplied weapons against its own population as recently as 2011. It is not unique in this regard – and of course, the UK’s own military activity is far from virtuous itself. DSEi, therefore, plays an important part in enabling violence all around the world. DSEi, therefore, plays an important part in enabling violence all around the world. The question we asked was how, as academics studying war and conflict, we should respond.
