Stop The Arms Fair

John Harris says:

The global arms manufacturing industry provides jobs to about 10 million people who along with their families, arguably another 20-30 million, makes those directly involved in the production and sales and training in arms, by population numbers, in rank somewhere around number 40 most populous nation on Earth.

Weapons are in the first instance for defence, but they would be pointless if they were not capable of killing. This therefore is their most significant purpose, that they are for killing other humans and whether by threat of severe injury or death or by direct effect, this is what makes them so attractive and irresistible to governments in particular.

It is predictable that many of these weapons will at some point be used by humans for killing and oppressing other humans, and these are two important consequence of the life’s work of those employed in the arms manufacturing business.

It is naive and immoral to argue that a job in the arms industry carries no responsibility with it for what eventually happens as a result of sales of arms overseas where control over what happens is relinquished, or that everyone has to earn a living some way or another.

Sales of arms abroad are on the basis of can’t pay can’t have, so the profit imperative is clearly high on the list of motivation. Nations surely wouldn’t receive shipments of arms if they declared ahead of time that they intended to attack their neighbours, oppress, kidnap, imprison without trial, torture and execute under circumstances that would be labelled murder if carried out by someone not an agent of the state, against their own citizens, but this is all too often what happens. This sounds like a – don’t ask don’t tell – policy of convenience to me.

Nations whose governments have limited arms at their disposal are also limited in their options, but wealthy nations, often oil producing nations who don’t have their own technologically advanced manufacturing industries, can afford almost any kind of weapon, but need to source them from countries like Britain, and we often accommodate them for a variety of reasons, including national energy policy, and regional political self interest, thus providing these governments with overwhelming and irresistible power over their own citizens which we have seen used with ruthless disregard for life and the rule of law. This then amounts to democratic nations supporting dictatorships.

The ruling and executive classes in Britain and other technologically advanced societies might well rationalize away their ethical obligations under the guise of jobs for Britons, tax revenues, and the UN Charter Article 51 rights of other nations, but the voters are party to this situation. It isn’t as if when we voted Labour, Conservative or Conservative Lite (Lib Dem) we didn’t know they were going to approve arms sales. This means that in what is essentially a 2 party system of government, recently overwhelmingly confirmed by the NO2AV referendum result, we the voters, are responsible to a considerable extent, and we keep on electing the same people, so we should expect the same results and the same policies.

The truth is that the status quo is endemic to our educational system, our value system based in capitalism and the free market, and our degree of indifference and anaesthetisation brought on by our – we have it good – lives. It is largely the young, the disenfranchised, and the actively concerned minority who petition and campaign for change, but without ever achieving critical mass.

Consider calls by outraged citizens and politicians for law and order, tough measures and stamping out crime. How perverse is this! We actually depend upon people to commit crime – hundreds of thousands make their living in this field, police, security, lawyers, judges, clerks of court, prison officers, probation officers, CCTV manufacturers and a host of others. What would we do with all these people if everyone suddenly swallowed a pill and decided to stop committing crimes?

In a slightly less perverse way, we depend upon people to get sick to support what is less of a health care industry, but more accurately a sick care industry. The same argument applies.

Unless, and definitely until society decides to deliberately change its value systems, and to dramatically reform, and not just tinker with our education system, things will not materially change and change that occurs will only be incremental and achieved with great effort and persistence, by the small army of activists in society.

I commend and support all of you taking part in this campaign, and lament the fact that so many won’t be at your sides, because they had to take the family to McDonald’s and catch a movie, or because it doesn’t look good to be seen to dissent, or because they earn their living or gain advantage from supporting the weapons industry, some of whose products we all know will be used to kill other defenceless human beings, and might even one day be used against us, like the SA-7 Stinger missiles supplied to the Mujahideen of Afghanistan by the CIA, and later used against American and coalition servicemen, because once they leave our control we no longer have any further influence over who possesses them or how they are used.

Lucy says:

Would like more info on events 14th and 15th as can’t come on the main day of action. Esp times? Does Critical Mass leave from by Royal Festival Hall as usual?