Red Pepper » Chris Browne

The Shadow World: Backstabbing, ego and disregard

admin — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:00:15 +0000

Andrew Feinstein’s The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade has been a long time coming. Anyone with more than a casual acquaintance with the arms industry will be well aware of its arsenal of libel lawyers, and the alacrity with which they descend upon all but the most cast iron of assertions against it. It takes a brave publisher to put out a book such as Feinstein’s latest tome, and it is little surprise that there has not been a work of such scope and penetration since Anthony Sampson’s groundbreaking The Arms Bazaar, published in 1977.
The Shadow World is a work of delicacy and often horrific insight. For a book that paints such a depressing picture of both the breadth and depth of corruption in the arms trade – accounting for 40 per cent of all corruption in global trade – it would be wrong to call it an ‘enjoyable’ read. It is certainly captivating, however.
The reader is introduced to a number of key arms deals – such as the infamous ‘Al Yamamah’ deal in Saudi Arabia – over the course of the book. These are often accounts populated by familiar names, particularly when there are government ministers involved. However, it is the stories of characters less familiar that give The Shadow World its real edge over shorter, more polemical reportage.
Feinstein’s book is something of a narrative web, the life-stories of its dramatis personae overlapping and giving a human face to the corruption he exposes. The lid is lifted on a world of backstabbing, ego and cavalier disregard for human life.
The Shadow World comes with a raft of high-profile endorsements, and given the quality of the writing and the level of detail it is easy to see why. For peace activists around the world this is sure to become a cornerstone text, even if only for its statistics, rather than Feinstein’s somewhat gloomy prognosis. Highly recommended.

Talking the talk

admin — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 03:39:13 +0000

Mutiny, it seems, pride themselves on being at odds with the pedantic solemnity that is too typically a feature of discussion groups on the left. Instead of grandstanding speeches calling for workers to seize the means of production, Mutiny offer ‘speed-debating’, theatre, music and poetry. Worlds away from the lecture hall or labour club, the venue of the Resistance Gallery offers a space in celebration of artistic and creative endeavour. Marx’s Capital is nowhere to be seen.
This more entertaining and accessible approach to radical political debate shouldn’t be looked down on as somehow diminishing the seriousness of the issues being discussed. In the case of Mutiny’s most recent event, ‘Violence on Trial’, this was an exploration of violence as perpetrated by the police, nation states, corporations, revolutionaries and protesters, in the form of rape, and in humanitarian intervention.
The low, thunder-like rumble of trains provided a fitting soundtrack. Every few minutes one would shift along at a speed, its weight grinding down onto the tracks above the ceiling of the Resistance Gallery. In the end their mimicry of thunder enhanced the prevailing atmosphere in the space: as people debated the ethics and efficacy of revolutionary violence, the trains’ rumble lent gravity and a touch of the surreal.
Equally, while the Commie Faggots belted out a socialist rendition of the Beatles’ All You Need is Love, the thunder from the tracks acted as an amplified reminder that evening was supposed to be entertaining as well as educative.
Mutiny have clearly learnt from their previous ‘On Trial’ events and worked hard to create a space that encourages participation and limits the domination of a few voices over a passive audience. Amid the 50-person assembly, a table was positioned with stools around it and a microphone at each end.
About ten people could sit at the table at a time. Someone would introduce a discussion, judiciously timed by a facilitator clutching a pink, squeezable fluffy heart. When the heart was squeezed it was time to wrap up. People would join the table to speak, and leave it after they had spoken, freeing up space for others around the room to sit down and add their voice to the debate.
The discussions were inclusive; male voices didn’t dominate – as often inadvertently happens in meetings such as these – and the debates’ interspersion with theatre and music kept it entertaining until 11pm.
Arguably the most thought-provoking debate surrounded the use of violence in protest and revolution. An eye-witness from Tahrir Square challenged what she saw as the ‘fetishisation of non-violence’ in the room, recounting how when under the threat of imminent violence from the police she had taken a hammer to the flagstone ground in order to create rocks to throw back: ‘Ask yourselves, what would you have done?’
Peaceful revolution, she argued, doesn’t negate our right to self-defence, but it does mean refraining from attacking those such as the military or police, who would ordinarily use violence against you, when you are in a position of power over them. Restraint can be more militant than merely replicating the violence of capitalism and the state.
Violence on Trial was not an event designed to close the book on such an important discussion, and I doubt anyone came away furnished with more answers than they entered with. It was nonetheless a valuable and enjoyable few hours of discussion that certainly needs to be held among the left, and across society at large.
Mutiny’s next event, ‘Work on Trial’, takes place on 4 July at the Resistance Gallery in Bethnal Green. www.jointhemutiny.org

Why to refuse the census

Andy — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 20:48:27 +0000

In March this year, as in 2001, Lockheed Martin UK, a subsidiary of the world’s largest arms manufacturer, will be helping to run the census. Their specific role, contractually valued at £150 million, will be “delivering data capture and processing support services” for the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This seems innocent enough, but the job description is vague to the point of obfuscation. This is not unique to Lockheed, either. Ambiguity in both language and aesthetics is a hallmark of the arms industry’s PR. This is all arguably in aid of lending legitimacy to an industry that deserves none. When laid bare, the arms trade produces weapons, and benefits from the proliferation of war. To offer up such an unadulterated truth to the wider public would be a disaster in an ongoing strategy of legitimization.

Lockheed Martin, for example, are best known for their production of cluster munitions, F-16 jets and Trident Missiles. Their arms sales to Bahrain and other repressive regimes are an ongoing controversy.

Most civil corporations will endeavour to gain legitimacy in the public mind – achievable perhaps through a policy of corporate social responsibility. Arms companies are similar in wishing to present themselves as leaders of industry; however this presentation is orientated towards governments whose lucrative contracts they seek.

Conversely, by mimicking the language and even the work of generic corporatism, arms companies hope to appear to the public as just another corporation. This is not in order to stand out, but rather to sneak under the radar of citizens’ political and ethical interrogation.

Running the census is one such foray into the civil sector that Lockheed Martin –whose 2009 military sales amounted to over $33 billion, over 74 percent of total sales figures- has cultivated since 2001.

Relative to its military sales, the ONS contract represents an insignificant fraction of total annual income. But perhaps not all benefits come in pounds and pence…

With both the high profile investigations into BAE Systems’ corruption over the last few years, and David Cameron’s much criticized weapons-selling tour of North Africa, public awareness has grown surrounding the arms trade. It is surely a natural strategic reaction of an industry facing a potential legitimacy crisis to diversify into surveillance and civil sectors.

Put simply, in addition to the revenue earned, every successful census contract Lockheed Martin wins provides it with credibility that is in turn used to secure future contracts.

This cycle must be interrupted by an articulate and informed public. With this in mind, ‘Count Me Out’, an open network opposing Lockheed’s involvement in the census, has launched a UK-wide campaign to raise awareness and highlight action against it.

With a day of e-action and protest in the works, ‘alternative census forms’ being submitted, and full-scale boycotts planned, people are engaging in the campaign with a healthy attitude of creative dissent.

Count Me Out isn’t the first campaign to have taken action against the arms industry’s involvement in the census. It isn’t even the first to have used the name –Canada had its own indigenous ‘Count Me Out’ group protesting Lockheed’s contract in their 2006 census, which a number of people boycotted on conscientious grounds.

During the last UK census, 6,100 incidences of refusal were reported by the ONS, of which 38 prosecutions were taken forward. Whilst this percentage (0.6%) may be comforting to those considering non-cooperation, the price of civil disobedience is still alarmingly high: refusing to complete the census is a criminal offence under the Census Act 1920, carrying the possibility of a £1,000 fine.

Nothing speaks worse of a democratic system than when the conscientious objection of its citizens renders them criminals in the eyes of the law. But the most troubling thing for dissenters is the number of people who are still completely unaware of the integral involvement of the arms industry in running our census. This is sadly unsurprising.

When announcing the contract, the ONS referred to Lockheed Martin UK as “a unit of Lockheed Martin Corporation…[and] a leader in systems integration working on major programmes spanning the aerospace, defence and civil sectors.” Whilst this information is factually accurate, it uses the default descriptors of ‘aerospace’ and ‘defence’ instead of ‘military’ or ‘weapons manufacturing’. As to what the ‘major programmes’ entail, we are only left to guess.

Lockheed Martin’s corporate branding gives nothing away on the surface level either. Their website’s ‘About Us’ employs opaque phrases like “establish a long-term presence … develop industrial alliances for growth, and match corporate breadth with customer priorities.”

For the campaign is to have any lasting success it must start with the building blocks of language. Framing the debate has always been half the battle. The census is too valuable a resource to be tarnished by the political maneuverings of an illegitimate industry. If the government refuses to be up front about the nature of the companies it employs, then it must fall to us to offer a loud, articulate corrective.