Economy
Mark Thomas imagines a terrorist in a tutu
Published 22 September 2003
Had any violence kicked off outside the arms fair, the dealers would have been straight in there, handing out business cards and flogging assault rifles labelled as machine parts
At a Campaign Against Arms Trade press conference just days before the Defence Systems and Equipment International (DSEi) exhibition opened in east London, a BBC journalist looking at the itinerary for the week's protest said: "I see that Tuesday is a day of non-violent direct action, but Wednesday is billed as a day of direct action: does that mean Wednesday's activities will be violent?" As if anti-arms protesters would have week planners with "Be violent 10am" written under Wednesday.
Surely, the arms dealers would have been delighted at the prospect of violence - or, as they would describe it, "a legitimate business opportunity". Had it kicked off outside the exhibition centre, the dealers would have been straight in there, handing out business cards and flogging assault rifles labelled as machine parts via Jordan. These are arms dealers, for God's sake! Violence doesn't mean a thing to them. Only extreme Buddhists think of them as any kind of human life. Even Mahatma Gandhi would have seen his way to giving them a slap.
Surely, the journalist should have been putting a similar question to the fair's exhibitors: were they going to have a non-violent day on 10 September?
The Metropolitan Police and tactical support group should have had the same question put to them. Then we might have enjoyed the prospect of a day of non-violent policing, with mobs of crusty anarchos bearing down on the conference centre, carrying flaming torches and Molotovs, and being met by a line of police officers sitting cross-legged in the road and singing "Give peace a chance", while separatist policewomen's groups held a candlelit vigil and symbolically daubed themselves in communal menstrual blood.
Media interest in violent protest is a hardy perennial, but by the end of the week, the focus had shifted to the policing at the arms fair. Why was it, asked many - including David Blunkett, in a rare low-testosterone moment - that the police were using Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to stop and search protesters? Not surprisingly, despite the wide-scale use of the act, no terrorists were found among the activists. I am guessing here, but rule number one for any terrorist must be to keep a low profile - not easily done at a carnival-style Fiesta for Life Against Death at the arms fair, shimmying next to a semi-naked samba dancer and surrounded by a million quid's worth of cops. I know of no instance when terrorists have dressed as cosmic peace fairies, for either work or leisure. Who knows - maybe if we had seen Mad Dog Adair dressed in a pink Balaclava and fluorescent tutu with glitter stars covering his manly nipples and screaming "No surrender", things might have turned out differently for him.
Section 44 of the Terrorism Act had been used earlier this year at RAF Fairford, the UK home to B-52s, where police stopped and searched an 11-year-old schoolgirl. So either the police there had information that al-Qaeda had been recruiting 11-year-old Gloucestershire schoolgirls - probably at local riding clubs, where the extremists were learning dressage in order to mount suicide pony attacks at the next point-to-point - or they were using a law, designed to prevent terrorism, to intimidate people and curtail the right to protest. Bizarrely enough, most of the press, this time round, thought it a bad thing.
It wasn't just the police who had a bad week. Spearhead, the private firm organising the arms fair, had claimed no cluster bombs would be on display, but on the fair's first day this was proved to be untrue. The Guardian revealed BAe's slush fund to bribe the Saudis. The Daily Mirror reported how more than half the arms exhibited at the fair were there illegally, as they didn't have the correct licences. Thus we had the spectacle of cops arresting peaceniks while the real criminals went unpunished inside.
The week belonged to the activists, whose protests captured - albeit not totally intentionally - the press agenda. Highlighting the million-pound police bill to protect the arms dealers from a bunch of Quakers and crusty soap-dodgers was just the start. Protesters with inflatable dinghies delayed warships arriving for the fair, buses full of arms dealers were stopped. On the Wednesday, the Docklands Light Railway was rendered useless by activists padlocking themselves to trains, while roads were blocked with bikes and cars. Arms dealers were taunted, politely questioned and showered with confetti, each piece bearing slogans such as "If we didn't do it, someone else would" or "Get a proper job". And the million-quid police presence didn't manage to stop protesters getting into the fair itself. The only trick the activists missed was to turn up in a limo with a bevy of call-girls saying they were there for the Saudi delegation and BAe Systems.
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