Having returned home to Nottingham from time in London protesting the DSEI Arms Fair I wanted to give my report and observations.

DSEI 2013 was the fourth DSEI arms fair I have protested outside, the sickening site of well fed and smug arms dealers engaging in deals that will lead to maimings and the death of thousands never fails to move me to the point of vomit.

 

How could anybody not be moved to action by this I have always thought and yet every DSEI the level of protest and the numbers of those standing outside has declined. DESI 2013 had at most 150 people when the first DSEI I attended had close to 2000 with various complimentry actions at other sites. We protested the arms dealers dinner and there was about 15 of us despite the venue being well known and shared weeks in advance !

I spoke with one of the coppers in duty and he said the police numbers were also the lowest ever because, "there are hardly any protestors these days" He was a bit upset because there were no longer the overtime opportunities there once were at DSEI.

I'm not claiming to have any answers to the problem and I will always attend DESI as long as it exists even if I am the only person standing there, these bastards must not think their work is acceptable in our society but I wonder of we are having any effect on the event at all. The level of disruption we caused was minimal, the blockades we tried to set up inconvinienced nobody and the arms dealers clearly did not give a toss about us or what we had to say. Local people I spoke with were now resigned to the event every two years and several welcomed it because there was some casual work that it seemed was quite well paid. The number of exhibitors and attendees was the highest ever for a DSEI so clearly we are not influencing the event itself and we are not doing much to change minds in the local area.

 

Where are we going wrong, I simply have no idea but if I read one more post or website congratulating us on a job well done I will scream with frustration.