GIFTS FROM ARMS FAIRS Dr. Jill Gibbon ISRF Early Career Fellow 2017–18
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t the far end of the DLR line, below Canary Wharf where the latest stock prices flicker around electronic screens on the South Colonnade, lies the ExCel centre. A concrete, windowless edifice, it is designed to act as a fortress when necessary.1 It is owned by the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, a private development and management company based in the United Arab Emirates. Every two years, it is filled with weapons—tanks, missiles, bombs, armed drones, military bulldozers, helicopters, grenades, guns, bullets, and the euphemistically named ‘less lethal weaponry’: tear gas, rubber bullets, and protective clothing for the security services administering it. This is DSEI, the Defence Security Exhibition International, the world’s largest arms fair. It was established in 1998, and now hosts over 1,600 exhibitors and 36,000 visitors from 50 countries.2 But, despite its scale, the event is exclusive. It is closed to the general public and surrounded by police and security guards. Guests include repressive regimes and countries involved in aggressive wars. Hostesses welcome clients with drinks, snacks, and gifts—stress balls in the shape of bombs and grenades, rubber tanks and military vehicles, a facsimile armament shell, jellied fighter jets, sweets and pens stamped with arms company names, condoms promising ‘the ultimate protection’, and toffees with the slogan ‘welcome to hell’. I have collected gifts from DSEI and similar arms fairs for over ten years. They horrify and intrigue me. They give a visceral jolt. They 1. A. Minton, Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City (London: Penguin, 2009), 13. 2. See DSEI, Welcome to Defence and Security Equipment International (2020), accessible at https://www.dsei.co.uk/welcome. 29
