On the 15th of August 2022, the Emporium Hotel in Meanjin (Brisbane) was just putting the final touches on their Magnolia room. The staff had spent the previous night setting up tables, chairs, and stunning floral center pieces. They wanted everything to look good for their client.
The client, and the organiser of the event was the Australian Defence Magazine – which functions simultaneously as a publication and an industry advocacy body. It organises “networking events” often, as was set to go ahead at the Emporium hotel. The platinum sponsor for the event was Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons corporation – worth over $70 billion USD. The name of the event was “Defence in STEM” and aimed to bring together representatives of weapons corporations, the Australian Defence Forces, and…. educators.
Representatives from TAFE, from different universities, and from the Department of Education were all invited to attend. To what end you ask? Defence likes to call this “securing the talent pipeline” – one of the conference’s sessions was in fact named “The primary to defence pipeline”, providing space for attendees to discuss ways to funnel primary school aged children towards a career working for an arms dealer. The number of people employed in the defence industry in Australia has been falling in recent years, and the industry has noticed. They understand that in order to induce more young people to dedicate the best years of their lives to “providing enhanced lethality solutions” – as Lockheed Martin puts it – the conditioning must begin early. The earlier the better. Boeing sponsors a Lego competition for pre-school children that aims to expose children to their brand early in life and form a mental association between the fun that they had playing with Lego and the multi-billion-dollar corporation Boeing. It also provides a reliable source of cute photos for their PR department and internal reports on corporate social responsibility, so it is a multi-purpose investment.
By twenty past eight in the morning, some conference attendees were enjoying the complimentary tea and coffee, and mingling happily in the mezzanine lobby area outside the conference room. A small number of people were beginning to filter in and sit down at the beautifully set tables. Suddenly, one of them stood up on top of a chair, and produced a small banner from her hand bag.
It read “War Crimes Start Here”.
Though dressed like she was interning at a law firm, the young woman appeared suddenly transformed – from quiet, forgettable, anonymous member of a crowd to a steadfast leader, stoic and calm in her resolve. She began speaking,
“We are here today”
And members of the crowd responded
“We are here today”
“Because Lockheed Martin kills.”
“Because Lockheed Martin kills.”
More banners were produced from jacket pockets, from under shirts, and within briefcases – suddenly visible, more peace activists joined in the call and response lament led by the young woman on the chair.
“We lament those”
“We lament those”
“Who Lockheed Martin kills”
“Who Lockheed Martin kills”
More activists were filtering into the lobby from the street, marching up the stairs and onto the mezzanine. Hotel security sprang into action, they were unsure exactly what was happening but they knew that it was probably their problem. As most attendees were not yet in the conference room, they attempted to close the doors and contain the activists inside, but they sat in front of the doors and used their bodies to keep them open. Conference goers filtered out of the main room and back into the tea and coffee mingling room, now looking at the people around them with wild eyes wondering who among them was in fact, not there to build a pipeline, but to jam one.
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They called to divert the pipeline, and instead equip young people with the skills they will need to solve the numerous existential threats faced by society – rather than build weapons for companies who seek to further entrench and multiply those threats. They called for #SkillingNotKilling, #EarthCareNotWarfare, and #SkillsforLifeNotForDeath. They filled the mezzanine – not just with their bodies, but with their songs, poems, eulogies, and solidarity.
Eventually, the police arrived and directed everyone to leave. They said that they would arrest anyone who failed to comply with their directions. They were operating under the same directions that they always do, protect property rights. Protect the ability of the wealthy to make money. Even if it’s at the expense of human rights. There is an amusing irony contained in the perceptions of the weapons executives, who literally sell missiles, that they need protection from a group of unarmed civilians holding banners and calling for peace.
It dovetails nicely with the perception held by Western English-speaking cultures more broadly that it is improper to cause a scene. If the people facilitating war crimes do so quietly and politely from inside closed board rooms and conference centers, then it must be the people who are shouting who are in the wrong. They are the ones causing a fuss, making a ruckus, inconveniencing ordinary people, etc. They have broken the social contract of propriety in the face of injustice. They have committed the heinous crime of making some middle-class people feel uncomfortable about their complicity in violence. They have brought the consequences of the decisions made in board rooms to the decision makers’ feet and said simply “look”. And they don’t like what they see. They need their body guards to shield them from this strange and uncomfortable new feeling called accountability. These people have expanded their political space beyond simply ranting with friends at the pub, or over dinner, or shouting at the TV in privacy of their living room. They have translated their dissent into action and made it visible. This is the worst crime of all.
After being threatened with arrest the activists raised their fists high and marched out of the hotel into the street where they congregated around the hotel’s entrance. They played music and made speeches to passersby, explaining what was happening inside the hotel. They dragged the arms dealers into the proverbial light. This is again, very confronting for an industry that enjoys essentially zero public scrutiny and operates in the shadows.
The hotel staff practically pleaded with the police to make them stop, but as they were now on a public footpath they could no longer be accused of trespassing, and as they were committing no offences, not obstructing the entrance or the foot traffic outside, the police actually had no power to make them leave. Their songs, oratory, and viola playing rang out across the CBD, until after around an hour they left on their own terms. Nourished and replenished by each other’s support and conviction, they debriefed in a near by park, and resolved to continue the struggle.
#DemilitariseSTEM
#Demilitarise
#Decolonise
#Regenerate