Abigail Haque - journal letter - March 2011

Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT)

Dear Friend,

I perhaps have a rather romantic view of the dynamics of the society my parents lived in when they were my age - but I’ve always thought it must have been quite a time to be alive. I hear their stories of an era of protests and marches where people went out on the streets in their masses and demanded peace, disarmament and civil rights – and always thought what a generation - and what an amazing movement to be a part of. Rightly or wrongly I’ve always felt much more part of a society happy to comment, but not quite inspired to disrupt the status quo too much. Recent events such as the revolution in Egypt, unrest in Bahrain and Libya, and what felt like every student in the UK marching on parliament has jolted me clean out of this semi-nostalgic haze. I realise I am living and working in the thick of some extremely interesting times and movements – I will not be short of stories to tell when I’m a little older!
A lot of what is happening in the world at the moment is significantly affecting life at Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and has made our office an extremely busy hub. With revelations of weapons exported by Britain to Egypt, Bahrain and Libya, and evidence that at least some have been turned on protesters - combined with David Cameron’s extremely poorly judged Middle East tour (with major arms company representatives in tow) the CAAT phones have been ringing non-stop. An average day has consisted of fielding calls from all the major national and international newspapers and media – whilst moving the office and staff around as news camera crews came in and filmed interviews with our Press Officer Kaye and Core Campaigns Coordinator Sarah. We are used to getting requests for comments or interviews… but not on this scale.

I turn on the TV and I see Barnaby (a CAAT steering committee member) is on Sky News – I switch to another news channel and there’s Kaye – I get on the train and start reading the Metro on the way to work and am reading comments from Sarah!!! Suddenly CAAT is the media’s key go-to organisation to get data to make a case against how Britain has been exporting weapons and how the government has been promoting them. The fact that we had the information the press needed and could provide data and statistics clearly demonstrated how effective CAAT is – I feel we had an impact in exposing an essentially unethical trade and that this exposure will lead to a fundamental shift in regulation and monitoring of export licenses.

Whilst the events that occurred and are continuing to occur in these countries are extremely unpleasant and frightening – it has been very comforting to see the media being so critical of government arms export policies – and for the public to be made aware of whom we sell weapons to. With people clearly being able to see the consequences of the UK’s arms trade and how involved the government and taxpayers money is in the process the polls clearly showed that the public is not in favour of arming regimes like Libya.
Much of my role in all this has been answering phones – taking messages – getting emails to the right people – but these events have also stimulated interest in the student arena, with which I am particularly involved. Key representatives from UK universities which have financial or research ties to the arms trade were also with Cameron on his trip, so CAAT had an opportunity to highlight the degree of complicity universities have in developing and promoting arms sales across the world. A large proportion of students from the universities concerned were outraged when they found out how their institutions were representing them. This was especially the case at University College London (UCL) when it was revealed that their provost Professor Malcolm Grant was also on the trip. Students and staff at the university had clearly stated, through a three-year campaign, that the arms trade and education should not mix, which resulted in the university divesting in 2009 £440,000 worth of shares that were invested in arms company Cobham Plc.

Speaking of outrage, it would have been difficult to have missed the student protests over the last few months. The government decision to increase the cap on tuition fees and the scrapping of EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance) as a part of their large-scale cuts has led to student mass activism. As the large cuts to education were announced, the much smaller cut to the military and defence budget remained relatively unchanged. Looking at the massive amounts of taxpayers’ money going into developing and promoting arms sales, not to mention the subsidies given to arms companies like BAE Systems (which got £64 from every person in the UK last year ) - the cuts to education seem absolutely abhorrent. We, at CAAT, have very much taken the position that ‘education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army’ and have been supporting students and occupations in gathering data to use when lobbying government/universities. We decided to launch a CAAT University Network campaign to cut military spending not education – this has taken the form of a petition. We have over 900 signatures so far and it will be presented to the government in late April. I’m also organising workshops on the arms trade for those in occupations so that we can really engage with students on the links between the arms trade and universities across the UK and be there to help support students campaigning on issues like divestment of arms trade shares or stopping arms companies from recruiting on their campus.

Coordinating the Universities Network continues to be a very rewarding role – supporting and developing campaigns has been a very dynamic and exciting experience. One of my favourite highlights this year was organising the first Alternative Careers Event at York University. One thing that came out of conversations with students at careers fairs where CAAT has had actions was that they didn’t want to work for an arms company but were more concerned about having a job when they graduate – therefore they were prepared to visit the stalls of arms giants like BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin as these are the types of employers the university gave them access to. In response we teamed up with Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) and put on an event looking at why students might want an ethical career, what impact having a socially productive career has, which industries are growing and the types of roles available. We had over 60 students attend and the universities careers service played a key role in promoting the event. I hope we will be able to offer this event at many other universities and this will help guide careers services when choosing what employers they invite onto campus to recruit students.
Alas there are so many other pieces of news I’d love to share and I look forward to writing to you again – if you want to see what else I’ve been up to or to sign the petition please visit the Universities Network micro-site (http://universities.caat.org.uk/) or email me at universities@caat.org.uk.

In friendship,
Abi