arms dealers not welcome

the university of nottingham holds an annual careers fair in the student's union building, hosted by old friends (!) of the peace movement, aiesec. this is usually packed full of some of the worst corporate criminals the world of business has to offer, all getting their pick of graduate talent. to see this year's selection go here. of particular interest to us were bae systems, rolls-royce and caterpillar, all arms dealing companies. we decided we couldn't let them on campus without organising a robust response to their unwanted presence, and various student societies and networks including nspm, people & planet, amnesty, and the environment & social justice umbrella group got together to protest.

bags stacked with leaflets and carrying stickers to attach to the careers fair posters, some of us met early in the morning to get going. attaching stickers reading "resist the corporate invasion of your university" and giving a meeting time and place to all of the aiesec material was a good move, and we also put up plenty of anti-caterpillar posters. the porter was looking nervous, telling us not to stick anything on any walls, and asking whether we were the people he was meant to look out for! it was a good opportunity for a certain "luther blissett" to sign up for the fair and enquire about the military and engineering options on offer. "bae & shell, they're really good!" i was told. hmmmm... by the time i'd tracked back to meet co-conspirators a shifty looking guy from security had come over and was hassling m about our posters. he took one off her, and asked both of us for our student id. i said i didn't have it but he took hers and wrote down her details. we were both too surprised to protest even though he blatantly shouldn't have been allowed to do it. those in favour of id cards take note. i went off to photocopy a few more flyers before the meet-up at 12.

by the time i got back quite a crowd had already developed. t was being interviewed by university radio about why we were protesting and a couple of friends from nottinghamshire indymedia were there to film and photograph the event. their report can be found here. l from the student union gave a briefing about what we could probably get away with and blagged us all flyering passes for the two days. the security guy so keen to be confrontational earlier, jumped in to say that we weren't allowed to do anything that could be seen as intimidating, whatever that meant, but suddenly got a bit shy when the cameras were pointed his way, ducking behind people. nothing to fear if you've got nothing to hide eh?

so in we went in small clusters finding where our poor defenceless intimidated arms dealers were lurking. cat and rolls-royce were in the same room so a few of us took over the entrance to leaflet whilst those with the decency to suit up for the occasion took their places slap bang in front of the stalls. rolls-royce are a particularly interesting target in nottingham because they put a lot of funding into the engineering department, the university has shares in them, and there's a factory just down the road in derby making components for trident nuclear submarines (see trident ploughshares' site for details of a blockade of the factory next weekend). student responses were mixed, as you'd expect. few were openly hostile although many looked at us like we were lunatics and i remember one group of girls standing around in front of me talking about how sad it was that we didn't have anything better to do. i don't know - fighting for global justice has its rewards! on the other hand there were positive experiences too. many students were shocked as they didn't know the full stories behind some of the companies, and one woman stayed around to chat to us about how glad she was that there were so many people out to protest against the companies.


one particularly useful tactic was to take over the space around the companies' stalls in order to chat to people about the companies' before the smooth pr exercise could begin. to do this in a purely informative and non-confrontational way seemed very effective in giving people something to think about. it also pissed off the reps quite a lot. the reactions of non-targeted companies were interesting. one guy wearing a deutsche bank badge wandered over to me and said, quite earnestly, "i really respect what you guys are doing". i don't know whether he was being sarcastic or just naive. people were also coming over and acting suspiciously matey before asking "so when's it all going to kick off then?". i think they were expecting the black bloc to walk in and trash the place. slimy security man asked me "how long are you going on for?" as if there should be an allotted time as well as place for protest. "As long as it takes".

overall i think the numbers of protestors and the access we got to the recruiting space of the companies meant that our actions were as successful as they could have been. hopefully the companies will be discouraged from attending future events although i think the more likely scenario is that they will demand much stricter security. thanks to the media coverage (nottinghamshire indymedia are also making a film about the fair, containing interviews with protestors including yours truly, and the organisers) i hope that students at other universities will take note - that we can overcome repressive restrictions, like those imposed on the george fox 6, and throw spanners in the works of the well-oiled corporate machines.