Life neutral?

We all know about offsetting our carbon emissions to balance out the harmful effects of our consumptive lifestyles.  (As Joss Stone said during the 2007 Live Earth concert, “Plant a tree, it’s that easy…”  Ahem.)

So, what if you’re an arms dealer with a conscience (bear with me here), and you want to alleviate the consequences of selling bombs and killing people?

Help is at hand.  Life Neutral Solutions is a consultancy that allows arms companies to ‘offset’ the civilian deaths they cause, by sponsoring western families to have babies.

Luckily for everyone’s sanity, Life Neutral isn’t real.  It was a hoax perpetrated by activist group the Space Hijackers, in order to raise public awareness of the world’s largest arms fair (Defence Systems and Equipment International – ‘DSEi’), which takes place in East London every two years.

Arms dealers, military officials, and civil servants from around the globe, haunt the ExCel Centre to tout every conceivable tool of destruction available to modern military science.  In previous years, this has included banned cluster bombs and torture equipment.  Delegates include those from regimes with the worst records for human rights abuses.  It is heavily subsidised by the taxpayer, mirroring the £700m annual subsidy received by the UK arms industry.

But, despite priapic displays of military muscle – one worker from the neighbouring University of East London tweeted that the battleship HMS Dauntless was parked outside her office window – the event’s organisers are, unsurprisingly, keen to stay out of the media spotlight. There was almost zero press coverage of DSEi in the run-up to the exhibition.  During the 2009 arms fair, the host venue went as far as to erect signposts claiming that it was closed for refurbishment.

Enter the Space Hijackers.  A group of ‘anarchitects’ with a penchant for subverting the corporate domination of public space, we also have a history of resisting DSEi – notably in 2007, when the Hijackers bought a tank, drove it to the arms fair, and ‘auctioned’ it off to the public.

We thought that the merchants of death deserved to receive a little more attention for their activities, and used Life Neutral to provoke interest in the issue by stirring up a bit of controversy.  We simultaneously hoped to scratch away some of the banality that shrouds the defence industry, by parodying the absurdly hygienic and neutral corporate rhetoric.

While studying for a Masters a couple of years ago, one of my lectures was attended by a clique of half a dozen engineers from BAE Systems, who dropped by for a spot of CPD.  When the topic of environmental sustainability was raised, they entered into an earnest conversation with the lecturer about improving the eco-friendliness of their weaponry.  They were particularly interested in removing lead solder from the electronic circuitry in their missiles, to reduce the impact of heavy metal contamination of the soil in warzones.  (When I accidentally laughed, the lecturer and all the BAE staff turned and glared at me;  the lecturer said gravely, “This is a very serious issue”.)

The Hijackers took to the streets of Islington, to entice families into signing up for Life Neutral sponsorship.  After causing suitable outrage among the citizens of North London, we set our sights on wooing the media.  Eventually, a Life Neutral spokesman was invited to interview by the BBC World Service – only to be ‘outed’ as an activist prankster midway through the recording.  This bizarre conversation, which was broadcast on Friday 16 September, is now available online.

Far from being disappointed though, we were relieved to be rumbled as a hoax.  As well as getting an audience of thousands to hear about the arms fair for the first time, it proved that – no matter how crazy our world can seem at times – there are some things that still aren’t quite beyond parody.  (Yet.)


This is cross-posted from a piece that was first published at the Comment Factory.