Silent protest against arms trade

WE STOOD by the Sockman in a bitter wind, in silence, for nearly an hour. It was 7 till 8 on Monday evening 11 September 11 and many people were doing the same as we were outside the ExCel Exhibition Centre in London where the Arms Fair was due to open the following morning.

We were protesting against the arms trade and the way that we, and other industrial nations, sell huge quantities of state-of-the-art weapons to buyers from all over the world.

It happens once every two years and reaps huge profits for the United States and the United Kingdom who, with China, France and Russia, are the world’s biggest arms manufacturers.

There were only seven of us in Loughborough, and no-one appeared to notice, so it might have seemed a rather futile gesture. But somehow it didn’t; quite the opposite in fact. It felt honest and liberating. It felt as if something real happened. Was that just wishful thinking, or could it be that an hour’s concentrated silence really enables us to know what we sincerely desire? Not the superficial things, but the ones that, though deeply personal, are also global; desires for our fellow beings. And could it be that if everyone did that, the world would find peace, the peace which eludes us age after age as we invent and make profits on ways to threaten, destroy and kill each other?

Could it be that for an hour, a few people in a small market town did what one day, when humanity wakes from its haunted dreams of power, will save the world?

David Paterson Loughborough Peace Group