Every second year, the International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) is held in Abu Dhabi. In February 2019 it was time for the expo again. The largest of its kind in the Middle East, it attracts tens of thousands of military officers, arms dealers, weapon enthusiasts and government officials from around the globe. It is a peculiar spectacle, where fighter jets, missiles, military rifles and battleships are shown off, accompanied by a programme that tempts with entertainment such as bagpipe bands, military parades and aircraft shows. And throughout this celebration of weaponry, visitors are treating it all with an odd normalcy, casually posing next to giant tanks with the enthusiasm of a first-timer in Paris at the Eiffel Tower.
The days of IDEX are clouded in a strange form of truce; old differences and generation-long animosities are put aside in favour of business. Buyers and sellers from Sudan to the United Kingdom rub shoulders, inspecting the latest on the arms front. It also exposes an interesting aspect of the business. Though national defence may seem an inherently patriotic matter, it is, in the end, a surprisingly international affair. While dressed in the motherlands colours, the riffles the soldiers carry might be Russian, the fighter-jets Swedish, and the warships Chinese. But after all, business is often a uniquely separate entity.
In a time where many countries are boosting their defence budgets, IDEX is a goldmine for arms cooperations and it is easy to make an argument for the capital gain of corporations doing business here. Active wars such as those in nearby Yemen and Syria, as well as growing international tensions, can equally be used to argue for increased national defence or peace-keeping troops. But no matter the argument used to justify participation in the arms trade, there is a crucial detail that is unavoidable: the humanitarian consequences of using these products.
The arguments of selling smaller firearms for hunting or personal protection can surely be made, but no one ever bought a missile to hang it on the wall or a battleship for summer trips at sea. No matter how controlled we are told weapon exports is, any participation in this trade unavoidably endorses the atrocities these machines can be used for. For the use of weapons is seldom carried out without victims, and the victims are not the people browsing the boots at IDEX, mumbling in awe at the latest military technology.
UAE, 2019
Text by Johanne Björklund Larsen