The Durban Conference on Climate Change 2011 is drawing close. An event that heralds more discussion about polluting industries and the need to control the exhaust they spit out. More talk about the long way that developing countries have to go to rectify the pollutants that they create. Issues that are important and that we, the developing world should absolutely take notice of. Because pollution kills.
But so do guns. And nobody's stopping the gun makers. The defense contractors that wear white collar suits and hobnob with the powers that be, the ones that produce beauties that kill.
But no one stops them. Nuclear power is discouraged. Especially if it is a developing country that is trying to 'stockpile' them. But guns, never. There are much-flaunted arms deals where some members of the rich countries' club agree to sell weapons to certain countries that need to defend themselves from aggressive neighbours. There are under-the-table deals where arms dealers sell to warlords and 'leaders' in some of the most war torn regions of the world. Regions where money would be much better spent on food and basic survival needs of the people that reside there. But however it happens, the guns are sold, unabashedly all across the world. Because guns equal protection, especially if a powerful country says so to a weaker one.
Which brings to mind the good ole' British, those clever traders that spread the law of the East India Company across India. All the while telling each paranoid Indian king that the company could offer protection against the neighbouring state in exchange for land or revenue. And doing this to each neighbouring state. Sounds very nefarious, even on the face of it. But this practice did not just become acceptable, it became the rule of law.
Because protection by the British with their superior gun power could only be a good idea. The same way that guns are today.
Great reading.
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