DEMILITARIZATION and BRITISH RAILROADS
During a recent research trip to the UK on the history of British
Aerospace's diversification efforts I tuned into my TV set to hear one of
BBC's leading
reporters pepper an official about why there was a shortage of inspectors
for the country's rail trains. The reporter wanted to know about whether
more inspectors could be hired to avoid train accidents. There is an
ongoing
controversy as many know about getting the train companies to install modern
collision avoidance equipment. If memory serves me there are
only 75! rail inspectors in the whole country. The myth is that there is a
shortage in resources to prevent rail disasters.
Here we have a very good example of the "Blairite project" because I had
just recently visited DERA set up by the Ministry of Defence. Its web page
boasts that "It is one of Europe’s largest research organisations with
a turnover of approximately £1 billion and about 12,000 staff." During my
tour of the UK, which I transversed using several trains, I also witnessed
dilapidated rail stations and waiting rooms which brought to mind a Third
World country, suggesting a further trade off created by the UK military
economy.
Yet, despite the obvious need to pair back DERA or use its vast technical
resources to save British lives endangered by the rail lines, there were too
few persons willing to make this intellectual connection. I tried to sell
the idea to a leading peace group, but it seemingly drifted above their
heads. If we go back to the days of the Kosovo War, one idea was to try to
develop a long term alternative to NATO militarism. Here then is a perfect
opportunity for "critical geographers" to make the case for reducing
military spending and supporting human needs. It turns out that DERA does
have a rail research project:
http://www.railway-technology.com/contractors/project/dera/index.html
but this initiative seems more part of an Orwellian PR effort and does not
seem to have prevented the recent rail accident at London's Waterloo
station!
Postmodernism and anti-imperialist analysis can not quite make the necessary
intellectual connections (cf. Russell Jacoby's "The End of Utopia")...but
perhaps a critical campaign about DERA and the dilapidation of British Rail
might due the trick. I'd be interested if there are other persons interested
in this linkage, one I hope to make at an international peace conference
involving engineers in Sweden this Spring. Strangely enough Sweden is moving
towards privatizing its railways which themselves are beginning to face
deteriorating service. A British company runs Stockholm's (now
deteriorating)subway system.
PS. A forthcoming issue of the journal PEACE REVIEW will focus on Economic
Democracy.
____________________________________________
Dr. Jonathan M. Feldman
Senior Researcher
Forskarstation Bergslagen
Room K4-4016, Ekelundsv. 16, SOLNA Office
care of:
Arbetslivsinstitutet
Swedish Institute for Working Life
11279 Stockholm, Sweden
(46) 08-730 9213, if no answer try:
Mobile Phone 070 347 00 29
Email: [log in to unmask]
Email: [log in to unmask]
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