Jo Cox’s murder in Leeds in June 2016 shocked the nation. For the first time in since the 1990, when Ian Gow was killed by the IRA, a sitting British MP was brutally murdered for doing their job. There were 26 years between those two tragic incidents, and now British politics is left facing a second deadly attack in five years. But what steps can we possibly take to ensure that this violence ends?
These realities are of course hidden by DSEI, who present a highly refined image of respectability – showing off and promoting their killing machines in pretty packages and their exhibitors clothed in Savile Row suits and loathsome smiles. This is taken to extremes in the form of the 2019 DSEI highlights video, which rolls slickly on like some sick, grotesque Hollywood movie or video game trailer, eroticising and glorifying the violent implements of war and torture, and entirely camouflaging their lethal reality.
CW: Violence
“Crouching in a corner and holding your breath as you hear voices and sirens outside is the norm for me.” Three years on from the Parkland shooting in Florida, Anvee Bhutani uses anecdotal experience to argue why gun reform is necessary.
Trigger Warnings- Rape and Violence
Sarah Kane’s first play, Blasted, begins with the ageing Ian grooming his young girlfriend Cate in an expensive hotel room....
Representations of violence and torture used to be an integral part of enforcing the social order - but in a world of uncensored live streams and graphic media content, has our attitude to atrocity really progressed - or does it remain an unacknowledged dark obsession of mankind?