{"id":14483,"date":"2024-12-02T18:27:17","date_gmt":"2024-12-02T18:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/follow-the-things.onyx-sites.io\/?p=14483"},"modified":"2026-03-05T16:09:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T16:09:00","slug":"step-away-from-the-weapon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/followthethings.com\/?p=14483","title":{"rendered":"Step Away From The Weapon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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“Step Away From The Weapon<\/strong>“
Undergraduate coursework written by Ginny Childs, originally published on followtheblog.org here<\/a>.<\/em>
Full text below.

In the version of the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ module that was first taught at the University of Exeter, groups of students were given books, music videos, films and other example of trade justice activism to research. Their job was to produce draft pages on these sources for the followthethings.com website. Ginny Childs was in a group researching Indian rap artist Sofia Ahraf’s ‘Dow vs Bhopal: A Toxic Rap Battle’ music video [see this page in our website here<\/a>]. Ginny wasn’t born when the Bhopal factory exploded in 1984 but, as a member of the university’s Office Training Corps, she notices stringent rules about toxic chemical leaks in her rifle drills. While thousands of people of Bhopal had been poisoned by Methyl Isocyanate, she was at risk from a tiny dose of the radioactive hydrogen isotope called tritium that was in her rifle battlesight. The safety procedures in place if that leaked its tritium are stringent. So she investigates the safety procedures the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal in the 1980s and wonders if she’s benefitted from better chemical safety regs that emerged after the disaster. Dow still hasn’t paid compensation top the Bhopal victims. And she’s still reliant on Dow (who bought Union Carbide) as a company making chemical ingredients in the commoditiies she loves. So what can she do with what she learns? How can she make a difference? Share Ashraf’s ”toxic rap battle’ video on her socials maybe? Keep the story alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Page reference: Ginny Childs (2017) Step Away From The Weapon. <\/em>followthethings.com\/step-away-from-the-weapon.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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I joined Exeter University Officer Training Corps this year. Last weekend was my first weapons training session; on the SA80 assault rifle. The first lesson I received was a \u2018Normal Safety Procedure\u2019 on what to do if I drop it and the sighting system cracks. The system uses tritium (a radioactive hydrogen isotope) in gas form, to create visible light. If it escapes, and I were to inhale it, radioactive damage could occur in my body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sat in my weapons training lesson, whilst thinking about tritium, my mind drifted to methyl isocyanate (MIC). The Bhopal disaster was the topic my group were researching for this module. I\u2019d been researching the thousands of deaths and deformities this gas leak caused. Now, here I was being cautioned on tritium. It seemed silly. The rifle contains only a minute amount, and it\u2019s deemed to be one of the least hazardous radionuclides. Yet, I was laboriously taken through a step-by-step routine to memorise the safety procedure: STEP AWAY FROM THE WEAPON\u2026 HOLD YOUR BREATH\u2026GET ANY SMOKERS TO PUT OUT CIGARETTES\u2026INFORM ARMOURY OF INCIDENT etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It got me thinking. Did Bhopal\u2019s Union Carbide workers receive safety procedures on MIC? What were the evacuation plans in place? I looked at Amnesty International\u2019s Bhopal disaster report. Their analysis of safety measures in UCC plants, found that in West Virginia, there were extensive training programmes among all levels of employees and a four-tier emergency plan was implemented. BUT in Bhopal, operators had insufficient training, and there was no procedure to circulate information concerning emergencies to the public apart from a siren (Amnesty International, 2004). It dawned on me that I\u2019d likely received more risk training on tritium than Bhopal UCC workers undertook on MIC! 40 tons of MIC were released at Bhopal\u2026. With an immediate death toll of over 2,000 people (Socialmilk, 2016).  A rifle contains only 0.21 Curies of tritium, and if inhaled wouldn\u2019t immediately kill a single person (CECOM Directorate for Safety, 2001:15). Why was I, like the workers in the West Virginia UCC plant, provided with more consolidated emergency procedures than those in Bhopal? It seems completely unjust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young (2003:42-43) notes that \u2018We are connected by our own actions to the structural processes that produce injustice\u2019. Do I, someone born over three decades after the Bhopal disaster, have any political responsibility for structural processes put in place before my time? Is it my responsibility to make DOW accountable for Bhopal? Barnett writes that \u2018some people benefit from being positioned in such spatially extensive networks, and that therefore one has a responsibility that follows from unfair reward\u2019 (Barnett, 2007:1068). I certainly felt in this instance, I had the \u2018unfair reward\u2019 of being born in a more economically developed country, at a time where there are globally more rigid safety protocols. The Bhopal incident in itself, has been claimed to have led to the development of the concept of \u2018process safety\u2019; the \u2018proactive identification, evaluation, and mitigation or prevention of chemical releases that might occur as a result of failures in the process, procedures, or equipment\u2019 (Hood, 2004: 354). Was I, sat in weapons training, receiving a safety lesson on tritium, as an indirect outcome of Bhopal? Is it too much of a leap to suggest the world\u2019s largest industrial disaster served as an impetus for a larger cultural shift in focus on gas safety? Was I, then\u2026 personally benefiting from the Bhopal tragedy? Does this connection mean I need to take moral action?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nagel (1970:19) argues that practical moral action can only emerge when there is an ability \u2018to view oneself simultaneously as \u2018I\u2019 and as someone<\/em> \u2013 an impersonally specifiable individual\u201d. How else am I linked to Bhopal? Could I be upholding DOW\u2019s position as a leader in speciality chemicals\u2026 through using their products? When searching through DOW\u2019s partners, I found Univar, a company which disseminates DOW\u2019s personal care ingredients throughout Europe. On their product page, an image popped up<\/a> of a crosseyed woman, staring at a massive bubblegum bubble she had blown. The caption said \u2018Everywhere, every day. Where do you find the products we distribute? In your mouth. Bright pink bubblegum and spearmint chewing gum both have one thing in common: Univar products\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Univar website introduced another personal connection of mine, to DOW. Gum. I looked into the ingredients list of my childhood favourite, Hubba Bubba, which I still buy occasionally to reminisce. Cross-checking it against a Univar document of all the food ingredients it produces\u2026 Aspartame (a sweetener) is a hit (Univar, 2013).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also look up Extra and Wrigley\u2019s spearmint gum: the common ingredient in all three is aspartame. So, it\u2019s highly likely that, at some point, through trying different brands (I must have tried them all), I\u2019ve ingested aspartame produced by Univar. Through buying gum with Univar ingredients, I\u2019m connected to DOW by nature of their company partnership. I\u2019m a part of the (frustratingly hard to untangle) relations between chemicals and people; therefore justice around such issues concerns me. I have a political responsibility to bring justice to \u2018producers [who] suffer in relationships of market exchange which are unfair or exploitative\u2019 (Corbridge, 2000: 178). But how do I do this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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