Ashes Ashes

Episode 73 - "Tear Up, Tear Down" Protests around the world in 2011 gave riot-gear dealers a three-fold increase in sales of tear gas. In 2013, Turkey used up an entire year's supply of tear gas in just two days, before promptly ordering more. 2015 was the year Kenyan police fired tear gas into a group of schoolchildren as young as 7, and its use is so popular in Uganda that a girls rugby team named themselves the Police Teargas Rangers. Such profligate use of tear gas tempts us to take for granted the conflicts between unruly protesters and the police who demand order. Indeed, Israeli Defence Forces have employed tear gas for close to 90 years against Palestinians. But tracing the history of tear gas tells the story of a tool that did not simply emerge naturally, but was created from the ground up for the singular purpose of domination. Of countries opposed to the use of gas against citizens on ethical grounds, but eventually caving from the economic necessities of colonial empire; of industrial owners, r