musings

At the launch event of the Greenwash Gold 2012 campaign we heard from representatives of communities affected by the environmentally and socially destructive activities of three Olympic sponsors – Rio Tinto, Dow Chemical and BP. Our guests had travelled from across the world to give testimonies of their peoples’ sufferings.

First, we heard from five different communities affected by the mining activities of Rio Tinto. Cherise Udell from the activist group Utah Moms for Clean Air told us that pretty much everything in Salt Lake City including the their newest museum bears Rio Tinto branding. It turns out more Utah mums were meant to travel with Cherise to London but one by one the women dropped off the list because either their husband or another relative had a financial connection to Rio Tinto or because supporting campaign would jeopardise their job. The message: Rio Tinto owned their town and fighting the corporation was an incredibly difficult job.

Representing Bhopalis was Farah Edwards Khan, a survivor of The Bhopal Gas Tragedy Farah was 10 when the explosion took place which is estimated to have killed 8000-10,000 people on the night of 2^nd / 3rd December 1984. Since then, thousands of people have died or have developed cancers and other life threatening diseases, and the site has still not been remediated by Dow Chemical (who now own the Union Carbide factory). On a previous occasion, Farah had said to me that she was three miles away from the factory and these 3 miles was the difference between life and death. At the launch event, Farah reminded us that many young people were not aware of the world’s worst industrial disaster, despite the tragedy continuing until this day. It struck me how important campaigns such as Greenwash Gold 2012 are in keeping the memory of tragedies such as Bhopal alive so that one day the perpetrators can be brought to justice.

Finally, we heard from communities affected by BP. BP isn’t just a sponsor of London 2012, it is a Sustainability Partner, which is the funniest and sickest joke I have ever heard. We heard from Clayton Thomas-Muller, a tar sands campaigner from the Indigenous Environmental Network, and Bryan Parras and Derrick Evans who represented communities affected by the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Last Thursday, I had the honour to take part in a direct action inside BP’s AGM with these community leaders and 10 other London based environmental activists. One of my roles was to ask the board of directors what return shareholders can expect from sponsoring cultural events such London 2012. Much to our surprise, Iain Conn, the Chief Executive for Refining and Marketing admitted the aim of the sponsorship was “brand protection and connection with customers and society”, and to “enhance their relationship with strategic commercial partners”. Put simply, such sponsorship deals give BP, Rio Tinto, Dow Chemicals a social license to operate.

This sentiment was echoed by a someone in the audience who pointed out that pretty much every sponsor of the Olympic – EDF, Adidas, Coca Cola, Atos, BT, G4S - has a terrible social and environmental track record, and awarding gold to one of three highlighted sponsors is almost an arbitrary exercise. This comment and BP’s admission in the AGM goes to the crux of why the Greenwash Gold 2012 campaign is an important one. The ONLY reason such corporations bother to sponsor the Olympics (instead of spending their money cleaning up affected sites or investing in the environmental and social health of the communities they work in) is to divert the public’s attention from their destructive practices. Each of these corporations have powerful PR machines spinning rosy pictures and it takes the tremendous courage and commitment of activists, such as of our guests, to keep the truth alive. The London 2012 sponsorship is a done deal but we as campaigners, activists and good citizens need to expose the sponsors’ greenwash because by doing so we effectively take away their social license to operate. You and me need to make it loud and clear the destructive practices of these sponsors is Ecocide and therefore do not deserve to be associated with the Olympics ideals (although I do admit the modern day manifestation of the Olympics is a far cry from the Ancient Greek ideals).

What you can do: Watch the three short animations films, vote for your most unethical sponsor and spread the word far and wide. Tell your friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, dog walkers, baby sitters, local corner shop keeper, bus driver, whoever. The more people vote for their most unethical sponsor, the more successful we will become in taking away these corporations’ social license to operate. 

Getting ready for action!

Today, activists from Greenpeace Islington campaigned at Shell’s garage on Holloway Road against Shell’s plans for oil exploration in the Arctic.  Other North London groups – Camden, Bethnal Green and Walthamstow were simultaneously taking action at Shell stations around the city. Since Thursday, when news of Lucy Lawless and Greenpeace NZ activists’ occupation of a Shell ship bound for Alaska broke out, Greenpeace local groups across Europe have been campaigning at their local Shell stations as the battle to #savethearctic begins.

Every time I participate in on-the-street activism, whether its getting the public to sign petitions or leafleting an area, I find myself reflecting on the potential contribution of our little action to the wider campaign. Today I felt our presence at the Shell station had an effect on Shell’s employees. We were watched throughout our action suggesting our presence was perturbing. What was especially rewarding was when a few station staff spoke with us after their shift and sympathised with the campaign aims. Fantastic!

We managed to speak to many motorists as they left the station as well as many pedestrians. It’s always rewarding speaking to actual people on the streets. Sometimes we speak with people who are simply unaware of the destruction being caused to the planet and our role is to plant a seed in their head. Hopefully these people will reflect on our exchange and might, down the line, support a worthy environmental campaign. Other times we speak with really passionate supporters and our role here is to mobilise these people because, we believe, our collective people power can save the planet. And of course not everyone is interested in hearing what we have to say – least of all the guy that ran away from us shouting “I love oil”. Oh dear.

Nevertheless, we had a successful session today and it’s a wonderful feeling of solidarity knowing other activists around the city, the country and elsewhere are simultaneously taking action to save our beautiful arctic, our awe-inspiring planet’s last great frontier. This is such an important campaign – one that I envision will be long and bitterly fought but I know we won’t give up. This is just the beginning. Whether it’s occupying ships, unfurling banners atop buildings, signing online petitions, campaigning on the streets or lobbying behind closed doors, each and everyone of us has an important part to play to #savethearctic. And #savethearctic we will. 

Floe Piece - Performance by Liberate Tate at the Tate Modern, 14 Jan 2012 

The Corporate Occupation of the Arts was an inspiring afternoon of talks at Bank of Ideas from those involved in using art as a political tool. The afternoon started with Platform, the campaigning organisation working to expose the link between corporate (e.g. BP, Shell) sponsorship of cultural institutions and their social licence to operate. Are we complicit in these corporations’ destructive activities when we visit these institutions? The average person on the street isn’t thinking about the social and environmental destruction caused in out-of-sight-out-of-mind places and probably ends up viewing such corporations favourably by associating them with a positive cultural experience. Such sponsorship deals also allow corporations to make strong links with cultural and political decision makers opening the door to public policy.  A year ago I was confronted by this issue when I attended a conference on resource security and climate change at the Royal Geographical Society, an institution sponsored by Shell. I wouldn’t be surprised if the climate scientists, social scientists and politicians speaking at the conference take (or are subtly encouraged to take) an uncritical stance towards Shell. Seeing Shell’s logo changed my view of the conference – While I can’t concretely prove it, my hunch is the issue under discussion would be defined and debated differently if it was hosted at a different institution not controlled by oil money.

One of my highlights of the afternoon was The Art School and the Cultural Shed by John Beck (Newcastle University) and Matthew Cornford (University of Brighton). The Art School and the Cultural Shed documents the decline of the publically funded art school where ordinary students once could get a free education, and the rise of the iconic (often empty) museum designed by rock star architects. I am always moved by beautiful buildings but am often saddened by great designers who fail to understand buildings are NOT sculptures and actually have a social purpose! The built environment and subsequent lifestyles are essentially produced and reproduced by investment choices of the political economy– this is true from transport to galleries to office spaces. At any given time – from Amsterdam in the Dutch Golden Age to housing estates – the built environment is a physical manifestation of the ruling political ideology. Even London’s exponential growth into a megalopolis happened in the 19^th century when the British Empire was at its height. Architects, artists and others who fail to consider how the situation in which they are creating in came to be are implicit in the reproduction of the ruling political ideology, and the social and environmental impacts that go along with it.

My afternoon at Occupy LSX ended with Liberate Tate’s performance Floe Piece, a block of arctic ice that was taken by four black veiled mourners on a funeral pyre to Tate Modern. We followed the funeral procession from Occupy LSX to Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall where the piece of arctic ice was laid down. People gathered around and many were curious about the performance. Being curious is the first step of engagement and it was magical to see art’s possibility to engage. It was a good twenty or so minutes before the security guards cottoned on that this was an unsanctioned performance. The security guards confusion reminded me of what Liberate Tate had said earlier that afternoon: art spaces allow more time for protest.

Many artists don’t use their art for political means and indeed whose right is it to say what is or isn’t the right role for art? Each generation determines art’s meaning for itself. But this much I know: the political economy determines the nature of our civilization and surely we should use all our tools to make a just, peaceful and beautiful world?