Boomerang effect with impact
Canadian author Naomi Klein has written her way to the forefront of the «sweatshop» movement with a book
Canadian Naomi Klein has written a book that puts her at the forefront of the "sweatshop" movementBy Thérèse Balduzzi In Seattle, "anticorporate" activists paralyzed the World Trade Organization conference, in Washington they demonstrated against the World Bank's meeting with the International Monetary Fund. The young Canadian Naomi Klein gives the heterogeneous protest a face. Her book "No Logo: Taking Aims at the Brand Bullies", which has been on several bestseller lists in Canada and the USA since January, has become a bible for the youth movement.
The real anarchists at the WTO meeting in Seattle were not the black-clad street demonstrators who called themselves that, but the businessmen who oppose any regulations on global trade, claims Naomi Klein.
The new youth movement, on the other hand, is probably the first to advocate more rather than fewer rules, she observes. This refers to international regulations that would regulate the global economy and put an end to the exploitation of workers in "sweatshops", which borders on slavery, and the unbridled destruction of the environment in poor countries. Klein denounces the widespread view that the weaker members would ultimately benefit from the global economy despite unfair distribution as a myth.
Klein has been filling American and Canadian lecture halls and bookstores in Manhattan with such provocative statements since the publication of her book. "No Logo" was reviewed by the New York Times and USA Today and earned her a column in the Toronto Star. The company Nike, which was strongly attacked in the book, published a rebuttal on its website criticizing the book as biased and unbalanced.
In "No Logo", Klein explains the role that branding played in the emergence of the movement. She links multinational branding with grievances in the First and Third Worlds and vividly describes how the backlash came about.
Since the early 1990s at the latest, companies such as Nike, Reebok, Microsoft, Disney, McDonald's, Tommy Hilfiger, Levi's and others have left traditional product advertising behind and invested billions in brand imaging instead, she writes. Instead of products such as sneakers, companies are now selling lifestyle, attitudes to life and religious-like meanings.
The ever-increasing marketing budgets were financed, among other things, by relocating production to poor countries. Branding took up more and more space, be it through Gap stores at every second street intersection in America or the omnipresence of the Nike "swoosh". Efforts to bind consumers to brands as young as possible also led to a massive flood of advertising in American and Canadian schools and universities.
The omnipresence of advertising provokes a backlash
When brands like Nike and Diesel appropriated the feminist and anti-racist demands of the "Identity Politics" then current at the universities for their image advertising, their advertisements had penetrated the university toilets.
Students who felt that the appropriation of their political concerns by advertising was cynical took the opportunity to vent their anger. Calvin Klein models were transformed into skeletons using felt-tip pens, the "Just Do it" slogan was rewritten as "Justice. Do it" was rewritten. Apple's "Think Different" advertisement was altered with a picture of Stalin and renamed "Think Really Different".
According to Klein, companies became victims of their own image cultivation: when brands identified with social goals such as tolerance of racial diversity, they inevitably exposed themselves to criticism of their own behavior.
If they sponsored not only rock concerts, but also professorships, research projects and school meals, they would become vulnerable. Klein cites as a prime example the protest against the sale of Pepsi-Cola in the dictatorship of Myanmar, which began in 1993 at Carleton University in Ottawa and spread via Harvard and Stanford to England. Had Pepsi not been fighting at countless schools for exclusive contracts to sell Pepsi-Cola and its Taco Bell fast food, students would have seen little reason to scrutinize the company's trade practices on the other side of the world. However, the concentrated protest of countless students led to Pepsi's withdrawal from Myanmar in 1997.
Spurred on by such successes, activists discovered how they could burst the image bubbles that had been pumped up into monstrous soap bubbles with little effort. The cooler the brand, the better: poor African-American schoolchildren who have just discovered that the Nikes they bought for over 100 dollars were produced for just five dollars and angrily dumped their old sneakers outside Nike stores have more impact than another appeal from an unknown third-world organization. And television has the story to go with it.
A demonstration against "sweatshops", which begins in front of the Disney flagship store in New York's Times Square and moves alongside huge Tommy Hilfiger and Nike advertisements, also attracts media attention. TV reporters also don't miss excited mothers declaring in the middle of the Christmas shopping season that they won't buy their children toys made by child labor.
Well-known brands become symbols of grievances
The jiu-jitsu strategy benefits from the general obsession with brand logos and can count on the same attention paid to celebrity scandals.
Nike became a symbol for the downsizing of American jobs and the exploitation of Asian "sweatshop" workers. Shell became the epitome of the environmental sinner through its plan to sink the disused oil storage island Brent Spar in the Atlantic. McDonald's and the Starbucks coffee chain became prime examples of how corporate empires use illegal bribes, threats and dismissals to prevent their workers from unionizing and get away with it. Virgin Megastores and the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain, which are replacing youth centers and town squares in America, have become examples of how public space is being increasingly privatized.
In "No Logo", Klein is concerned with exposing the betrayal of the central promise of the information age - increasing freedom of the individual, increasing interactivity and more choice. According to Klein, the Global Village offers exactly the opposite: instead of cultural diversity, a homogeneous one-size-fits-all culture is being imposed on the entire globe via MTV, in which a few interest groups are gaining more and more power.
Instead of a lively exchange, brand culture offers a one-sided monologue: Klein mentions various examples in which artists and activists who wanted to express criticism of cultural symbols such as Barbie dolls or McDonald's were silenced with copyright lawsuits.
Nothing against a global village, but with a fair economy
Despite all the campaigns that spread the image of the Global Village with a colorful palette full of cute children from all over the world, the possibility of students at Harvard exchanging emails with textile workers in Manila was obviously underestimated. The "Anticorporate Movement" unites highly diverse groups: students who have found their way to the "sweatshop" movement via "identity politics", environmentalists, third world organizations that are in contact with workers' movements in poor countries, and trade unions that are fighting against the export of their jobs and deregulation measures in the West. Thanks to the internet, the movement is more internationally connected than ever before.
The cross-connections that the author points out between the various approaches and interests are extremely exciting to follow. Although an activist herself, she does not lack analytical distance. Klein also outlines the limits of the jiu-jitsu strategy against well-known brands: Ultimately, she says, it is not about the sins of individual companies or pitting Shell against Exxon. The long-term goal is more democratic conditions worldwide in order to make the global economy fairer.
Naomi Klein, "No Logo: Taking Aims at the Brand Bullies", Picador USA, US$ 28.00, 528 pages, ISBN 0-31220343-8
The real anarchists at the WTO meeting in Seattle were not the black-clad street demonstrators who called themselves that, but the businessmen who oppose any regulations on global trade, claims Naomi Klein.
The new youth movement, on the other hand, is probably the first to advocate more rather than fewer rules, she observes. This refers to international regulations that would regulate the global economy and put an end to the exploitation of workers in "sweatshops", which borders on slavery, and the unbridled destruction of the environment in poor countries. Klein denounces the widespread view that the weaker members would ultimately benefit from the global economy despite unfair distribution as a myth.
Klein has been filling American and Canadian lecture halls and bookstores in Manhattan with such provocative statements since the publication of her book. "No Logo" was reviewed by the New York Times and USA Today and earned her a column in the Toronto Star. The company Nike, which was strongly attacked in the book, published a rebuttal on its website criticizing the book as biased and unbalanced.
In "No Logo", Klein explains the role that branding played in the emergence of the movement. She links multinational branding with grievances in the First and Third Worlds and vividly describes how the backlash came about.
Since the early 1990s at the latest, companies such as Nike, Reebok, Microsoft, Disney, McDonald's, Tommy Hilfiger, Levi's and others have left traditional product advertising behind and invested billions in brand imaging instead, she writes. Instead of products such as sneakers, companies are now selling lifestyle, attitudes to life and religious-like meanings.
The ever-increasing marketing budgets were financed, among other things, by relocating production to poor countries. Branding took up more and more space, be it through Gap stores at every second street intersection in America or the omnipresence of the Nike "swoosh". Efforts to bind consumers to brands as young as possible also led to a massive flood of advertising in American and Canadian schools and universities.
The omnipresence of advertising provokes a backlash
When brands like Nike and Diesel appropriated the feminist and anti-racist demands of the "Identity Politics" then current at the universities for their image advertising, their advertisements had penetrated the university toilets.
Students who felt that the appropriation of their political concerns by advertising was cynical took the opportunity to vent their anger. Calvin Klein models were transformed into skeletons using felt-tip pens, the "Just Do it" slogan was rewritten as "Justice. Do it" was rewritten. Apple's "Think Different" advertisement was altered with a picture of Stalin and renamed "Think Really Different".
According to Klein, companies became victims of their own image cultivation: when brands identified with social goals such as tolerance of racial diversity, they inevitably exposed themselves to criticism of their own behavior.
If they sponsored not only rock concerts, but also professorships, research projects and school meals, they would become vulnerable. Klein cites as a prime example the protest against the sale of Pepsi-Cola in the dictatorship of Myanmar, which began in 1993 at Carleton University in Ottawa and spread via Harvard and Stanford to England. Had Pepsi not been fighting at countless schools for exclusive contracts to sell Pepsi-Cola and its Taco Bell fast food, students would have seen little reason to scrutinize the company's trade practices on the other side of the world. However, the concentrated protest of countless students led to Pepsi's withdrawal from Myanmar in 1997.
Spurred on by such successes, activists discovered how they could burst the image bubbles that had been pumped up into monstrous soap bubbles with little effort. The cooler the brand, the better: poor African-American schoolchildren who have just discovered that the Nikes they bought for over 100 dollars were produced for just five dollars and angrily dumped their old sneakers outside Nike stores have more impact than another appeal from an unknown third-world organization. And television has the story to go with it.
A demonstration against "sweatshops", which begins in front of the Disney flagship store in New York's Times Square and moves alongside huge Tommy Hilfiger and Nike advertisements, also attracts media attention. TV reporters also don't miss excited mothers declaring in the middle of the Christmas shopping season that they won't buy their children toys made by child labor.
Well-known brands become symbols of grievances
The jiu-jitsu strategy benefits from the general obsession with brand logos and can count on the same attention paid to celebrity scandals.
Nike became a symbol for the downsizing of American jobs and the exploitation of Asian "sweatshop" workers. Shell became the epitome of the environmental sinner through its plan to sink the disused oil storage island Brent Spar in the Atlantic. McDonald's and the Starbucks coffee chain became prime examples of how corporate empires use illegal bribes, threats and dismissals to prevent their workers from unionizing and get away with it. Virgin Megastores and the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain, which are replacing youth centers and town squares in America, have become examples of how public space is being increasingly privatized.
In "No Logo", Klein is concerned with exposing the betrayal of the central promise of the information age - increasing freedom of the individual, increasing interactivity and more choice. According to Klein, the Global Village offers exactly the opposite: instead of cultural diversity, a homogeneous one-size-fits-all culture is being imposed on the entire globe via MTV, in which a few interest groups are gaining more and more power.
Instead of a lively exchange, brand culture offers a one-sided monologue: Klein mentions various examples in which artists and activists who wanted to express criticism of cultural symbols such as Barbie dolls or McDonald's were silenced with copyright lawsuits.
Nothing against a global village, but with a fair economy
Despite all the campaigns that spread the image of the Global Village with a colorful palette full of cute children from all over the world, the possibility of students at Harvard exchanging emails with textile workers in Manila was obviously underestimated. The "Anticorporate Movement" unites highly diverse groups: students who have found their way to the "sweatshop" movement via "identity politics", environmentalists, third world organizations that are in contact with workers' movements in poor countries, and trade unions that are fighting against the export of their jobs and deregulation measures in the West. Thanks to the internet, the movement is more internationally connected than ever before.
The cross-connections that the author points out between the various approaches and interests are extremely exciting to follow. Although an activist herself, she does not lack analytical distance. Klein also outlines the limits of the jiu-jitsu strategy against well-known brands: Ultimately, she says, it is not about the sins of individual companies or pitting Shell against Exxon. The long-term goal is more democratic conditions worldwide in order to make the global economy fairer.
Naomi Klein, "No Logo: Taking Aims at the Brand Bullies", Picador USA, US$ 28.00, 528 pages, ISBN 0-31220343-8
