consumer activism

back to the bush

Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

Hunter-gatherer bushmen who had been forced out of Botswana’s Kalahari Desert found their way onto the Web before winning back the right to return to their tribal lands.

Displaced to settlement camps over the last decade, allegedly so Botswana could preserve the land and its wildlife within the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, many of the bushmen succumbed to starvation, AIDS/HIV, and alcoholism. Others banded together with activists, including the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, behind a civil rights case that went to court originally in 2002.

The bushmen also published a Website, iwant2gohome.org that hosted photos and pleas for the return of their land.

Many believe that the real reason the bushmen were forced out was corporate pressure from diamond mining giant De Beers. Several international celebs began publicizing the story of a 20,000-year-old hunter-gatherer tribe forced against their will to flee their land and assimilate. In September, the bushmen published an ad appealing to Leonardo DiCaprio to take a stand for their rights after he filmed Blood Diamond, depicting the murderous diamond trade of Sierra Leone. Later, the L.A. Times joined the De Beers-bashing.

Last week saw the launch of BoycottDeBeers.com, calling for a boycott of De Beers and their “conflict diamonds.”

For more on the Kalahari Bushmen and today’s court decision (which ruled that they can return to their land and that the government of Botswana is no longer required to provide sustenance): BBC News (w/ video and photos).

image from David!!!!!s flickr

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Product (RED)

Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

mind-the-gap-pic.jpgYou’ve seen the campaign. It features a slew of celebrities, each one artfully shot wearing pieces from the GAP’s RED line— a format that has become a Gap advertising trademark. This time around the cast includes Chris Rock, Steven Spielberg, Penelope Cruz, Jennifer Garner, supermodel Christi Turlington, Dakota Fanning, Mary J. Blidge and Don Cheadle. The celebrity models are captured in poses meant to convey their unique personalities and then in effect branded with their own “RED” label, such as “Inspi(RED)” for Spielberg and “Uncenso(RED)” for Chris Rock.

Like a Benetton campaign, the ads associate a political message with the brand, making the company seem more progressive. The Gap pledges to donate 50 percent of the proceeds from sales of the RED products to the HIV/AIDS global fund in Africa to help stop the epidemic and also aid women and children already affected by it. Gap is reportedly using factories in Africa, and particularly in places where AIDS is widespread, to manufacture the
new clothes, employing workers directly from the communities in Africa targeted for the cash generated by the campaign. U2’s Bono co-founded the charity organization Red, and together Gap says it hopes to bring global attention to the AIDS crisis in Africa, as well as to give consumers a way to actively help the cause through something they’re comfortable doing, which is shopping.

It’s a good idea for an ad campaign, for the company and for the cause. I’m talking about it right now, and after reading this, you’ll be thinking about it too, about Aids in Africa and about the Gap.

Yet, although I’ve seen ads for RED on billboards, in the stores, and through product placement on Oprah, who actually did a show about the AIDS crisis in Africa and bought the whole audience the RED t-shirts, I have yet to see a single person actually wearing the clothes. Corporate-styled self-expression, after all, is different than the real thing. And, sadly, broadcasting your support for humanitarian causes seems trendy: see Madonna and Angelina.

“Can clothes change the world?” asks the campaign. Please, if we could change the world with a t-shirt,we’d be living in Utopia by now.

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