Seeing RED
If you buy a product from the RED range some of the profits will go towards buying and distributing anti-retroviral drugs in Africa. Simple. Or is it? Campaigner Rosie Walker is skeptical about RED's approach to a very complex situation.
Leonardo Di Caprio is making a dramatic speech. 'Tonight’s event is about raising money to do something about all of that,' he says, gravely, looking out at the twinkling sea of champagne glasses and flashbulbs. He hasn’t really explained what ‘all of that’ is.
Nevermind; here’s presenter June Sarpong to shed some light on the matter while chatting to singer Amarie. 'Do you feel guilty being all glamorous and beautiful when we’re sitting here talking about all this suffering?' she asks. The singer offers something unintelligible about 'just living life’s gifts', and it’s still not clear what suffering we are here to talk about; nobody’s actually talking about it.
Of all the stars who appear on the stage or interview couch during this excruciating hour of RED: One Night Only, none seem to know. It’s as if everyone’s missed the briefing, and some have got an inkling it’s to do with Africa (Sarpong and Beyonce discuss the roots of the ‘booty shake’) but they’re not sure if that means famine, flies or AIDS, so they stick with references to ‘all that’ and hope nobody notices.
Nevermind; here’s presenter June Sarpong to shed some light on the matter while chatting to singer Amarie. 'Do you feel guilty being all glamorous and beautiful when we’re sitting here talking about all this suffering?' she asks. The singer offers something unintelligible about 'just living life’s gifts', and it’s still not clear what suffering we are here to talk about; nobody’s actually talking about it.
Of all the stars who appear on the stage or interview couch during this excruciating hour of RED: One Night Only, none seem to know. It’s as if everyone’s missed the briefing, and some have got an inkling it’s to do with Africa (Sarpong and Beyonce discuss the roots of the ‘booty shake’) but they’re not sure if that means famine, flies or AIDS, so they stick with references to ‘all that’ and hope nobody notices.
At last, some clarification
Forty minutes in, Bono appears and manages to squeeze in a few facts before the next catwalk section.
It is about AIDS. Existing treatments, proven to work, are out of reach for millions because they cost 30p per day. But Gap, American Express, Converse, Motorola, Emporio Armani et al have formed a supreme coalition, called RED, to change all that.
Simply buy a product from the RED range – a T-shirt, or a pair of shoes – and a percentage of the profit will go to The Global Fund, established in 2002 to channel money from various sources to AIDS programmes.
It is about AIDS. Existing treatments, proven to work, are out of reach for millions because they cost 30p per day. But Gap, American Express, Converse, Motorola, Emporio Armani et al have formed a supreme coalition, called RED, to change all that.
Simply buy a product from the RED range – a T-shirt, or a pair of shoes – and a percentage of the profit will go to The Global Fund, established in 2002 to channel money from various sources to AIDS programmes.
Except we can’t know exactly what percentage, because the companies involved are so busy marketing themselves as saviours of the world that they’ve forgotten to give us the figure
(the exceptions being Gap: 50%, from one line of products, and Amex: 1%).
It’s a bit like the Simpson’s episode where Lisa’s class are being shown around the local newspaper, the tour guide beaming that 'a percentage' of all their paper is recycled, and Lisa asks what the percentage is. It’s zero. 'What? Zero’s a percent!' cries the tour guide defensively.
It’s a bit like the Simpson’s episode where Lisa’s class are being shown around the local newspaper, the tour guide beaming that 'a percentage' of all their paper is recycled, and Lisa asks what the percentage is. It’s zero. 'What? Zero’s a percent!' cries the tour guide defensively.
A gesture?
RED is not radically different from any of the other private sector initiatives that surround us. These days a company only has to stick an ‘ethical’ sticker on one of their products to be allowed to continue to make vast profits at the expense of the poor.
Corporations spend millions promoting the tiniest gesture, not because they care, but because it’s good for business and it keeps the regulators off their backs. So Caterpillar can continue to supply the Israeli army with bulldozers to carry out violations of international law, as long as they donate a few thousand to an educational project.
Asda Wal-Mart can continue to bust unions in order to drive workers’ wages down, as long as they allow their staff to fundraise for cancer charities. British Airways' Climate Care initiative invites passengers to donate their own money (not the company’s, of course) to ‘offset’ carbon emissions each time they fly – anything to avoid the introduction of rules that might reduce their profits.
Converse, one of the RED partners, has been owned by Nike since 2004. The latest research from Labour Behind the Label shows that although Nike have improved since the peak of their child labour infamy, up to one half of Nike’s factories currently pay wages below the legal minimum and most have been found to expect a working week in excess of 60 hours. It also shows that Nike has stopped placing orders with several factories in which trade unions had been established.
As a mobile phone company, Motorola depends on coltan, a rare mineral used to make phones. Much of it is mined by militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to fund the prolonged civil war that has claimed millions of lives. Of course, Motorola are keen to dissociate themselves from this, stating that they 'regularly require all of our suppliers to verify in writing that materials sold to Motorola do not contain tantalum derived from illegally mined Congolese coltan.'
The problem is, it’s extremely difficult to know exactly where this stuff has come from: like Chinese whispers, the longer the supply chain the more sketchy the details become. And business is business – maximising profits means using the cheapest materials available.
Corporations spend millions promoting the tiniest gesture, not because they care, but because it’s good for business and it keeps the regulators off their backs. So Caterpillar can continue to supply the Israeli army with bulldozers to carry out violations of international law, as long as they donate a few thousand to an educational project.
Asda Wal-Mart can continue to bust unions in order to drive workers’ wages down, as long as they allow their staff to fundraise for cancer charities. British Airways' Climate Care initiative invites passengers to donate their own money (not the company’s, of course) to ‘offset’ carbon emissions each time they fly – anything to avoid the introduction of rules that might reduce their profits.
Converse, one of the RED partners, has been owned by Nike since 2004. The latest research from Labour Behind the Label shows that although Nike have improved since the peak of their child labour infamy, up to one half of Nike’s factories currently pay wages below the legal minimum and most have been found to expect a working week in excess of 60 hours. It also shows that Nike has stopped placing orders with several factories in which trade unions had been established.
As a mobile phone company, Motorola depends on coltan, a rare mineral used to make phones. Much of it is mined by militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to fund the prolonged civil war that has claimed millions of lives. Of course, Motorola are keen to dissociate themselves from this, stating that they 'regularly require all of our suppliers to verify in writing that materials sold to Motorola do not contain tantalum derived from illegally mined Congolese coltan.'
The problem is, it’s extremely difficult to know exactly where this stuff has come from: like Chinese whispers, the longer the supply chain the more sketchy the details become. And business is business – maximising profits means using the cheapest materials available.
The fundamental problem
Like the roots of war, the roots of disease are in poverty. The reason HIV/AIDS is such a massive problem in Africa is because people are poor. RED has at least got this bit right.
But, being the private sector, it fails to ask why they are poor. Or rather, it knows very well why they are poor, but would rather not draw attention to it thank you very much.
When an unregulated free market is allowed to rule the world’s economy, corporations can – and need to – keep the global South in poverty, and no amount of special T-shirts will change that.
Pharmaceutical companies control the drugs markets. They have long been lobbying, through the WTO, for a global patenting system which would prevent poor countries from buying or producing cheaper versions of existing drugs.
Luckily, the line has been drawn at copyrighting antiretrovirals (ARVs), but Big Pharma are still able to get away with so much because it is feared that if held back, they will stop funding research – though they only research new drugs for which there will be a market, not a need.
As Bernard Lemoine, director-general of France’s National Pharmaceutical Industry Association put it:
But, being the private sector, it fails to ask why they are poor. Or rather, it knows very well why they are poor, but would rather not draw attention to it thank you very much.
When an unregulated free market is allowed to rule the world’s economy, corporations can – and need to – keep the global South in poverty, and no amount of special T-shirts will change that.
Pharmaceutical companies control the drugs markets. They have long been lobbying, through the WTO, for a global patenting system which would prevent poor countries from buying or producing cheaper versions of existing drugs.
Luckily, the line has been drawn at copyrighting antiretrovirals (ARVs), but Big Pharma are still able to get away with so much because it is feared that if held back, they will stop funding research – though they only research new drugs for which there will be a market, not a need.
As Bernard Lemoine, director-general of France’s National Pharmaceutical Industry Association put it:
'I don’t see why special effort is demanded from the pharmaceutical industry. Nobody asks Renault to give cars to people who haven’t got one'
Encouraging the private sector to take care of AIDS is dangerous. It gives multinationals even more power, and that’s the last thing Africa needs. The market is the problem, not the solution.
Let the pop stars mime on stage and the billboards sell you the feel good factor. But don’t for a minute think that it’s helping.
Let the pop stars mime on stage and the billboards sell you the feel good factor. But don’t for a minute think that it’s helping.
What do you think
Read the counter argument here.
Read 'Making RED work' here
Have your say on the Pressureworks exchange here
Read 'Making RED work' here
Have your say on the Pressureworks exchange here
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