Belching Out the Devil

by Mark Thomas

  I can reply, ‘I have a vague idea.’

  ‘OK,’ shouts John, ‘How many of you have seen the commercial “Inside the Happiness Factory”? A show of hands? A couple of you. It was actually shown last year during the Superbowl and it was the second-highest rated commercial and because of that we turned it into a documentary. So, how many of you have wondered what happens every time you put a coin into a Coca-Cola vending machine, anyone wondered that?’

  A lone and slightly strangled voice yelps, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let me tell you what happens,’ says John. ‘Everyone say a little bit of love, let me hear you say ‘Love’. ‘

  ‘Love’ croak six or seven of us.

  ‘Magic’ he gleefully urges.

  ‘Magic’, reply even less than the first time.

  ‘Magic and Happiness!’

  ‘Happiness’ I find myself saying almost alone.

  ‘And that is what goes on inside the vending machine. Enjoy the show.’

  The lights go down and the advert begins. If you have a TV you’d recognise it. A young man puts a coin in a Coke vending machine, but as the money rolls down the chute the advert becomes an animation with a sub-Tim Burton soundtrack. A small swarm of huge insects, overweight maggots with helicopter blades strapped to their backs, fly in an empty Coke bottle, which a mechanised decanter promptly fills. A track-suited figure with a gold tooth and a plume on his helmet, half-knight half-pimp, is catapulted - holding a bottle cap - on to the top of the bottle. A gang of fluff ball lips are released from a cage, ambush the bottle and frantically kiss it. Then penguins in goggles throw a snowman into a large fan that blows the flakes from the now decapitated snowman on to the bottle. Finally the drink is led down a parade ground by a band, with cheerleaders and a fireworks display, before being dropped into the trough at the bottom of the vending machine for the young man to collect.

  As ads go it is actually a very good one, but it is odd that the company guides keep referring to it as a documentary, which it isn’t. It is no more a documentary than Snow White is an academic study of interpersonal relationships within polygamous communities. But as the ad finishes the ‘documentary’ element begins. Various Coca-Cola employees were interviewed, their words re-voiced by actors and assigned to different cartoon characters from the commercial. So the majorette, all blue hair, lips and eyelashes has a voice of an All American Mall Girl, whose words at least are a real worker’s testimony.

  ‘Are we rolling?’ she asks in true behind-the-scenes documentary style. ‘Hi I’m Wendy, I’m single…and it’s my job to keep everybody happy,’ the coy cartoon trills. How would she describe Coca-Cola? ‘Coke is like a little bottle of sparkle dust.’

  Later the maggot with the helicopter blades (who upon closer examination looks like he has nipple rings or piercings of some kind) says in a deep husky voice, ‘It’s a relaxed atmosphere, it is not like some jobs that are tense when you get [t]here, it is a good working environment.’

  These, remember, are the words of Coca-Cola employees, recorded and revoiced. According to these real employees, Coke is a great place to work, so it must be true. It is such a good environment that all sorts of creatures line up to testify, including a blue, long-necked chimera, a weasel salamander in a hard hat with a monkey wrench held over his shoulder. He speaks in a gruff ol’ southern voice ‘I smile ten minutes before I go to bed and ten minutes before I wake up every morning…It is people like me an’ Eddie who make this company, the fact that we have been here and stayed here, to me that is the heart and soul of Coca-Cola.’

  And as if that wasn’t enough a shy Hispanic woman tuba player, demurely whispers, ‘What have I given to Coca-Cola? My loyalty and my love. I give that.’ She pauses before adding, ‘Don’t make me cry.’

  Is she glad to work for the company? ‘We are lucky to be one little piece of this wonderful company.’

  The room momentarily goes dark as the feature finishes, people begin to shift in their seats, when the music suddenly swells louder. I turn to the noise just as the auditorium lights come on and catch the cinema screen swiftly gliding upwards, to reveal a secret corridor behind it. Guides are now on their feet, arms outstretched, beckoning us to leave our seats, descend the stairs and enter the tunnel, leading us to the next part of our tour, while a voice booms ‘Welcome to the Happiness Factory.’

  There are seven more rooms in the Happiness Factory and with the exception of the miniature bottling plant they all contain yet more adverts, Olympic ads, sports ads, ads in Arabic, German, French…on rolls the Happiness Factory with its TV screens blasting even more ads…onwards to the Perfect Pauses Theater, a small movie screen where you can watch Coke ads on an endless loop - and people do! Couples sit arm-in-arm watching adverts together. If by some perverted act of sabotage a film started to play in the middle of the ads the audience would get up and walk out, bored and confused. The final chamber, The World of Coca-Cola’s colon if you will, is the tasting room, where dispensers pour Coca-Cola products from around the world for all to sample. It is packed with kids on a school trip, shouting over the music and tearing from tap to tap with plastic cups, while the teachers look on powerless to stop the sugar-rush tsunami that is heading towards them.

  Naturally the exit is via the gift shop. And equally naturally every item on sale is covered in Coca-Cola logos, thus turning customers into walking adverts. The school kids from the tasting room will pass through here soon and at that thought I silently offer up a prayer to the god of small shoplifters.

  ‘What did you expect Mark?’

  Well, that is a good question and I am glad you asked it. It is hardly surprising that the company self-promotes to the point of nausea. It is the company’s showcase attraction - a fizzy-drink version of Disneyland. Actually it is more Chessington World of Adventure, but you get the point. The attraction is unlikely to be a thorough critical examination of the Company’s business practices. By now you might be thinking: ‘Lighten up Mark, it is a Coke fun house, there is free fizzy drink, a working bottling plant which is vaguely educational and kids can get their picture taken with a polar bear! What more do you want?’ Or you may think, ‘It employs thousands of people around the world, it sponsors some worthy projects, surely that is a good thing?’

  It’ll come as no surprise that PR is designed to show companies in the best possible light and this will always be different from cold reality. But consider this: the animated majorette from the Happiness Factory commercial just called Coke ‘a little bottle of sparkle dust’. Consider the disparity between eight teaspoons of sugar in each can of Coke and ‘sparkle dust’. Frankly, it would be nearer the truth if the huge maggot with the strapped on helicopter blades were to appear crying, ‘I’m so fat because I drink this sugary shit everyday! Now I need to get my stomach stapled!’ There can be a wind-blown plain of tumbleweed between the image a transnational promotes and the reality of working for them or having them as a neighbour.

  This is a globalised economy, where goods and money move with ease to the cheapest work force and some of the cheapest labour is found in some of dodgiest countries with poor human rights records and little or no environmental standards. And just as transnationals move in and out of tax havens, labour markets and emerging economies, so their critics have found an emerging world of dissent. If the familiar jingle of the Coca-Cola crates bouncing on a delivery truck can be heard in the furthest reaches of a mountain track, then a phone can get there too, or an internet connection and a camcorder, even an old camera will do. If your company gets caught dumping toxic materials in a village stream then it only takes one photo and a send button for your logo to be wired up to a world of trouble.

  Coca-Cola say they strive ‘to enrich the workplace, preserve and protect our environment and make a positive difference and effective contribution to our shared world.’16 They say that they have ‘long been committed to using our resources and capabilities to help improve the quality of life in the communities where we operate.�
��17 But it is not the company tale I am concerned with. I’m interested in hearing from those who deal with the Company every day - the villagers, farmers, workers and shopkeepers. These are the people I want to find, these are the people I want to talk to, these are the stories I want to tell.

  In the World of Coca-Cola, not only have folk paid $15 to watch, celebrate and have a chance to purchase the company’s adverts, Coke have even found a way for their visitors to contribute to the company’s PR machine. Up on level two the Pop Culture Gallery houses some kitsch retro-style furniture, a few Andy Warhols and a large Perspex display filled with handwritten letters. The identical writing paper and legibility of the script suggests that these are not the originals, but the content at least is written by Coke’s customers. A sign reads ‘Whether it’s a childhood memory, a moment of refreshment far from home, or a recollection of good times with friends, Coca-Cola touches the lives of millions of people. Do you have a favourite Coca-Cola story? Share your story with us…’ Which is exactly what I am doing. Going around the world, hearing stories from people whose lives have been touched by Coca-Cola and its bottlers.

  For there is one missing detail from the tale of Coca-Cola’s brand value. It is true that company profits have risen, they have bought other brands and sold more Coca-Cola and it is also true that the Company was rated the world’s top brand for the seventh year in a row. Yes, the brand value is estimated at $65,324 billion.18 Yes, that is a huge sum of money. But the missing detail is that this figure of $65,324 billion is actually a drop in value. In 2006 the figure was $67 billion,19 in 2005 it was $67,525 billion.20 Which means the company has lost $2.2 billion in brand value, that’s $2.2 billion of goodwill the company has lost in the past couple of years. Something is beginning to make people like Coca-Cola less.

  It is a small irony, given Coke’s original ingredients, that the company’s current PR problems started in Colombia. The murder of a trade unionist working for Coca-Cola’s bottler and the subsequent campaign has inspired students, campaigners and activists around the world to challenge the company and has brought the mighty drinks giant up against a stark fact: if you are a transnational at the forefront of globalisation, then opposition to your practices can be globalised right back at you. So that’s why I’m sitting in an airport waiting lounge bound for Colombia. I am going to hear just how some of those billions of dollars worth of ‘sparkle dust’ started to turn to dust.

  2

  GIVE ’EM ENOUGH COKE

  Bogota, Colombia

  ‘Everyone has the right to peaceful assembly and association.’

  UN Declaration of Human Rights Article 20, 1

  The lighting in the hotel lobby is dim and so is the porter. The lift is tiny, room enough to fit one person and a bag. I go to get the lift. But I don’t. The porter takes the lift. I take the stairs. He leaves the bag. I take the bag. He takes the tip. Hmmm. They must have a different definition of dim around here…

  The city of Bogota is situated on a plateau approximately 8660 feet above sea level, thus making its altitude the second-most likely thing to give you a nosebleed in Colombia. It is not uncommon for travellers to suffer from altitude sickness, which for me takes the form of being tired and clumsy, not to mention tipping dim people who turn out to be clever.

  The room is two floors up on the corner of the building overlooking the police station. Its stone frontage is picked out of the night by lamps around the arched doorway, under which a young man in uniform stands, stamping his feet wearily against the chill. Drawing the curtains forces my attention back to my immediate surroundings, a cold, small room with dark wood panelling and a reinforced doorframe. The reinforcement is only vaguely reassuring as it looks as though someone has tried to prise open the door with a large screwdriver, so I am glad to have company. Watching me slowly unpack are Emilio and Jess. Emilio is a Spaniard by birth and a Colombian by marriage; this will be the second trip to Colombia where he has translated for me. Jess, a London photographer doing a feature on firefighters, has stayed on past her assignment to photograph some of the people I hope to meet. The altitude sickness has given me the mental agility of an ex-boxer who has turned his talents to sports commentating. So I am currently holding my toothpaste in my hand while looking frantically round the room for it.

  Emilio notices the teddy bear in a US Marines outfit propped up on the bedside table.

  ‘Wha’ the fuck is that?’

  ‘That is a kitsch memento mori.’

  ‘A wha?’

  ‘A reminder of death. Memento mori, it’s Latin, for reminder of death,’ I say, cheerfully spotting the toothpaste in my hand.

  Emilio furrows his brow and says, ‘I don’ think you need that here in Colombia, no?’

  Which is true. More than forty years of conflict between governments, paramilitaries, drug cartels and left-wing guerillas has left the country with a well-deserved reputation for violence. It is the most dangerous place on earth for trade unionists caught between employers eager to be rid of them and barbaric paramilitaries who are quite capable of doing just that.

  Across the world trade unions have traditionally been at the forefront of the great battles for democracy, education and decent working conditions and as trade union membership has gone down since the start of the Nineties, it is worth remembering that the right to belong to a trade union is a fundamental human right, enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

  In Colombia, the attacks on human rights are not limited to labour rights violations. 2004 saw 1440 people kidnapped in Colombia:1 one person every six hours. That was the year I first visited Bogota with Emilio, accompanied by another friend called Sam, who was a good two stone heavier than me. And this weight difference is significant because before arriving in Bogota I took the precaution of learning key Spanish phrases from Emilio, the most important of which was Dispara el gordo primero: shoot the fat one first. Fortunately I only needed to use it once. This is what happened.

  The dub sound-system night took place in a club that inhabited the top two rooms of a building accessed by knocking on the door nicely and ascending some long and narrow stairs. What the place lacked in fire exits it made up for in atmosphere and the friendly squatter-chic decor, though without the chic. The club was full of swaying bodies and a small serving hatch produced cans of beer from a mountain of trays visible over the shoulder of the barman.

  Leaning against a wall wet with condensation was a tall chap wearing a brown leather coat and, with what I now know to be a chemically assisted smile. Turning to face me he said, ‘Your first time in Colombia?’ in impeccable English.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do you like it?’

  ‘Great, people are very friendly here,’ I shouted over the bass lines rattling from the speaker.

  ‘Very friendly…’ the decibels increased. ‘Yes, friendly!’ he yelled, then he nodded to his hand, which had not left his side, ‘Would you like?’ He was holding a glass bullet-sized chamber with a plastic nozzle, full of cocaine.

  ‘No thanks,’ I said.

  ‘No?’ He seemed flabbergasted.

  Perhaps it was his reaction which prompted me to forcefully add: ‘I have just spent the day listening to trade union leaders talking about the hundreds of their members that get killed by paramilitaries - who are funded by cocaine. I don’t buy Nestlé products because of their baby milk, so I’m certainly not going for that.’ I shouted over the music jerking my thumb at his container.

  ‘No, no, no, this is okay,’ he said, genuinely upset, ‘This Is FARC cocaine - left-wing cocaine. Not paramilitary. This is fine.’ A smile crept up one side of his face, and his eyes glinted.

  Sneeringly I declared, ‘Sure it’s fine, it’s probably Fairtrade, right.’

  And as quick as it came the smile left his face, in fact he looked quite cross and started to lean towards me. At that point it dawned on me that it may be unwise to pick an argument in a Bogota nightclub with a drug dealer. With hindsight I t
hink a polite ‘no’ would have sufficed.

  ‘Your first visit,’ he shouted over the music, with a blank menace. ‘First time, right?’

  Sam suddenly loomed from the dance floor, sweaty and clutching a can of beer. He slouched on to the wall with a bump and a smile, ‘All right?’

  And for some reason the next words I said were, ‘Dispara el gordo primero.’

  There was a pause, the man looked at Sam, Sam looked at me, I looked at the man, the man stared back, Sam looked at the man, the man turned to Sam, Sam turned to me, then turned to the man and with an innocent grin yelled, ‘All right?’

  The man in the jacket shook his head and walked away.

  Nearly four years and one good night’s sleep later Emilio guides Jess and I on our walk through the rundown side streets, Downtown Bogota may proclaim itself a modern city with skyscrapers and a financial centre, but the world of international commerce seems far away as we pass old men selling cigarettes from trays. There are no smart suits and briefcases as we wander by the small and cramped shops, where stock spills out of the doorways and hangs into the street. Half in and half out, overflowing packs of chewing gum on cardboard strips, sweet tubes of mints, boxes of matches, plastic toys and plasters. Here glass cabinets perch on stands, full of brown glazed buns, small dumplings, primped and crusty, cornbreads, arepas with melted cheese filings that sit drying on the heated racks. The coffee shacks have radios that tinnily grate out songs while groups of men smoke in doorways and sip coffee from little white plastic cups, that bulge out of shape with the heat of the drink. Carefully we pick a thread through the potholes that litter the roads like concrete acne and dodge the rasping roar of trail bikes and the nasal splutter of mopeds that scythe the thoroughfare.