December 2007
Issue No. 407
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Companies who care?
Should we be persuaded by the clean green claims of big business? Jess Worth thinks not.
Spinning out of control
Rebecca Spencer names and shames companies who use Corporate Responsibility to continue business-as-usual.
Just don't do it!
Cautionary tales of co-option and compromise from UN-insider Jean Ziegler and anti-sweatshop activist Jeff Ballinger.
People versus corporations
400 years of controversy and confrontation.
The big debate: reform or revolution?
Jonathon Porritt and Claire Fauset lock horns over how best to save the planet from big business.
Corporate responsibility – the facts
The facts on corporate responsibility
Small is powerful
What will it take to roll back corporate power? Jess Worth considers the options.
News, views, and & voices
SPECIAL FEATURE
Getting out
Here, in numbers, is the story of the four years since US and British troops ‘liberated’ Iraq
How to withdraw from Iraq
Chris Abbott makes five proposals
Basic instincts
Anthony Arnove looks at the conflicted interests of the US Democratic Party
The myth of the right moment
Urvashi Butalia examines the parallels with conflict in northern India.
REGULAR FEATURES
The thinness of things
Living in Cairo means accepting much that isn’t how one might want it, discovers Maria Golia – and that everyone looks good in pink.
Shehzad Noorani
Displaced children in Darfur, as seen by Bangladeshi photographer Shehzad Noorani.
Stones in a minefield
Frustration boiling over in Western Sahara
Lions poisoned in protest
Angry farmers evicted ahead of Kampala Summit.
Yes! But...
Costa Rica votes for free trade
Travelling without moving
Virtual reality for global events
The deepest scar
Hear the harrowing story of a Canadian torture victim.
Citizens attacked
Palestinian refugees attacked in Lebanon.
Burma's horrorscopes
Burmese junta floored by flying panties.
MIXED MEDIA
Fucking Cowboys
by Gnawa Diffusion
Afriki
by Habib Koité & Bamada
Girls of Riyadh
by Rajaa Alsanea
Jesus Camp
directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
Manufacturing Dissent
by Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk
Another production is possible
by Boaventura de Sousa Santos (ed)
Big Bad World
Cartoonist Polyp on an uninvited guest.
Worldbeaters
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, President of the Philippines, has been called ‘the fourth most powerful woman in the world’. But she needs the iron hands of her generals.
Bling, Iranian-style
Nasrin Alavi returns to a Tehran under threat from the West.
COUNTRY PROFILE
Laos
As the forces of corporate globalization press on its borders, change is inevitable.
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from
THIS MONTH'S EDITOR
It’s been tricky finding the right images for this edition. Corporate abuses against people all over the world are all too real. But visually illustrating that the solutions being offered, in the form of ‘Corporate Responsibility’, are inadequate and counter-productive? Not so simple.
However, I struck luck. I found online, completely randomly, a US exhibition of current political art called ‘Propaganda’. On investigation, I discovered they had set up a gallery on Flickr (a website where you can share photos). Political artists everywhere had been invited to upload submissions to the Flickr group, and almost 600 have. The artwork will be printed out and toured around the world over the coming months.
I found a photo of some Argentinian street art – a man in a suit, spraying a heart with a dollar sign inside it onto a wall. Not exactly subtle, but it gets to the core of the problem: that for corporations, the profit motive trumps everything. I sent the artist a message requesting permission to use it, and within a few hours he’d got back to me from Buenos Aires to say: ‘The privilege will be all mine. I promise I’ll use the money to pay me for more cans to spray it everywhere!’
I love the fact that the process of creating this mag has enabled small acts of resistance on the other side of the planet. It’s a welcome antidote, given that I’ve just spent more time than anyone should have to wading through the morass of greenwash and drivel found in the average Corporate Responsibility report.
Corporations may be huge and powerful. But in today’s web-wise world it’s never been easier for people taking local actions to share ideas, information and inspiration with fellow resisters across the globe. Just take a look at the Propaganda Flickr gallery for a taste of what I mean.
Jess Worth for the
New Internationalist Co-operative
jess@newint.org
Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
New Internationalist (NI) workers' co-operative exists to report on issues of world poverty and inequality; to focus attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless worldwide; to debate and campaign for the radical changes necessary to meet the basic needs of all; and to bring to life the people, the ideas and the action in the fight for global justice.
Except where otherwise noted, images on this site are copyright of the photographer/illustrator or representative agency.Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.
