Reviews
Canberra Times, 9 November 2002
Business blues and
bullying
Bill Deane
'The market is the place
set apart where men may deceive each other' is an aphorism attributed to Scythian
sage Anacharsis around the sixth century BC
[first part of this article
is dealing with former Enron chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay's blues, no appearant
relation to the review of my book...so I left it out]
Eveline Lubbers is the anti-globalisation activist's anti-globalisation activist.
An Amsterdam-based activist-cum-investigative reporter who apparently has never met a multinational corporation she liked, with books and articles published in mainstream media and elsewhere, she has co-founded the Jansen and Janssen Bureau, an office for independent intelligence research that monitors the police and secret services and supports social activist groups 'against oppressive surveillance of the authorities'.
All of which give her impeccable credentials among the heterogeneously numerous groups of indignants that loosely very loosely comprise what she calls the 'movement of movements' (in preference to the 'unworthy term' anti-globalisation movement) and which range from the highly-profiled and well-organised such as Greenpeace to virtually any informal and angry mustering of citizenry with a gripe against business or government, all falling here under the rubric of non-government organisation. Companies uncaring of any environmental harm their activities cause, indifferent to the plight of workers in their Asian factories or insouciant towards the health of consumers of their products will suddenly become remarkably sensitive to threats to their corporate image when a public spotlight is turned on the less savoury side of their operations.
In the first half of Battling Big Business Lubbers has invited experienced activists and investigators to detail the counter-strategies some multinationals have used to handle criticism: falsely presenting as born-again ethical and environmentally responsible enterprises ('greenwashing'), co-opting critics, forming front groups masquerading as citizens organisations, lobbying governments and international agencies, suing critics for libel, employing private security agencies to spy on and infiltrate NGOs, and liaising with police and secret services to obtain, and pass on, information about NGOs and individual activists; the remaining chapters discuss ways NGOs can get their message to as wide an audience as possible, with the Internet figuring significantly. There is a touch of gloating at times where contributors describe unlawful disruptions to international conferences, day-to-day commercial business and IT systems, and high dudgeon is expressed when companies take legitimate steps to protect their own interests.
Still, consistency is hardly likely to be a characteristic of splintered mass movements. If knowing your enemy's tactics is half the battle, Battling Big Business should provide fruitful reading for both corporate and activist spheres in a war where transparency and accountability battle secrecy and culpability.