Anti-Coke protesters’ logic falls flat

In order to ride a high horse for any considerable length of
time without getting sore, you need a fancy saddle. A group of
righteous high horse hobbyists on campus has chosen the accusation
of murder as theirs.

The student group Coke-Free Campus wants to ban Coca-Cola
products from UCLA because some of the casualties of the ongoing
civil war in Colombia have allegedly included union leaders and
Coca-Cola factory workers.

Economically, Coke has no incentive to have employees murdered
by guerrillas. No workers, no Coke: no-brainer. Legally, they have
been acquitted of any responsibility by two judicial inquiries. So
why the persecution?

I tried to find out on Friday. While Associated Students UCLA
heard arguments for and against the charges, a stampede of high
horses gathered to whinny in protest outside Kerckhoff.

I found two answers before my cover was blown: “Our
campus” and “students’ power.” These were
in reply to the questions of “Whose campus?” and
“Whose power?” This was the Q&A portion of the
protest, but I couldn’t decipher what it had to do with
Coke’s supposed guilt.

One student began the rally by announcing the group’s
intent to silence Coke’s representatives. He told everyone
that when the time came for the representatives to speak in their
defense at the meeting inside, he would signal for all to scream
and holler.

“You can’t speak here,” he yelled.
“It’s our school and we’ll tell you when to
speak.”

The bullhorn then went to the hands of Karume James, chairman of
the African Student Union. He proceeded to compare what Coke
hasn’t done to “apartheid, Vietnam, the genocide of
black people in the Sudan region.”

“It’s all for profit,” he continued, revealing
in one fell swoop the breadth of economic, historical, legal and
political knowledge stocked by Coke-Free Campus.

I asked James, between his many speeches, why he’s mad at
Coke and what evidence he has of its guilt. “Direct your
conversation to one of the organizers,” he said.
“I’m just here in support.” Minutes later he was
leading the chant, “Coca-Cola stop your lying! Because of you
people are dying!”

The bullhorn made its way to Claire Douglas, who spoke of
“the urgency of this issue.” After her speech, she
admitted to not being able to say why Coke was guilty.

My search went on. Finally I was directed to Emily Villagrana,
of Conciencia Libre and Raza Womyn.

Villagrana admitted “(Coke isn’t) the one doing the
killing. … The paramilitary in Colombia is the one causing all
these deaths, massacres and tortures.” Two minutes later, she
was chanting: “Cherry, diet or vanilla: Coca-Cola is a
killa.”

She admitted Coke was giving Colombians jobs they otherwise
would not have. Two minutes later, she was chanting: “We
support workers, we don’t support Coke.”

After these admissions, all that remained was the complaint that
Coke hasn’t provided enough protection for its workers. Any
sensible person dreams of a world in which corporations have armed
battalions guarding their factories from government intrusion.
Sadly, we have yet to achieve that ideal.

For now, private corporations are subject to the political
realities of whatever government they operate under. How are they
expected to provide protection in a war-ravaged country such as
Colombia?

“As far as I know, they haven’t tried
anything,” Villagrana said.

I suggested that her knowledge might be augmented by listening
to Coca-Cola’s defenders at the meeting, rather than
attempting to physically silence their free speech.
“You’re entitled to believe that,” she said.

Her fellow riders who actually attended the meeting were jolted
off their horses when a young Colombian refugee emotionally
testified to the heroism of the Coca-Cola Company in her native
land. She begged Coke to stay and hold its own, as the thousands of
jobs it and other corporations provide help those who would
otherwise probably end up joining the paramilitaries.

Colombian Professor Miguel Ceballos, of Foundation for
Education, Colombia, said that no Colombian lacks a friend or
family member ““ union or nonunion, Coke worker or non-Coke
worker ““ who’s been killed in the violence. He bashed
the protestors for knowing nothing about the violent context in
Colombia, where Coke is a rare force for saving lives.

Ed Potter, the Coke representative, added that Coke has more
union employees than any other Colombian company, and that it
provides a hotline for its workers to call to get a safety escort
to work.

Such are the condition-enhancing incentives of the profit
motive, wherever it is allowed to motivate. Not that the riders
really care about Colombian workers or the real effects of profit
motive. They’re there for the ride, fairgrounds be
darned.

The anti-Coke protesters can only hope to be taken as
ridiculously as they sound. If taken seriously, they’d have
to be placed in the same category as Salem witch-hunters and
Southern lynch mobs ““ so strong is their willingness to
disregard free speech, pursuit of truth and presumption of
innocence for the sake of a righteous crusade.

Those tenets are among the core principles of a free society. If
our university has any responsibility, it is to discourage the type
of moral inflation that devalues those principles.

E-mail Mouhibian at [email protected]. Send general
comments to [email protected].