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In an inspired adjunct to the initial prank, the Yes Men, through their site www.dowethics.com
issued a press release claiming to be from Dow revealing the hoax, and
detailing exactly what they, as Dow Chemicals, would not take
responsibility for. The statement ended with the following: “Dow
shareholders will see NO losses, because Dow's policy towards Bhopal
HAS NOT CHANGED. Much as we at Dow may care, as human beings, about the
victims of the Bhopal catastrophe, we must reiterate that Dow's sole
and unique responsibility is to its shareholders, and Dow CANNOT do
anything that goes against its bottom line unless forced to by law”,
which, at the end of the day, seems to be as realistic an account of
the situation as Dow could have written themselves.
There was criticism of the prank on the part of
some Bhopal activist groups, suggesting that the hoax had given false
hope to Bhopali victims. The Yes Men have apologized to the victims for
any suffering unintentionally caused, but remain convinced of the
positive effects of the stunt. “The concrete thing that that event
produced was over five hundred articles being written about the
situation in Bhopal, many of them in the United States where most media
generally didn’t mention the Bhopal anniversary, and most Americans
don’t know where or what Bhopal is. They certainly don’t know that Dow
hasn’t cleaned up the site or compensated the victims adequately.
That’s what it accomplished, raising consciousness – says Bichlbaum,
while adding – “the joke is the vehicle to get the information into
people’s minds, through the press, of course. The articles that
appeared had to explain the background, in addition to the joke itself.
They had to explain what Bhopal was, what activists are demanding, what
the point of the joke was. If people then went to our website, they
would have found clustered across our front page “Click here for
information about Bhopal” and we had links to Bhopal.net and to Bhopal.org
so people would find out from activists in Bhopal what the situation
is, and how they could contribute both financially and practically to
the fight for compensation for victims of the disaster from Dow. We did
get to meet the activists recently and they did tell us that there was
a big rise in donations afterwards. So at least that’s one concrete
result".
To many, the success of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11
last year, both critically and commercially, marked a high tide mark in
the popularity of documentary/activist movie making. In an interview
last October with film maker Jennifer Abbot, director of The Corporation,
this magazine questioned whether the possible re-election of George W.
Bush would affect popular activism. I put a similar question to
Bichlbaum: is there evidence of activist fatigue? After all there were
huge efforts made last year against Bush, and yet he still won. “This
whole interest in documentaries, and corporate issues, is largely a
result of Bush being in office, and people being desperate for
information. Information that the media were not providing. That of
course now continues [laughs wistfully]. The only silver lining
to the situation is that it’s starkly clear to people that things are
dreadfully wrong, and that things have to change. I think people are
searching now more than ever to find information, and to find out how
they can get involved and have an effect. If Kerry had won, who knows
what the situation might be now. When Clinton won, when Clinton was
president, a lot of incredibly bad things were happening, and a lot of
people were lulled into complacency, and didn’t realise perhaps that
Iraq was being bombed continuously, and that the welfare system in the
United States was being eviscerated. At least with Bush in office it’s
dreadfully clear [laughs], and it’s worse than it would be with
Kerry, but people are aware of it. There is a certain feeling of
powerlessness perhaps, but overall I think the effect has been more
energising”.
Paradoxically, the more successful the film, the
harder it will be for the Yes Men to get away with stunts, but it’s not
something Bichlbaum is too concerned about: “We haven’t had any trouble
yet. We don’t think we will have any really. We’ll see. The scene with
Barry Coates in the film was demonstrative of that [activist who,
despite having taken part in a heated discussion with Bichlbaum in his
WTO guise, failed to recognise him in the flesh]. He’s an extremely
intelligent and insightful person, very aware and awake to things. It’s
just that when you see someone in one context you just don’t bother
thinking ‘are they really someone you’ve seen in a movie somewhere?’.
We’re just programmed that way. It probably won’t be a problem, but if
it does become one, there are surely many, many people who actually
have an acting background who could do this as well as we do, or
probably better. There’s also fake beards etc. or whatever would do the
trick”.
The good news is that, whatever the success, the
Yes Men are far from alone, as Andy explains, “we’ve been in touch with
all sorts of people doing similar things, or interested in the same
issues, for a very long time. We talk with people about collaborating
on various things in the future”.
And when asked about future pranks, reasonably
enough and with a laugh that hovers between deviousness or delight in
upcoming events, he keeps the details to himself, leaving us to watch
this space…
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