Arnold on ethical marketing

Ah Chris, my very first Facebook stalker, well done, you found me. Infamy is mine. Forgive me if I seem a little tetchy – the constant barrage of Birkenstocks and empty tofu tubs being hurled against the window panes tends to interfere with one’s regular sleep patterns. So you’d like to know who I am? Here it is. I am African. I have grown up in the 3rd world and spent 25 of my 26 years there. The last 12 months however have been spent here in London. In the 25 years on an African farm I have seen more horror than your average Londoner could ever dream possible. I have watched all too closely, the painful emaciating road to HIV strangle those close to me. My arms have held the frail bodies of dying children, their bony hands clinging to my fingers as hard as their muscles would allow. I cannot count the number of times I have returned from a hospital run with the passenger seat empty as another life is lost to Malaria. I have had my home, my land and most of my worldly possessions stolen from me by an evil and demented anarchist who calls himself a leader. I have found myself living with the violence of a country standing on the precipice of civil war. I have stood for hours in winding queues, black and white, rich and poor, all waiting for a delivery of bread or sugar or oil or maize meal – the simplest foodstuffs the Western world take for granted. I say all this purely to paint a picture of who I am and why I say and do the things I do. In my year in London I have been absolutely sickened by the ignorance, astounded by the self righteousness and baffled by the double standards and blatantly obvious political puppetry which is draped in a delightful Pantone 368. The majority (and yes I am generalising) are so hell bent on being perceived to be doing the right thing. Look me in the eye and deny how socially attractive Carbon Neutral has become and the image a bunch of Fairtrade bananas in your Wedgewood fruitbowl presents. I like to think that my views expressed in The London Paper on Monday were born from an infinitely wider understanding of the world’s problems, an experience and exposure for which I feel privileged. My vitriol sprang from a frustration at the closed mindedness of the people I now find myself surrounded with on a daily basis. My Sky box turns off at night, I have no problem with throwing my empty glass bottles in the bottle bin and if I’m not in a room I turn off the light. My point is simply this: If we don’t take care of today’s people, mere human beings just like you and I who are screaming out for help, then who the hell will we be saving the planet for?? Life is all about priorities and clearly 60% of people who wasted their money on text voting have different ones to mine. To be honest, I expected the percentage to be higher. Of course people don’t want to hear more of what they disagree with, engaging style or not. As I’m sure you’ll appreciate, the editor’s scalpel is often lethal yet not always accurate, but please, for the sake of my dignity, reread the paragraph in which you allege that I think I “rock”. As with most amateur writers, I have no say in what is rearranged and rewritten before it goes to print. Line breaks removed but editing remaining the same, herewith the entire sentence: "Look at me! I'm doing the right thing! I give goats to villages at Christmas. My children don't have nasty pesticides on their food (pity). My car cost me an arm and a leg but hey, it's environmentally friendly, and besides that, everyone will stop their SUVs and stare, agape, worshipping me because I embody all that is socially attractive. And because I'm such a total moron, I'll continue to believe that I'm most probably the single most perfect human being on the planet. My God, I rock!" All from the mouths of the goat-givers. I am most definitely not the one who I think rocks. But then neither are they I guess. And as for living in Wimbledon, funny how people assume that council estates and seedy areas don’t exist in these havens for the rich and famous… Ok, I’m done. (At last).

I think you should ask Gordon if you can blog. I think we need some edge on the site.

Brilliant post Kate, and I agree with Chris - you have a certain way with words.

Thank you gentlemen,I shall certainly give it some thought. Chris, you know where to find me now...

good to read a comment that's written from the heart and not from the wallet.