Culture in the Blender

The trial of Shell regarding the execution of Ogoni human rights and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa has started. Shell is accused of pressuring the military government of Nigeria into violently suppressing peaceful protest by the Ogoni, who live in the Nigerian oilfields (or perhaps one should say on the land that Shell made into an oilfield) but see none of the profits but all of the environmental destruction. Shell, of course, is denying all charges. Ken Saro-Wiwa led the peaceful organizing and protest, and was executed together with eight associates after a trial described as a “travesty of justice” by John Major.

Saro-Wiwa explained the matter succintly on US radio shortly before his arrest:

“Shell does not want to negotiate with the Ogoni people. Each time they’ve come under pressure from local people, their want has always been to run to the Nigerian government and to say to the Nigerian government, ‘Oil is 90 percent of your foreign exchange earning. If anything happens to oil, your economy will be destroyed. Therefore, you must go and deal with these people, these troublemakers.’ And most times, the government will oblige them and visits local communities of poor, dispossessed people with a lot of violence.
And when these communities then protested and said, ‘Look. Look at the amount of violence that is being used against us, even though we are only protesting peacefully,’ then the oil companies will come and say, ‘Well, there is no way we can determine how much violence a government decides to use against its own people.’ So, basically, the local communities have no leverage with the oil companies at all.”

This post will not be what one usually reads regarding multinational corporations (MNCs) and globalization and general evilness.  Don’t get me wrong – what Shell has done is absolutely terrible. But having your life caught up with one and becoming a TCK because of one makes it difficult to just say that MNCs are evil and should behave. Some nuance and better understanding of why some MNCs misbehave is needed.

I am an affirmative global. I believe that globalization is ultimately more for good than for bad. I believe this for both personal and logical reasons. The personal reasons are what makes me wonder how some MNCs end up doing such horrid things and others don’t. My sponsoring organization has scandals in its past, but the biggest one involved the CEO writing himself a spectacular severance package that the board didn’t really approve, not human rights abuses. In terms of people getting hurt, there is only an asbestos lawsuit inherited from an American company they bought. Also, “my” MNC is bringing with it worker safety standards along with concern for quality from Switzerland and Sweden to China along with the foreign managers, because that’s what the managers know and value. (I know, because I had a summer job translating work procedures into English once.) They pay well. They give opportunities for foreign travel. So why isn’t “my” MNC making power technology in sweatshops?

Perhaps part of the answer is to be found implicit in the question. “My” MNC makes technology products – well-understood and mature technology, but technology nonetheless – which requires educated and skilled labor. I learned that transformer winding is an art that takes years to master on the floor as a teen. It’s “just” winding special paper around flat copper wire, yet it takes years to get good at it. And it’s not something you can get an education for – you have to learn by doing. The projects are designed by electrical engineers. One does not put electrical engineers in a sweatshop and expect them to just crunch out more work, no matter where in the world they are located. One does not fire a winder who won’t work 12 hours a day and hire a new one off the street. And due to the high shipping costs of large power technology products, it’s more cost-effective to build it as locally as possible if there’s a larger market – and hiring locals, rather than sending in a very expensive team of expats, is clearly the better move. So perhaps a key predictor of MNC misbehavior is whether unskilled labor can be used to make their product.

However, there is another factor. Nigeria’s military dictatorship is surely a factor in Saro-Wiwa’s death. With no pretense of caring for the people, a dictatorship enables many bad things, including doing anything the company that supplies 90% of the country’s income by exploitation of natural resources wants. This usually also includes taking as much of the money as possible. Even in countries with “merely” weak governments, exploitation of natural resources of nearly any kind can be accompanied with severe pollution, destruction, and labor abuse. (Diamonds, gold, other metals.) Processing can also be similar, such as in metal smelters in the former USSR. Ultimately, someone important is looking the other way in the countries in which these things happen, and that someone (or more likely someones) just doesn’t think other people’s suffering and pollution of their country is as important as getting rich and/or staying in power.

Those of us in democratic countries with laws against all of these abuses that can be and are enforced can only really use consumer power (and some limited legislation of the type that companies doing business in “our” country must follow environmental and labor regulations elsewhere as well) to try to influence the misbehaving MNCs. The lack of regard of leaders for their citizens is something that the citizens of those countries must fix or ask for help with – much like Saro-Wiwa tried to do. I’m not saying that this is simple or straightforward by any means, nor do I pretend to know how to do it. I just know that one country trying to “fix” another has never really worked and has all kinds of problematic overtones. (Including this silly war in Iraq – I made the argument before the invasion that even if Bush was right, it would still be a bad idea. I hate to be right on both counts.) Even if Shell is acquitted – and I really hope they’re not – Ken Saro-Wiwa was right when he spoke at the end of his mock trial:

“I repeat that we all stand before history. I and my colleagues are not the only ones on trial. Shell is here on trial and it is as well that it is represented by counsel said to be holding a watching brief. The Company has, indeed, ducked this particular trial, but its day will surely come and the lessons learnt here may prove useful to it for there is no doubt in my mind that the ecological war that the Company has waged in the Delta will be called to question sooner than later and the crimes of that war be duly punished. The crime of the Company’s dirty wars against the Ogoni people will also be punished.

On trial also is the Nigerian nation, its present rulers and those who assist them. Any nation which can do to the weak and disadvantaged what the Nigerian nation has done to the Ogoni, loses a claim to independence and to freedom from outside influence.”

The trial is being held in New York.