Death by chocolate
Matt Harrison
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Bitter Chocolate by Carol Off (Random House Canada), 326 pp.
photo: Aaron McKenzie Fraser
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CBC's Carol Off reveals the dark side of chocolate in her new book
Some want to bathe in it; others wouldn't mind drowning themselves in it; children dream of it; romances are sparked from it; arguments are assuaged by it; some proudly declare they are addicts. The world is awash in chocolate and we indulge ourselves in it every chance we get. Whether it's a holiday or a celebration, chocolate is ever present. This seductive sweet has become such a fundamental part of our daily lives that we've come to view it less as a luxury and more as a right. Don't believe me? Maybe you've never heard of Canada's Five Cent War. After World War II, chocolate prices rose dramatically - from five cents to eight cents. Chocolate companies claimed it was necessary, but a group of children on Vancouver Island cried that the hike was unfair. So they took to the streets in protest, shouting slogans like "Don't be a sucker! Don't buy eight-cent bars!" Their protest quickly spread across Canada, eventually forcing chocolate companies to respond. It wasn't until reports surfaced suggesting the protests were part of a commie conspiracy that things finally settled down.
The Five Cent War isn't exactly a Heritage Minute, but the protest does illustrate how a treat like chocolate has turned into a right. But lurking behind that idea is an even more insidious notion: Cheap chocolate is our right even over the rights of others.
"One thing is consistent: Then and now, chocolate is a luxury consumed by the privileged at the cost of those much less so. For thousands of years,
the chocolate cravings of an elite have been satisfied by the hard labour of an underclass." - Taken from Carol Off's new book, Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet.
When one thinks of fearless, hard-as-nails journalists, Carol Off's name is legendary. Not only has she braved some of modern history's most hellish moments, she's also endeared herself to many as the host of CBC Radio's nightly program As It Happens. In October she launched her latest book, Bitter Chocolate.
In the style of Mark Kurlansky's Salt, Bitter Chocolate unravels chocolate's glittery packaging and uncovers an industry tainted by war and genocide, child slavery and the "vast gulf" that separates our children from Africa's.
"[There is] a vast gulf between the children who eat chocolate [...] and those who must, from childhood, work to survive. And I feel the profound irony before me: The children who struggle to produce the small delights in life in the world I come from have never known such pleasure, and most likely, never will." -Taken from Bitter Chocolate.
At the same time she introduces us to the strange characters that inhabit the world of chocolate, including infamous figures such as the Aztecs' Montezuma II and Spain's Hernán Cortés, Quaker/Mennonite chocolatiers John and George Cadbury, Joseph Rowntree and the Milton Hershey, as well as investigative journalists like Henry Woodd Nevinson, one of the first to sink his teeth into chocolate's involvement in slavery.
Similarly, Off confronts big chocolate, child traffickers, corrupt African officials, fair trade bureaucrats and poor cacao farmers - she even bumps into the ghost of a murdered colleague, Guy-André Keiffer, whose own investigation into chocolate led to his murder.
We've all heard of blood diamonds, but how much do we really know about chocolate? Where does it come from, why is it so cheap, and who's paying the price for that candy bar you so greedily shove into your gaping maw?
And so in typical As It Happens fashion, XPress decided to call up the intrepid journalist and pick her brain about the "innocent" pleasure we used to call "the gift of the gods."
INTO THE HEART OF DARKNESS
"The people in my country who eat chocolate have no idea where it comes from. The people in my country have no idea who picks the cocoa beans or how these people live. The boys of Sinikosson (Ivory Coast) think it would be a good idea if I told them" -Taken from Bitter Chocolate.
What initially got you interested in writing a book about chocolate?
"Let me begin by saying that as consumers, what we want is cheap goods. But what we should know is that when we consume something that is cheap, generally someone is paying for it someplace else. That's the message about chocolate.
"There was a woman who was from Save the Children Canada who was the first to alert me and she was feeding me with the reports and documents coming out of Ivory Coast - it was alarming because Ivory Coast was supposed to be the success story of Africa and yet I knew it was sliding into chaos [September 2002]. As I began to peel off the layers, I found an extremely complex and rich story that goes back in history to organizations like the World Bank and the IMF, who not only caused, but perpetuated Ivory Coast's present chaos.
"Big chocolate had established cartels in places like Ivory Coast. These cartels - as all cartels work - were looking for ways to push their expenses down, profits up. Like any tropical commodity, that's always going to be your farmers. And so the farmers went from having quite stable lives to being dirt poor. These cartels were forcing them into greater penury and that penury helped create conditions for war.
"We all know about blood diamonds, but what we don't know is about blood chocolate, where huge portions of profits from the chocolate industry are being diverted to buy arms and fuel ethnic cleansing and war - when you compare that reality with Halloween, Christmas and birthdays, you have a brain snap. And when you get this, you know you have a story that needs to be told. But what really sold me was when [journalist] Guy-André Keiffer was murdered for investigating chocolate, that really pushed me over the edge."
When you were over in West Africa trying to pick up the trail that Keiffer left behind, were you ever similarly threatened?
"Absolutely. It was so ominous. It came in the form of, 'Why are you asking these questions, don't you know what happened to the last person?' During one interview, the person pulled up the tablecloth and joked, 'Is he under here? Is he over there?' I felt this stomach cramp hit me. It continued like that and got more and more dicey."
Lately, it feels like the average consumer can't buy anything, eat anything or wear anything without feeling guilty about where it came from. Are you worried people will tune out because of compassion fatigue?
"There's obviously compassion fatigue. You try to make someone aware of something and they go, 'Oh please, don't tell me this too.' But I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. I ended the book on a pessimistic note. I didn't think anything would change, but I was amazed by the response so far - people weren't saying, 'I'm frozen in the headlights of yet another moral dilemma,' but rather, 'We're going to start lobbying and writing letters.'
"We've been wrongly saying that people's power lies in changing our habits as consumers. I've always believed that we have more power as citizens than consumers. [...] One's ability to pressure corporations and governments is far more effective than anything else."
Why wasn't this optimism included in your book?
"Because I didn't know until after the book was published and heard people's reaction [...] Not only did they care, but they didn't feel paralyzed - they felt mobilized. I was happily taken off-guard by that. The optimism you're hearing in this interview is newly found."
Since the publication of your book, has anything changed?
"It's hard to know because Ivory Coast is a war zone now and it's difficult to know what's going on in the cocoa farms. What I do know is that because of the war, the trafficking of children has slowed down a lot. Traffickers like job security and it's really too dangerous for them to go to Ivory Coast. But it's clear that if/when the war ends and migration is possible over the border, then the trafficking of children will start up again, because the farmers have lost a lot of labourers during the war."
Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet is available now from Random House Canada.
| Is Fair Trade all that Fair ?? |
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---While 'Fair Trade' might be a better alternative, i wonder if the producers really get their fair share even within these programs. Poor people all over the world are still slaves for the more affluent minority of people on coffee plantations and other agriculture and sweat shop activities while their labour is not properly compensated for. Are there other investigative reports for other products as Carol has done with chocolate ? Perhaps a site could be formed to summarize various products and the compensation paid throughout the world of international commerce.
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Bill Ark
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| The Power of Boycotts -- But Do We Really Want the Changes? |
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I certainly remember the boycott calls from my university days (1980s) & all those student newspapers:
-- Sanctions against South Africa (the days of apartheid)
-- boycott Nestle products (they were advocating for use of their formula products instead of breast feeding in Third World countries)
-- boycott Nike products (anti-union practices in their Korean sweatshop factories)
But do we really want these things to work? How much does this Fair Trade chocolate cost, in comparison to the well-known & still well-loved products of Hershey, Rowntree, etc.? Do we want to pay that?
"So always look for / the union label ..." -- another campaign, & that was back in the 1970s, to advocate that we should buy clothing made by unionized workers. That didn't work -- those factories have all closed down, pretty much, & our market is flooded with cheap clothes & shoes made in China. And we all like our cheap stuff, right? (And China certainly likes our money -- helps them fund their own military arsenal expansion, right?)
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Brad Thomas
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{4 votes}
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| To Eat Chocolate or Not During the Holiday? |
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Thank you for publishing your 'Death By Chocolate' article in this week's Xpress. It is very important that Carol Off is bringing issues such as child slavery to the public. Unfortunately, it is not only the cocoa trade that needs to be questioned. Almost everything we buy in the west is the product of child slavery, wages such as $.05@ hour, no benefits, long hours, brutal working conditions and much more. Up to 80-90% of producers around the world don't live on revenue from their production. Multi-Nationals, The World Bank, IMF and other such organizations have insured that these countries will be in a continual cycle of poverty.
As Carol mentions there are things that we as citizens can do to try and change these conditions. Yes, I agree that it is very important to put continual pressure on governments and corporations. However, I disagree with here that we have more power as citizens rather than consumers. We are a consumer based society. Corporations are more apt to listen when there is pressure on their pocket book rather than from political pressure. During the days of the anti-apartheid movement it was campaigns such as the Shell Boycott and Cut off the Sculpture Trade that had a tremendous effect not only in the countries where the boycotts were taking place but also for the people in South Africa. It is necessary for us as citizens to start making ethical choices. We allow Wall-Marts into our communities because it supposedly brings money to the communities. Wal-Mart is one of the worst, if not the worst company in the world. Their employees have no benefits, are paid poorly, can not be unionized and none of them are full-time. Wal-Mart imports products from all countries with the worst examples of labour practices in the world. As citizens we need to say "NO" to such companies as Wal-Mart. We can choose what we buy. Purchasing Fair Trade is a choice.
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Dave McMurran
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{12 votes}
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In the midst of the Holiday Season, it is important for consumers to be reminded of the hidden prices behind so many of life's little pleasures like sugar, coffee and CHOCOLATE (only to give a few examples). Spending a dollar or so more (depending on the product) on Certified Fair Trade products can really make a difference to ensure fair prices for workers and farmers in developing countries. There is definitely a growing awareness when it comes to Certified Fair Trade products as a way to lessen the burden of our luxuries.
So have your chocolate and eat it too! Whether it's Cocoa Camino or Equita or another brand. Just look for the TransFair logo!
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Geneviève Laferrière
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{10 votes}
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| Advocacy and the question of Balance |
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As a researcher / analyst I am often struck by the power and persuasiveness of advocacy, but as often as not I am struck by the imbalanced content that is advocated. In reading your article 'Death by Chocolate' - brief as it was, given the complexity of the issue - I was left wondering why more had not been written on the efforts being made to provide consumers with alternatives to the chocolate market supported by major producers and cartels. Fair Trade Certified chocolate is one alternative that did not receive attention in the article. Not to undermine Ms Off's efforts to shed light on the ungainly practices of major chocolate producers, nor to diminish the optimistic feedback she received after publishing her work, I can't help but recognize the lack of space provided in addressing Fair Trade alternatives. 'Compassion fatigue' is a problem, but one that is reinforced by the dearth of information regarding remedial courses of action; ergo, part of the solution must be identifying practices that empower the consumer and correct the problem. Xpress could have achieved balance in 'Death by Chocolate' had such consumer alternatives been advanced. Identifying problems is only one step; identifying solutions hold the key to rectifying them.
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Scott Lofquist-Morgan
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{4 votes}
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| Guilt-free Chocolate For the Holidays |
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Thanks for publishing your 'Death By Chocolate' article in this week's Xpress, and for asking Carol Off some important questions. In her book 'Bitter Chocolate, Off covers issues related to child slavery in the cocoa trade and it's great to see that she's bringing these issues into the public domain. Your recent interview with her should encourage more people to raise an eyebrow at the price of their Hershey's chocolate bar. Only one problem - is the XPress telling me no more chocolate over the holidays? I'll definitely be writing a letter to my MP, but do I sit around chocolate-less while I'm waiting for global trade laws to change? Your article 'Nose, Er, Mouth Candy' on p. 23 has some answers, although no link was made between this article and your interview with Ms. Off. Fair Trade Certified chocolate (such as the Cocoa Camino chocolate you refer to at Ten Thousand Villages) guarantees that producers get a fair deal. Fair Trade is about working closely with cocoa producer partners to ensure that they receive a fair price for their products as well as premiums to improve social conditions and organizational capacity. It also provides producers with advanced credit for long-term planning and ensures that no forced or child labour is used.
The Fair Trade movement is growing and consumers are slowly but surely understanding that their purchases have an impact on the lives of others. While it certainly isn't the only solution, buying Fair Trade Certified chocolate is a way for consumers to take action against the atrocious practices outlined in Off's book. So fear not XPress readers, there's still chocolate to be eaten over the holidays while you read Off's book. Just make sure it's Fair Trade Certified. Cocoa Camino Fair Trade Certified chocolate products are available at Ten Thousand Villages, Bridgehead, Loblaws and natural health food stores including Herb & Spice.
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Shannon Sutton
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{2 votes}
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