Al Cook, BP Vice-President for Shah Deniz, gave his audience a rather rose-tinted perspective on the history of the Oil Road and the company’s three existing pipelines across the Caucasus. He explained that, “we’ve come to rely on the EBRD since the early 1990s”, as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline “would have been literally impossible without the support of the EBRD.” Great to know that this massive piece of infrastructure that has made BP billions relied heavily on public subsidies. Back in 2002, then BP CEO John Browne explicitly demanded “free public money” as a pre-condition to building the pipeline.

Al Cook drools over international pipelines at the EBRD

Now BP want to repeat the whole experience. Brand new pipelines are planned in Azerbaijan and Georgia – the bulldozers will return to tear up the fields they ripped through back in 2004 and 2005. Then the proposed Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) will cross the entire breadth of Turkey, sucking in the gas from Georgia and delivering it to the European Union border with either Bulgaria or Greece.  From there, two pipelines are currently in competition – Nabucco Wes through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria, or the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline via Greece and Albania into Italy.

Altogether, the pipelines will stretch over 4,000 kilometres. It’s not only their length – each pipe will be 1.5 metres wide. The size of his pipe was clearly getting Al Cook excited, “It’s big – 56 inches wide! Why is it 56 inches? Because that’s as big as we can possible make it. It’s that big because of our confidence.” He was equally enthusiastic about the the scale of BP’s kit: “Our Shah Deniz field is the size of Manhattan Island, the largest gas field BP ever discovered … We are building two giant rigs offshore … Our Sangachal terminal is already the largest outside the Middle East.” The EBRD – infamous for its lending to destructive oil & gas projects including the BTC pipeline – was suitably impressed. The first gas would arrive in 2018, and be pumped for decades.

As Guardian energy editor Terry McAlister pointed out, there was no mention of climate change in the presentation. Locking in this amount of gas – still a dirty fossil fuel – into future EU consumption would contribute significantly towards moving the planet beyond the climatic tipping point.

Nor was there any mention of the local communities along the pipeline routes. Cook dodged a question from us about BP’s past lies to its project financiers, and the company’s cover-up of bombs that were dropped on one of its pipelines during the Russia-Georgia war, as described in The Oil Road.

The speakers, and especially Al Cook, were explicit about the scale of their vision. Costs would reach $40 billion, not including pipelines to Turkmenistan or Iraq. “Undoubtedly to develop these projects, we’ll need project finance.” Once again, the oil corporations are seeking public funds to buttress their profit margins and guarantee their international pipeline systems.

To comprehend the magnitude of $40 billion, compare it to the entire annual investment into renewables in the UK of between $4 and $9 billion. BP’s pipe dream to pump Caspian gas directly to the heart of Europe will cost the equivalent of 5-10 years of renewables investments in the UK.

BP’s Caspian plans are locking us into climate disaster, by diverting funds away from climate friendly alternatives, shaping European energy demand around gas consumption and creating infrastructure intended to pump fossil fuels for decades.

Nabucco executive pitches his pipeline, with onwards connections to Turkmenistan and Iraq

But what about oil dictators? Do they also need a social license to operate? What kinds of institutions would they throw money at in the hope of keeping the international community quiet about their repressive practices?

In Azerbaijan the ruling family, the Aliyevs (who have held onto power in Azerbaijan through fraudulent elections, arresting opposition candidates and the country’s vast oil wealth) are a keen sponsor of arts institutions. This April I was in Baku talking to democracy activists, journalists and oil workers’ unions. Many people told me about the President’s generous attitude to western European cultural institutions. It seems the President, Ilham Aliyev, has been taking lessons from Contract of the Century partners: BP who certainly have a thing or two to share on how sponsorship deals can detract attention from a whole range of things you’d rather not talk about: the Macondo disaster…for example.

Heydar Aliyev’s statue in Mexico City before it was removed

The Aliyevs have taken a particular interest in France. Since 2010, under the auspices of the ‘Heydar Aliyev Foundation’ (named after Ilham’s father who ruled before him and presided over by his wife Mehriban Aliyeva) Azerbaijan has generously donated to a number of French cultural institutions. 40,000 EUR went to renovating Strasbourg Cathedral’s stained-glass window and some renovations at the Palace of Versailles, while 1 million EUR was spent on an exhibition of Islamic art at the Louvre. In return Mehriban Aliyeva received the Legion of Honor, France’s highest award for outstanding service to France. Aliyeva was given notice of the award by a personal letter from Nicolas Sarkozy, then President of France. Francois Hollande, the new President, has continued France’s warm relationship with the Aliyevs by expressing his gratitude to them at public opening of the Islamic Art exhibition the sponsored.

The Aliyevs’ generosity doesn’t end there. In August 2012 Azerbaijan paid around $5million for the renovation of part of Paseo de la Refoma park, in Mexico City. In return for this money Azerbaijan not only asked for that part of the Park to be renamed the Mexico-Azerbaijan Friendship Park but also for a life sized bronze statue of Heydar Aliyev to be installed. Protestors forced the Mexican government to remove the statue at the start of this year after an advisory commission said that the authorities should not have accepted money from a foreign government to decide which political figures are commemorated in Mexico. Luckily for the Aliyevs they have a raft of other ‘Heydar statues‘ installed in cities around the world. The removal of one likeness doesn’t stop Heydar appearing in Turkey, Georgia, Egypt, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Romania, and Moldova.

Many Azerbaijani citizens are disgusted by the President’s penchant for throwing vast amounts of money at foreign cultural institutions. In Azerbaijan citizens have to pay large sums of money in order to use basic services, like health care. Much of the county’s infrastructure: the roads, drainage systems etc, is in need of repair and the oil wealth that should have secured the nation’s future is mostly spent. So what do the Aliyevs get from these deals – other than very inflated egos? The answer is the continuing support of the international community. Despite the many arrests, beatings and human rights abuses committed by the regime, Azerbaijan is still a member of the Council of Europe. A recent report on political prisoners in Azerbaijan was voted down in the Council despite the number of political prisoners arrested this year already reaching 40.

In some cases international support can be used to secure deals with oil companies. Aliyev’s sponsorship of the Louvre came at a time when, according to many people I spoke to in Baku, relations with BP over production levels had already soured. Aliyev was looking to other companies to develop future fields and was, as one activist told me “embarking on a flirtation with Total”. According to Aliyev’s website it’s a dalliance that’s continuing. No doubt relations will Total have been smoothed by Aliyev’s generous donation and Sarkozy’s very public gratitude.

Of course BP are the international oil company with the largest share of Azerbaijan’s oil wealth, the UK government have played a key role in that relationship ever since the contract between Azerbaijan and BP was signed under the watchful eyes of Margaret Thatcher. It’s no coincidence then that activists I spoke to time and again singled out the UK as the member of the international community who was particularly silent on Aliyev’s repression and rigged elections. So what do the Aliyev’s sponsor in the UK then? Well it’s not art galleries, we have BP for that, instead they give their money to MPs.

Cameron greets Aliyev inside No.10 Downing Street on August 2012. Aliyev came for the Olympics.

Through an organisation called The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS) the Aliyev government have secured close links with British MPs. TEAS was created in 2008 by Tale Heydarov. His father is Azerbaijani Minister for Emergency Situations, a key member of Aliyev’s ruling elite. A leaked US embassy cable described Heydarov as possibly

more powerful than the president himself… Heydarov controls more visible assets and wealth within the country than the president

The oil revenues, which should belong to the citizens of Azerbaijan, are going into the pocket of UK MPs. TEAS founded the “Conservative Friends of Azerbaijan” which has 25 Tory parliamentarians in it and aims to

promote awareness of Azerbaijan as a democratic country which subscribes to the Helsinki Principles

They also donated £7500 to the Labour pressure group Progress. TEAS provides secretarial support to the Azerbaijan All Party Parliamentary Group, whose stated purpose is

to develop good relations between the legislatures and governments of Azerbaijan and the UK

Human rights and democracy are not on their list of considerations. And chair of APPG Tory MP Mark Field, was recruited as a member of TEAS advisory board in 2011, and paid £6000 a year for the role. TEAS have also covered Field’s expenses on multiple trips to Azerbaijan including one in May 2011 when he laid a wreath at yet another statue of Heydar Aliyev.

Perhaps then it’s BP who can learn from the Aliyevs, art galleries are good to sponsor but politicians are even better.

The AGM was again dominated by the issue, with critical questions coming from many different quarters and not just the signatories. You can read the full transcript of the questions here. The Members Council and Serota were told:

“I think it is a bit of a get out clause to suggest that all money is dirty or tainted. I think it quickly collapses the argument down to an impossibility because you are then saying because all money is tainted that we cannot have a discussion about the ethics of a particular company.  And it is clear that there are some lines to be drawn. I am not sure how Tate would feel about accepting money from tobacco companies. I am not sure how Tate would feel about accepting money from pornographers. There has been some controversy recently about whether art institutions would accepting money from arms dealers. And so on.

So it does not do the debate any favours to say that all money is dirty as this is a debate about the ethics of a very particular company that is involved in a specific set of circumstances that is taking us to edge of climate catastrophe that we can’t withdraw from.

Regardless of where the Tate’s finances are in the next five years, regardless of where the recession is in five years time, whether there be a recovery and more government spending or not, the damage BP doing to the planet and everyone is irrevocable. Now is time – for governments are really clearly failing in Doha to deal with the situation in climate talks – for institutions like Tate to accept responsibility in allowing BP to continue green-wash their devastating practices.”

To which Serota replied:

I entirely respect that view. And you are absolutely right that Tate Trustees do draw a line. They are simply not drawing it where you would like it to be drawn at present. We don’t accept money from tobacco companies. We don’t accept money from arms manufacturers. We don’t accept money that has been laundered. They have debated, very seriously, as a Board, and as an Ethics Committee, whether or not they should accept the money that has been offered by BP. And they take a different view from you. And they obviously recognise that the institution has to live with the consequences of that. And, if, in some people’s eyes, that means we are failing then I have to accept that we will be seen as failing by certain people. But that is the position of the Trustees as currently stated.

Tate has the largest cultural membership scheme in the country, and Tate derives £5 million every year from membership fees, so you think it would take seriously the concerns of those members when they express dissatisfaction with being associated with disreputable entities like BP. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to have been the case.

In a follow-up letter that the Tate members have sent today (which you can read below), they express a great deal of disappointment with how their concerns have been handled – from the attitude of Council chair Jon Snow during the meeting, to how Nick Serota went on to represent the AGM at the subsequent Tate Trustees meeting, to the fact that the Members Council assured the members that the issues would be discussed in February, but three months later on they still haven’t received any update on it.

I wonder if a letter from BP raising concerns about any aspect of the Tate relationship would get the same sort of treatment.

************************

Dear Tate Members Council,

We’re writing a follow up to the letter that we sent on the 15^th of November 2012, and to request a meeting with Tate Members Council in person to discuss our concerns. First and foremost we’d like to express our disappointment that almost 5 months after sending this letter we have had no substantial response to our questions other than an acknowledgement that the issues we raised would be discussed at a meeting of the Council. We understand from Monica Thomas, the membership officer, that a response is forthcoming, (it is worth noting that Monica Thomas acted impeccably in responding to our inquiry) which we’re looking forward to seeing. However, we are disappointed that Tate Members Council met two and a half months ago but we have not been informed as to the outcome of that meeting. It feels that our concerns as Tate members have not been taken seriously.

We also wanted to write in light of a transcript recently being made available of the Tate Members AGM that we have attached to this letter. There are a number of issues that we’d like to raise in the context of this transcript.

Firstly, in the AGM, Nicholas Serota said: “I will convey what you have just put forward to Trustees.”

However, in the minutes from the Tate Board of Trustees meeting in January Item 6.13, it states that trustees “were informed that the meeting [Tate Members AGM 7 December 2012] had been attended by representatives of Liberate Tate who had asked several questions and were given the time to do so by the chairman of Tate Members.”

We feel that identifying us as members of the art collective Liberate Tate is a misrepresentation and possibly a means of down-playing the extent of the criticisms that various Tate members had made of BP sponsorship during the AGM. If you read the transcript, nobody self-identifies as being from Liberate Tate, and none of the signatories of this letter, some of whom had attended the AGM in person to raise the issues are members of Liberate Tate. In the discussion that we had after the AGM, it seems that only one of the 14 members who spoke to the issue of BP sponsorship during the AGM is a Tate member who is also from Liberate Tate.

Furthermore, the Tate Trustee minutes fail to convey the fact that there was a lot of support (not to mention applause) from many different quarters during the AGM on the BP sponsorship issue being raised.

As a result of this inaccuracy we have lost faith somewhat in Mr Serota’s promise to “convey what you have just put forward to Tate Trustees.” So we’d like to make an official request to have the minutes of the Trustees meeting changed to accurately reflect what happened during the Tate Members AGM and we also request that copies of the transcript of the AGM be sent to each of the Tate Trustees as it is a much more accurate representation of what actually took place.

Secondly, we regrettably want to register our disappointment in regard to the way in which the Tate Members Council chair Jon Snow responded to the issues that we raised during the meeting. We have a lot of respect for Jon Snow and the work he does for good causes, but those of us who attended in the AGM in person felt that he had been somewhat patronizing about our concerns. We feel that we attended the meeting with very legitimate concerns, and to be told by Mr Snow that “If you are talking about morality, well, once you get into morality you’re in a very big place,” or to suggest that we should read George Bernard Shaw feels like a means of dismissing any basis of what we had to say rather than attempting to engage with the content.

Furthermore, as Tate members we understand that Tate Members Council has responsibility to facilitate what we have to say to Tate as an institution. We were surprised therefore that Jon Snow appeared to be standing in opposition to our views, particularly in light of Nicolas Serota’s own words, that:

“You are absolutely right that Tate Trustees do draw a line [in terms of ethical funding]. They are simply not drawing it where you would like it to be drawn at present.”

If Serota himself has said that there are lines to be drawn between acceptable and non-acceptable sponsors, then we don’t understand why Jon Snow should take it upon himself to be advocating a position that collapses the possibility of having a meaningful discussion – that all money is complicated and raises issues, saying, for example: “Sponsorship by any company is bound always to be controversial; you know, banks, who banks with who, who gets widgets from whom… you can trace somebody to something in the capitalist system.”

The fact that the chair of the Tate Members Council was arguing against our concerns in a manner that went beyond the position that is taken by the Tate as expressed to members by the director himself again leaves us with little confidence in the way that this issue will have been represented and discussed at the Tate Members Council meeting in February.

As a result of our loss in confidence in the way that these issues have been represented to Tate Trustees, and the positioning of the Tate Members Council chair at the AGM, we would like to reiterate our request to meet personally with representatives of Tate Members Council to discuss these issues in person.

Yours sincerely,

Signed by 15 Tate Members

The oil and gas industry enjoys no subsidy from government, nor are we asking for any.

- said last week by Oil&Gas UK CEO Malcolm Webb at the Oil Politics conference at Aberdeen University

(I should mention that there were several more substantial conversations at this conference that I will take a little time to write up. But I thought this bold statement merited its own blog post)

This, then, is the story that the UK oil companies (represented here by the CEO of their trade association) choose to tell about their relationship with government.

Hold on. What about the nearly £1bn a year in ‘new field allowance’ tax breaks, expanded by George Osborne to encourage companies to drill the ‘less attractive’ new fields of the North Sea? What about diplomatic support, providing ministers at 3 days’ notice for signing contracts, and maintaining whole consulates to support the oil industry? What about navy frigates sent to the Gulf of Aden to protect tankers? What about the billions of pounds’ worth of loans underwritten via the UK Export Finance?

So I asked Mr Webb to define subsidies. His response:

The new field allowances are not subsidies … A subsidy is monetary support from government that reduces investment to below the cost of production.

I’m not sure what would qualify for this definition of subsidy, if the new field allowances don’t: their explicit purpose is to make new fields in the North Sea viable investments. But the technical definition in accounting terms is beside the point. Direct transfers from government to company are unpopular and easier to challenge, and there are multiple other ways to subsidise the industry that do not appear on balance sheets – here I’m paraphrasing the International Energy Agency (IEA):

Governments like to keep subsidies ‘off-budget’ for political reasons; on-budget subsidies are an easy target for pressure groups interested in reducing the overall tax burden.

For more information on subsidies see our Feb 2013 briefing ‘Making a Killing’

Mr Webb said he had not seen this IEA report but looked forward to reading it.

This is essentially a battle over framing. Mr Webb is trying to keep his industry out of the ongoing debate on energy subsidies. Renewable energy is bound up in political debate with the notion that ‘subsidising’ it will ‘bring our bills up’. Meanwhile the many ways the UK government props up oil and gas stay large

ly out of the conversation.

With lots of hot debate on tax avoidance, as well as an ongoing parliamentary inquiry on subsidies, we have an opportunity to challenge the direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuels. Will Mr Webb renounce all off-budget government handouts as readily as he did narrowly-defined subsidies?

PS A fellow conference participant pointed out to me that diplomatic subsidy, even on the scale of several million pounds per diplomat, is small compared to the tax bill from oil companies. Accurately counting up the indirect subsidies will be an important part of curtailing them. But keep in mind also that to the company in question, this relatively small intervention by the UK external energy policy machinery may be worth billions in contracts signed with another government.

A few months ago we published a blog post from someone who felt that they could no longer engage with the Bergen International Festival because of Statoil sponsorship. It’s now turned into a more sustained debate in Norway about the role that the oil company plays in the cultural sector. Here’s some more info from the Stopp oljesponsing av norsk kulturliv campaign, ahead of Statoil’s AGM on Tuesday.

It’s time to say enough is enough: oil sponsorship of the arts, sports, culture and education in Norway has to end. Today, extraction-hungry oil and gas companies use sponsorship to purchase a central position at the core of social development and cultural growth, to enhance their reputation and cover up their dirty practices elsewhere. The cultural sector has been mostly been compliant, but this has to change.

Norwegian and international oil and gas companies work closely with the cultural sector in Norway, and economically support an ever-greater part of professional and amateur culture. These companies have massive amounts of money at their disposal, and the “generous” amounts they offer the cultural sector through sponsorships are mere trifles as far as their own accounts are concerned. For the cultural sector, on the other hand, these amounts are enormous, and we see an enormous amount of hesitation of speaking out for fear of losing the economic support.

Sponsorship thereby becomes more than just a cheap marketing strategy; not only do they greenwash the unethical practices of these companies, they also place a significant proportion of our creative and resourceful young people in a position of gratitude and servility to the oil companies, purchasing a place at the heart of our culture, education and sports.

Yet the silence from the Norwegian Cultural Sector is not necessarily a sign of acceptance, and more and more people are starting to speak up against the fossil fuel industry. The Church of Norway has taken a clear stance against the tar sands in Canada, and recently 274 Norwegian writers and novelists signed a statement against Statoils involvement there. A new group calling themselves Concerned Artists Norway was recently founded in Oslo. The days of quiet acceptance are over, and we hope this only marks the beginning of a sustained and growing opposition.

Many people in Norway think that Statoil’s money is practically the same as public money, since the Norwegian government owns the majority of the shares. Although it is true that the Norwegian government owns 66% of the shares in Statoil, it is not a public company. It is a private company, run by a board of directors that are independent of the government and its shareholders. The government rarely uses its shareholder power to influence the direction of the company’s policies. Statoil cannot, and must not, be seen as equivalent to public money. Statoil is an energy company whose purpose is energy production and resource extraction. It is not their responsibility to fulfill the policies of the government. Arts funding is a public responsibility, and Statoil’s generosity is nothing but a strategy they use to gain credibility and a good reputation, thereby greenwashing their harmful and dubious practices in Norway and abroad.

Statoil’s investment in the young generation, particularly their programme Morgendagens Helter (“Tomorrow’s Heroes”), is a case in point. The programme selects young artists, sports practitioners and scientists for sponsorships, with an expectation of reciprocity through giving Statoil a good name. Often, they tour internationally as mascots and figureheads of Norway’s – and thereby Statoil’s – supremacy. These sponsorships defuse the potential of resourceful individuals, and buy their implicit agreement with the oil giant’s practices and ethics. Statoil also supports many of the most important music festivals for young people, including UKA and by:Larm, as well as sports teams that foster young people’s futures as arenas where they can grow, develop and play. How long shall we silently accept that a private oil company holds the power to decide who should be the role models of the young generation?

A more recent and hotly debated partnership is the Swedish petroleum giant Lundin and the newly opened Astrup Fearnley museum in Oslo. The Bergen International Festival has also been under criticism recently, as has Statoil’s partnership with by:Larm, where many musicians have rejected or heavily criticized the over £ 100,000 sponsorship grant they offer to the winners of the competition at the festival. But the opposition has to grow if it is to make a difference. Oil sponsorship is totally unethical when the companies offering support for the future generation simultaneously are involved in oil and gas exploration and extraction in Canada, invest in corrupt regimes worldwide, and are driving forces behind more resource extraction on the Norwegian continental shelf. Their practices do not “support” the growing generation, but directly threaten their future – and this has to stop.

We have had enough. Oil companies should no longer have a role in sponsoring Norwegian culture. Our arts and culture can do without their dirty money. We are launching an online space where people who are directly or indirectly affected by oil sponsorship of the arts can come together and voice their disapproval, which is currently in the form of a Facebook page. It is both a petition and place to gather for people who share our views. We also want to provide a source for information about the unethical practices of these oil companies, and be a place where those involved in the arts easily can access information about which festivals and arts institutions get their funding from which investors.

We wish to encourage and inspire all actors on the cultural scene to think thoroughly about ethics and sustainability, and to reject sources of finance that clash with these values. The music festival Øya-festivalen has made serious commitments to sustainable practices, and is an excellent example that there are alternatives when there is will to make changes. Another example is the Church of Norway, which has withdrawn its shares in Statoil because of the tar sands. Individuals have also shown that it is possible to make demands on employers who are sponsored by oil, and to clearly mark their position against these relationships – even when they accept single commissions from festivals who are sponsored by these oil and gas companies. Demands can be made by us all! We encourage individual actions and protests, but acknowledge that the greatest responsibility to take action lies with the leaders of the cultural sector.

There is an old, Norwegian proverb that says it is never too late to turn around and choose a different route. We hope many more will join us in turning the tide and refuse to be a buoyancy aid for these companies.

You can also follow @Nokoljesponsing on twiiter

Photo: Jason Rosenberg

Last month, Radio 4′s Thinking Allowed did a special programme on ‘The Power of Oil’, featuring James Marriott of Platform, Prof. John Urry (Lancaster University and author of Societies Beyond Oil), and  Timothy Mitchell (Columbia University and author of Carbon Democracy). You can listen to the full programme here.

Here’s a round up of some of the other responses the book has had over the last few months:

“A lovingly crafted narrative, a rich tapestry of first-hand anecdote and historical reconstruction.”  Independent (review not online)

“There is a constant stream of books aiming to lift the lid on an oil world of power and petro-dollars, but as with many drilling rigs, the well often turns out to be dry. The best books on this lifeblood of the modern economy, and environmental scourge, have tended to come from insiders such as the Pulitzer prizewinning energy economist Daniel Yergin, and former BP boss John Browne. But these represent the view from behind big office desks….James Marriott and Mika Minio-Paluello, in contrast, know the industry from a decade of campaigning against it. They have taken as their subject BP’s $4bn pipeline running from the Caspian sea to the Mediterranean. They follow its route and tell an unwholesome tale of shadowy deals and displaced communities…Inspirational in the proper sense.” Guardian. James and Mika also did a list for the Guardian of their top 10 books about oil, which you can read here.

“The Oil Road is driven by the irrational desire to accumulate wealth for the sake of wealth. A more rational society would shut it down and replace it with cleaner energy. James Marriot and Mika Minio-Paluello’s book is a very useful tool in understanding the sickness of our system and the need for us all to find an alternative.” - Resolute Reader

Other reviews not online include ones in the New Internationalist (below) and Peace News. 

The paperback of The Oil Road will be published by Verso Books in Autumn 2013, and will be available to preorder from the Platform site.

I sympathise with those fundraisers, because I’ve worked in fundraising teams with heavy bottom lines and sky-high targets. Producing high returns on investment is the constant pressure on fundraisers so it’s not surprising that the mantra in charity fundraising, is often, that it doesn’t matter how you get the money because it’ll be used for a good cause.

The last fundraising conference I went to was full of the language of business: we were told to “get investment ready” and “watch your competitors?” (The irony is that small and medium charities know as well as any business what fear of diminishing income feels like, as well as how to constantly innovate in response to the needs of stakeholders.)

However, emerging research is challenging this culture. Not only is the marketisation of campaigns and fundraising language morally dubious, it’s possibly undermining the very aims and work of the charities themselves. The sustainable and democratic societies required to help solve some of the worlds most pressing issues, won’t be built on the language of self-interest, fear and greed.

Fundraising language is a particularly tricky area. It’s about money for a start, a subject loaded with emotion and metaphor, “time is money/money can’t buy love.” Fundraising jargon is full of competitive and self-interested language: “segmenting the donor market/what’s in it for them?” Moving away from these traditions presents short-term risk for a fundraiser.

“What we do for ourselves dies with us; what we do for others remains and is immortal” Albert Pine

I’ve learned some interesting things over the years about funding and giving. Despite the creeping marketisation, altruism runs deep. You find out interesting facts: the poor give relatively more than the rich. Men and women have different giving habits. And research suggests time and again that the key reason people give to a charity is because they were asked. They also give for all kinds of other complex reasons, but overall, the core reason why people are giving to one charity rather than another, is probably because someone, usually a fundraiser, asked them to.

At Platform, as we embark on a new plan to increase our income from individuals, we’re discussing how to go about asking people to donate to us whilst using language and techniques that strengthen the intrinsic values of our organization.

We’re aiming to build up a community of Platform “sustainers” to help us raise £24,000 over the next year. We want to do this as honestly and inclusively as we can. What makes it so important is that donations from individuals enable us to do the more “risky” work and the regular income allows us to plan ahead with more confidence. We also know that a £5 per month donation represents more than the actual money- it’s represents commitment and deeper engagement from people who want to help, but might not have large sums of money at their disposal and helps democratise the world of “giving.”

We want to be as up front as possible about what we’re planning, so we’re starting with a series of meetings with some of our existing supporters to talk through our plans. We’ll follow this with series of regular appeals for donations, which we hope will be transparent and reflect the core values of Platform.

We’d really appreciate your views as we go along. And if you would like to set up a regular donation to Platform, we’d really appreciate it. You can donate here. Thank you.

There was a great response to the piece. Writing on the New Left Project, Alice Bell wrote:

Last summer, Tate Modern opened up its old oil tanks, or just “tanks” as they call them, any reflection of their history seems to get lost in rather abstracted talk of the beauty of the “space”. This new area is supposed to let them show performance art, which is apparently really hard to present in a museum. I think Liberate Tate are giving them a lesson not just in ways to present performance art, but do so in a way which reflects the history of the place, inviting critical debate about the worlds we’ve built for ourselves and the sorts of futures we might want to make.

The blog We Make Money Not Art interviewed a member of Liberate Tate, who said:

The Gift was probably our most confrontational performance to date. It was certainly the largest! Over a hundred people and a 16.5 metre wind turbine blade…It feels good to go in absolutely the other direction with All Rise, and make a work that is quiet, small, unobtrusive. All Rise is really about the ripples a performance can make… Visitors notice us and ask questions as performers pass them in the gallery, or stop and listen to the legalistic text of the trial whispered by the performers..  and unlike The Gift, we’re able to bring our questions back to the terrible harm still being felt since the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster, at the same time as inviting Tate visitors, members and staff into a conversation with us.

In the Critical Legal Thinking blog, Sarah Keenan wrote:

By per­form­ing the New Orleans trial inside London’s Tate Mod­ern, Lib­er­ate Tate cre­ates a week-​long audio-​visual, dra­matic lived con­nec­tion between the two cit­ies that echoes the envir­on­mental, polit­ical and eco­nomic con­nec­tion that runs between them. In a geo­pol­it­ical rela­tion­ship with clear colo­nial res­on­ances, BP can make a mess over there and Tate will clean it up back home.

As Dr Keenan points out in her piece, what is striking in listening to the transcripts of the courtroom is the absence of the voices of those who have been most impacted – this is very much a jargonistic conversation between legal and corporate elites. So it was really wonderful that a number of different grassroots groups and NGOs from across the Gulf Coast have signed a statement of support for Liberate Tate’s work  and critiquing the sponsorship relationship between Tate and BP – presented her for the first time.

Three years on from the BP’s Gulf of Mexico disaster and our communities are still suffering all manner of mysterious ailments from the oil and the dispersants that were used to “clean-up” the spill, those whose livelihoods are dependent on fishing and tourism are still struggling to make ends meet, and biologists are only just beginning to uncover the full extent of the irreparable damage that has been done to our marine ecosystems.

Starting last Monday, the third anniversary of the leaking oil being detected in the Gulf of Mexico, three different performers every day are whispering courtroom transcripts from the BP trial, the first phase of which recently ended in New Orleans. Each performer is wearing a specially constructed SnorriCam that records their ‘whispering-heads’ and all three are live-streamed on to the www.all-rise.org website.

It’s the second Liberate Tate performance that has been timed to coincide with the Deepwater Horizon anniversary. Two years ago they performed Human Cost in the centre of the Duveen Gallery in Tate Britain, where a naked man curled up in the foetal position had oil poured all over him by veiled figures. And now three years after the tragic disaster that claimed the lives of eleven men and devastated communities and ecosystems along the Gulf Coast, Liberate Tate are performing the link between  an art gallery in London and a civil trial that’s been taking place almost 7,00 miles away.

It’s tempting to think that the world has moved on from the Deepwater Horizon disaster – but the impacts of the crisis are very much present in the minds of those communities along the Gulf that are still fighting for compensation and from BP and still trying to find out the extent of the damage that has been caused to marine life.

While this performance has been taking place, we’ve been talking to friends from the Bridge The Gulf project who have outlined below some of the ways in which the impacts of the spill are still being felt, and how communities are still fighting for justice.

Tune in everyday between 3 and 4pm (GMT+1) to www.all-rise.org

Gulf Coast delegation speaks out at BP shareholder meeting, gets offensive, out-of-touch response from BP executives. At BP’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) last week, BP Chief Bob Dudley said “[the Gulf of Mexico is] an ecosystem that’s used to oil,” and “The toxicity of Corexit is about the same as dish soap.”

BP’s crude oil and dispersants have set off a health crisis in coastal communities. “I’m talking about illnesses that are going to last for the rest of their lives.” – Dr. Mike Robichaux, Physician from Louisiana.

“…evidence suggests that the cleanup effort has been more destructive to human health and the environment than the spill itself.” – from the report released today by the Government Accountability Project: “Deadly Dispersants in the Gulf: Are Public Health and Environmental Tragedies the New Norm for Oil Spill Cleanups?”

Facing ongoing economic devastation and fishery decline, fishermen are speaking out against BP’s incomplete clean-up, use of dispersants, and settlement and claims process.

Big money will flow to the Gulf states for ecosystem restoration, but how will it be spent? 59 organizations from across the Gulf released shared priorities for ecosystem recovery/use of RESTORE Act dollars.

In coming to terms with this news, I thought it was fitting to upload the original press coverage of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s death that Platform has in its possession following its return from being exhibited in Spain.

Telegraph front page article 11 November 1995

Michael Bochenek, Amnesty International director of Law and Policy had this to say about the judgement:

It’s especially critical that multinational companies and other actors who are able to operate freely across borders are not shielded from the law’s reach.  In fact, they often benefit from the protection of laws that apply extraterritorially.  But when survivors of abuses try to pursue justice beyond borders, they encounter formidable obstacles.  Today’s decision closes the courthouse doors for many…The Supreme Court has effectively put the law on the side of human rights abusers, adding to survivors’ already difficult pursuit of accountability.

Shell denies complicity in the torture and murder of the activists in 1995, including the writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. However, the company has fought to prevent any legal proceedings linking them to the murders coming to court and into the public domain. In 2009, Shell settled a similar case, Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., for $15.5million without admitting liability.

Guardian front page article 11November 1995

Shell had their position in the Kiobel case bolstered by the UK Government. FOI requests obtained by The Corporate Responsibility (CORE) Coalition, a group of human rights, development and environmental NGOs, show that in February 2012 the UK government submitted a brief to the US Supreme Court on the side of Shell. The UK Government’s intervention on behalf of Shell was at odds with the position of the US Government and, according to Lisa Nandy MP Chair APPG on International Corporate Responsibility, was also “at odds with its commitment to human rights.” She also refers to the Foreign Affair Select Committees assertion that “there is an unresolved debate about the extent to which vigorous promotion of trading opportunities for the UK can co-exist with the UK’s drive to promote its human rights values around the world.”

Despite the on-going suffering of the people of the Niger Delta, the memory of activists like Ken Saro-Wiwa continue to inspire those fighting for justice and resisting oil companies such as Shell.

Following the 10^th anniversary of his murder, Platform worked with Nigerian born artist Sokari Douglas Camp and the Wiwa family to construct a living memorial to Ken Saro-Wiwa. This film below documents the launch of the memorial at the Bernie Grant Centre in Tottenham. In a speech at the launch, Ken’s widow Maria quotes Milan Kundera when she says, “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” Shell may sometimes have the power and influence to silence its opponents but it can’t make people forget what happened. As Maria says, remembering is part of the fight.