Brand Merkel Comes Under Pressure Over Migrants

Katya Adler
Europe editor
From BBCn Europe

It didn't much look like a protest.

Lots of casually dressed, smiley very middle-class Germans - some with children, others with dogs, chatting animatedly in beautiful parkland on the outskirts of Hamburg on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

But this was indeed a protest group, putting together a petition in an attempt to stop a new refugee centre being built on the green.

Syrian refugees Wael Al-Awis, 31, right, his wife Reem Haskour, 30, and their
son Ali Al-Awis, 6, visit the harbor October 10, 2015 in Hamburg,
Germany. Getty Images

Germany could see more than a million refugees this year

 - and Hamburg is a popular destination

People here were keen to emphasise that they were not anti-immigrant. Their main aim, they said, was to protect an area of natural beauty. But once we got talking, broader worries soon surfaced.

Birgit said finding a home was difficult enough for Germans. Hamburg has an acute housing shortage at the best of times. With the arrival of tens of thousands of immigrants, the port city threatened to burst at the seams.

In desperation, the authorities have been turning shipping containers into refugee homes and repossessing empty commercial properties and open spaces to build new migrant centres.

"I don't think Angela Merkel has any idea what she started," Birgit concluded.

Hanno kept shaking his head when he said, "I just don't think Germany can integrate this number of people. It's a real worry. A real worry."

This was no demonstration of the minority anti-immigrant far right in Germany, so adept at grabbing headlines.

These were Angela Merkel's core voters: the comfortable middle classes. Now plagued by doubt and insecurity.

To be clear: most Germans don't question a duty to help those fleeing war or human rights abuses but they do find the huge number of arrivals unsettling.

More than a million refugees are expected here by the end of the year. Some experts we spoke to told us the figure could reach 1.5m.

Like the captain of a football team, Chancellor Merkel keeps repeating: "Wir schaffen es!" ("We can do it!").

It's her version of Barack Obama's "Yes We Can" - but increasingly Germans are asking: How?

Lea, 12 (L), gives lollipops to Syrian refugee children at a welcome festival
(Willkommensfest) for migrants on September 19, 2015 in the
Karolinenviertel neighborhood of Hamburg, Germany Getty Images

Groups of people have welcomed migrants to Hamburg 

- but many worry about how the country will cope

Only one in three here say they agree with Mrs Merkel's migrant policy, according to the most recent poll. And she's slipping in popularity ratings.

The joke used to be that she was a politician of 'little steps' who made decisions only once she'd studied the opinion polls.

But a summer of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean and desperate crowds thronging at the gates of Europe seems to have changed all that.

Mrs Merkel completely surprised her countrymen a month ago by unilaterally declaring all Syrian refugees welcome and refusing to put an upper limit on how many Germany would take in.

It seemed like a passionate outburst, a spontaneous throwing of caution to wind by a woman traditionally admired by Germans for her stable, strong and stoic disposition. All sought-after attributes here.

'Hers is a solid brand'

Florian Juerg, a branding consultant, wonders whether Angela Merkel is now expressing her "other self".

"Until now she has acted like the sensible scientist that she is," he told me (Mrs Merkel is a trained physicist). "But suddenly she's transformed back into the moral-driven pastor's daughter of her youth."

Hamburg is the German hub for marketing and brand imaging.

I asked Florian if "Brand Merkel" would be dented by the migrant crisis.

"Not in the long-term," he told me. "Building up a brand takes a long time and the last 10 years of Merkel as Chancellor have been good for Germans. Hers is a solid brand."

For now. But if her refugee policy backfires, it will stain her political legacy.

Mrs Merkel's nickname here is Mutti, or Mummy.

Election after election, Germans have put their trust in her to decide what's best for them. She's seen as key in making Germany the success story it is today.

'Merkel must go' reads one sign in the city of Magdeburg

The way she's handling the migrant crisis is the biggest gamble of her political career.

Brand Merkel may have helped make Brand Germany great but she could now inadvertently damage her country.

The arrival of so many asylum seekers in one go will impact Germany's economy, its society and its politics.

Already there are well-chronicled splits within Mrs Merkel's own conservative bloc.

"We have to get the balance right," said Lorenz Caffier, CDU Interior Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

"The German constitution demands that we look after refugees but the benefits we give them are too generous.

"Frankly, I'm amazed at any migrant who doesn't choose to come to Germany. Our benefit system acts like a travel agency. We must put the well-being of our own people first."

Cucumbers, bananas - or greater matters?

German newspapers are full of reports about the benefits refugees receive compared to German citizens on welfare, leading, in some quarters, to a sense of injustice.

There's also a more widespread worry about strains on the national health and education systems.
"Germany can't take everyone in," Mr Caffier told me. "Up till now we had no choice. Angela Merkel didn't open the door to the refugees. They were already at the door.

"What was she going to do - send tanks to the Austrian border? Actually it's impossible to close borders. Any politician who suggests that is lying."

Excuse me, Hungary just did!

He insisted vehemently that the rest of Europe play its part.

"We Germans can't do this alone. Brussels has to decide whether it's going to focus on the curvature of cucumbers and bananas or tackle European issues of importance."

In the meantime, other European leaders are not queuing up to take in asylum seekers by the hundreds and thousands. Or, hundreds of thousands.

Chancellor Merkel's lead role in the migrant crisis is as controversial in the rest of Europe as it is at home.

The queen of consensus politics is no more.

Now This is Truly Scary

Mind hack: Scientists use magnets to change attitudes 

on immigration, religion

© Tom Tingle / The Arizona Republic / Pool / Reuters

Researchers from the University of York have used magnetic energy to suppress humans’ ‘threat-response’ functions and dramatically change people’s attitudes to immigration.

Psychologists used magnetic force to safely shut down the region of the brain associated with “threat-response functions” and conducted a series of tests where volunteers were asked questions about their beliefs.

Scientists found the people were less likely to have negative views when the magnetic force was applied to the posterior medial frontal cortex, positioned a few inches up from the forehead.

In the study, half of participants were given a low-level placebo-like level of magnetic energy that did not affect their brain, while the other half received enough energy to lower activity in the target area.

Volunteers were then asked to think about death, after which they were asked questions about their religious beliefs and attitudes on immigration.

Researchers from the University of York and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), discovered those whose frontal cortex was temporarily shut down reported 32.8 percent less belief in God, angels or heaven.

Volunteers were screened prior to the investigation to ensure they held religious beliefs.

The participants were also 28.5 percent more positive in their feelings toward an immigrant who criticized their country.

Dr. Keise Izuma said volunteers were reminded about death because people are more likely to turn to ideologies when they think of dying.

“We decided to remind people of death because previous research has shown that people turn to religion for comfort in the face of death. As expected, we found that when we experimentally turned down the posterior medial frontal cortex, people were less inclined to reach for comforting religious ideas despite having been reminded of death,” he said.

Volunteers were asked to respond to negative and positive emotional aspects of religion, in particular to rate their belief in the Devil, demons and Hell, in addition to God, angels and heaven.

Participants were also given two essays to read, both supposedly written by immigrants. One essay was extremely complimentary to the host country, while the other was extremely critical.

Scientists found that when the magnetic force temporarily shut down the ‘threat-response’ part of the brain, people were more likely to have positive feelings towards the immigrant who was critical.

We think that hearing criticisms of your group’s values, perhaps especially from a person you perceive as an outsider, is processed as an ideological sort of threat,” said Izuma.

“One way to respond to such threats is to ‘double down’ on your group values, increasing your investment in them and reacting more negatively to the critic.”

“When we disrupted the brain region that usually helps detect and respond to threats, we saw a less negative, less ideologically motivated reaction to the critical author and his opinions,” he said.

UCLA’s Dr. Colin Holbrook, who was lead author of the report, said the findings were “striking.”

“These findings are very striking, and consistent with the idea that brain mechanisms that evolved for relatively basic threat-response functions are repurposed to also produce ideological reactions,” he said.

Unfortunately, the report doesn't say whether, or how long the effect lasted. I'm assuming it lasted only as long as the experiment lasted. Nevertheless, with the incredibly fast advent of multi-cultural tolerance and religious non-tolerance (unless you're Muslim), this finding could lead to some very frightening scenarios. Guess I need some treatment. I wonder if someone has already been applying this to liberal Europeans.

New Alzheimer’s Treatment Fully Restores Memory Function

Of the mice that received the treatment, 

75 percent got their memory function back.

Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques - structures that are responsible for memory loss and a decline in cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients.

If a person has Alzheimer’s disease, it’s usually the result of a build-up of two types of lesions - amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles. Amyloid plaques sit between the neurons and end up as dense clusters of beta-amyloid molecules, a sticky type of protein that clumps together and forms plaques.

Neurofibrillary tangles are found inside the neurons of the brain, and they’re caused by defective tau proteins that clump up into a thick, insoluble mass. This causes tiny filaments called microtubules to get all twisted, which disrupts the transportation of essential materials such as nutrients and organelles along them, just like when you twist up the vacuum cleaner tube.

As we don’t have any kind of vaccine or preventative measure for Alzheimer’s - a disease that affects 343,000 people in Australia, and 50 million worldwide - it’s been a race to figure out how best to treat it, starting with how to clear the build-up of defective beta-amyloid and tau proteins from a patient’s brain. Now a team from the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) at the University of Queensland have come up with a pretty promising solution for removing the former.

Publishing in Science Translational Medicine, the team describes the technique as using a particular type of ultrasound called a focused therapeutic ultrasound, which non-invasively beams sound waves into the brain tissue. By oscillating super-fast, these sound waves are able to gently open up the blood-brain barrier, which is a layer that protects the brain against bacteria, and stimulate the brain’s microglial cells to activate. Microglila cells are basically waste-removal cells, so they’re able to clear out the toxic beta-amyloid clumps that are responsible for the worst symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

The team reports fully restoring the memory function of 75 percent of the mice they tested it on, with zero damage to the surrounding brain tissue. They found that the treated mice displayed improved performance in three memory tasks - a maze, a test to get them to recognise new objects, and one to get them to remember the places they should avoid.

"We’re extremely excited by this innovation of treating Alzheimer’s without using drug therapeutics," one of the team, Jürgen Götz, said in a press release. "The word ‘breakthrough’ is often misused, but in this case I think this really does fundamentally change our understanding of how to treat this disease, and I foresee a great future for this approach."

The team says they’re planning on starting trials with higher animal models, such as sheep, and hope to get their human trials underway in 2017. 

Merkel’s Stance on Refugees ‘Naive, Irrational’ – Former Czech President

Mass migration 'organized', 'motivated'

© Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is acting naively and irrationally by inviting more refugees in the country, former Czech President Vaclav Klaus said in an interview with RT’s Worlds Apart program.

Social cohesion is essential for any country to “function normally” and “migration is killing the social cohesion” in Europe, Klaus told Worlds Apart host, Oksana Boyko.

“I disagree totally with madam Merkel; with welcoming gestures ... more and more migrant can come. It is naive and absolutely irrational,” he stressed.

Not spontaneous
The former Czech president stated that the hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan flocking to the EU in recent months was not a spontaneous crisis.

“Those massive movements of people are organized somehow, are motivated by something,” Klaus said.

Alas, someone on the world stage who agrees with me. 

The 74-year-old political veteran decried this type of “collective migration” as being “absolutely wrong.”

“I put the net benefits of collective migration – either at zero or minus in a very high level,” he said.

Klaus compared the refugees now arriving to the EU to “the first European migrants to the US 500 years ago when they totally liquidated all the native populations.”

However, he acknowledged that solo migration “has many positive aspects… in [the] history of mankind,” stressing that “no rational person would deny this possibility.”

The former Czech leader said that it’s not Europe, but the US, who should be held accountable for the refugee crisis.

“What created the current trouble was, in many respects, US policy in the last two decades, with their promoting the so-called color revolutions or making wars in countries like Afghanistan; and Iraq; and Syria,” he said.

The EU
Klaus again criticized the EU, by saying that it’s far away from becoming a viable geopolitical entity like the US.

“I don’t want to project, to forecast how many centuries it’ll take Europe to become an entity,” he said.

According to the politician, Europe “made a tragic mistake some 25 years ago by transforming itself from [the] EC (European Community, a conglomerate of nations) to [the] EU (European Union) in an attempt to get rid of national states and countries.”

“So, we’re now living in more or less supranational atmosphere where decisions are made somewhere in Brussels and not in Prague or some other places in Europe,” he added.

Klaus believes that reforms won’t help solve the EU’s problems, and the block is in need of a “radical fundamental change.”

READ MORE: Migrants sue Berlin’s main refugee center for delays to welfare handouts

However, he stressed that such a transformation should resemble the Velvet Revolution, which saw Czechoslovakia parting with the Soviets in a peaceful and legal manner back in 1989.

Pegida is on the rise again

Ukraine
The politician also touched upon the Ukrainian issue, saying that it’s only the Ukrainians who can find the solution to the crisis.

“There’s no way of imposing upon the country and the people a would-be perfect solution prepared in Washington, Beijing, Moscow or Brussels,” he said, urging the people in the western and eastern parts of Ukraine to “start to seriously negotiate.”

READ MORE: Germany fears up to 1.5mn refugees to arrive in 2015, calls for limits on influx to EU

Czech Republic and Slovakia
Back in 1993, Klaus played a key role in parting of Czechoslovakia into two countries – the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

He stressed that he would never suggest the same for Ukraine, but added that a split of a country is not always a bad thing, as relations between the Czechs and the Slovaks are currently better than when they were living in the same state.

Voting Conservative: Not the Christian Thing to do? Excuse me!

Michael Coren

Why author Michael Coren's Christian faith will keep him from voting Conservative in the upcoming federal election.

Stephen Harper's Conservative government is out of step with core Christian values, writes Michael Coren.

ADRIAN WYLD / THE CANADIAN PRESS

I will not be voting Conservative at the forthcoming election. Not because I am committed to party politics — far from it — and nor because I am convinced of the righteousness of any particular politicians — I am certainly not — but for one very simple reason. I am a Christian. Yes, I will not be voting Conservative because I am a Christian.

Layton a man of Faith?
I appreciate that this might sound shocking and run counter to the now familiar religious and political narrative but that’s an equation established only in the past 40 years and only in the United States. It has no foundation in either theology or government. Up until the 1960s American Catholics traditionally voted Democrat and in Britain the Labour or Liberal Party was the home of evangelicals. In Canada our most famous social democrats were Tommy Douglas and Jack Layton, the first an ordained minister and the second a man deeply shaped by his faith.

Having followed Jack Layton's career from the time he took national stage until he died, I am very surprised to hear that he was a man of faith. That he practically exuded integrity is not questionable, but what kind of faith was he shaped by? I have no idea!

Unnatural alliance
It was only when the twin issues of abortion and gay rights began to dominate the political agenda of the Christian right that the unnatural alliance of conservative and Christian began first to develop and then to dominate. Within a generation we had the jarring scene of followers of the social and economic revolutionary Jesus giving time and money to parties committed to military spending, immigration controls, reduction in help to the poor and harsh, often thoughtless words about their opponents.

I've written about this before. The Republicans were ahead of the Democrats in realizing that they had leverage in abortion and gay rights by which they could begin to manipulate the 'Christian' vote. Joining Christians in several ideological areas, they then proceeded to manipulate Christians into joining them in many other areas, eventually bringing many of them to the point of passionately defending values that are completely contradictory to Christianity.

Slip-sliding away
My own conservative credentials began to evaporate more than 18 months ago when I embraced equal marriage and once the door is unlocked it has a habit of opening wide. 

Here, Mr. Coren shoots himself in the foot and discredits his credentials to speak for Christians. Embracing equal marriage (ie gay marriage) runs completely contrary to the Word of God in bot Testaments. It is not legalism, it is a matter of having a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ. One cannot do that and embrace gay marriage - it is so repugnant to God. 

Unfortunately, when you  'unlock that door', you are on a slippery slope. The door will naturally open wider - sin is progressive, but your relationship with Jesus Christ will suffer increasingly because you have stopped listening to Him.

The journey from legalism to love, or religion to relationship, isn’t directly political as such and it’s dangerous and facile to overly politicize faith. But it’s also downright naïve to think that religion and politics have no mutual hinge. Cue the usual attacks because someone has dared to change his mind, as though evolution is a sin and ideological and spiritual stubbornness a virtue.

Christian contradictions
Back to the basics. There are many fundamentals at play from a Christian point of view that are relevant but I’ll name just four. Stewardship of the environment, care for the poor and marginalized, the pursuit of peace, and personal integrity.

In terms of environmental protection and ecological concern the argument is almost axiomatic. Contrary to how even other conservative parties and administrations have behaved, the Harper government has allowed ideology to triumph over scientific reality and has empowered deniers who are not given table-room elsewhere. I interviewed many of them over the years and while they’re not always the big oil puppets their opponents claim, they are generally politicians more than experts.

That's funny, I recently read an article stating that there were almost no eminent scientists who actually support global warming? I have also posted a couple articles by or about eminent scientists who believe it is all a scam. As previously stated, I know that global warming is occurring, what I don't know, and neither does anybody else, is how much man is responsible for that warming.

The poor and marginalized? The government’s taxation policies have reversed a long-standing tradition of redistribution and have encouraged the perception that tax is a burden rather than a duty. We’ve heard too much about “the other” and of the so-called undeserving and this is as un-Christian as it is un-Canadian. We share therefore we are.

So, Michael thinks we should be paying more taxes. Half of all our income goes to taxes here in Canada, and it is unChristian to not want to pay more? It is not welfare that Christians resent their taxes going to, it is waste. It is the excesses of politicians and some bureaucrats, it is awful inefficiencies in government handling of money, it is First Nations bands where the chief pays himself a million dollars a year while his/her band lives in squalor. Canadians are extremely generous people and Christians are the most generous demographic, but we don't like throwing our money away.

As for peace, let’s take the single example of the Middle East. The government’s unquestioning support for Israeli policies surprises even Israelis, half of whom are extremely critical of the Netanyahu regime. Supporting Israel is not the same as supporting everything a particular Israeli government does and if we genuinely care about a stable and peaceful future for everybody in the region we will encourage compromise, the removal of settlements and the empowerment of progressive rather than reactionary movements. Rather the Prince of Peace than any kings of the arms trade.

This is an example of how far and how quickly one can slide from the Truth once you 'unlock the door'. There can never be a negotiated peace in Israel because the Palestinians don't want peace; they want the Jews dead! They will accept nothing less if it does not come at the end of the barrel of a gun, and especially if fools keep believing the lies they tell and supporting their terrorist assaults on Israeli civilians. Silence is support!

To withdraw from the West Bank, territory they won in a war they did not start, would be to leave Israel only 6 miles wide in it's middle. That is completely indefensible; and it's not like they won't be attacked again, that's just a matter of time.

When it comes to personal integrity, democracy is best served when politicians feel uncertain and this government has taken power for granted for far too long. Beyond senators on trial and hidden payments there is simply an overwhelming sense of power at any cost and that bruises the body politic beyond recognition.

No argument here. The lengths to which Stephen Harper is willing to go to win an election is not becoming to someone who calls himself a Christian. But is that worth trading him in on someone who may not be any better, or may even be worse?

Open season on Christians
There used to be a fashion for Christians to attach “What Would Jesus Do?” stickers to the back of their cars. Not my sort of thing at all but in that He repeatedly spoke up for the poor, criticized the wealthy, condemned the judgmental, welcomed the stranger and lauded the peacemaker, perhaps we have a few clues to the answer.

One of my big problems with this article is that if Coren doesn't vote Conservative, he will have to vote Liberal or NDP. He could vote Green, but that is just wasting a vote in Toronto. He could vote Liberal, but leader Justin Trudeau made it clear that on issues like abortion, all Liberal MPs had to vote in favour of it regardless of their religious objections. He could vote NDP, where leader Mulcair has called Christians who believe in a baby's right to life, or in the sanctity of marriage as being between a man and a woman (as the Bible says), unCanadian. 

Our values have no place in a left leaning Canada, and it will be open season on Christians should either Mulcair or Trudeau become Prime Minister.

So, Mr. Coren, if your faith prevents you from voting Conservative, it should prevent you from voting at all.

Palestinians Celebrate the Murder of Jewish Civilians

Palestinians Celebrate Jerusalem, Ra'anana Attacks

By Ari Soffer

Palestinians take to the streets of Gaza, waving knives and axes and
handing out sweets in celebration of murderous attacks.

Palestinian Arabs took to the streets of Gaza to celebrate a series of bloody attacks against Israel civilians Tuesday, as Hamas hailed the attackers as "heroes."

The celebrants, many of them children, waved PLO and Hamas flags and brandished an assortment of knives, axes and other real and replica weaponry, in morbidly joyous scenes reminiscent of similar celebrations held after the Har Nof synagogue massacre last November.

Others handed out candies and other treats for children and adults alike
Credit: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash 90

They were celebrating the murder of three innocent Israeli civilians in two successive attacks in Jerusalem, as well as two stabbings in Ra'anana which left several people injured, one of them seriously.

Credit: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash 90

Although no terrorist group has directly claimed responsibility, Gaza's Hamas rulers were the first to welcome the attacks, hailing the terrorists who carried them out as "heroes."

Preachers and propagandists in Gaza have been leading much of the incitement behind the recent wave of mostly uncoordinated attacks, although Arab leaders in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem have played a significant part too - including Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Watch: Palestinian incitement

Colombian Bringing Oil Justice into the British Museum

Is it time for multi-nationals to be slapped down?

By Jess Worth  
New International

Gilberto Torres tells the story of his horrific ordeal at the
hands of paramilitaries acting for oil companies, including BP.
Location: British Museum. by Kristian Buus

Yesterday, a Colombian survivor of kidnap and torture confronted one of the companies behind it, and its cultural champion, with the help of a troupe of 'actor-vists'. Jess Worth was there.

We are standing in the Mexico room of the British Museum, surrounded by mysterious stone statues and exquisite Aztec turquoise mosaics. And we are hearing about death – in modern-day Latin America.

Gilberto was abducted after organizing a strike in response to the murder of his
 friend and fellow trade unionist. Location: British Museum. by Kristian Buus

Gilberto Torres, a Colombian trade unionist and former oil engineer, who has been through an unimaginable ordeal while standing against environmental and human rights abuses committed by petroleum giant BP, is telling the crowd about his friend – another prominent oil union organizer – who was murdered by paramilitaries. He shows his friend’s photo. Young museum-goers stare, struggling to understand.

We’re not just here in solidarity with Gilberto. We are here because there’s compelling evidence that BP had a role in his kidnap and torture. And BP sponsors the British Museum.

The museum is the jewel in BP’s crown of sponsored British cultural institutions and regularly bestows the legitimacy, trustworthiness and high profile it commands on BP, the world’s biggest corporate criminal. The museum willingly launders the oil giant’s image for a surprisingly small amount of money, amounting to just 0.8 per cent of its annual income.

Which is why we are here with Gilberto. We started in the museum’s vast Great Court. We gathered a crowd from the thousands of Sunday afternoon museum-goers with a performance by the activist theatre troupe I am part of, BP or not BP? I played the role of one of two vaudevillian street performers, the ‘Truth Translators’, in possession of a mighty ear trumpet that could magically find the truth behind any lie. We tried it out on a ‘representative’ of BP, whose lies and spin gradually imploded when confronted with the truth, leaving her gasping for air, dribbling ‘oil’ from her mouth, and sinking to the ground, defeated.

BP's lies are exposed in the British Museum. by Kristian Buus

All this was an attention-grabbing way of creating space and an audience so that Gilberto could speak. Standing below BP’s name, carved permanently onto the gleaming white marble of the Reading Room, Gilberto told his harrowing story. He was abducted and tortured by paramilitaries in the pay of a joint-venture oil company, Ocensa, in which BP was a partner.

‘When I was kidnapped I knew what was going to happen to me. I knew I was going to be murdered and left by the side of some road. But thanks to people’s solidarity, both national and international, to an oil workers’ 24-day strike, and to demonstrations by communities in Colombia and human rights organizations, I was not executed. Instead, I was held for 42 days, then finally released.'

Gilberto is one of only two trade unionists to ever survive being ‘disappeared’ by Colombian death squads. He is now taking legal action against BP in the UK courts, for the company’s role in his ordeal.

It is notoriously difficult to hold transnational corporations to account for human rights abuses, as they invariably work through a network of subsidiaries and front companies that do their dirty work for them. But Gilberto and his determined British lawyer, Sue Willman from Deighton Pierce Glynn, believe that they have enough evidence to prove BP’s ultimate culpability:

‘I believe that British justice will rule in my favour,’ Gilberto concludes. ‘Not only in favour of myself, but also in favour of justice, in favour of this not happening again. And, as a person who has been kidnapped, who has suffered and has been on the edge of death, I am here to tell the public in London, and those who make the laws: please legislate. Pass a law that prosecutes the human rights violations committed by corporations from this country, in this case BP.’

People applaud. They take museum feedback forms and fill them in, calling for an end to the 5-year deal with BP, which is up for renegotiation in the coming months. We hand out letters to staff explaining who Gilberto is and why we are there. We parade, singing ‘BP must go!’, around the museum, playing cat-and-mouse with the security guards – who hurriedly close doors as we approach them, only to send us on a more circuitous route past even more visitors. We make it to the Mexico room and do the whole thing again – partly to draw attention to the fact that BP is pushing for drilling rights in Mexico, in partnership with the human-rights-abusing Mexican government.

Protest on steps of British Museum

Our theatrical protest group has now performed many times inside the museum, bringing to life the reality of BP’s destructive operations: oil-choked pelicans in the Gulf of Mexico; deepwater wells in a whale nursery in the Great Australian Bight; tar sands, fracking, Arctic drilling and climate change.

But this time was different. Meeting Gilberto, and hearing his story inside the museum, made the true cost of oil so much more real. I tried to imagine this man, chained up in an insect-infested pit, convinced he was going to die, but not until he had been tortured again. This man who was so warm and funny, who insisted on hugging every member of our group in turn after our debrief in the pub. Who strongly encouraged us to use humour in our performance, despite the deadly seriousness of what he and so many others have been through.

I tried to connect the sordid reality of BP’s brutality with the clean green power of its brand, as marketed through places like the British Museum. How did this come about? Museums are supposed to deepen our knowledge of our – and other cultures' – history, to help us better understand the present. Why don’t the museum’s staff and trustees care that they are supporting such a ruthless, destructive company, one that is using them to help rewrite recent history, and help shape a corporate-dominated future? There is a direct relationship between BP’s impunity and its cultural champions. Its sponsorship deals feed its social licence to operate, and let it get away, repeatedly, with murder.

But I hope we have started to hammer some cracks into the deceptive façade. We will continue to try to find creative ways to undermine BP’s sponsorship of arts institutions like the British Museum, in solidarity and partnership with those on the oil and climate-change frontlines. And Gilberto will continue in his quest to hold BP to account, and blow apart its cosy culture of impunity, with far-reaching consequences for other British companies operating abroad.

Gilberto needs help with legal fees, as well as support on this long and lonely journey against one of the world’s most powerful companies. He is here in the UK for the ‘Oil Justice Now’ tour, organized with War on Want, to raise money and awareness about his case against BP, and other oil companies. He will be in London, Brighton, Bristol, Oxford, Cardiff, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Cambridge. Please go and see him if you can.