In the heart of Chamula, Mexico, there is a special ceremony that many of the native Tzotzil Mayans use as a cleansing ritual to free the body of malevolent spirits. Originally the Mayans used fermented corn to generate gas in the system for belching purposes. However, when Coke arrived in Mexico during the 1950s, it soon replaced the corn because it was cheap and easy to access. This is where the reader finds Mark Thomas at the end of his anti-Coke opus, "Belching Out the Devil." After following him across the globe in search of hard evidence to convict the company of ethically offensive acts, he ends up, ironically, in a town where Coke is used in religious ceremony.
This example epitomizes Thomas' thesis: Although Coke is an internationally popular product, and is thus used for many different purposes, there are unforgivable actions that the company commits on a daily basis -- murder, resource depletion and child exploitation -- that Thomas believes overshadow the beverage's positive aspects. Although written by a man who is a well-known English comedian and journalist, who peppers his dialogue with jokes and smart quips, it is obviously impossible to laugh at the facts presented in this publication.
For example, in Kaladera, India, villagers allege that because the company placed a processing plant in a drought-prone area, Coca-Cola is draining the aquifer that supplies drinking water for over 10,000 people in the Rajasthan desert. One villager says, "There is a shortage for basic needs, no electricity, no water but everywhere Coca-Cola." Each liter of sugary pop requires 3.8 liters of water for production, such that in a report published by The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI), the recommended objective is to shut down the plant before the aquifer is depleted permanently. Unfortunately there are other pressing problems in many other developing countries that trump this astounding situation.
The first few chapters exhaustively cover stories about men in Columbia who have been murdered, by paramilitaries allegedly working with the police, for creating unions to counteract the business tactics of a "globalized" company that takes advantage of weak international policies: "Coca Cola bottlers drove down their wages with sub-contractors, sacked them for unionizing and then colluded with the police who attacked them and their families." In Columbia, Coke sub-contracts its employees so that the company does not officially employ them, and therefore are not responsible for their actions. Although the bottlers obtain the syrup from Coke and are told what to do through a chain of command, companies are at leisure to hire and fire workers who demand fair contracts.
While Americans fight for health insurance rights (and rightly so), Columbians risk their lives to form a union that is based on the basic need of job security. Unfortunately it gets worse as the book goes on. Thomas also focuses on child labor in El Salvador, where he and other journalists report on a sugar cane field where children are working to support their families, putting their limbs at risk for a few pesos and hiding at the sight of reporters: "Children are vulnerable to injuries from the machetes used for cutting, the cane sap causes rashes and irritations, a significant proportion develop respiratory problems and a working day from 4:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. leaves no time for school."
A common rebuttal by Coca-Cola is that they create work for people who would otherwise be unemployed. Unfortunately, those jobs come with risks that outweigh what a below-minimum wage job can supply. Thomas' text sums it up best: "No one actually needs Coca-Cola and no one would die if it disappeared off the planet tomorrow." Certainly water supply and life itself are more important to a community than jobs at a Coke plant.
"Belching out the Devil" is an important read for anyone, but is hard to say if Thomas' book, which is unfortunately laden with typos, will make a dent in the actions of the multinational company, or become a New York Times bestseller. Fortunately, there are two things that you can do as a now-informed consumer: buy this book and stop buying Coca-Cola.