WATER ABLAZE - Patagonia Sin Represas

HOW POLITICS, THE BUSINESS WORLD
AND CIVIL SOCIETY HAVE BECOME
ENTANGLED IN ONE ANOTHER
8
Whenever people hear of yet another case of public property being
privatised, they tend to vent their anger on the big companies and
politicians involved: on the former because of their ruthless profiteering
and on the latter because of the way in which politics is becoming more
and more intertwined with the business sector. What people often fail
to notice, however, is that the very things they criticise about politics
and the business world are often to be found again within civil society
organisations.
This observation is an extremely important one because the
entanglement of civil society goals with those of politics and the
economy is not only making it increasingly difficult to recognise the
true motives and intentions pursued by individuals and groups but
also to take effective steps against existing power constellations. More
and more frequently, the commitment of those who are active within
civil society is being misused, their perception is being blurred and
their strategic targets are being diverted for other purposes.
8.1 Greenwash
Greenwash is a combination of the terms green and whitewash and
is the expression used to describe the deliberate misleading of public
awareness in order to allow companies to appear in a positive light. It
was coined as a reaction to the campaigns to clean up corporate identity
and has become increasingly popular since the 1992 Environmental
Conference in Rio de Janeiro.
The French nuclear power station in Fessenheim serves as a practical
example of this kind of image promotion. In order to achieve the
internationally-recognised environmental systems certification ISO
133