BP-sponsored British Museum exhibition of stolen property targeted

The Madingley Mummy | 02.07.2004 10:53 | Culture | London

On July 1st 2004, London Rising Tide (LRT) dropped in on 'Mummy - the inside story' at the British Museum, billed as 'a BP Special Exhibition'. We unfurled a banner reading 'Oil Fuels Climate Chaos' in the main covered area, suggesting to the visiting throngs that BP is profiting from oil wars and climate change while diverting the public gaze away from these dark truths with a widespread programme of cultural sponsorship. (The National Portrait Gallery, Royal Opera House and National Gallery are the most prominent current examples.)

Having been escorted away by a bevy of burly and sometimes bad-tempered
security guards, passing leaflets to interested and even supportive visitors on
the way, we took up residency outside the gates. There we asked people to make
their opposition to BP sponsorship known to the Museum, pointing out that US and
UK troops were much more concerned about protecting Iraqi oil reserves than the
Baghdad museum during the early days of the occupation last year. It has to be said that there’s a bit of a hill to climb when it comes to pressuring the Museum, since BP boss Lorde Browne sits on the Board of Trustees. But it’s worth it – see contact details below.

A police contingent duly arrived, insisting that we move away from the closed
emergency gates and stop leafletting, neither of which we did, and which they
eventually put up with. One policeman requested a particularly loquacious
ranter to stop shouting, with said ranter explaining that his voice was raised
not in anger but in hope that we would soon see the back of the oil companies
altogether, and that as such this wasn't intimidatory to the genuinely
interested people passing in and out of the Museum.

Soon after that the whole police minisquad evaporated leaving us to carry on with the
real business of informing people about what was being perpetrated by BP and
Big Oil, with the help of governments, cultural institutions and a few obedient NGOs. Some kids from an east end secondary school came over to wish us well, as did an American friend of Corp Watch (US) who happened to be there, not to mention several random and lovely folk who told us we were doing a good and necessary thing.

Just as we’d run out of leaflets and were thinking of leaving, 2 comedians wrapped themselves up in the banner saying 'hurray for the oil and chemical companies' and 'get a job you middle class hippies', which was...something you don't hear every day. Here beginneth a new campaign to provide new scriptwriters to our fiercest critics.

The leaflet was knocked up the night before, so the whole thing didn’t take up too much
time and energy, but was valuable in pointing up the often undiscussed issues around the corporate (particularly but not exclusively oily) sponsorship of these supposedly magisterial British institutions, many of which are filled as we know with the spoils of imperialist wars.

It was also a shot in the arm to receive so much positive support from all kinds
of people, a slightly unusual experience we've been getting used to up in the
squatted 'art not oil' gallery at 50 Chalk Farm Road, which is still open from
11am to 11pm daily and well worth a visit.

Here's the text of the leaflet handed out on the day:

Curse of the Mummy, or curse of big oil?
Some facts BP would rather you didn't know:

* 'BP and Shell have discussed with the government the prospect of claiming a
stake in Iraq's oil reserves in the aftermath of war.' Financial Times, 11.3.03

* BP has bankrolled Colombian paramilitary death squads in exchange for the
'protection' of its oilfields

* fossil fuel-induced climate chaos (or 'global warming') hit Europe in August
2003, killing tens of thousands of mostly older people in record-breaking
temperatures

* 'Exposed: BP, its pipeline, and an environmental timebomb' Independent on
BP's
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil & gas pipelines, 26.6.04, which will be a human rights
disaster & produce over 150M tonnes of CO2 each year for 40 years, causing
untold damage to the world's climate. (baku.org.uk)

* BP invests less than 1% of its annual budget on solar & other renewable energy
sources, a great deal less than what they spend on advertising and public
relations

* BP has been investigated by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) for serious
and widespread safety breaches at its UK refineries. In 2002, the HSE fined it
£1m for these breaches

* '$319m US lawsuit accuses BP of pollution offences and lying', FT 14.3.03

* 'Alaska cites & fines BP over death of worker', FT, 28.5.03

BP's oil & gas operations throughout the world, eg. in Colombia
(colombiasolidarity.org.uk/), West Papua (jatam.org), Alaska
(alaskaactioncenter.org), Russia, Angola and even here in the UK continue to
cause destitution and ecological devastation. In 2003, as BP oilworkers saw
their personal safety, union rights and wages in tatters (oilc.org), BP boss
Lord Browne watched his own salary soar to £4.8m…

But don't be depressed - it's still not too late to DO SOMETHING about all this
injustice and climatic meltdown:
don't fly/challenge corporations and those that let them peddle an illusion of
their greenness/get a bike/grow your own food/cut your emissions/spread
hope/build a fossil fuel-free future NOW!
And on this issue, try contacting Frances Carey, who has overall responsibility for the BM programme: Tel: 020 7323 8972;