Letter to "Fighters and Lovers"

Dear Fighters and Lovers Execs:

I don’t know if you get many letters from Colombia, or if you read them. Maybe you are not interested at all in what common Colombian people think about your business or about anything. That´s all right. You are businesspeople living in a rich country and as such, why pay attention to a few millions citizens in a far away country? Never mind that your t-shirts are selling on the back of extortion, drug trafficking, murder and kidnapping. You wanted publicity and you got it! And if people buy your Farc t-shirts then you must be quite happy.

If you want more publicity, why stop at t-shirts and CD’s? Why not print t-shirts with images of the Farc concentration camps where more than 700 (seven hundred!) fellow Colombians rot to death? Or print t-shirts with MILLIONS of Colombians demonstrating against Farc? Or record CD’s with cries of agony of family members that have waited for their loved-ones more than ten years? Oh, right, that might not sell as well and can distort the image you are trying to portray of your beloved “freedom-fighters”. And that’s terrible for business, right?
If you are so fond of Farc, why not go a step beyond (quite frankly, just t-shirts and CD’s? Please!) and start your own Farc arm in Denmark? Import a bunch of them, some wild ones. (No, the few “students” that found their way into Europe and are your great pals don’t count). And let your little army settle in, let’s say, North Jutland. And let them start killing and trafficking and kidnapping. And print t-shirts of them! But Denmark is such a nice country you might not want to spoil it. But Colombia? Hey, that’s pretty far away, right? Who cares! At least you don’t!

As businesspeople you have to look at trends and see what’s going on in the world. What about checking the news about Colombia? (No, your favorite site “Anncol” doesn’t count either). Farc is no real “choice” for young people or unionists. And they have not liberated anything. And while you are checking facts on Colombia, look into your business. Yes, that of t-shirts. You might learn a thing or two about selling t-shirts in Colombia. More than a million sold in less than two weeks by street-vendors definitely is something you businesspeople in the trade would want to emulate. No fancy models, boutiques or internet sites were needed. It was a grass-roots enterprise. And you guessed it, those t-shirts had a simple message printed on them: NO MORE FARC.

Sincerely,

Cesar Amin
Colombia