This afternoon I sneaked out to get some fresh air after 4 days of flu. I wanted to see the sunset over Snæfellsjökull, where I would otherwise be with my friends. In my shoe there was a small easter-egg. My friend was trying to make the loss of the trip up to me! I could not but smile. This easter egg came from a truly warm place in his heart.  This is not the case for the rest of its journey to my shoe.

Fréttablaðið, 30.3.2013.

My colleague from Amnesty, Elísabet Ingólfsdóttir, wrote an article on behalf of Stop the Traffik together with Harpa S. Ragnarsdóttir. The article asks important questions: Where does the chocolate come from? Who made the chocolate for our easter egg? Do we mind it being that way? What are the costs if we want to change that? And how do we do that? They two of them also answer the questions, giving the readers options to act on the matter.
The fact is that non of the Icelandic chocolate producers offer fair-trade chocolate and STOP THE TRAFFIK wants to change it. Elísabet and Harpa challenge readers to send the  chocolate producers a letter saying that they will halt buying chocolate unless it is fair trade. This will, if enough people do so, create a demand they cannot dismiss.

I was encouraged to keep focused to buy FAIR TRADE only, that I unfortunately have not been so good at doing. I ask you to do the same. I forward their challenge on to you. Near and far. If you prefer a draft already prepared, or use as an inspiration, you can email acticeland@gmail.com or go to http://www.stopthetraffik.org/.

There are many good things about easter-eggs, but perhaps it is worth waiting until the main ingredient comes from the same good place as the last bit of its journey to your hands. 

I had been looking forward to my no-chcololate challenge this year but non the less I was surprised of how easy I found it. Because of that I did not find the urge to make any projects around it, and have been silent on this website. But my challenge has initiated important conversations and raised consciousness of the people around me. I want to think that small things like this does make some kind of a difference.
May this year be a year of great differences towards the better.

English below

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Eins og þið kannski flest vitið þá hefur ABC um nokkurn tíma selt Nóa Síríus Súkkulaði í fjáröflunarskini. Réttlætiskenndar minnar vegna get ég ekki leitt slíka fjáröflun frá mér og ekki sagt ykkur það sem ég veit um málið.

Áskorun mín um að borða ekki súkkulaði í desember er ætlað að minna á sóðaskapinn sem tengist kakóræktun og súkkulaðiframleiðslu í heiminum í dag. Ásamt öðru voru það þessi súkkulaði frá ABC og Nóa Síríus sem ýttu mér yfir línuna þegar ég ákvað að takast á við þetta. Í þessum súkkulaðiplötum kristallast klikkunin sem sem líðst í vestrænu samfélagi: þörfin til að réttlæta oft óhóflega neyslu sem við vitum að bitnar á öðrum.

Ég hef verið í sambandi við aðra aðila sem vinna að sömu markmiðum og ég hvað þetta varðar og við höfum komist að ýmsu. Staðreyndin er sem sé sú að Nói Síríus kaupir [enn sem komið er] stærstan hluta af sínu kakói frá ræktendum á Fílabeinsströndinni, eða af birgjum úti í heimi sem skipta við ræktendur þar. Lang-lang stærsti hluti ræktunarinnar er í höndum barna sem hafa verið seld milli landamæra í nauðungar og þrælavinnu, langt frá fjölskyldum sínum. Þetta vita þeir hjá ABC og hafa vitað nógu lengi til að gera eitthvað í málinu. Stjórnendur Nóa Síríus eru líka meðvitaðir um hvernig staðan er.

Þótt ég viti að allir vilja vel og ABC vinnur margt gott starf þá eru svona staðreyndir nægar til að beina mér frá fjáröflunum af þessum toga.

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As those of you living in Iceland may know, Christian NGO ABC has been selling the Icelandic Nói Síríus chocolate for fundraising. Because of my sense of justice I cannot dismiss such a fundraiser and not tell you what I know.

My challenge to not have any cocoa or chocolate in December is meant to remind us of the grotesque associated with cocoa cultivation and chocolate production in the world today. Amongst others things, it was that chocolate from ABC and Nói Síríus that push me over the line when I decided to take on this challenge. In these chocolates I see a crystallization of the crazy tendency that is prevalent in Western society: the need to justify the often excessive consumption we know that is on the expense of others.

I have been in touch with other people who work for the same goals as I in this regard and we have found depressing facts. The fact is that Nói Síríus [still] buys the majority of its cocoa from farmers in the Ivory Coast, or from suppliers that are in business with farmers there, where the largest part of the cultivation is in the hands of children who have been trafficked across borders, far from their families. ABC is fully aware of these facts and they have been long enough to do something about it. Nói Síríus is also aware of the situation.

While I know that people have good intentions and that ABC does much good work, these facts are sufficient to direct me from this type of fundraising.

For the second year I will take on this challenge of eating no chocolate for the hole month of December.

This time, I will experiment with other ways of communicating my experience.

I am proud to say that I achieved my goal: For a whole month I have not had a single bite of cocoa. This was the easy part.

The more difficult part of the challenge was to create awareness amongst the people around me. My hope is that this act of mine has made you more aware about the cocoa-world, and your personal consumption of cocoa products. I hope that I have demonstrated that changing our ways makes a difference, especially if we act together.

In the world that I live in it is difficult to be the ethical person I wish I could be, because society has woven a web of consumerism that often ignores ethics. This brings me to the third part of my challenge.

Along with other like-minded people, I hope reach out to corporations in the cocoa industry, and point out the importance of fair trade. So, even though December has come to an end, and I will indulge on fair-trade cocoa and chocolate every once in a while, there is still one more thing I will share with you. But the nature of the case demands silence until the case has been solved.

But anyway, chocolates are not the quality of life. May 2012 be a year full of true quality for all of you.

Merry Christmas.

Because of the holidays, I wanted to write one joyful blog about the cocoa world. However, I found it a difficult task because there aren’t any joyful ways to talk about how our consumption has lead to serious human trafficking. Writing about art seems to be a the solution to my dilemma.

The works I refer to are Corpus Dulcis and Sapere Corde, chocolate sculptures by Icelandic artist Ólöf Nordal.  

Corpus Dulcis, Sweet Body, is made up of chocolate formed in a classic Renaissance sculpture of the body of perfection. The body is fragmented; face, hands, bum, genitals, abdomen, feet; in a scale approximately 1:2. A chocolate sculptures as well, hollow on the inside, Sapere Corde, The Intellectual Heart, resembles an actual sized human heart. During the exhibition, open during Easter, gallery-guests were offered to take a bite of the sculptures.

Since the Easter exhibition in 1998 the work has been related to Christ’s crucifixion, the holy sacraments and eternal life as well as our tradition to indulge on chocolate eggs at Easter. You could read an essay about this here: http://www.olofnordal.com/index.php/id/1869

But all works of art are open to interpretation at all times, and now, because of my considerations about the world of cocoa, I see the works in new context. My new interpretation is twofold.

Firstly, the chocolate pieces in the form of a human, regardless of its reference to Renaissance-men, represents the modern western man, a consumer, a man of luxury. Literally, our body has never been sweeter: We are the sweet body.

Secondly, our chocolate is a remedy for the broken heart. Here the chocolate heart, our chocolate heart, is hollow. What we wish to cure is our own heart. The heart-chocolates symbolize the fact that we do not hesitate before eating some ones life, a symbol of our indifference towards other people. Eating the hart belittles our intellect. Our quality of life is what matters, and we do not want to know where it comes from. We close our eyes – literally and physically – and indulge on our sweet life.

Let us remember, our life is like a box of chocolates … we can always choose which piece we wish to take. Let us use the true intellect of our heart and think sweet thoughts to all the people of the world. And now that it’s Christmas, choose carefully from the box!

Enjoy the holidays.

It was on day two: I dreamt that I ate a full bowl of chocolate Ice-cream, realizing only after having finished it, that I was not supposed to. I had failed in my attempt.

This dream has been a helpful reminder to stay focused. And I have, with such ease that it can hardly be called a virtue (For Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, the higher the effort and difficulty in acting, the higher the virtue deriving from it).

After having read and seen and heard about the worlds behind our cocoa, it does not tempt me at all, even with the finest delicatessen chocolate cakes in front of me. NON-Fairtraide cocoa is to me poisonous and rotten.

I am certain that you can taste your ideas.

What kind of world do I live in?

What kind of world do I want to live in?

For one, I live in a world where there is abundance of chocolate, and I could have a piece almost anywhere – anytime.

Second, my world is small, but yet too big. Humanity shares this world, yet we know nothing of one another.

Did you know that 80% of the world’s cocoa supplies come from West Africa, where child trafficking is all too common? Furthermore, 43% of the world’s cocoa supplies come from one West African country, the Ivory Coast, where the situation is the most alarming: There are estimated to be roughly 200.000 children working on the cocoa plantations – and about 12.000 of them have been trafficked across the borders from the poorer neighbouring countries. They have been promised ‘gold and green forests’ and sometimes a bicycle. In reality all they get is the green forest.

These children, aged 9-16, work long and hard hours for zero wages. They are taken from their families and friends, from a world they are familiar with, to a remote forest where they do not speak the language, they do not get enough food, do not go to school and are beaten severally for not working hard enough.

Most of these children have never tasted a bite of chocolate, let alone that they know where their harvest will end up.

If you imagined you would go under a veil of ignorance before you were borne, where you would not know where you would be placed in the world, would you want to be a child working on a cocoa plantation in Ivory Coast, far away from your family and friends?

Is it fair that I indulge on a piece of chocolate another person has suffered to make?

What kind of world do we want to live in? As philosopher John Rawls said, and I agree, justice is fairness, and that a just and fair world is the one where each and every individual has the same change to live a quality life.

And chocolates are not the quality of life.

I will do the best I can. I have challenged myself to deny myself of any form of cocoa for the entire month of December.

No Italian Baci. No milk chocolate, suðusúkkulaði nor chocolate made of 70% cocoa. There will be no assorted chocolates, chocolate raisins, chocolate ice cream, nor chocolate cake. No cold kókómjólk, no hot chocolate with cream, no swiss-mocca. I will not have chocolate digestive biscuits, nor any other chocolate biscuit, no Prince Polo, and no Caramel Wafers. I will not have a single christmas-chocolate-chip-cookie.

I am not expecting you all to follow in my steps, although it would make a huge difference if you did, but I challenge you to be aware, and to make the right choices.

I wish that all of us would make that same demand, a demand for a fair world.

Together we can!