A poorly thought-out ad campaign landed the United Colors of Benetton in some hot water two weeks ago.
The Italian apparel maker launched a series of “unhate” ads featuring prominent world figures shown together in passionate embraces. Obama makes out with Hugo Chavez, French president Nicolas Sarkozy locks lips with German chancellor Angela Merkel, and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets intimate with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
The images are rip-offs of a famous satirical Berlin Wall graffiti featuring Erich Honecker, head of East Germany, kissing Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. These posters had some shock value, though Benetton is known for running controversial advertisements that have nothing to do with their products.
But it was the ad featuring Pope Benedict XVI and an imam that received a lot of attention. Plastered across Italy, the ad enraged many Catholics and the Vatican even threatened legal action. The ad was removed shortly after. The row gained traction among many LGBT pundits, but the real problem with the ad runs much deeper than run-of-the-mill homophobia.
The series of kissing ads all prominently feature the word “unhate.” The website of the Benetton campaign describes its purpose as “not a cosmetic exercise, but a contribution that will have a real impact on the international community, especially through the vehicle of communication, which can reach social players in different areas.”
Whatever that means.
The ad is problematic because it is such a bad “vehicle of communication.” Throwing the word “unhate” next to an image of the Pope and a Muslim religious leader suggests a false dichotomy of hate between Christians and Muslims. Impressions like this are particularly unhelpful given recent violence caused by extremists on both sides.
Catholic parishes across Toronto are now sponsoring Iraqi families seeking refugee status as Christians continue to be slaughtered in their homeland. A year ago, an al-Qaeda-linked group seized a cathedral in downtown Baghdad and 58 were murdered.
In the Benetton ad, the Pope is smooching Mohammed Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of the al-Azhar mosque in Cairo. Relations have been tense between the two since the Pope called out the Egyptian government for failing to protect its Christian minorities from violent attacks.
Egypt ended up withdrawing its ambassador to the Holy See and was conspicuously absent from a Vatican forum on inter-religious dialogue last month.
Ongoing attacks in post-Mubarak Egypt have made many Coptic Christians flee their homeland. A sizable number have sought refuge in austerity-plagued Italy, fuelling xenophobic tension.
Meanwhile, Muslims in the US face a new McCarthyism, with second-class rights to privacy, widespread racial profiling and paranoiac reporting on home-grown terrorism.
The YouTube video “Hate Comes to Orange County” documents a profoundly disturbing protest in California this February. The clip features radical American Christians yelling at US-born Muslim families, insulting their religion and telling them to go back to where they came from. Some elected officials spoke at the event.
Hate exists. But it’s only a fraction of believers from any religion who carry out violence against others. While it’s noble to fight hate, you don’t start by throwing up gimmicky billboards with your company logo, especially when they infer widespread intolerance.
People from all religions need to engage in open conversations and learn to live side-by-side. By getting to know an “other,” individuals can build strong societies where hate is acknowledged, understood and undermined.
In the meantime, I’m boycotting Benetton. I can’t consciously buy from a company that exploits religious tension to sell overpriced sweaters.
