For millions of people around the world this week sees the end of the traditional Christmas break as people return to work and children return to school. Life returns to normal as the fantasy of Christmas fades for another year. For millions of children the over-riding image of Christmas is "Father Christmas", a large white bearded jovial character dressed in a red suit, who delivers presents to them on a sleigh pulled by reindeer.

Its an image portrayed in books, plays, and greeting cards. It is an image depicted in films and on television. It is an image that is everywhere. For such a ubiquitous image that has come to saturate western culture and symbolise Christmas it would be surprising to some that it is an image that was dreamt up by the advertising men from Coca-Cola.[1]

The reported origins of Santa Claus or Father Christmas go back centuries to various cultures including the Christian Saint, St. Nicholas, but the image of the fat smiling Santa was designed by Coke to use Father Christmas to sell Coca-Cola to the masses. He would wear Coca-Cola red. According to the soft drinks company: "the Coca-Cola Santa had a powerful, enduring quality that continued to inspire future Santas for Coca-Cola".[2]

Santa has helped Coca-Cola become the world's largest soft-drinks firm, selling over one billion drinks a day across the globe, equivalent to some 7,000 a second. It is the world’s most recognised trademark, with 94 per cent of the global population being able to identify the famous logo. [3]

But trouble is brewing for Coca-Cola across the globe, in part because of what it is and what it represents. For many Coca-Cola, like McDonalds, has come to depict what many despise: a product that symbolises America’s cultural dominance, a product that symbolises rampant American capitalism or American foreign policy or the policies of President Bush.

The Middle East was the first to hit back. The ZamZam Iran company was established in 1979, named after a holy well in the city of Mecca and started selling ZamZam Cola. It now consists of 16 soft drink manufacturing companies.

By 2002 the company was selling to Bahrain, Iraq, Pakistan, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Indonesia and Afghanistan.[4] It then moved into Saudi Arabia, where the Saudi distributor, Al-Majarah, reported that demand was so it was selling millions of cans. "The campaign of boycotting American products and the good quality of ZamZam Cola have given us excellent sales", the general manager Firas Khawaja said.[5] By December some 10 million cans of cola had been sent to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.[6]

But by the end of 2002, Coke was facing another competitor, Mecca Cola, launched by a French entrepeneur Tawfik Mathlouthi, who launched a "new business concept" under the slogan "No more drinking stupid, drink with commitment". Ten per cent of the profit on every bottle is donated to Palestinian charities and 10 percent to local charities where the drink is sold. It is now sold extensively across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.[7]

By 2003, Coke's sales were reported to have dropped by 10 percent across the Middle East, falling even further in Bahrain, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia.[8] Mathlouthi expects to sell 300 million bottles this year and says his product "is not just a drink. It is an act of protest against Bush and Rumsfeld and their policies".[9] In the first three months of 2003 another rival to Coke, West Bank-made Star Cola saw its sales rise by 40 percent in the United Arab Emirates.[10]

In response, on its website Coke has a section called "Middle East Rumours" that argues against the rumour that "Boycotting Coca-Cola makes a statement against America and American (foreign) policies."

But action against Coca-Cola is now spreading beyond the Middle East. Protests against the war in Iraq and America have also impacted the sales of Coke in what Rumsfeld called "Old Europe". In October 2004 the Financial Times reported how Coca-Cola sales were down 16 per cent less in Germany compared to a year before. Coke was writing off $392m to reflect impaired business assets there. Keith Reinhard, chairman of DDB Worldwide, an advertising agency told the Financial Times "My sense is we are seeing a transfer of anger and resentment from foreign policies to things American" ^[11].

Polls confirm this trend. Last month, the polling company GMI World Poll, reported the results of its latest poll of 1,000 people across the G8 countries outside of America. Under the headline "European Backlash: International Consumers Shun American Brands". GMI reported how one in five European consumers "will avoid purchasing products and services offered by many American-based companies as a direct result of U.S. unilateral foreign policies and their discontent over President Bush’s reelection."[12]

As if this was not bad enough for Coke it now faces a further boycott because it is accused of complicity in human rights violations in Colombia. The "International Boycott of Coca Cola" started on the 22 July 2003 with the campaign simultaneously launched in Colombia; Italy; US; the UK, Germany, and Australia. It had been called by Sinaltrainal, the Colombian Food and Drinks Workers’ Union and supported by the World Social Forum, and by other trade union federations in Colombia and numerous other social organisations around the world. "We ask Coca Cola to stop killing, and you to stop drinking Coke," argued Sinaltrainal’s Vice President Juan Carlos Galvis, who has since been injured in an assassination attempt.

According to the Colombia Solidarity Organisation in the UK: "Coca Cola stands accused of complicity in the assassination of 8 Sinaltrainal trade union leaders in Colombia since 1990. Many other leaders have been imprisoned, tortured, forcibly displaced and exiled. Of course, Coca Cola deny any responsibility for the murders, pointing out that 100s of union leaders are killed every year in Colombia. However, many of Sinaltrainal’s victims were killed inside Coca Cola plants while negotiating collective agreements. Coca Cola management were reported in the national press as meeting and contracting members of the AUC death squads to "sort out their labour problems".

Coca-Cola initially responded to the boycott by arguing that the allegations were "completely false", with the campaign "nothing more than a shameless effort to generate publicity".[13] The company has now responded with a classic public relations tactic by trying to distance itself from the violence by arguing that the problem lies with the company’s franchises in Colombia, not the main company. Coke also argues that the Union opposition in Colombia is divided and has recently tried to advocate that anyone who supports the boycott is supporting terrorism.[14]

Undeterred, the international boycott is spreading. Communities in India have joined the boycott but for their own reasons: the company stands accused of causing severe water shortages for communities; polluting groundwater and soil around its bottling facilities; distributing toxic waste as "fertilizer" to farmers; and selling drinks with extremely high levels of pesticides. Just last month there was a march of over 1,000 people in the Mehdiganj district of India protesting against Coke. [15]

Actions against Coke’s Colombian operations are spreading too. In the US a court case has been launched against Coke. In Ireland, 5 Universities have voted in support of the boycott, refusing to stock Coke on campuses. In Scotland, the Scottish Socialist Party has come out in favour. In England, various student organisations now support the boycott as does the public sector union, Unison. In Italy, the boycott is spreading too. There are plans to expand the boycott to more countries in 2005, too.[16]

But you would not know this if you watched the television. This Christmas the advertisers have been busy in the UK with picture of a smiling Santa and Coca-Cola lorries driving through the snow. But Coca-Cola could become the first global company to face a sustained global boycott. A boycott where consumers across the world stand united in their opposition to a company for a myriad of different reasons: its symbolism of Americanism; of America’s flawed foreign policies in the Middle East, of how it treats its workers or the environment. From the Middle East to Australia, Coke could be in trouble.

Andy Higginbottom from Colombia Solidarity Campaign in the UK urges everyone to join the boycott. "We think that Coca-Cola is still not taking the claims of its workers at all seriously," he says. "Everybody things of Coca-Cola as a flashy product, but we have to remember the workers who produce Coke. For us their right to life has to be paramount".[17]