bank

I got a leaflet in the post this morning from the bank, and I noticed that they are still using an old image on their ethical policy leaflet. You may know the one, a riot cop is baring down, face a dehumanised black mask, round shield raised. A long baton is grasped in a gauntleted fist, held high and level above his helmet. It’s a powerful, iconic image, and is used by the bank to convey the emotional context of their statement that they do not support ‘oppressive regimes’.


Fine. All very ethical. However, that image isn’t from, as most of it’s recipients probably expect, Pinochet’s Chile, or Franco’s Spain or Saddam’s Iraq. If the original image was shown, you would see the cop is on horseback, and the word POLICE is carried on his shield. The bank actually used to use the version where you could see this. It is an image from Thatcher’s Britain, from South Yorkshire in the miners strike. A fact the bank have altered the image to disguise.


And I’m not surprised. It does, I suppose, raise some questions. Like what they mean by oppressive regime? And which of these regimes they don’t support, exactly? Because they quite blatantly had no problems with the regime they borrowed their poster boy for tyranny from.


They do actually define, in small type at the foot of the image, that they regard an oppressive regime as one that engages in civilian murders and executions, a bar set far lower than the image suggests it is. The point being, they have picked an image that conveys something at odds to their actual policy, a contradiction that forced them to alter the image to avoid making this obvious. It gets worse when you look at their subscription based premium account. But, more of that another day.


More surprising to me, though, is that anyone thinks this make much of a difference anyway. Banking is basically, after all, about storing and moving money, and charging for that service. The bank can impose some controls on the first degree of separation of with whom and how they trade, but not beyond that. There is currently no separate, parallel, ethical international banking system, just as there is currently no separate, parallel, ethical international capitalism. Only niche markets within it of slightly lighter tone, depending on how much laundering is done between me and the death squad.


You pays your money and makes your choice, but don’t ever kid yourself the money is clean.