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GONGING DAME RODDICK'S BODY SHOP In the span of one week, I received five emails from three countries demanding I boycott The Body Shop for its honouring the National Committee For The Defense Of The Rights of the Internally Displaced. Absent was any indication the forwarders knew the Body Shop story. They did not offer alternative suggestions to boycott. June 15th 2003, Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, was gonged, as the expression goes, by HRH Queen Elizabeth, awarded the title of Dame for her work in retailing, charity and the environment. Roddick said, "I hope this honor opens the path to allow me to be more radical." Roddick started retailing homemade beauty care products she based on women's beauty secrets she gathered while working her way across the world. She located her first Body Shop, offering only 25 hand mixed products, in England's south coastal town of Brighton, in 1976. Husband, Gordon Roddick's struggling hotel business fell way to Anita's successful shop. He decided to "trek across the Americas," leaving her to provide for their two children. His departing advice was "take sales of 300 pounds a week." The mystery to Roddick's minimalistic packaging core to The Body Shop is solved when one understands she was a World War II child, raised to be frugal- reuse, don't waste. But it was Roddick's persistent belief in her product that attracted a following of like minded women, buying into her "environmental responsibility and social change from buying power" conciousness. Devoted franchisees opened retail stores at the rate of two new shops per month, expanding her vision for change, to protect worldwide human rights, the environment and fighting abusing animals for cosmetic and toiletry testing. Taking the The Body Shop public, in 1985, provided a financial cushion she used to create, 1986, the Body Shop Environmental Projects Department. First, she partnered with Greenpeace to Save The Whales. In 1989, Roddick presented the Brazilian Embassy one million signatures gathered on a "Stop The Burning" petition demanding cessation of mass burning tropical rainforests. 1990, Roddick formally established The Body Shop Foundation charity funding human rights and environmental protection groups. One human rights project The Body Shop Foundation funds is her husband's The Big Picture, a controversial newspaper for street people. Gordon admits he took the idea from Street Lights, America's fundraising newspaper for street and other challenged people. Roddick's Big Issue Foundation is dogged with controversy. The homeless vendors cannot sell the magazine. The Foundation would lose its charity status. Its street vendors position themselves outside name retailers asking departing customers for donations in exchange for the magazine. Oxford Street's Marks and Spencers spokeswoman said there is nothing the retailer can do to remove the homeless from their doorsteps, without vendors or lawyers filing claims of civil rights violations. She did note few, if any, Big Issue vendors position themselves outside Body Shop Stores. Big Issue vendors admit they intentionally limit money they solicit, explaining eclipsing a determined level excludes them from receiving benefits, including housing. Cash donations, the street vendors explain, do not need to be declared. The 27th most respected company in the world, hinged its success on consumers continuing to buy into Roddick's personal philosophy, Body Shop business is about human relationships. In 1993, The Body Shop foundation focused on conciousness raising for the Ogoni people protesting exploitation of their homeland, Nigeria. The Company investmented in a Welsh wind farm. Head offices converted to Ecotricity, energy from renewable sources. 127 UK stores went green. Others slated to follow. Roddick created an innovative management degree addressing social, environmental and ethical issues, The New Academy of Business, at The University of Bath. In 1996, Roddick's Body Shop Foundation, leading up to the 1998 UK-wide ban on testing cosmetic products and ingredients on animals, presented over four million signatures to the European Commission. The Humane Cosmetics Standard the Company signed was promoted by leading animal protection groups, the Body Shop refused to name. The Financial Times, 1998, credited Roddick with creating a renaissance for consumer interest in naturally inspired hair and skin care products- aloe vera, jojoba oil, rhassoul mud, cocoa butter and age old homeopathic Vitamin E. The Company named, 1997, the 28th top brand in the world, was second in the retail sector. The official corporate statement said "we believe the more we listen to our stakeholders and involve them in decision making the better our business will run." Despite the moderate success of their joint worldwide "make their mark for human rights" campaign with Amnesty International, only three million supporters, the Company launched their 1999 loyalty scheme with rewards benefiting selected campaigns including the World Society For the Protection of Animals and Missing Persons Helpline. The Body Shop began offshoring operational and management structure out of the UK to other parts of Europe, Asia and America in 2000 explaining the outsourcing of jobs away from the UK created a flexible operating structure enhancing "The Company's ability to deliver a tailored offer to our customers faster and more efficiently." The Body Shop Annual Human Rights Award was launched in 2000 to inspire activism amongst their consumers, acknowledged community based projects around the world with "recognition, practical and financial help." The inaugural award was themed "child labor and its role in denying children, girls, a basic education." The 2002 Award was themed "The Right To Housing." At the Company's 25th anniversary, The Body Shop celebrated successful demonstration of big business' ability to "profit, trade honourably, give back to the community and have a good time doing it." Their co-campaign, "Choose Positive Energy" run jointly with Greenpeace to highlight global warming, yielded 1.6 million signatures from worldwide customers and cyber-activists, The next project celebrated International Women's Day. Roddick was born, 1942, in Littlehampton, UK, to an Italian couple. Children teasing her immigrant parentage fostered her trait to protect the world. Her passion for underdogs is understood. Roddick completed her teacher training, found her way to Israel, lived on a kibbutz then returned home where her mother introduced her to her future husband, Gordon Roddick, a Scotsman. Their first daughter and unborn baby attended their wedding. Roddick questions awards she has received, "some I understand, some I don't and a couple I think I deserve." She says "campaigning and good business is also about putting forward solutions, not just opposing destructive practices or human rights abuses." She is unable to separate company values from issues she cares about. Since retired from the executive committee, Roddick writes "I constantly question myself how I can bring value into an industry that is not value laden." Continuing to fight for human rights "and against initiatives and structures that abuse and ignore them, she spends her time public speaking, writing, editing, and publishing, fighting for the underdog, working with the National Labor Committee, and trying to tell the story of the Angola Three. This vignette of the woman leading the company targeted for boycott, allows retooling of the email I received. Boycott is not the only answer. Education is an alternative process demanding patience. And strategy. Dame Roddick says 'we are limited by our own imaginations." Follow her lead. Gather signatures. In person. Online. Submit articles and editorials correctly stating facts to Dame Roddick's publications, and her husband's, explaining, as Jack De Lowe does "more than 850,000 Jews were forced from their homes in Moslem countries many of who can trace their family history back to more than 1000 years before Mohammed can onto the scene." And that "more than 170,000 Arab refugees accepted the choice to remain and become citizens of Israel." Tell her "more than 175,000 Palestinian Arab refugees or their descendants have been repatriated to Israel under the family reunification plan. The ones who refused to sign documents, refused to recognize the existence of the sovereign state of Israel and refuse to swear to non-belligerence against Israel." Email Roddick at anita@anitaroddick.com. Rekindle her passion for citizens of a place she temporarily called home. Introduce her to the murdered. Send bios of the dead. Outline the struggles of their surviving widows, widowers, orphans and families. Send along interviews taken from broken hearted parents burying their children. Maybe her host kibbutz, their children or grandchildren were victims of terrorism. Photograph the shame of the young woman Body Shop products wont help. Ever. Only 26, she is scarred so horrifically she will not step outside her front door. Email her the photos of the mother and four daughters executed at close range. Maybe push the envelope and send the Body Shop Foundation a photo showing what an eight month fetus executed at point blank range with a bullet looks like. The baby shot by a terrorist, his pacifier in his mouth might register as a reality check that Body Shop Foundation award recipients wear many veils to disguise their agendas. Tell her about seven orphans celebrating their parent's wedding anniversary without their father, 6 months after he was murdered in a bus terror bombing. Bus 19. He was 41. Demonstrate to Roddick that fourteen years after her first shop opened, despite her success of retailing in over 39 countries, with over 1900 outlets "spanning 25 languages and 12 time zones" claiming to sell product "every 0.4 seconds with over 77 million customers" "sampling over 600 products and more than 400 accessories," there is social responsibility to the other side of Alice In Wonderland's looking glass a thinking global community combine efforts can show. Red, the color of her passion driving her company "green," is the color of Jewish blood staining streets of Israel she once walked. And when Roddick asks where the idea of this peaceful protest came from, tell her from the seven orphans' aunt who believes the global pen is mightier than an activist's misspoken word. If all else fails, one can always write the Queen.