VIEWPOINT
The continuing struggle.
The Michigan Daily - Monday, May 24, 2004 - 5
Not just any old water bottle
ELLIOTT MALLEN IRRATIONAt EXUB ERANCE
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BY JASMINECLAIR viate the education gap. The
responsibility of ensuring a
50-year-old Brown v. good quality of education to stu-
f Education decision dents should rest within govern-
usly found that separate ment. However, when they fail
ot mean equal. As a at this job, students suffer the
chools were forced to most. Society is divided upon
ate so that all students, socioeconomic lines making
ss of skin color, could segregation a horrid reality that
ess to equal education. still exists today. A person's race
nately, today the Brown and income has a strong influ-
has not been fulfilled in ence on where people live and
'ety. Instead of facing consequently the quality of edu-
ion mandated by law, an cation received.
lming number of school Brown v. Board sought to
find that they are segre- eliminate institutional factors
socioeconomic factors. contributing to unequal educa-
gregation was one of tion. Yet, this milestone case has
eded steps in order to not and realistically cannot
atisfactory education for address all of the other factors
wever, our schools are that contribute to the disparities
egated, consisting of an in the quality of education. The
ming majority of a par- fight for equality within educa-
race. Urban schools tion does not stop with Brown
inder-funded and inade- and people must continue the
suit students' needs, lim- struggle to fulfill its legacy. It is
-income students access not fair for students' educations
uality schools. However, to suffer due to their race or
diverse school districts financial situation, however, this
s' test scores lag behind is a harsh reality that Brown
heir white counterparts. alone can not solve.
Brands polarize.
We all know
how pervasive
branding has become,
but we also know that
not all brands are cre-
ated equal. Different
brands identify with
different groups, espe-
cially here on campus.
K-mart and Prada separate the poor from
the rich, Brooks Brothers and FUBU cuta
line through white and black, Old Spice
and Mary Kay draw a wedge between
male and female. However, there is one
branded product that has shattered barri-
ers, broken down walls and brought the
University together under one corporate
logo: the omnipresent Nalgene bottle.
Given the massively diverse student
population here at our University, it is
impossible to define something resem-
bling a student uniform. The Nalgene bot-
tle is the one item that could truly be a part
of a student uniform. The athletes like
them because they can measure their water
intake to the nearest ten milliliters, the
Greeks like them because it makes them
look athletic, outdoorsy people like them
for their durability and the activists like
them because it makes them look out-
doorsy. It's a branding success story.
Nobody refers to one as "my water bottle,"
it's always "my Nalgene."
One of the most surprising aspects of
the Nalgene's success is its penetration
into one of the most impenetrable of mar-
kets - the political activists. These are
people who get their clothing from thrift
stores, eat organic food and decry the
labor and environmental practices of just
about every fashionable or popular brand.
Surprisingly, this group seems to be
among the most likely to use Nalgene
water bottles. True, they are decorated
with stickers proclaiming the virtue of
every leftist cause imaginable, but that
doesn't diminish the glory of the Nalgene
name. The traditional activist tenets of
buying generic brands or secondhand are
cast aside for the sake of the Nalgene.
Nalgene markets itself as socially
responsible, which surely scores it points
with this crowd. Its website speaks vol-
umes about the environmental friendliness
of plastic, claiming it emits few noxious
chemicals once it gets to landfills and that
there is currently more paper waste than
plastic waste in landfills. Maybe evening
the plastic to paper ratio in landfills will
bring about some form of environmental-
ly-friendly equilibrium, but I'm still not so
sure using more plastic is the answer. The
website also says that plastic bottles are
better than glass bottles because they're
lighter, saving semi trucks gasoline. Never
mind that plastic is an oil derivative.
This guise of environmental awareness
is a clever technique used by a wide range
of brands to attract those normally averse
to conspicuous consumption. If a compa-
ny can make it seem as if buying their
product will make the world a better place,
how could anyone dislike it? It's capitalis-
tic fulfillment: the more you consume, the
more you're improving the world, and thus
the better you are as a person. Grocery
chain Whole Foods is notorious for using
this strategy, making its customers feel
environmentally and socially responsible
for buying organic food while simultane-
ously paying workers substandard wages,
crushing local grocery stores and inducing
sprawl with its expansion strategies.
Nalgene bottles are also portrayed as
being durable containers for the true out-
doorsman. When you're hiking through
wastelands of Mongolia or climbing the
staggering Andes, you know your Nalgene
will be there to replenish your lost fluids.
Its thick shell will prevent it from breaking
when you're wrestling gorillas in Zaire,
and its watertight lid will prevent any cont-
amination when you're swimming across
the Amazon. The rugged, exotic lifestyle
associated with the bottles is the same
adventurous romanticism used to sell
SUVs. It's convincing people to buy items
they don't really need: Just as we people
using their Navigators to brave the danger-
ous, uncivilized passes of I-94, there are
countless students with Nalgenes who
would never even consider climbing into a
canoe or strapping on hiking boots.
The Nalgene bottle is a branding suc-
cess story here on campus, appealing to
people from all walks of life by portraying
itself as being rugged, environmentally
friendly and athletic all at once. Whether it
makes anyone rugged, environmentally
friendly or athletic is another story.
Mallen can be reached at
emmallen@umich.edu.
e problems need to be
ed and suggest that
ation alone cannot alle-
Clair is an LSA senior and a member
of the Dailys editorial board.
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HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY? WANT TO SEE IT IN
PRINT?
E-MAIL: MOMIN@MICHGANDAILYCOM
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A surprise on the Subcontinent
SUHAEL MOMIN AN LTERNATIVE PIN
When Indian
Prime Min-
ister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee called
for national elections
earlier this year, he
did so fully expecting
that his Bharatiya
Janata Party would be
the sole beneficiary.
After all, under BJP tenure, India emerged
as a high-tech powerhouse, achieved 8.6
percent annual GDP growth and took seri-
ous steps in easing cross-border tensions
with Pakistan. Thus, it came as a big shock
when, last week, Indian voters did not sim-
ply deny the BJP any significant gains -
they dealt the party a major defeat. In a
result that no political pundit could have
predicted, the previously waning Congress
Party was catapulted to power.
Of course, the Congress Party repre-
sents India's greatest political dynasty. Its
current leader, Sonia Gandhi, is the widow
of the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi,
son of India's first female prime minister,
Indira Gandhi, herself the daughter of
India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal
Nehru. In recent years, however, the Party
found itself sidelined - after Vajpayee's
election in 1998, and the emergence of a
BJP-led coalition, the Congress was
reduced to providing semi-constructive
criticism from the opposition bench.
Without a doubt, last week's rejection
of the BJP came as a major shock. Howev-
er, the election has deeper significance: It
demonstrates a remarkable degree of
maturity on the part of the Indian elec-
torate. For one, Gandhi, the latest heir of
Nehru dynasty, is not ethnically Indian.
Indeed, despite her Italian heritage, India's
citizenry elected Gandhi to the highest
position in the nation. Furthermore, when
Gandhi declined the top position, nominat-
ing instead prospective finance minister
Manmohan Singh, a Sikh, the public was
widely indifferent about his religion.
When President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
swore in Singh as India's 13th Prime Min-
ister on May 22, he became the first Sikh
to ever hold that position. Merely 20 years
ago, nobody could have foreseen that a
Sikh would hold India's top job. In 1984,
Sikh bodyguards assassinated Indira
Gandhi after she ordered Operation Blue
Star, an assault on the Golden Temple at
Amritsar, the holiest Sikh shrine, in an
effort to quell a militant Sikh separatist
movement. Today, Singh's religion is
effectively a non-issue. In the greater
scheme, the Indian electorate endorsed
Sonia Gandhi at the polls - her origin
was a non-issue. The BJP, which tried to
make Gandhi's Italian birth and imperfect
grasp of the Hindi language an issue, was
thrown out of power. Religion and ethnici-
ty, two politicized issues that tore savagely
at India's social fabric during the 1980s
and '90s, were rendered moot. Ironically,
an election held to help the Hindu nation-
alist BJP resulted in religious minorities
holding both of India's top positions.
The extraordinary elevation of Singh,
architect of India's economic liberaliza-
tion, to India's highest position holds great
promise. In many ways, India's economic
advancement can be attributed to the dar-
ing reforms Singh undertook during his
tenure as finance minister for Prime Min-
ister Narasimha Rao. When Singh inherit-
ed the position in 1991, India had barely
$1 billion in foreign exchange reserves;
the reserves now stand at almost $120 bil-
lion. In 1991, the fiscal deficit was a
whopping 8.5 percent of Indian GDP,
today it is half that. Twenty years ago,
there were three car manufacturers in
India. Now, dozens of companies, ranging
from Honda to Daimler-Chrysler, compete
freely. Singh's reforms opened India's
doors to foreign investment, simplified the
tax code, removed oppressive government
controls on production and ended many
monopolies propped up by restrictive laws.
With Singh at the helm, India's economic
future seems bright.
Last week's election, therefore, was
phenomenal in every sense. The BJP, and
its Hindu nationalist rhetoric, was dealt a
sound defeat. The Indian electorate cast
aside concerns about Sonia Gandhi's for-
eign origin; economic issues, not ethnicity,
drove the election. Manmohan Singh, a
Sikh, was confirmed and inaugurated with
no difficulty. Most importantly, even
though Congress campaigned on flaws in
the BJP's pro-liberalization economic poli-
cies, Singh has no plan to reverse the
reformation he himself set into motion.
With any luck, this election is a vanguard
sign, an indication that India is moving
beyond ethnic politics and accelerating on
its journey toward prosperity.
Momin can be reached at
smomin@umich.edu.