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| Juan Valdez |
According to a Times
story Migros, a Swiss retailer put pictures of Hitler on its “mini-cream
containers.” (“For Swiss, Distasteful Jolt With Coffee: Hitler Creamer,” NYT,
10/22/14). The Times quotes Tristan Cerf of Migros as saying, “Usually the
labels have pleasant images like trains, landscapes and dogs—nothing polemic
that can pose a problem…You cannot put Pol Pot or a terrorist on a milk
container. It’s unacceptable.” According to The Times article, this isn’t the
first time this kind of mishap has occurred. The writer of the Times piece, Dan
Bilefsky, comments, “In the spring, a German furniture chain apologized for
selling ceramic mugs with Hitler’s face on them.” Can we say that rather than
this being a wake up call about the banality of evil, that it’s a case of the
banality of evil providing a wake up call? Or shall we assume that this is just a matter of one manufacturer dealing with the problem of the banality of coffee which has never been a match for NoDoz. Usually people drink coffee for the
caffeine so seeing Hitler on a creamer or a mug is naturally going to add to
the jolt. Apologies are really not necessary. The idea of putting Hitler’s face
on common household goods is likely to keep a lot of people on their feet. It
wouldn’t be surprising if stock in Red Bull took a tumble when Migros started
to add the faces of Hitler and Mussolini to its creamer. And if its line of
Hitler and Mussolini creamers proves successful, it won’t be long before we see
other giants of annihilation like Osama bin Laden and even Abu bakr al-Baghdadi
on the labels (in place of more beneficent faces like that of Elsie the Cow or that famous representative of the Columbian coffee bean Juan Valdez). Of course, any creamer maker worth its salt is going to claim,
as Migros has done, that it’s all a big mistake. But that, as they say, goes with the
territory.
