Stand up to activist bullies
In 2009, animal rights activists went to the hometown village of Novartis CEO Dan Vasella and and painted “murderer” on the church. A week later, they desecrated the graves of his sister and parents. Then they set fire to his Austrian vacation home. Vasella has some advice for Tucker Carlson and others on responding to activist intimidation on and scare tactics.
✓ Don’t stay quiet. You have the duty as a citizen to speak up. If everyone remains silent, then violent people prevail.
✓ Security consultants say, don’t respond, don’t react. Vasella says, be cool and react with logic. Be prudent, take precautions, but don’t be afraid. Be willing to engage with activists such as Greenpeace – if they have a point. But not if their objective is to create fear and uncertainty. Those are terrorist attempts at psychological tension.
“Suffering in silence doesn’t help anybody. Ducking to stay off the radar of negative publicity is a bad recipe.”
✓ In minor instances it’s best to stay quiet. It’s a judgment call. Make a deliberate decision, not an emotional one.
✓ Encourage dialogue, but let activists know that criminal activity won’t be tolerated.
✓ Visit activist websites to understand where they’re coming from. If blackmail and extortion are their game, dialogue is useless. Don’t win their support, win the public’s support.
✓ If you go public, do it immediately. Engage politicians and the press.
✓ Take necessary security measures for your family.
✓ Remember what your parents said: Stand up for yourself.
Did you know?
• Vasella has an M.D. from the University of Bern in Switzerland.
• As a child, he had asthma, tuberculosis and meningitis and spent a year in a hospital/sanatorium.
• One sister died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma at 19. Another sister, also a doctor, was killed in a car crash.
Brown is one of 60-some CEOs included in Advice from the Top: 1001 Bits of Business Wisdom edited by Del Jones, who also wrote the historical novel, The Cremation of Sam McGee loosely based on the poetry of Robert W. Service. The novel is set in the 1898 heyday of yellow journalism. The narrator is a fabricating newspaper reporter working for William Randolph Hearst during the Spanish-American War and Yukon Gold Rush.
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