Muhtar Kent - Son of WW II Hero - New CEO of Coca Cola
Filed under: Business, Europe, Feature, History, United States, World War II — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on December 8, 2007 @ 3:10 pm CET
Coca Cola has a new CEO: it’s Turkish-American Muhtar Kent. Kent has a long history and successful career at Coca Cola and will, from now on, be the man in charge of this gigantic corporation.
Kent was born in Turkey and has dual citizenship (of both Turkey and the US).
He’s the son of Necdet Kent: a Turkish diplomat who saved many Jews during World War II, a true hero. A short summary of his good deeds:
He was posted as Consul General to Marseilles between 1941 and 1944, gave Turkish citizenship to dozens of Turkish Jews living in France who did not have proper identity papers to save them from deportation to the Nazi gas chambers.
On one occasion in 1943, Kent boarded a train bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp after Nazi guards refused to let some 70 Jews with Turkish citizenship disembark. After more than an hour on the train, the guards let Kent and the Jews leave.
A Jewish worker at the consulate had alerted him that 80 Turkish Jews living in Marseilles had been loaded into cattle cars for immediate transport to certain death in Germany. The Jews were crammed one on top of the other in the wagon, which was meant to transport cattle. “To this day, I remember the inscription on the wagon: ‘This wagon may be loaded with 20 heads of cattle and 500 kilograms of grass’”. Overcome with sorrow and anger at the sight, Kent approached the Gestapo commander at the station, and demanded that the Jews, whom he said were Turkish citizens, be released. The official refused to comply, saying that the people were nothing but Jews.
Undeterred, and in a leap of courage and human benevolence, Kent turned to the Jewish worker from the consulate and said, “Come on, we’re getting on this train, too.” Pushing aside the soldier who tried to stop him, he jumped into the wagon. The German official asked him to get off, but Kent refused. The train started to move, but at the next station, German officers boarded and apologized to Kent for not letting him off at Marseilles; a car was waiting outside to take him back to his office. But Kent explained that the mistake was not that he was on the train - but that 80 Turkish citizens had been loaded on the train. “As a representative of a government that rejected such treatment for religious beliefs, I could not consider leaving them there,” he said. Dumbfounded by his uncompromising stance, the Germans ultimately let everyone off the train.
“I cannot forget the embraces, the expression of gratitude in the eyes of the people we rescued and the inner peace that I felt when I go to bed in early morning”, he said.
He also “issued Turkish identity documents to scores of Turkish Jews living in southern France or who had fled there and did not hold valid Turkish passports.” In 2001, Kent and two other diplomats, Namik Kemal Yolga and Selahattin Ulkumen, were honoured with Turkey’s Supreme Service Medal as well as a special medal from Israel for rescuing Jews during the Holocaust.
Quite something.
1 Xel
December 8, 2007 @ 4:37 pm CETHe’s not going to make me buy any coke. Nor is he going to change my opinion about their business practices. Hope he is a good man.
2 Michael van der Galien
December 8, 2007 @ 4:38 pm CETWhat’s your problem with Coca Cola?
3 Xel
December 8, 2007 @ 4:55 pm CET"What’s your problem with Coca Cola?"
It’s made out of sugar, water, acid and fattening energy; it’s advertised all the time (and I prefer to not buy anything advertised); it’s an unnecessary indulgence that caused pollution and a waste of fresh water when produced; it allowed members of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party to run the company in Germany (even while it presented itself as patriotic by supplying the soldiers with colored sugar water); it allowed the bottling companies they hired in Colombia to work with the Colombian government and paramilitias (the latter declared terrorists by the US) to keep the workers from working for better pay et al.; it was one of many soft drinks companies targetted by official Indian health agencies for selling products with too much pesticide in it; it allowed the Indian branch to spend almost two years draining ground-water that peasants in Kerala needed for rice paddies…
In short, I’ll never buy anything from coca-cola. I demand more from companies.
4 Xel
December 8, 2007 @ 4:56 pm CET"working for better pay et al"
organizing, that is.
5 Michael van der Galien
December 8, 2007 @ 4:58 pm CETHmm, I like Coca Cola!
6 Xel
December 8, 2007 @ 5:02 pm CET"Hmm, I like Coca Cola!"
That’s just because Coke is "usual".
7 Michael van der Galien
December 8, 2007 @ 7:00 pm CETNo, that’s because I like the taste of Coca Cola and because I respect corporations that have been able to become so successful.
And a technicality: use ” after . not before. And it’s better to use ‘ than ” in this case since you’re not quoting anyone directly.
8 Interested
December 8, 2007 @ 7:40 pm CETOh C’mon Michael, you obviously do not know why you like something. heh, what a crock.
9 C Stanley
December 8, 2007 @ 7:48 pm CETActually it’s not sugar (at least in US- I’m not clear on whether international versions use sugar) it’s high fructose corn syrup, which is worse than sugar.
I can’t stand the stuff (and it is nutritionally an abomination), but to each his own.
10 Xel
December 8, 2007 @ 7:54 pm CET"No, that’s because I like the taste of Coca Cola and because I respect corporations that have been able to become so successful."
The taste thing is not anything to debate, of course, but economic success can’t be the only good measure of where you should vote with your money. If a less sprawling entity did what Coca-Cola did you would not be so lenient. But isn’t that what corporations are - a method to gain individual rewards without worrying about individual responsibility?
11 Tully
December 8, 2007 @ 8:03 pm CETCoca Cola is still made with real sugar in some places. Hawaii and Mexico, for example, where cane sugar is cheaper than corn fructose syrup. For those wanting "the real thing" you can also keep your eyes open for the limited runs of kosher Coca Cola products made for Passover, which are made with cane sugar or beet sugar to conform with Passover dietary restrictions.
Shorter Xel: "It offends my selectively applied perpetual indignancy."
12 C Stanley
December 8, 2007 @ 8:07 pm CETInteresting about the ‘kosher Coke’, Tully- I’d never heard of that.
I don’t begrudge Xel voting his dollars with his convictions- if you want to invoke morality into consumerism, that’s your right. If you want other people to do so, you also have the right to convince them that your moral convictions are sufficient reason to prioritize them in your purchasing choices.
13 Michael van der Galien
December 8, 2007 @ 8:10 pm CETThe scary thing is, Christine, that many people like that don’t want to ‘convince’ anyone, they want the government to step in.
14 Dustin Metzger
December 8, 2007 @ 8:14 pm CETAs long as C&C doesn’t axe Vault Zero I couldn’t care less who’s in charge…. just sayin.
15 C Stanley
December 8, 2007 @ 8:14 pm CETAgreed, Michael, and I almost wrote that- but frankly I didn’t see Xel advocating that in this case at all- he just said he’d never buy their products. And that’s an appropriate reaction if one feels there’s a moral issue in purchasing.
16 Tully
December 8, 2007 @ 8:16 pm CETNecdent Kent is one of many heroes who used their diplomatic status with the Vichy government to save Jews from the Nazis. Another such was Hiram Bingham IV, who as US Vice Consul to France saved hundreds of French Jews until his actions brought about his transfer to Portugal by the Roosevelt administration–whose position was that no visas should be issued to Jewish refugees. In Portugal Bingham did what he could to track the Nazi network into South America, until forced from office by Truman in 1945 for doing so.
Bingham never said a word about his efforts, or how they led to losing his hard-earned position in government. It was not until his death in 1988 that a search of his papers showed why he had been forced out of diplomatic service, and made clear the great extent of his efforts to save French Jews. And it wasn’t until the Bush administration that the government officially acknowledged and recognized his efforts.
17 Tully
December 8, 2007 @ 8:24 pm CETChristine–all Coke is kosher, but Passover Kosher is even more restrictive. No grain content allowed, so corn syrup is Right Out. If you find Passover Kosher Coke, it’s made with real sugar. The cap symbol would be the usual "circled U" kosher mark with a "-P" after it. Usually only found in the major metros for a few weeks before Passover, mostly in the 2-liter bottles, and you have to be looking for it.
18 Tully
December 8, 2007 @ 8:31 pm CETOh, and sometimes you can find Mexican-made real sugar Coca Cola in hispanic groceries (old-style glass bottles only), and sometimes in Florida you can get Carribean-made real-sugar Coca Cola. You may be able to get real-sugar coke in Puerto Rico as well–it’s been quite a while since I made it down there.
Even if sugar got cheaper than HFCS again in the US most bottling plants would have to re-tool to handle it.
19 Xel
December 8, 2007 @ 8:40 pm CET"If you want other people to do so, you also have the right to convince them that your moral convictions are sufficient reason to prioritize them in your purchasing choices."
I thought I did but apparently Coca-Cola can enjoy their eye-moistening success even though they condoned the harming of other individuals’ pursuit of happiness because they profited. If I did that I’d be jailed. That my government could jail me for some crimes but not, for example, the people in charge of a Swedish company whose extension in a third-world country committed -with the Swedish company owners’ sanction or oversight - the equivalent of threats, assault, ruination or deprivation of commons, selling products breaching the law regarding the harmfulness of their content or theft would be as evil as socialism. IF they had the power to stop actions analogous to, say, the continuing and lengthy abuse of people in Colombia and did not I would want my government to crack down on them so hard songs would be written about it.
20 Xel
December 8, 2007 @ 8:45 pm CET"Shorter Xel: "It offends my selectively applied perpetual indignancy.""
Shorter Tully: "I’m too lazy to investigate whether Xel applies the same standards elsewhere. Look at my pretty strawman."
21 Tully
December 8, 2007 @ 9:42 pm CETMore short Xel: “I got nothin’ but posturing and insults.”
More short Tully: Speechless–too busy ROFLMAO.
22 Xel
December 8, 2007 @ 11:08 pm CETTully, you are casting down a serious belittlement with no examples or evidence of hipocrisy and then resort to fark.com-levels of retorts when I point out that you are doing so. Can I nicely ask you to either get more substantial or to just stop?
23 Tully
December 9, 2007 @ 12:09 am CETXel, you tossed out the first “serious belittlement” consisting of your own sophomoric moral posturing. You’re welcome to that. And I’m free to sneer at it as what it is–the pompous posturing of the perpetually indignant. Your immediate response to that was ad hominem, and you’re welcome to that as well. I’ll continue to find it funny.
I didn’t accuse you or anyone of hypocrisy (I’m sure your indignation is sincere
), was pretty clear about what I did say, and thus the only strawmanning going on is yours, namely in assigning to me things I did not say.
You may return to your indignation and moral posturing. I will return to mocking it as I see fit.
24 Xel
December 9, 2007 @ 12:29 am CET"Xel, you tossed out the first “serious belittlement” consisting of your own sophomoric moral posturing. "
No, you belittled me on no grounds and said that my indignation (which is perfectly justified regarding Coca-Cola) was on standards that I apply selectively, thus implying that I am biased against companies and that this means I should be taken less seriously.
You showed no proof that I have previously not applied the standards I brought up in Coca-Cola’s case because that would have indicted something I have a positive bias towards. I said you made a strawman out of me. You said I postured and insulted you for adapting your form of commenting (originally used by the much more competent Daniel Davies) while stating your accusation of hipocrisy was baseless.
In short, you used an unfounded accusation meant to belittle my motives and ethical standards for criticizing Coca-Cola, and when I said you did so you said I made an ad hominem.
"I didn’t accuse you or anyone of hypocrisy"
You said my "perpetual indignancy" (How is this an insult? Is it a mental illness to feel personally upset for the mistreatment of others, to feel sincerely angry with injustices in the world?) was applied "selectively", thus implying I was irrational in my anger and that I was only targetting Coca-Cola because it is a big company.
"namely in assigning to me things I did not say."
I am saying you accused me of not using the standards I held against Coca-Cola against entities that I am biased towards, providing no evidence.
"You may return to your indignation and moral posturing. I will return to mocking it as I see fit."
And your words will neither make me feel undignified nor will I feel I am merely posturing. Your mocking is as ineffective as it is unbecoming of an adult.
25 C Stanley
December 9, 2007 @ 1:29 am CETMy apologies in advance, but this conversation just cries out for this, doesn’t it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8H5263jCGg
26 Tap
December 9, 2007 @ 4:09 am CETI love coke, myself.
27 Dustin Metzger
December 9, 2007 @ 1:28 pm CETNo… nothing ever calls for that. That’s just painful to watch.
28 C Stanley
December 9, 2007 @ 2:28 pm CETHeh, perhaps this is a technique the CIA ought to consider.
29 israel wines
May 27, 2008 @ 10:06 pm CESTisrael wines…
At the dinner, a friend and I were lucky enough to be seated with a couple in the military that had recently moved to New York from Turkey , and an Indian couple that lived in New Jersey. All of us favored different wines; I couldn’ t get enough of A…