Gary Willis faced a moral dilemma when he found himself disguising South African Orange Juice as Israeli Orange Juice during the time of trade-sanctions against South Africa.
 Gary Willis |
In the 1980s Gary Willis gave up his boring job in an insurance company to go to live on a kibbutz. He wanted to just chill out and find himself.
The kibbutz he worked on made fruit juice. He started out picking oranges and grapefruit, but being a wee chap, he found this a bit of a strain. So Gary was transferred to the juice factory.
He was given an ice pick and directed towards rusting catering size tins of juice. Gary noticed that on the side it said "Produce of the Republic of South Africa". It was the height of the trade sanctions them and Nelson Mandela was still imprisoned on Robben Island. Gary realised that the kibbutz was involved in repackaging the juice as produce of Israel or produce of many countries.
Gary was only 20 at the time and describes himself as "wet behind the ears". He says, "I knew it was wrong but not enough to go and confront the manager of the factory". He did mention it to a few other people on the kibbutz, but no-one else seemed to be that bothered.
Going to a kibbutz and meeting people from different nations had a lasting impact on Gary. On returning to Britain he took a course in Third World Studies and became involved with the anti-apartheid movement. He's certain that nowadays he would behave very differently.
More Information
