While a generation of our children is being raised on boycotting anything supporting the Zionist entity, the older generation among us realizes that this is not our first experience with boycotts. We boycotted Zionist supporters during the Second Palestinian Intifada in 2000, and later, we boycotted again after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, targeting American companies and projects. Since then, there have been various reasons for boycotts, including boycotting French products, followed by Danish products in support of the Prophet Muhammad – peace be upon him, and then boycotting Swedish products in protest against attacks on Muslim sanctities.
However, the return of the boycott raises a crucial question: why do these boycotts stop or even fade away? Certainly, the reason is not that these boycotts are ineffective or that they have achieved their initial goals. So, what is the reason? Boycotting is an economic action, and like any economic action, it depends on three foundations: incentive, favorable conditions, and alternative cost.
Regarding the incentive, no matter the motivation for the boycott, whether it’s a guilty conscience, support for a just cause, economic warfare, or economic liberation, the act of boycotting will strengthen as the incentive strengthens and weaken as it weakens. While the reasons for boycotting may still exist, the momentum and strength of the boycott usually decline over time. This is what those currently boycotting are banking on amidst the current war on Gaza, in addition to relying on economic manipulations that allow them to conceal the true beneficiaries of our money. To prevent the fading of this rightful boycott, some are working hard to coin new terms for it, avoiding a passing anger. Some call it “disengagement,” others call it “replacement,” and it has even been labeled as “conscious shopping.”
However, sustaining the boycott requires an ongoing incentive, like fuel that continues to burn to generate energy. This can be achieved by reminding ourselves of the importance of freeing ourselves from economic ties with forces supporting the Zionist entity. We must secure a place for ourselves in global humanitarian considerations and international human rights that we all agree have been recited to us day and night without actually affecting us. The sustainability also requires turning the boycott into an organized, systematic, and thoughtful action, as demonstrated by the growing strength and impact of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement worldwide over the past years.
Creating favorable conditions for the boycott is one of the most critical aspects that should be emphasized when calling for it. We are trying in vain to continue the same imported capitalist lifestyle from the West while simultaneously boycotting the most important commercial entities that form the backbone of this capitalist life. What if we reevaluate the lifestyle we live, not to go back decades but to make the economic pattern of our lives antagonistic to those brands that reek of the blood of the innocent? What if we replace their presence with youth, women, or family groups from our neighborhoods and families, benefiting from the knowledge available on the Internet to offer alternative economic solutions to products and services we do not want in our lives again?
One of the first things we learn in economics is the concept of opportunity cost, which refers to other choices that were possible and are sacrificed for the economic choice we make. Boycotting, as an economic act, includes this alternative cost. Giving up economic options of products and services we used to consume involves sacrificing other things, such as easy and customary shopping methods, as well as the long time spent checking products, companies, and even countries of origin. Therefore, I emphasize again that boycotting requires us to create favorable conditions to make it an easy and less time-consuming choice, increasing the masses of those participating in the boycott.
Despite everything, and despite the ethical, humanitarian, and human necessity of this boycott before it is a religious duty, it is still not enough and not at the required level to confront the aggressive aggression on children, women, men, the sick, doctors, paramedics, journalists, and all the people of Gaza who have the right.
So, what is the economic action required as a response to the level of this blatant aggression? This crucial and urgent question makes me ask myself before posing it to you:
How will the next boycott be?!
