topic by
ARAB
6/1/2002 (6:31) |
|
Bahrain's American guests and 'Islamic cola'
Arab consumers are discovering political empowerment in a globalized marketplace
Abdulhadi Khalaf
Special to The Daily Star
LUND, Sweden: On May 26, a number of US military personnel in Bahrain, and the wife of one of them, were involved in a brawl with the Bahraini owner of a beauty parlor and her staff.
Witnesses alleged the Americans physically assaulted the Bahraini woman. An angry crowd gathered and, as false rumors that she had been killed frustrated attempts to cool tempers, retaliated by beating the Americans. Police intervened and dispersed the crowd. Two Americans were hospitalized. The US Embassy in Bahrain issued a statement of regret and promised to “continue taking all necessary steps to ensure the appropriate behavior of our personnel, who are guests.
Under normal circumstances the incident would have ended there and then. American servicemen and women involved in fights have become part of the local scene in Bahrain. But these are not normal times. Anti-US feelings in Bahrain have been rising to new heights since the start of Israel’s offensive in the West Bank. Like the rest of the Arab world, Bahrainis are outraged by what they see as unquestioning US support for Israel’s excesses.
Soon, fresh graffiti appeared all over the island state headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet demanding the removal of US bases from Bahrain and the rest of the Gulf. Slogans and mobile phone text messages reminded people of Mohammed Jumaa, the young man whom Bahraini riot police killed in early April while seeking to control an angry demonstration at the US Embassy in Manama.
The incident reinvigorated the boycott campaign against American goods that was launched in the shadow of the Israeli incursion into the Palestinian territories and gave it its local rationale.
In Bahrain, as in several other Arab countries, the grassroots consumer boycott is gradually making its political mark. There is enough public anger to sustain it, and moves are being made to develop it. At the beginning of May, a conference of Arab NGOs was held in Dubai to coordinate aspects of the current campaign. Participants were urged to devise ways of expanding the boycott “into other fields such as oil, banks and stock markets.”
Bahraini owners of affected franchises have adopted a counter-strategy, stressing that theirs are local businesses that employ local workers. Some have gone to great lengths to explain that only a small proportion of their earnings gets paid to parent companies or suppliers in the US. Others have used Palestinian flags to decorate their stores, or have put out collection boxes draped with keffiyehs.
Their case has been backed by reports in the local press stressing how much these businesses contribute to the local economy.
Other affected businessmen have gone on the offensive, arguing that the boycott of American products is counter-productive as a form of protest, and that it would be more fruitful to focus on winning over US public opinion as a means of influencing decision-making in America.
In a country where everyone knows everyone else, there is considerable sympathy with local businesspeople affected by the boycott campaign. But incidents like that of May 26 can only strengthen it and help it spread.
While the political use of consumer boycotts is not new in the Arab world, their recent emergence in grass roots form is novel. Earlier organized economic boycott campaigns emphasized collective mobilization to achieve collective political and/or economic rights. The current boycott campaign focuses on the individual’s voluntary involvement and participation.
Tactics seem to have changed too. While the current boycott campaign is a protest action, it is not confrontational. Nor does it call on people to “give their all” as past political campaigns used to, but rather to make whatever small contribution they can. Its message is simple and direct: The least you can do is boycott US products. This reflects a growing awareness on the part of political activists of the centrality of the individual, and a possible waning of traditional collective values.
The debate that has resulted between advocates and opponents of this form of activism has, as elsewhere, raised a variety of practical and theoretical questions, including such recurring issues as finding alternatives to boycotted products. (Not, apparently, a problem for undiscriminating cola drinkers in Bahrain. The boycott of Pepsi and Coke has reportedly led to a boom in sales of an “Islamic” alternative Iranian-made Zamzam Cola).
Some critics of such collective action describe it as a form of “blackmail.” But it can be argued that cola drinkers in Bahrain, Cairo or Casablanca are only doing what consumers in advanced capitalist societies have been doing for decades: using their consumption to make a political point or to defend ethical, social and human values. It is, in the words of a keen observer, capitalism with consumer power.
They are, moreover, doing what the Americans have themselves been doing for decades boycotting every country whose politics they dislike.
Another of their features is that they are apolitical, in the sense that they do not seek to challenge local Arab governments or their alliances with the US though there is no guarantee that things will remain that way.
In his Weapons of the Weak, James Scott makes a case for all forms of resistance and defiance, arguing that even petty actions have a long-term cumulative effect. Through them, the weak signal their refusal to submit to the terms of their subjugation.
A potential consequence of the growing boycott campaign is, to use fashionable jargon, the empowerment of Arab consumers, who are beginning to discover the clout they can wield in a globalized capitalist marketplace.
Boycotters of Pepsi, Starbucks or Estée Lauder are thus transformed into active participants in the struggle for a free Palestine.
Abdulhadi Khalaf is a Bahraini academic who teaches th eSociology of Development at the University of Lund in Sweden
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|