The good and bad of boycotts

Of late, there’s been a pandemic of boycotts happening all over the world.

Malaysia itself is gripped in its own boycott fever. Some of the boycotts here have predictably descended into chaos, and with overtones of, as well as actual, racism and violence.

It’s as good a time as any to question whether boycotts are a good or a bad thing.

Do they help us achieve justice, or do they just cause unnecessary pain?

Boycotts create pain – well, that’s the whole point of boycotts actually. Boycotts are meant to create pain that will push for the changes you want.

A boycott is a power play. The boycotters hope their numbers and solidarity can create more pain than what they’d have to endure themselves, and that the pain will force their opponents to yield.

Pain is therefore inherent in all boycotts. The boycotters deprive themselves of something they deem necessary or good – a cool mobile phone, a hamburger, a cup of coffee – in order to cause the purveyors of these products and services financial or reputational losses.

Indirectly, boycotts affect others too. In the oft-quoted Selma bus boycott of the American civil rights era, the entire black population of the city faced hardship for more than a year because of it. That really took some sacrifice.

Suffering also happens to others associated who, willingly or otherwise, are on the side of boycotted parties – their suppliers, workers, and the general public too, with civic disruptions as well as tax and economic losses. Call it collateral damage if you will.

So, in a boycott all sides suffer, even if not always equally. But society itself can still win, if the boycott results in a fairer and more just society.

There’s been a lot of angst over the boycott of Malaysian businesses deemed to support, whether directly or indirectly, Israel and its western allies. This is because the boycotts are biting and having the desired financial effect.

Personally, I don’t particularly care for some of the boycotted products. I love the roadside Ramly burgers and kopi-O more than a MacDonald’s or a Starbucks. I can afford, in these instances anyway, not to care too much about them.

It’s been pointed out that some uncles and aunties suffer because they may lose their livelihood due to the boycotts. Actually, it’s more likely that young workers would be the ones who suffer, but mentioning aunties and uncles does elicit more sympathy.

I wouldn’t just dismiss that claim because there’s some truth in it, but many making it don’t really care about these uncles and aunties either. They’re either indirectly voicing opposition to the boycotts, or hiding the fact their sympathy is with the boycotted.

Where would the apartheid system in South Africa be if it wasn’t for the concerted, decades-long boycotts against them? The apartheid regime and their supporters also made the same argument about the boycotts hurting normal people, but I seriously doubt they really cared about them either.

But don’t forget that the real boycotts, the ones that cause the biggest pains, are those carried out by the big nations. Except that they don’t call them boycotts, but rather sanctions or embargoes, which somehow makes them sound more just and legitimate.

Some of these boycotts – sanctions and embargoes – have lasted for decades, and cause untold misery to millions. Certainly, no boycott organised by individuals has had as much impact as those organised by nations.

The US has been boycotting Cuba in one form or another since 1958. That’s almost seven decades, even if most of humanity nowadays isn’t even aware of it.

The UN has consistently asked for the Cuban boycotts to be lifted, but has always been stymied by the US veto, supported only by Israel.

Given how powerful the Israeli and Cuban emigre lobbies in the US are, those sanctions and embargoes would likely remain for a long time, even if the Cuban population now are the third or fourth generations of people facing life under the boycott.

Iran is another country facing US-led boycotts which have caused much suffering. Now it’s facing even more boycotts within days of their (and you seriously cannot say unprovoked) recent attack on Israel.

I’ve been to both Cuba and Iran and must say their people are some of the friendliest people on earth. They’re a resilient people who’ve adapted to their hardship, and certainly aren’t the monsters they’re often made out to be.

But you certainly can see the impacts of the boycotts. Cuba seems frozen in the 1950’s, and Iran too has suffered, though they have suffered less because of their oil wealth. Certainly, a lot of uncles and aunties are amongst those who suffered, even if they are hugely outnumbered by the young.

China is facing some of these boycotts too, often in the form of embargoes and tariffs. The difference is China is a powerful and wealthy nation, and can ride out most of these hostile acts and even institute some themselves.

I’m not defending these countries, by the way. They’re not perfect and have a long history of treating their own people badly too. But do they deserve this treatment at the hands of the west, especially the US?

Not if you read up enough history about how they’ve been treated in the past by the west.

Boycotts when carried out by ordinary people are often against more powerful entities – a racist city that tells black people they can’t sit on seats reserved for whites, or huge global corporations who often have politicians in their pockets.

When nations boycott –through sanctions or embargoes or tariff and non-tariff barriers – it’s almost always against smaller and weaker nations. But perhaps such boycotts might mean the boycotted nations aren’t facing an imminent armed invasion, something to be thankful for.

What this says is there’s a huge amount of hypocrisy in much of the boycotts and sanctions and embargoes, more so when it’s practiced as a political weapon whether by nations or individuals.

The US and much of the west seem to find it justifiable to sanction and embargo Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine and the various war crimes they claim Russia has committed there.

But the disproportionate, collective punishment against civilians in Gaza, which looks more and more like a genocide by the day, seem to go unnoticed by the same western powers.

How many deaths would it take before justice is applied? What if you’re an ordinary human being who doesn’t have the power of nations to change any injustice you see?

What you can do, given that often the ballot boxes themselves can’t fix the massive hypocrisy of such leaders, is to vote with your money by boycotting.

We must first understand the issues well, and let our conscience rather than our emotions lead the way. There are, as we’ve seen locally and elsewhere, many boycotts which are nothing but cruel, hypocritical political theatre.

But there’ve been just boycotts too that have seriously addressed injustices, such as the discrimination, if not outright subjugation, of the African-Americans and the black and coloured South Africans.

So, boycotts, if organised and supported by conscientious and well-informed people, are not wrong, and could even be just and effective. I wouldn’t feel bad taking part in such boycotts.

After all, they’re not as bad as the powerful nations’ own boycotts, often based on ideologies or outright racism, that can last for decades and create untold misery for millions of innocent people.

Of all hypocrisies in boycotts, those are the ultimate ones. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.