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As Naomi Klein, Canadian author and social activist, said 15 years ago in The Guardian, “Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the strategy should be tried and therefore advocated for is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent (Israel), it could actually work.”

Recently, Klein reconnected with Omar Barghouti, one of the founders of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) movement, and reflected on the theoretical effects we’d see today if our collective solidarity and supportive efforts towards BDS had gained more support.

In response, Barghouti replied that Israel “would not have been able to perpetrate its ongoing televised genocide in Gaza without the complicity of states, corporations and institutions.”

BDS is an 18-year-old human rights movement that advocates for the targeting of companies and institutions that contribute to the violations of Palestinian rights. Notably, the movement is inclusive, Palestinian-led, anti-racist and opposed, in principle, to all forms of discrimination, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.

However, some, like those at the Anti-Defamation League, believe that the BDS movement is inherently antisemitic, arguing that the movement is set out to dismantle Israel and delegitimize the Jewish state but others, like columnist Alastair Sloan at Al Jazeera, prove this to be an incorrect narrative.

Sloan said that the BDS “manifesto is a radical political position, but it is not anti-semetic.” He also makes it a point to tell people not to boycott Jewish shops, but instead boycott shops that buy Israeli goods.

According to the movement, boycotting involves withdrawing support from companies, divestment involves urging banks, institutions, universities e.t.c. to withdraw investments in Israeli companies and sanctioning involves pressuring the government to fulfill their obligations to end human rights violations in Palestine.

As we look towards the BDS movement in our own pursuits of justice and equality as college students, it’s crucial to remember that our actions speak volumes. If BDS is not the dogma, we as college students must embed this tactic in our everyday choices, and it’s time to wield our privilege for the greater good. The atrocities faced by the Palestinian people demand our attention and action, and one of the ways we can be more proactive in our response is through participating in mindful boycotting.

Boycotting is the first step in dismantling stratified systems of economically-driven power for years. As college students, we possess the power to address ongoing inequalities such as the genocide of the Palestinian people and take a more active role in protesting against oppressive systems, consciously.

The BDS website provides great resources to help understand what companies to boycott and divest from and why we should be. Sometimes these changes are simple shifts like buying a different shoe brand then you normally would and boycotting Puma as it “sponsors the Israel Football Association, which includes teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.” In other cases, these changes may represent larger lifestyle shifts like boycotting certain restaurants and fast-food chains like McDonald’s, whose locations in Israel were offering free meals to Israeli soldiers.

Or through boycotting Sabra – a hummus company that is a joint venture with the Strauss Group, an Israeli company that helps fund the Israeli Defense Forces – you can make the shift to try hummus from Palestinian-owned businesses like Baba’s.

Consumer boycotts offer a non-violent form of resistance, empowering us to resist complicity in genocide, and the good news is: they’re historically proven to work. One of the earliest boycotts was against sugar made by enslaved peoples in 1791 England when Parliament refused to abolish slavery. Consequently, this led to a drop in sales and a boost to those who sold sugar made by “free men.”

There have also been transformative movements centered around divestment such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which Malcolm X, a powerful advocate for Black and Palestinian simultaneous justice, supported which “launched civil rights into the national spotlight” and the Delano Grape Strike, in which five years of boycotts and protests led to America’s first farm workers union.

Since 2005, BDS has had a significant impact in raising awareness for divestment and cemented the success that boycotting can have. Through research and data comparisons of economic models and genocidal characteristics in contrast to Apartheid-era South Africa, BDS is effectively challenging Israeli apartheid.

Klein has detailed how, “the relevance of the South African model is that it proves BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, backroom lobbying) fail.”

It’s up to students to cut ties with unethical corporations that are simultaneously supporting ethnocide and ecocide.

Although caring might be a “nuisance,” it’s one indicative of luxury and privilege, and we have a moral responsibility to dismantle the systems that perpetuate the simultaneous exploitations and genocide of the Global South while we go about “business as usual” in the West. Our dystopian-like disparities are shocking, and it’s disheartening to see the inhumane world my generation is inheriting and the conformist attitudes being adopted by my privileged peers, friends, and family.

It’s inevitable to feel hopeless, but I strongly encourage these feelings of hopelessness to turn into an action-driven narrative, even if it’s passive, that empowers your daily consumerist decisions to be ones that align with humane corporations that don’t invest and profit off of the lynching and/or exploitation of innocent people. As we navigate our consumer-driven lives, intentional choices that align with our values of justice and humanity are a must.

We must recognize our privilege and leverage it to dismantle systems of oppression. Boycotting is not just a tactic, it’s a moral imperative. The BDS movement has shown us that consumer boycotts can be powerful tools in the fight against injustice. Let’s stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people by refusing to support companies complicit in their oppression. Let’s support ethical companies and divest from those who profit from injustice. Let’s amplify the voices of the marginalized and advocate for meaningful change.

Valeria Martinez Gutierrez is a sophomore majoring in Earth Science, Sociology and Environment, Sustainability and Policy. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at vmarti10@syr.edu.

Published on April 24, 2024 at 10:20 am