Boycott US, hurt ourselves [Archives:2002/18/Viewpoint]

As Arabs, we are convinced that boycotting American goods to protest US support of Israeli aggression against Palestinians will have a large impact on its economy.
However, as Arabs start boycotting those goods, we are seeing the vulnerability of our economy and readiness to take such a courageous step.
For the last few weeks, several local companies have suffered from this boycott. Many companies that deal with American products have felt the pressure of such a boycott, even though they have nothing to do with the American political stance.
Some American companies that strongly support the Jewish state and specifically its latest aggressions in the Occupied Territories are far too involved in Arab countries. A good example of such companies is Microsoft, which openly expressed its support for the latest war waged against Palestinians. But as the manufacturer of the desktop programs that are in use in virtually every office in the Arab world, it is almost impossible to boycott its products because we are simply too reliant on them.
In other cases, the intermediate local beneficiaries from some American goods are far too many. A good example for that would be Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola products, which are sold at almost every grocery shop. Boycotting those two products will hurt grocery owners more than the American companies.
It is easy to ask for boycotting American goods and products in an expression of dissatisfaction of its business towards Israel. But it is not at all easy to implement such, because we have been depending on them for so long and it would be impossible to let go overnight. We wear American jeans, ride American cars, use American computers, study in American universities, eat American fast food, drink American soft drinks, and use American software. This column is written in Microsoft Word.
No one should interpreter my words as discouraging the boycott. But we need to be more realistic in measuring what is possible and what is not. We need to see how much we will lose and how much we will gain. We now see how connected the world has become, and how our dependency on others takes away our economic independence. We have become consumers of American goods at the expense of our own innovation.
This would not have happened if we had wiser Arab leaders who would not oppress their people, forcing them to immigrate and learn skills abroad. A significant portion of the bright people that develop and produce those American products and technologies have come from Arab and Islamic countries. It is only logical to see that we have become helpless and a burden on our economies because of our leaders wrong strategy
Even if we want to boycott American goods, we are simply unable to. We can try, and there is no harm in that. But we also need a long-term plan to see what went wrong, and why we have become so unproductive.

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