Mahir Haneef
Kochi
Two years after the invasion of Iraq, boycott campaigns against American and British products in Kerala have gone off the track and the targeted companies have started to pickup sales again, leaving only the cadres of the organisations that conducted the campaign to stick to the dogma.
While the sales volume, which plummeted and showed more than a 50 per cent drop following the campaigns, is gaining momentum, leaders of the various organisations point out lack of basic awareness among Kerala Muslims as the main reason for the failure of boycott.
Muslims of Kerala lack the inner drive to show continued resistance to western products, said KP Zakkariah, state secretary of Ithihadu Shubbanul Mujahideen (ISM). “People forget their ideologies when it comes to buying products for day-to-day use,” he said.
The lack of quality products to replace those offered by American and British companies was the
main reason for Muslims to go back to Western products, said EM Abdul Rahman, chairman of National Development Front (NDF). “The campaign cannot be termed a complete failure. Our cadres and a small section of Muslims who became aware through the campaign still continue to boycott Western products,” he said.According to Jamaat-e-Islami Hind state leader T Arif Ali, the boycott campaigns reflected the general emotional state of the Muslim society rather than a measured step against Western products. NDF chairman Abdul Rahman also feels that it was a step to create awareness among people than to pose an economical threat to the US.
Explaining the lack of basic awareness among Kerala Muslims, Arif Ali said “If the Japanese community is offered an American apple and a Japanese apple, they would buy their product even if it costs more. But such an attitude can’t be found here as people lack awareness regarding the need for such a move.”
All the leaders agree to this and stated that the problem was dealt as an emotional issue and not as an economical resistance. The reason why the problem was dealt so was because it happened far away, they said. NDF chairman Abdul Rahman said “Had such an issue happened here and the victims were the people here, they would have shown stiff resistance. That is the same reason why guerrilla warfare is still continuing in Iraq.”
Though some Muslim organisations had good business base in Kerala and could have promoted swadeshi products and helped in ousting Western products, such a move didn’t occur anywhere in Kerala. Meanwhile, NDF had conducted open markets of swadeshi products at various places during the peak of the boycott campaign.
According to Arif Ali, the boycott campaigns were a right move as colonialism can be dealt only in the markets and needs to be dealt so. “Those companies (Western companies) buy the successful swadeshi companies after three or four months of picking up sales. So it was not wise to support any swadeshi product,” he said.
The leaders of the various organisations view Iraq issue as something more than a Muslim issue. “This is not a problem of Muslims alone. Colonialism is a threat to humanity,” said Arif Ali. NDF chairman Abdul Rahman agreed to this and said “Iraq invasion is a challenge to human rights and equality.”
