The Boycott Option: A Tool for Resistance
A personal reflection
Written By Mr Ish.
In this article I will discuss the general meaning and practice of the boycott method, then shift to what I think are good strategies for making your boycotting more effective. I will end by discussing the boycott movement against the genocide in Palestine as an example of how being informed and practical can help you amplify a single action to make a difference especially when a collective, educated effort comes into effect.
Boycotting is often dismissed, but it is a very effective method that can be used to pressure and bring change if done right. It is also a way that each and every one of us can use regardless of the effectiveness of a particular boycott movement to take nonviolent action while giving you agency as an individual.
A note on boycotts: Boycotting is a tool that can be used for both good and ill. For example, Hindu nationalists in India, despite having an almost monopoly on political power, use many tools bomb attacks, doxxing, and the boycotting of their Muslim neighbors to keep that minority poor.
Still, most boycott movements are movements for good. In my experience, the powerful may use a boycott only as a secondary tool, while people who have no power may find boycotting is the least risky and most effective method they can use to resist and put pressure on what they oppose.
Boycotting vs. the state
States have been using their own state boycott tactics against their own citizens for years. Political purges, blacklisting, and political repression/persecution are tools used by the state to punish and destroy people. Sadly, this has been happening more and more here in the United States, where I live to the point that we seem to be becoming and accepting that we are the same as those states we once deemed totalitarian. Here are some cartoonish laws and decrees that are becoming common in the US:
- You can't get FEMA funding unless you pledge loyalty to the Israeli state.
- In most universities and community colleges you can lose your job or get expelled if you call Israel a genocidal state or call out Zionist influence in our government.
- Demonstrating or taking a stand against data centers is now risky business. It will surely get you doxxed, and it will definitely affect your employment.
- As for those worried about Flock cameras, they had better not even post about them on Facebook because Big Brother will find you and will surely punish you.
So when free speech is banned and public demonstrations put you in legal and physical harm, what is left for you to do especially if you have a family and you worry about others who may depend on you? How can you, a little and broken citizen a number stand up for what you believe? And how can you push for change and hold on to your convictions in the age of electronic tyranny?
While I believe this is a most important time for us living in the United States, given what our government has become, I believe that each and every one of us who wants to stay free has to do everything a person can to rescue ourselves. I also understand that many of us have families that depend on us to be there. I say this: boycott your oppressors. Boycott your politicians if you can't find a single one who isn't an automaton clone of the others. Boycott the factories that make bombs and kill children. Boycott the artists and influencers who make millions selling you things.
The other side of boycott: empowering people who share your values. When you boycott a company or service in a smart way, you in turn empower other companies making the same products to grow, profit, and increase their market share.
Techniques and thoughts on the best way to boycott
- Educate yourself: know which business or entity is involved in, for example, an illegal war.
- Plan the alternative: to have or advocate for an effective boycott, you need to find alternative goods made by alternative companies. Most of the time this is easy to achieve, but when it comes to specific products it can require some thought.
- Share the message and call for boycott: while boycotting is a personal effort, as a strategy it is only effective as a collective effort. Depending on where you live and how much speech is allowed, you need to take this crucial step while keeping yourself safe. In this day and age we have many alternative ways to post ideas while keeping your personal information hidden, if need be.
Examples and scenarios
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Boycotting is a strategy and must stay flexible. To avoid burnout due to the fact that the effects of boycotts are often delayed for months or years be flexible.
- Example: If you boycott McDonald's for giving the IDF free food and opening businesses in illegal settlements in Palestine, and you find yourself living in a small town where McDonald's is the only restaurant in town, and your child asks you for a treat, I say take your kid, maybe less often, and do not order for yourself.
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Electronics and software
- Do not forget the used market. For example, if I am boycotting Dell computers and I do not want my money to go to Dell, I can easily buy a used Dell that is two to three years old with almost the same specifications but my money will go to an individual or a local seller.
- The same goes for using a Linux or Unix operating system. Instead of worrying that your money does not reach Microsoft or Apple given their many evil deeds as a bonus, this can be great for your privacy and personal information.
These techniques are small, but they are not trivial. They are what the boycott looks like in practice and they point to something larger.
In the end, the boycott is a modest tool with an immodest ambition: to let people with no power apply the one pressure they still hold. It is flexible enough to survive a small town and a small budget; it is collective enough to matter; and it is informed enough, when we do the work, to hit where it counts.
The boycott of the genocide in Palestine is the example I keep coming back to not because it is easy, but because it proves the point. Being informed and practical does not make one action loud. It makes it count. And when educated effort becomes collective effort, the single action stops being single.
That is the option on the table. Not the only tool, and not a guaranteed one but a real one, available to anyone willing to use it.