On Switzerland and boycotts
It seems that offence has been taken at my reference to two bloggers in my last entry who reacted to the vote against minarets in Switzerland last Sunday to the effect of “I won’t be going there then”. I’ve Googled the first name of the person who took the offence and I can’t find any articles from the past week or so which also include “Switzerland”, which leads me to think that the first and last paragraphs in this post refers to my last entry. Doubtless she will deny it, though; but it does mention that the person who wrote what offended her is white (like me), male (like me) and that the other person mentioned was Ginny (as is the case with what I wrote).
Well, I had no intention of picking a fight with her or Ginny; Ginny is my friend and has been for several years. What I had a problem with is the reflexive “well, I won’t be going there, then” response. The situation for Muslims in Switzerland is not, as yet, anything like as dire as it is in some other parts of Europe, and only just over a quarter of the total population voted in favour. Nearly half abstained. The motion was rejected in the whole of the French-speaking region of Switzerland (this means, however, that the support in the German-speaking part was much higher, and the notion of minarets as militaristic symbols features is often referred to in debates on the subject in German). I believe it’s too early to write off Switzerland or say such things as “I won’t be going there”. Of course, I had no immediate plans to travel there myself, but they had nothing to do with the ban on minarets.
The reference to “white male privilege at work” is pathetic, really. I mentioned two people. The fact that both happen to be female is not really significant when it’s only two people, particularly when they are both white or more-or-less white. Of course, “privilege” is a ready trump card and some people will choose to make someone’s race or gender an issue because they have no real answer to what they were saying. If I had noticed this post by Umar Lee by the time I published mine, I would have included him in my list, because he has called for a boycott of the country.
I am strongly against this culture in which there is a call for a boycott every time there is the slightest downturn for Muslims in any country. Of course, it’s always small countries, like Denmark or Switzerland; I heard no call to boycott France after hijab was banned in schools there. There was a call to boycott the USA after the invasion of Afghanistan, but any such boycott promoted over the Internet is likely to be partial because any computer is likely to have parts made or assembled in the USA or by an American company (particularly the hard drive and processor). I remember that nobody who advocated boycotting the USA at that time could be clear on what we were supposed to be boycotting (whether it included products made outside the USA by an American company, for example) and how much it applied to Muslims in western countries besides the USA. When the country is killing Muslims, that’s one thing (and I’m not saying individual Muslims shouldn’t participate in boycotts of countries or companies for other ethical reasons; I am talking about boycotts by the whole community here); when a corporate newspaper prints an insult to the Prophet (sall’ Allahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) or there is a ban on a non-essential piece of architecture, that is something else and does not merit a boycott, in my opinion.
When Muslims rely so much on products made in Europe, particularly food, it is unwise to boycott a country almost as a matter of course every time Muslims are offended in that country. Why would they produce halaal food for export to the Gulf if people will just stop eating it if a prominent person or organisation in the same country, beyond their control, or the government, offended their customers and the product was boycotted? Before long, companies will get the message and stop production. We should not boycott except in cases where the situation of Muslims there is dreadful, such as when they are subjected to persistent harassment, or to discriminatory laws which affect their everyday lives, or to state terrorism, or where that state is actually at war with the Muslims. The situation in Switzerland, or any other European country, may change in such a way as to make a boycott justifiable, but that is not the case now.
