Since Israel started to attack Gaza many parts of the world has started to organize events such as demonstration and peaceful gatherings to voice out against Israel actions, and as usual the ally – United States of America. WARNING: The fact that I am currently serving an American company might cause me to be biased and clouds my judgment.
The biggest countrywide boycott was launched against 3 major brands: Colgate (toothpaste), Coca-Cola (carbonated beverage), and Starbucks (coffee chain).
To be really honest, the first thing that crossed my mind was that whether boycotting these brands (and other brands of US origin) will be beneficial towards the objective. And my first concern was that what will happen to Malaysians who are working for these giants. Since the topic here is related directly to Islam, I am wondering how many brothers and sisters of Islam would be suffering from the loss of job that may be caused by the boycott activity. Would the effect of the boycott to the US is significant enough for us to jeopardize the life of those people we call brothers and sisters?
Don’t answer that! I don’t want to know what you think — I was just thinking aloud and asking myself.
Not surprising to me, the list is long. Major popular brands (for the mass public not only the rich and famous) in Malaysia includes KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Huggies, Maggi, Nestle, IBM, Nokia, The Sun and countless others. And I am not even sure whether sales drop in Malaysia will have any effect for those in the States — maybe they are only collecting license fees, who knows?
If any of them are only collecting license fees and the licensee in Malaysia is not doing well I don’t reckon they will give any kind of discount to the failing company. Will they go bankrupt? Fat chance. Will the license holder in Malaysia go bankrupt? Probably. How many jobs will be affected? Plenty.
I am not saying whether the boycott is correct or wrong — I am simply saying my concern for others and one day maybe myself.
The American government is doing something we don’t like, do we punish the people? Some Americans are against the US Army invasion in Iraq and the US-Israel alliance.
One thing I am sure about, I have already been boycotting Fotopages for a couple of years now. Fotopages is owned by an Israeli company called Pidgin Technologies, based in Tel Aviv. It is a pure product of Israel. Most shocking to me is that there are more than 58,000 users registered from Malaysia. Malaysia is the winner with the most users. User count from Israel is merely around 700. Some people asked me how this company would make money when the service is free?
It’s actually very simple — from traffic. The traffic generated from users browsing the photos will cause the site ranks to increase, and in turn the advertisement revenue will also be significant. The conclusion is simple: By using Fotopages to share your photos you help fund the Israel economy and in the end the attacks against Palestine. If you really want to join the fight against Israel you should start telling your friends and deactivate your account at Fotopages. Your old photos do generate traffic from the search engines. —
