The Role of Boycotts in the Fight for Peace

[Flabbergasted]

Notes on Post-Election Strategy

by Paul Rockwell

After the election of George Bush, it took less than a week for peace activists to reach a consensus: "Stand and fight."

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Notwithstanding the consensus of defiance, questions of strategy remain to be addressed. How and where and by what means do we carry on the fight for peace? Do we continue to work within deformed, money-drenched elections? Or do we move into a new phase of direct, economic actions?

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No country is more market-driven, more intertwined with foreign commerce and trade, more dependent on the good will of workers and consumers, than the United States. Its war machine depends on parts produced in foreign countries, and there is growing feeling throughout the world that farmers, entrepreneurs, workers and consumers should do unto the U.S. what the U.S. does unto others.

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"The U.S. economy," she writes, "is strung out across the globe. It's economic outposts are exposed and vulnerable. Our strategy must be to isolate Empire's working parts and disable them one by one. No target is too small. No victory too insignificant."

"We could reverse the idea of economic sanctions imposed on poor countries by Empire and its Allies. We could impose a regime of People's sanctions on every corporation that has been awarded a contract in post-war Iraq. Each one of them should be named, exposed and boycotted—forced out of business. It would be a great start."

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"Already the Internet is buzzing with elaborate lists of American and British government products and companies that should be boycotted...They could become a practical guide that directs and channels the amorphous but growing fury in the world."

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The Pending World-wide Boycott

All over the world, peace and anti-globalization movements are preparing to put Roy's concepts into practice. They are calling for a new kind of strategy to end the occupation of Iraq: a well-organized, sustained boycott of U.S. and British goods. In its range and scope, the coming boycott (including divestment from U.S. corporations) could resemble the historic boycott of South African apartheid.

The theme of the boycott, unencumbered by riders or secondary demands, is clear and simple: end the heinous occupation of Iraq. The boycott will not subside until all U.S. and British troops are withdrawn from the sovereign soil of Iraq; until all U.S. military bases are dismantled; until all U.S. corporations on Iraqi soil are closed down.

Boycotts have often changed the world. The American Revolution began with the Boston Tea Party. The non-violent movement that brought down the British Empire included Gandhi's boycott against British textiles. The Montgomery bus boycott launched the civil rights movement. The United Farm Workers in the U.S., led by Caesar Chavez, were unionized through laborious national boycotts of lettuce and grapes. And of course, the international boycott of South Africa played a vital role in bringing down the system of apartheid.

Lots more.....

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1118-24.htm