Fighting for global justice while wearing Nike

20Nov09

From Engage:

Here are some boycotters of Israel after a successful campaign to rid Sussex University Student Union’s shelves of all those mounds of Israeli produce which were there before. But what is this? The feet of our international conscience appear to be clad in Nike. Haven’t these people read Naomi Klein from back when she was good?

And here’s a plan, by the Socialist Action-owned Palestine Solidarity Campaign, to smash Israeli growers and pickers on pretext of justice for Palestinians (who probably don’t want that kind of help).

Anybody who decides to participate in this boycott should understand that they are hurting modestly-remunerated Israeli growers and pickers.

///

Oh, and do you want an ethical microwave?

A further problem – the most recent issue of Ethical Consumer mag had a sunny ‘Boycott Israel Special’ news roundup, in which the only dissenting voice was a tiny expression of dismay from David Miliband. In this jolly little special, they promoted the academic, social and material boycott campaign without setting out what they hope to topple with the boycott (end Israel?), nor the ways in which they expect the boycott to effect this (clerical fascists win?), nor the endpoints for the boycott (Israel is cancelled), nor the difference between avoiding helping the settler movement on the one hand and boycotting all of Israel on the other (the difference is enormous), nor any history of the conflict (i.e. that there are two sides). I found Ethical Consumer deeply unethical, and am almost certain that they would have been promoting a boycott of Jews in 1930s Germany, simply because it was going on at the time and consumer boycotts make them happy. So I find this unsettling, as would you if you were trying to buy in such a way that you did the right thing by people, animals and the planet, and the organisation you turned to for serious input revealed some rather squalid practices of its own. To put it another way – I no longer have confidence Ethical Consumer’s judgement. Good Shopping’s write-ups are undated. Incidentally, I haven’t analysed the difference between Ethical Consumer and Good Shopping. Perhaps they split back in the day… rivalry at the top or something.

So, after toying with a Whirlpool model which cost £100 more and didn’t seem to promise any extra quality, we ended up going for a simple £64 Sanyo model.

Bonus links: Team Sweat, Nike Malaysia slave labour investigation on YouTube, Nike hooked on sweatshops, Nike FAQs, Nike sweatshop slavery in China, Global Exchange Nike campaign, E4J Nike campaign, Behind the swoosh,

Previous Naomi Klein posts: Handling complexity, Boycott Naomi.

Previous keffiyeh-clad hipster posts: Playing at revolution, Not kewl.

Filed under: psuedo-alternative culture, the anti-Zionism of idiots   |  7 Comments
Tags: BDS, boycotts, Ethical Consumer, Israel boycott, microwaves, Naomi Klein, Nike, No Logo, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Sanyo, Socialist Action, Sussex University, Sussex University Student Union