The Goods, The Boycott, and The Ugliness

The banter over the effectiveness of Boycotting French made products is far from over. I have watched these debates unfold with a very keen attention to reasoning and semantics. What’s certain is that almost every fallacy of reasoning taught in research methods class is committed. This is very much expected when one considers the nature of these debates. They were generally opinion pieces whose authors sought to appeal to the emotions and prejudices of their readers. The massive level of simplification that preys on the reader’s level of sophistication or lack thereof can easily be detected

Some have dismissed the Boycott as counterproductive for the pain it cause the laborer and the common employee. Such a claim posits that French companies come out of this boycott thumping their chests completely unscathed. That may be true in an employee owned environment and where residual income is an actual thing. This is not the case for Kiri, L’oreal and the likes and therefore, they will sustain considerable economic damages? One does not need to have a deep understanding of Macroeconomics to realize that this “proletarian advocacy” is duplicitous at best and flawed at a minimum. Rooting for the underdog is also an emotional narrative that holds no water in the world of business.

While minimum wage workers do suffer from loss or reduced income, the real money makers ( stakeholders) are the ones who stand to lose the most. To measure a company’s performance by how many workers get released is an intentional peddling of gross falsehood. This is not about the livelihood of the underpaid nor is it about the love for the overworked minimum wage worker. To show genuine empathy to the poor downtrodden worker, we ought to be shedding light on their wretched work condition, their unsafe working environment, their lousy health coverage, and the long work hours that don’t guarantee a living wage.

There are also those whose hearts are in the right place but they often sound like that who catch the tail end of a two hour long movie and go no to write a review about it. Hate speech and state sponsored antagonism has consequences. These consequences come in the form of radicalized youth who have played by the book just to be told that they don’t belong. They survived discriminatory public policies that ghettoized their neighborhoods and made sure that there is very little chance of upward mobility for them. The slim chance that one makes it is an absolute aberration who should be applauded given all the adversity they has to overcome.

France has sown the wind of division and it’s now harvesting the hurricane. France is self-destructing and it only has itself to blame. Racist, repugnant, divisive policies that marginalizes the other will only result in the scenario of the chickens coming home to roost. The clichéd Bull that’s going to knock France on its derriere has been furiously charging back and kicking dust for the last couple of decades. The impact is inevitable, imminent, and nothing short of devastating

French president, Macron, must have realized that he stuck his foot in his mouth. To mitigate the damaging economic impact of the boycott, Macron granted Al Jazeera Arabic a long interview where he issued a half heated apology. He read from the same script and repeated the sentence uttered by those who realized that they have let their emotions get the best of them. “My words were taken out of context” “My message was lost in translation” said Macron not realizing that most North Africans have a superior command of the French language. Macron sought, unsuccessfully, to reduce the Boycott to an futile reactionary emotional reflex.

I believe the anger that ensued had been percolating for several decades and it had a lot to do with what France represent to the Arab and Muslim world as the embodiment of self-righteous and pompous colonial power. Even those whose ideological leanings do not line up with that of Islam have vehemently supported the boycott.

Macron acted like an amateur head of state who gratuitously gave Muslims enough ammunition to shoot him with. He peeled a tender wound that has yet to scab over. The wound caused by decades of smug imperialism. The wound whose pain is felt every time France addresses its former colonies in a patronizing tone. While it may appear like an emotional reaction, it’s rather a collective and spontaneous rejection of Neocolonialism rearing its ugly head and throwing its weight around.

Journalist, researcher, Community advocate, College professor and ardent believer in the promise of Study Abroad Programs. He can be followed on twitter @watchdog77