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U.S. Boycott Gaining Momentum In Asia

Malaysians hold an anti-war protest near the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur

By Kazi Mahmood, IOL Southeast Asia Correspondent

KUALA LUMPUR, March 26 (IslamOnline.net) - The U.S.-led war of aggression on Iraq is giving momentum to the already strong drive to boycott U.S. products, including soft drinks and fast food chains like Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) and MacDonald’s, in South East Asia.

The scenes of bloodied bodies of children and women on television showing the aftermath of the “shock and awe” bombing of Baghdad and Basra by American and British forces has fanned anti-American sentiments in this region.

In Ampang city, Malaysia, the KFC was empty, which is rather an unusual a scene considering the strategic location of the shop within the Ampang Point shopping complex whereas its next door competitor the Tarbush Restaurant of Lebanese origin was crammed with customers.

Further down the corridor in the complex, MacDonald’s showed sign of life but it was surely struggling to put up “full house” for lunch this time.

An undeniable sign of a slow but sure boycott of these products was the absence of Malay-Muslim ladies with their children in both KFC and MacDonald’s on this 7th day the U.S. assault on Iraq.

None of the operators of these fast food chains would want to comment on the sales since the beginning of the aggression against Iraq, preferring to say they are not worried of sales drops, being confident business will be as usual soon.

Indeed, Malay-Muslim workers at these outlets would not care about the outcome of any boycott since they are paid to work and would rather find other jobs in the industry if anything dramatic would happen to these outlets.

Boycotting U.S. products has been a tough battle in Malaysia.

In the past few years, there were major attempts to sideline Coca Cola in particular with growing suspicions that the major world bottler of soft drinks was supporting the Jewish state.

Since politics has never gone down too well with “food and drinks” in Malaysia, the boycott fizzled and coca cola’s reign as king of soft drinks in the majority Muslim nation was barely touched.

The U.S.-led aggression on Afghanistan was another great occasion for activists to start another boycott of the cola’s, though Pepsi cola - another major soft drink maker world wide - survived the criticism so far.

This also fizzled lamentably, with Muslims seen enjoying fried chicken, burgers and the cola’s at U.S. based or U.S. owned brands.

Instead of a successful boycott campaign to show the Americans that the purse of the Muslims had some political weight, more U.S. or American brands implanted themselves successfully in Malaysia.

“The funny part is that Malaysians and Asians in general are fond of U.S. brands, it is a hard thing for them to boycott U.S. products and it is almost guaranteed that such boycott campaigns will fail and U.S. brands will prevail at the end of the day,” said Fernandez, a former advertiser who now runs a renovation company.

However, the signs are creeping and the very fact that the Malaysian government of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is leading the battle for an end of the war against Iraq with strong criticism of the U.S. policies, is giving the boycott drive more momentum.

Malays who are 100 percent Muslims in Malaysia are saying they have to start forgetting about MacDonald’s and KFC or Coffee Bean if they want to show the U.S. that they really have some political weight in condemning the U.S. aggression against Muslims around the world.

They also have fears that the U.S. will someday attempt to undermine Malaysia too since the country has showed it was deeply against the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

Interestingly enough, the tough resistance by the Iraqis, who are giving a tough time to the almost “invincible” U.S. Marines and special forces, has motivated the Malays to view the Arabs in a different light.

“September 11th was an act that brought the Chinese community in Malaysia to respect the Arabs, the Iraqi resistance is now bringing a different idea of Saddam Hussein now seen as a lone Arab hero who can damage the U.S. and British troops in the long run,” says a psychologist working for a publication firm in Kuala Lumpur.

“In the event Saddam and his government holds the siege of Baghdad for a week or two, sentiments will run high among Muslims world-wide and the U.S. will suffer business casualties too in the Muslim world,” Mousa Abdilah said.

Abdillah, a PHD holder in Islamic studies and in psychology also studies and analyses the behavior of Malays-Muslims in the region. He owns his own publication firm that publishes Islamic related books.

He believes the Iraqi regime will give a tough lesson to the ‘western’ forces though he knows that Saddam will not hold for long.

“Yet the image of Saddam, cool as never before and planning well to trap the western forces within Iraq, has given confidence in Muslims in this region,” he said.

Abdillah also believe if there were products that could replace U.S. based fast food chains as well soft drinks in the region, the U.S. would lose the economic battle altogether.

In Singapore too the tendency is to boycott U.S. based products and brands though the impact of the Muslims in the capitalist country, which has given total support to the U.S. in its war against Iraq, will not be a severe backlash to U.S. businesses.

“It was hard, very hard indeed to get the Singapore authorities to grant the “halal” status to U.S. based fast food chains such as KFC and Burger King, and now with this Iraq war and its injustices the Muslims have the tendency to shy away from U.S. based brands,” Abdillah added.

He said there were confirmations that since the beginning of the war on Iraq a fair percentage of Muslims in Thailand, Singapore and Brunei are boycotting U.S. products.

The impact of these will probably not be felt in the short run but if the war drags on and if there is a major political impact in the Middle East, the situation might be damaging to these U.S. based products.

In South Thailand, however, a coca cola warehouse had to close down and shift its operations further north, away from the Muslim populations due to strong rejection of U.S. based products in Yala and Pattani.

Major Muslims based restaurants, shops and even hotels have refused to place orders of Coca Cola products and offering other soft drinks in its place.

Attempts to bring brands like Zam Zam cola and Arab Cola in the region has not been successful either, sources said.

The reason is that there is not enough political will from Muslims to organize and bring down such replacement products to ‘kill and destroy’ American brands in the region.

“One obstacle is that the locals here are not really aware of other brands besides Coke and Pepsi, once other brands are brought in, there might be an impetus to enhance the boycott of U.S. products,” said a Muslim shopkeeper in Kuala Lumpur.

In Jakarta, Makassar, Solo and many other major cities of Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation on earth with its 212 million people the boycott of Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola and KFC as well as Macdonald’s are becoming effective.

Though some anti-U.S. protestors have used harsh methods to try to close down some of these food chains, the fact remains that most Indonesian Muslims are becoming increasingly conscious of the need to hit the U.S. economically in a bid to make a political statement.

In Indonesia unlike Malaysia and Brunei, Abdillah said to IslamOnline.net in an interview on Wednesday, March 26, politics and economy are intertwined.

Muslims in general are more direct and decisive in their decisional structure. When there is a movement to boycott anything, it will succeed.

Yet it is in Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore that the boycott movements should become stronger since the purchasing power of the Muslims in these countries is much higher than in Indonesia or Thailand and the Philippines.

A recent boycott campaign against Coca Cola and other U.S. products has not bitten deep into the economic strength of these products in Malaysia due to the lack of political will by the people in general to accept living without Coke or Pepsi or even Macdonald’s, said Abdillah.

While Coca Cola maintains its grip on Malaysia and Brunei, it is bound to lose considerable markets in Indonesia. It may take a strong “Cola War” with some local financiers investing in new brands or existing Muslim owned brands elsewhere to defeat King Cola in Malaysia, Abdillah added wittingly.

According to him, the Muslim markets in this region is ready to adopt any Muslim based cola because there is now this deep sense of brotherhood and the need for ‘revenge’ against the US for being belligerent and aggressive against the Muslim world.

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