Shadee Elmasry – Why Boycotting Starbucks Matters

We don't separate between the company and its owners. If the

owner is a Zionist, then what is supporting him being a Zionist his

company, so I'm not going to be buying if and I know that

accompany the owner is actively accepting and supporting the

apartheid in Gaza, and the West Bank and this oppression that I

have to boycott his company. You can't separate between the two.

What what How is he so successful? And does the boycott matter? Yeah,

it doesn't matter. I'll tell you what it matters because it's a

micro decision that Allah is watching. That's how I view it. I

don't view it as Oh, this is going to hurt his business, probably

not.

I view it that if I if I'm on Amazon, and I'm selecting coffee

beans to order to my house, I can order from Starbucks and I can

order. I mean, nobody buys Starbucks from Amazon. But just as

a hypothetical, I can order Starbucks, I'm ordering a French

press, I can order it from Starbucks. I can order it from

random company, some random company, that is a micro decision

in our lives, right? The way to avoid catastrophes is to avoid

some micro losses, small losses. If you avoid

20 Micro losses a day, that 20 times 365 times 300 is 6000,

losses, 6000 losses, 6000 little bad things is gonna bring you a

problem some way, shape and form. Alright, Hamza, take it away. Tell

us what we should think about.

What's his name? Schultz, Charles Schultz, whatever the name is.

Howard Schultz. What should we think about Howard Schultz? And

are we boycotting Starbucks? Yeah, so Howard Schultz is an

interesting figure, because he's a, you know, a very avid supporter

of Zionism of Zionist causes all this sort of stuff.

And in the past, Starbucks has been targeted as part of like the

BDS movement. But Starbucks actually released a statement in

the past, and they said that, you know, we don't support the

occupation. Anyway, our company doesn't support these things, all

that and even the BDS movement to boycott divestment sanctions when

they even said that Starbucks is not one of kind of the objects of

our boycott. And what the BDS movement said was, we are targeted

boycott. So we target companies that we know can successfully kind

of be affected by these boycotts. So they, they normally target not

super big companies, because if you want to target like

McDonald's, McDonald's is, in a sense, kind of too big to fail.

It's one of the biggest corporations in the world. But if

you target a company, like SodaStream, SodaStream, was

operating, operating an illegal West Bank settlements, there was a

campaign of boycotts against them. And then so SodaStream actually

moved out of the settlements. So that was kind of like a win for

the BDS movement, in a sense. But recently, what Starbucks did is

their workers union released a statement, basically saying that

we stand with the Palestinian people, we stand in solidarity

with Palestine, all of this sort of stuff. And then following that

Starbucks, the workers union actually ended up taking down the

tweet. And Starbucks actually sued the union. And they said that you

were hurting our image of this sort of stuff. And then Starbucks

also released their statement that, you know, we we stand with,

you know, the Israeli civilians that were killed all that ignoring

also that at this point, it was what 1400 Israelis that were

killed. And I think as of like, half an hour ago, over 7000

Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. So they issued a statement

for the Israeli civilians that have been killed, but not for the

over five times kind of Palestinian civilians that have

been killed. So there's been a large boycott of Starbucks, really

around the world around the global South, all that.

And there are some interesting tweets, that humor if you want to

put up like if you look at like countries like Kuwait countries

like Qatar, the Starbucks is empty there.

So it's kind of been a targeted boycott campaign, I was actually

looking up if Starbucks stock has been affected, I found one article

that says the stock has been affected. And then I saw another

kind of article that says Starbucks stock is going down. But

it didn't mention that because of this kind of boycott.

So this is kind of the issue with kind of boycotting these big

corporations is that you're not going to impact them in the way

you can impact more material organization. But I still think

it's important for kind of what you said that as Muslims, it's not

always for us about what creates the impact. Sometimes you just

have to make kind of the ethical moral decision. So that's

something that's also very important. Like we have the Hadith

where it says in Sahih Muslim it says, if the Day of Judgment is

happening before you and you have a sapling in your in your head,

you plant the sapling, you know, this app is not going to come to

fruition because the Day of Judgment is happening, but you

still kind of put in you still make the end

Ethical Decision. And that's exactly what I want to mention.

I don't expect

when I do a boycott, the first tier of my expectation is not

damaging that company. You know, when if a nation was to boycott

the products of another nation that might be different, but as an

individual, I don't expect it. My primary motivation for a boycott

is that Allah is watching me. And he judges me on micro decisions.

Look at the prophets Hadith, in which he looks at people and say,

sorry, he

describes people who are in jahannam. He said they didn't

enter by big sense, right? They entered by small sins, which they

despised, despised, meaning that it's, it's so tiny.

Yet these things if you do 50 of that a day, 50 a day.

How much is that in a year? How much is that in a in a decade? It

becomes an unmovable mountain, much like the climate problems

that we have today. One trip to the supermarket. Wow, what is that

going to do with my car? Yeah, but times 5 billion, right a year.

Now you have a problem. But because it was micro, it's like

having sent someone threw sand in the studio, on the camera in the

couches, on the TV in the keyboard? I would have much rather

than take all that sand, put it in one Boulder and throw it in the

through the window, right? Because I can identify that sand. It's so

small, right? That it just gets everywhere. It's impossible to get

it out. That's why I want people to completely change and transform

their view of action. Okay, results are always results of

micro deeds very small. What does Allah tell us? In the chapter of

the Quran that is small that every child memorizes every myth, Carla

Vera, the little Adam's wait of a deed you're gonna see it. Okay?

Why? Well, what is this other than like a couple trillion atoms,

right? Atoms are important. What is this body right here, except

for billions upon billions of cells.

Right? A bunch came and formed a heart a bunch came and formed a

stomach a bunch of cavemen formed a skin, et cetera. So if we don't

care about the micro actions, our personal micro actions, we're not

going to succeed. Okay? So that's why That's my motivation is that

Allah is watching this is a micro action. It's not going to its in

itself affect Starbucks, I don't care, right. But do I know for a

fact that a guy built his that built this empire, which I love,

by the way, I love the business. I love the business. I love the

branding. And I even like their, their, their the product too,

right? Like the coffee itself, but and I use it as an office space,

my justification for ever drinking, if I ever need office

space, I buy a unit, a little small cup cup, and I consider that

my rent. I feel like I need to buy some because I'm using their

space, right? I have meetings there. I sit there for some

downtime between events or meetings or something, we all go

there. And that's my justification for but if the owner is now

expressed the stating that he's a Zionist, and he's in his personal

life, I cannot separate these two things. I can't go there. So

that's where now to the current situation.

They mentioned sympathy for Israelis, not for Palestinians.

That's one thing. Secondly, that's one issue. Secondly, they

their issue with the workers union to me isn't a non issue. The

Workers Union use Starbucks to and made it appear as if a branch of

Starbucks is supporting the Palestinians Starbucks, I'm gonna

stop right there. To me, that's not an issue. I'll tell you what

the biggest issue is Howard Schultz in his personal life,

right? Is he personally and pull up that Arab news article and I'll

read it to you guys. He personally in his personal life, has been

involved has received awards has a very cozy relationship to IDF

related organizations. Alright, Hamza, what do you have before I

pulled this article up? It's an old article. Very old, but doesn't

matter. Yep. What do you know about Howard Schultz in his

personal life

he donates to scientists causes blindness in himself over.

I know that Starbucks itself. They always say that they don't support

it doesn't make a difference. It's the owner is the one who's the

beneficiary. Right? Like if I discovered that Phil Knight all of

a sudden is donating money to I don't know some racist cause I'm

not gonna buy his product. I don't care if Nike itself says no, no,

we don't do this.

And also keep in mind there's a two people are talking out of both

sides of their mouth. People on one hand, are suppose if you

support

the Zionist IDF in one sphere, and then turn around and donate some

money to the Palestinians, you're just someone ethic. Okay? And

that's why schicken Majid al khateeb recently said if you make

dua for a helluva, okay, and you stop there,

all right, your DUA is incomplete. You must make dua against the

people killing because

you have to make dua against the oppressor. May Allah stop them at

the very least May Allah guide them and stop them. Right? If

you're a soft hearted person, and you say, well, I you know, I don't

want to be so rough. Okay, May Allah guide them and stop them

from oppression