Shadee Elmasry – Why Boycotting Starbucks Matters
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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