About one hundred Swedish companies have been threatened on Islamist websites in the last few days. Jihadist websites call for Muslims to boycott companies like IKEA, H&M, Ericsson and Electrolux, and in several cases to attack them. This is evil times two. They attack people who have nothing to do with what they are fighting against, and they do it because they want to put pressure on the Swedish government to stop artists like Lars Vilks from mocking religion.
This has dangerous potential. When the Danish Mohammed cartoons were published Danish companies like Arla were hurt by boycotts. This probably didn´t have an effect on the Danish government, but it did on other countries´ governments. They could see that if they forcefully defended freedom of speech their companies would also be hurt. And since politicians often care more about industry interests than about democratic principles they started to appease opponents of free speech.
So what do we do to save our liberties from Jihadists and unprincipled politicians? It´s easy. The opponents of freedom and democracy are fewer than the supporters and their purchasing power is smaller. The only thing that makes them influential is that they act in unison. But we can do that too.
Why don´t we decide to try to buy goods from companies that find themselves in the middle of free speech conflicts like this? If we, thousands of bloggers and writers and our readers do that, the effect of every boycott will be diminished. Spread the word now, around the world, that we are buying Swedish if we need beer, food, furniture or phones this week. And then, if Canadian or Georgian companies are the next targets, we´ll buy Canadian and Georgian goods next.
Perhaps we can institutionalise this as well, and turn it into a Break the boycott- and Buy for freedom-website and a movement that looks at what happens next and informs us on the next victims that need our help. I am sure that there is talent out there, who could do it. Perhaps you are the one? We need it, because this will happen again and again unless we do something about it.
http://www.johannorberg.net/?page=displayblog&month=9&year=2007#2355
