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EGYPT: Boycott Takes Over From Diplomacy
By Adam Morrow
CAIRO, Feb 13, 2006 (IPS) - A boycott of Danish goods following publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper has been largely successful, going by market reports.
Earlier boycotts against U.S. products, loudly proclaimed in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, had been largely ineffective.
"Because it's religiously motivated, it has much more momentum than earlier popular boycotts," Khaled Sewelam, a Cairo-based economic analyst told IPS. "People are taking it very seriously."
"This isn't about politics - it's about religion," said 30-year-old Cairo resident Marwa al-Ashkar, who has stopped buying Danish products, among them the chocolate snack Nutella, a favourite. "You can criticise anything, but you can't insult someone's beliefs."
The row began in September, when cartoons of Mohammed appeared in Danish daily Jyllands-Posten. One of them portrayed him wearing a bomb-shaped turban. The caricatures were re-published in January in a number of European papers, with editors citing a commitment to press freedom.
Official reactions have been varied. Libya closed its embassy in Denmark in January, while Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Copenhagen. Since then, Denmark has closed embassies in Indonesia, Iran and Syria.
Regional heavyweight Egypt has "followed a strategy of quiet diplomacy," Muhammad Shaaban, advisor to the minister for foreign affairs told IPS. "Cairo has been making quiet appeals to Copenhagen for an apology since the drawings were first published."
Shaaban said that Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit wrote letters of protest to several multilateral organisations in October, including the United Nations. Aboul-Gheit also wrote to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who declined to hold a meeting on the subject.
"The government of Denmark has been adamant in its insistence on not issuing an official apology," said Shaaban.
Where diplomacy has failed, a popular boycott of Danish products has proved potent. First proclaimed in Saudi Arabia in late January, the boycott campaign spread quickly to several other Muslim countries, including Egypt.
"We're distributing emails that include the names of Danish brands to everybody we know," said al-Ashkar. "And if other European newspapers (print material considered an affront to Islam), we're ready to boycott every European product in the market."
Amid a flurry of mass emails and text messages urging Muslims to join the embargo, a number of local supermarket chains pulled Danish products from their shelves.
"We've removed all products from Denmark, and sent many back to the suppliers," said Sameh Fouad, store manager at a Cairo branch of the big supermarket chain, Metro. "And we've had a positive reaction from customers, who themselves are very careful to avoid buying Danish."
Sewelam said the current embargo promises to be more effective than earlier boycotts of U.S. goods and services, which had potentially threatened large numbers of Egyptian jobs. "Because most Danish products are imported, no one can argue that the move will affect local employment," Sewelam said.
Shaaban said it was pressure from Danish businesses with operations in the region "who saw everything they had worked for in risk of falling apart" that resulted in a sort of apology from Jyllands-Posten editor-in-chief Carsten Juste Jan. 30.
Juste expressed the newspaper's wish "that various ethnic groups should live in peace and harmony with each other and that debates and disagreements...should take place in an atmosphere of mutual respect."
Rasmussen has said in an interview that it was too early to gauge the economic effects of the boycott. "Some Danish companies trading with Arab countries may suffer," he said in the interview published in the Feb. 9 edition of the government-run al-Ahram Weekly. "Whether this will be a long-term loss or an intermediate loss we don't know."
Pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported Feb. 12 that the Danish dairy company Arla Foods, one of Europe's biggest supplier of dairy products, was losing 1.6 million dollars a day from the boycott. Dairy products account for about a quarter of Denmark's exports.
"Denmark's biggest losses will be felt in Saudi Arabia, which is a huge importer of Danish butter," said Sewelam. "But they will feel it in Egypt, too, where all the major retail outlets have eliminated Danish products. Given the angry mood, it would probably be dangerous to stock goods of Danish origin."
Shaaban said the boycott has effectively taken the matter "out of the hands of government" and turned it into a popular issue. "The boycott was never endorsed by any government."
Shaaban said that while Cairo had yet to receive an official apology from Copenhagen, the matter was now beyond mere diplomacy.
"A timely apology from Denmark would have easily defused the situation," he said. "But now it has got out of hand, because the people - not the governments - are making the demands." (END)
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