Coming off the back of huge weekly protests against Israel’s devastating bombardment of Gaza, a group of pro-Palestine campaigners in Cardiff are attempting to turn the city into an apartheid free zone, by encouraging businesses to drop Israeli-linked goods.
Words and images by Ka Long Tung
Official lobbying may usually happen in a conference room or the corridors of power, but it does not have to be the case.
Apartheid Free Zone, Cardiff, run by volunteers from Cardiff Stop the War, has been persuading businesses in the city to abandon Israel-linked products in the wake of its ongoing assault on Gaza, which experts have labelled a ‘textbook genocide.’
The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza as of Monday stood at 22,835, including over 9000 children and 5,300 women. 1 in every 100 people in Gaza have been killed in the Israeli bombing since October 7th.
One in every 40 Palestinians in Gaza have now been injured, many with life changing injuries.
This week, the NGO Save the Children found that 10 children every day in Gaza have lost limbs in the past 90 days, a number that the organisation’s head of conflict and humanitarian policy says is likely to be an underestimate.
In response to the ongoing bloodshed, weekly protests have been held in Cardiff demanding a ceasefire, and to show solidarity with the people of Gaza and put pressure on politicians to act.
But in the face of inaction from those in power, including the UK’s abstention on a UN vote demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, rejection of a ceasefire by the opposition leader, and opposition of a ceasefire in the parliament by politicians from both sides, people are trying to deepen the movement further into everyday life.
“We were so upset with how the MPs were not listening to us, how we were inviting them to have discussions. They don’t want to know about it, or when they do reply to our letters, they give us the same answers,” says Sharifah Rahman, one of the volunteers for Apartheid Free Zone, Cardiff.
“This is not going anywhere. They just want to hear one side so one way we want to get the Palestinians voice heard is to boycott the war machine that is Israel,” she continues. “This is the only way we can do it really.”
Volunteers have approached half of the shops in City Road, and some in Canton and Grangetown. Surprisingly, the group says they were happy to see some of the shops had already taken the initiative to boycott products in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) boycott list. For example, Maasi’s in Canton and Nafees Bakery in City Road.
On the other hand, some shops will replace their products after the current stocks finish, Sharifah says.
It may seem that independent businesses are more likely to take boycott actions, but the group says that chains like ChaiiWala and Bru in Cardiff are also switching their drinks to an ethical-based supplier.
The concept of an Apartheid Free Zone is neither exclusively in Cardiff nor a new creation. It is a global campaign to call for solidarity with the Palestinian people and economic impact on Israel.
On BDS’ website about Apartheid Free Zone, it states that: “As citizens and people of conscience, we want to ensure that the spaces that we participate in do not contribute to the maintenance of an apartheid regime or profit from grave human rights violations.”
BDS’s call for a global boycott movement was inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the US civil rights movement and the Indian anti-colonial struggle. Endeavour to bring about changes using individual and community economic influence has also happened in Cardiff before. During the 80s, there was a campaign to call for an apartheid free zone in Butetown where no South African goods would be sold.
Cardiff protesters have targeted many businesses associated with Israeli apartheid, including Starbucks, Barclays, McDonalds, Zara and Coca Cola.”
Boycotts from the bottom up appear to be more crucial now than ever as the anti-boycott bill, or officially named The Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill, is going to have its third reading in the House of Commons in London on 10th January (Wednesday).
Introduced in June last year, the bill, if passed, would ban public bodies (local councils, government departments and universities) from imposing their own boycott campaigns against foreign countries and territories. At the time, Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said that boycott campaigns undermined the UK’s foreign policy and led to antisemitic rhetoric and abuse.
Previously, Swansea council pledged to ban Israeli goods in June 2010. The same move was made by Gwynedd and Leicester councils in October and November 2014 respectively.
The anti-boycott bill will not only limit local councils from boycotting Israeli goods, but also other ethical considerations to divest from companies linked to, for example, Chinese government’s repression of Uyghurs, war crimes in Yemen, and Myanmar junta’s crimes against humanity, etc. Human Rights Watch said the bill was “on the wrong side of history”.
However, UK Government Ministers will be able to authorise exceptions where they see fit, for example boycotting Russian goods in response to the war in Ukraine.
But as Anindya Bhattacharyya wrote previously on voice.wales, there are exceptions to these exceptions:
“Ministers may not, under any circumstances, grant an exception with regards to: (a) Israel, (b) the Occupied Palestinian Territories, (c) the Occupied Golan Heights. This “Israel plus” is the only territory to be explicitly named in the bill and given such special legal protection. No reason or rationale is given for why Israel gets singled out in this manner.”
So whilst the Bill limits all boycott activity, it is also targeted specifically against boycotts against Israel.
The Welsh and Scottish governments as well as trade unions have opposed the bill.
An online campaign has been launched by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, urging people to write to their MPs to express their concerns before the third reading.
In the template letter, it reads: “ Had it been in place, for instance, during the 1980s, it would have forced local councils and British universities to do business with the racist apartheid regime in South Africa.”
“Palestinians should not be singled out and, uniquely among peoples facing oppression around the world, denied the right to appeal to people of conscience for support.”
With the potential of public bodies’ boycotts curtailed, it is the community that is cultivating the movement. Sharifah says: “The movement needs to be for everyone for it to be successful. It’s really important especially now with the anti-boycott bill happening, public boycott is probably one of the main things that can help with Palestine now.”
Over the past few months, the weekly marches in Cardiff have caused temporary shutdown for businesses including McDonald’s, Starbucks, Zara and Barclays. Now these actions are being taken into everyday life to cause real economic threats, as well as reputational damage, to change the position of big corporations. These actions have been organised in the main by the Stand up for Palestine coalition, who want to take direct action to stop the bombing in Gaza.
At every protest, speakers have reminded people that the boycott was working and it should be continued. Puma has announced it would stop sponsoring Israel’s national football team this year. McDonald’s CEO admitted the company had been “experiencing a meaningful business impact” after its Israeli branch offered free meals to IDF soldiers.
Nonetheless, boycotting does not always achieve the goal as smoothly as the people want it to.
Starbucks, although it seemed to have a fall in earnings, its boss Laxman Narasimhan wrote only a vague message saying, “I pray for peace”.
As for the effort in the local community, Apartheid Free Zone, Cardiff may be a meaningful initiative to bring the movement outside the weekly vigils, marches, and blockages of shops linked to the apartheid in Gaza, but it has faced difficulties.
When it comes to persuading shops to change products to “apartheid-free” ones, Sharifah says: “There are some that are reluctant that don’t know whether this is going to make a change or not.” But fortunately, she says there have not been shops that are totally opposed to the idea.
Volunteers have only so much time to reach out to the shops, to make more shops apartheid free is effective only with more people being part of it. “For them as a business, It’s demand. Only when the customers want it, they’ll do it. So if they haven’t seen that, they are reluctant to change anything.
“So that’s why we encourage the customers, the people the public to like, say they want that [non Israeli-linked products] instead.”
