(Lahore) Fast food attacked, blacklists of products removed from the shelves: in Pakistan, the boycott to support the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip bombed by Israel gives an unexpected boost to the rare local brands, struggling in a country where foreign brands dominate the market.
“Because ColaNext is Pakistani”: the slogan that is displayed on the huge red billboards of this soft drink producer is clear. And it seems to be paying off.
Fighting since 2016 to find a place between Coca-Cola and Pepsi, the small factory in Lahore, the large city in the east bordering India, must now increase its pace.
For several months, in the wake of the global “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) campaign which has been calling for 20 years to strike Israel and its wallet supporters to put an end to the occupation and colonization of the Palestinian Territories, the Pakistani consumers have changed their habits.
The CEO of ColaNext, Mian Zulfiqar Ahmed, assures us: “from Karachi”, at the southern coastal tip of the country, “to the north, the whole country has adopted us”.
Throughout the country, the fifth most populous in the world with more than 240 million mostly Muslim inhabitants, restaurants now only serve its bubble drinks.
But the phenomenon has little impact on Pakistan’s largely deficit trade balance – which is purchasing its fourth quota of imports across the Atlantic.
American products, whether their links with Israel are established or not, are indeed the main targets of the boycott in Pakistan: at the end of March, demonstrators set fire to a KFC restaurant in Kashmir, and the Pakistani subsidiary of McDonald’s had to fend off ‘a tweet affirming his “support for the people of Palestine.”
Online and sometimes on posters in town, there are crossed out logos of groups often established in the United States, Israel’s staunch ally and primary provider of military aid, which Pakistan does not recognize.
Maria Iqbal launched “Pakistan Goes Local” on Facebook in November, which offers Pakistani cosmetics and food brands to avoid buying from groups accused of being pro-Israeli.
Her Facebook page now has 42,000 members, a success which, she told AFP, surprises herself.
Already, in 2008 or 2020, after the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark or France, international calls for a boycott had mobilized in Pakistan.
Today, Ms. Iqbal wants to believe, “we will never go back: people’s patriotism has awakened.”
“They are more careful now and they want to know who they are giving their money to,” says this Pakistani who works in an association helping the poor.
A supermarket employee told AFP, on condition of anonymity, about growing customer complaints since October after Israel responded to the Hamas attack with bombings that left more than 37,000 dead in Gaza , according to the Health Ministry of the local Hamas-led government.
The October 7 attack in Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. That day, 251 people were kidnapped, and 116 are still held hostage in Gaza, 41 of whom died, according to the Israeli army.
“Customers have said to us, ‘why are you still selling Nestlé or L’Oréal? ”, among the largest groups targeted by the BDS campaign, “so we created different sections for imported products specifying their origin,” he says.
“Customers often ask me for [local] alternatives to certain products like diapers or hair coloring,” he continues.
Zaka ur Rehman made this choice. In the shopping district of Lahore, this 38-year-old Pakistani wants “only products made in Pakistan.”
“I don’t buy a single product that comes from those who support Israel or attack Gaza,” he insists.
Maqsoud Achiq, for his part, assures that he does not sell “any products from the 151 countries that support Israel”, without specifying which ones, but by displaying his boxes from Turkey or Malaysia, two predominantly Muslim countries, and sometimes from Pakistani factories.
Even movie stars have gotten into it. Actress Ushna Shah, for example, regularly calls on her nearly three million followers on Instagram and Twitter to “boycott companies that finance genocide.”
Other actors or singers are calling for support for local hamburger and donut brands.
But “certain products are very difficult to boycott” in a country “which depends largely on imports of raw materials […], but also of finished products,” notes economist Fahd Ali.
In his lecture hall at the University of Lahore, he says, students often come to ask him his opinion on the boycott.
“Do you think that changes anything? ”, they say.
