Tempest In A Coffee Cup

The boycott "has taken on a sociopolitical momentum and importance way beyond the issue of supporting Palestine itself," says the memo by the U.S. official. "The regimes have tolerated this grass-roots boycott as an alternative to resorting to violence or civil disobedience. I wonder what this will lead to for future domestic or foreign-policy issues when the people disagree with their political leaderships-the Pandora's box of civil, political activity has been opened irrevocably."

"U.S. critics of the Saudis and the Arab world have focused on the religious intolerance and the lack of democracy," the memo concludes. "Few things are more democratic than popular actions of nonviolent political expression through economic activity. We should be standing back and applauding the obvious long-term positive implications of the emergence of a social activism unthinkable only a few years ago in this region. That it exists at all is where we want these societies to go. That it is directed at the U.S.A. is our problem."

© 2002