We’ve heard people say, “it’s about making a stand” when they speak of boycotting individuals or entities throughout history. The recent invasion of Russia on Ukraine has many people asking, is cancel culture really effective? After a bit of research about the history of boycotts, it seems so.
In the past 250 years or so, from the Boston Tea party to the recent war involving the two Eastern European countries, imposing sanctions seems to be the way to go. As of this writing, many big-named brands have already closed shops and outlets in Moscow and St. Petersburg. A few of these are LVMH, Apple, Uniqlo, and many others.
The First Boycott
The term boycott was first used in 1880 as a tool to show dissent, although the act started a century earlier. In 1773, the Boston Tea Party was considered one of the earliest acts of a boycott. Protesters dumped 342 chests of imported tea into Boston Harbor to show their disgust at the unfair British taxes on the American colonies.
A Slew of Boycotts Ensued
The free-produce movement then happened after a few years. It was a British and American boycott of products made with slave labor. David Feldman, the editor of the book, Boycotts Past and Present, described these boycotts as “both expressive and instrumental.” He states that these acts were aimed at achieving concessions as well as constituting a political identity.
The word was coined after the English land agent, Capt Charles Boycott, who was a boycott target back then. A global depression in the 1880s left Irish tenants seeking reductions in rent to English landowners. They also sought an end to evictions for those that could not pay their rents. Charles Stewart Parnell, the president of the Irish Land League, asked supporters to shun those that profit from evictions. He urged them to do this by isolating them from the rest of the country. It’s similar to what they do to lepers.
Despite this, Boycott evicted 11 of his tenants who weren’t able to pay rent. He wrote to the Times about his absurd reason of his laundress being ordered to stop washing for him. When speaking with an American journalist, Father John O’Malley asked, “How would it be to call it to boycott him?” The name stuck, and after two years, the word boycott was added to dictionaries, and its use spread quickly in Europe.
Works Both Ways
While we see boycotts in history as a way for regular people to show their opposition, primarily against an oppressive policy or government, it can also work the other way. An excellent example of this was when the far right in the US boycotted businesses that had shown support for the Black Lives Matter movement. And this hasn’t been the first time. In Nazi Germany, many people were urged to boycott Jewish business. This was clearly a manifestation of hatred that ended in a genocide that the world does not want ever to see again.
And More Boycotts
In 1959, there was a boycott of potatoes produced in slave-like labor in the small farming town of Bethal in South Africa. South African goods were rejected until Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990. The anti-apartheid movement made us think of the practice as one of unimpeachable moral clarity.
Russia and the Sanctions
We can consider government sanctions a type of boycott, as we can see from the war in Russia and Ukraine. We see British supermarkets dropping Russian products, Netflix stopping the production of Russian-produced dramas, and so much more. Plus, we all know that a boycott is a double-edged sword, hurting the big businesses and most especially the ordinary people.
