when the enemies of ahmad lotfi al-sayed, the great egyptian thinker and philosopher, wanted to harm him and bring him down in the first democratic elections in the history of egypt, they spread rumors in his district that he was democratic and democracy means allowing women to marry more than one man. when the voters asked him if he was a democrat, he answered yes, and they rejected him so he lost the elections.
years ago, when we wanted to boycott france because of one of its political stances on us, we decided to boycott its products, including du maurier cigarettes because we thought it was french because of its name but in fact, it was english.
and when the clever and genius people themselves wanted to take revenge on the abusive cartoons, they burned buildings belonging to citizens in several arab and islamic capitals and destroyed tons of danish foodstuffs, paid for with the money of those who destroyed them themselves.
add to the above hundreds of other foolish behaviors that indicate the demagoguery of people. all the countries or the products that had previously been boycotted returned to their places on the shelves of the cooperative societies, enjoying eating danish cheese and milk and they did so while knowing that the boycott was limited to butter and cheese thanks to religious and national hypocrisy, such boycott did not include insulin injections and danish medicines, for example.
in the indian state of karnataka, there is a debate over educational institutions banning muslim girls from wearing headscarves inside the institutions. the decision sparked angry protests across the state in light of the growing sense of hostility against muslims, and the rise of hindu extremism against all minorities, especially muslims, and this is due to historical reasons which are long to explain.
as usual, our extremists were active in their reaction to the behavior of karnataka which is one of the 36 states and political units in india, and they decided to boycott the whole of india which has states with an islamic majority and this is part of the political and economic stupidity that characterizes these boycotts.
the naïve boycott was represented in the establishment of cooperative societies, with a ridiculous decision to ban the employment of hindu workers, and since there is no evidence to prove the indian religion, for example, this means that anyone who is not a muslim will be expelled and hundreds of buddhist, sikh or even christians will lose their jobs simply because their names are not islamic, and this is an injustice not to say that it is stupid.
a country the size of india with a population far exceeding one billion will not shed tears over the failure of a backward association to employ 200 or 300 of its citizens, nor will it be affected by a stupid decision.
some may think that what these coops have done is justified and it is their right, but what is their comment on the cooperative societies themselves forcing their workers to wear the veil even though it is against their faith?
why do we object when a country forces muslim girls to remove the veil, describing it as an interference with personal freedom while we are completely silent when the employee or worker, especially the non-muslim, in our coop is forced to wear the hijab against her will and we do not see in that any infringement on personal freedom?
note: what would the position of the ministry of social affairs be if one cooperative society issued a statement in which it supported ukraine, and another supported russia? is it the right of cooperatives to interfere in politics?