Heroes or zeroes?

There is an article in today's Evening Herald celebrating the 'heroes' of the Dunnes Stores boycott. For those too young to remember, a number of checkout operators at Dunnes Stores refused to handle South African produce. The anniversary of their action falls around now.

I'm probably not going to be very popular for writing this but I don't consider them to be heroes. For the record, I found the South African Apartheid regime to be obnoxious and I was proud to boycott South African produce. But that was MY choice. By refusing to allow Dunnes Stores customers to purchase South African produce, the checkout operatives were imposing their political viewpoints on other people. This, in my view, made them no better than the regime they opposed.

Comments

[crazysoph]

I have some empathy with this viewpoint, but... I'm remain a bit fuzzy as to where/how the cut-off is placed, because of an incident at the height of the boycott: I refused an offer of South African grapes from dear_hubby's mom after dinner one evening.

She had thought she was giving me a big treat (and she was) because it was well-known how I enjoyed grapes. So, it was a bit of a shock for her to deal with my refusal (which was as polite as I could manage, but it was still a refusal).

While she didn't press the point, she did say how those organizing the boycott didn't seem to consider the effect on the very lowest rungs of society, who were dependent on the jobs created by that trade.

I didn't feel I had much of an answer, although she seemed satisfied with my explanation that a) the very lowest rungs were not being well looked-after even *with* those jobs and b) the bulk of the money from that trade was lining the pockets of those benefitting from apartheid, and the exploitation of the people it kept under.

I didn't feel my response was ideal, but it was all I could do, and I apologized profusely for having to disturb the peace of the house on this point.

Just a thought - and a note to let you know I've finally managed to find your weblog again.

Crazy(missing you on LJ!)Soph