Boycott, Hatred and Propaganda

Alright everyone. I’m gonna tell you something you’d probably don’t know about me. It first happens when I was in junior high school. When I was 13 or 14 years old until first year of college, I am a part of ‘boycott-Jewish product’ society. I stopped consuming anything from ‘Jewish’ corporation, for example: McDonald, KFC, even Unilever products, and turned into another product that ‘safe’ from ‘Jewish’. Is it strange, doesn’t it? You may had a question: from WHERE I got this idea in my mind?

            Well. I remember I’ve been read a book about boycott Jewish corporations and their products. I bought this book from bookstore in Jalan Semarang. It described that if we buy their products, we are ACTIVELY participated for war in middle east country. Their profit will used for support war, for support Israel, for killing our ‘brother’ in Palestine. I also read a plenty of article in websites that supported this issue. Time passed by, I start to accepeted this, and trying to avoid ‘Jewish’ products. My idealism shocked my friends in junior high school, when we got a gathering in Ramadhan, in KFC Delta Plaza, I remember that I didn’t buy anything from KFC. Not because I didn’t have money, but for my own idealism not to buy Jewish products. Beside that, I got my own food from home or from supermarket, like snacks or something. So, yes, I’m saved from starvation when I gathered with my friends (LOL).

            I once remember about giving comment in Facebook, about my thoughts not to buy ‘Jewish’ products. Surprisingly, A LOT of people support me to do so. I had thousands likes and hundreds of comments, mostly support my ‘bravery’ to avoid ‘Jewish’ product. But, time flies, and now I don’t even understand my own thought in that time. Like, seriously, IT WAS ME?

            Now I’m in the place where I confused with my past self. I deleted my ‘controversial’ comments in Facebook because I don’t think this is relevant with my idealism now. I think it’s not logical too, because I let myself being brainwashed by a propaganda. It’s a big challenge for anyone for boycott a Jewish product in this capitalism era. No one can really avoid their products. But, most importantly, we should underline about WHO ARE THE JEWISH CORPORATIONS?

·         Are they called Jewish corporation because they are a global corporations?

·         Are they really give their profit to support war in Middle East?

·         Are they are really support Israel?

·         Are we must avoid anything about Jew?

·         Are you sure this is not religion issue? About hatred between muslim and another religion and beliefs?

·         Are you sure this is not propaganda? And what’s the main purpose for this propaganda?

I got stucked in this. I believed that this is a religion issue. We are pressure by society to hate Jewish automatically if we are born as a muslim. We are being educated to hate. Anything about Jewish should be banned. But, do we really know who we hate, and why we should hate them? Is it because society pressure? Is it because religious institution told us to hate, so we must hate them too? If we are not hate Jew, we are not part of muslim. We will get bullied and judged by others. Is this even logical?

My past self are too stupid and too immature to understand this complex issue. My past self are too easy to believe something that I didn’t even completely understand. I’m too young, I was a middle schooler in that time. Now I’m pretty embarassed about this. What I really upset about my self is.... how can I hate something I didn’t really know? How can I being brainwashed easily? How can I be ilogical?

Actualy, this confession has a relation with now. We surely know about a group of people, lead by Habib Rizieq, leader of FPI, to boycott Sari Roti products. This group has a huge effect too, because they could affect public opinion and changed other people mind. This group of people has a large number of member too. It’s not impossible that they can do anything they want.

I’m not going to discuss this issue because you can read it by yourselves from news website or newspaper. What I underlined is why the people are easy to propaganda? We couldn’t deny that Habib Rizieq have a huge power in front of his followers. And he used his power to control people and do anything he wanted. He said, “Boycott Sari Roti!” and his followers simply do that.

Yes, back then, I was pretty easy to propoganda. I’m easy to brainwashed without double checked or verified the issue. I had no differences with Habib Rizieq followers. I don’t deny that.

Lord Acton ever said that: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,”. See that? This quote still relevan until now.