The Crazy Aunt in the Attic: Jihad Against Starbucks

Jihad Against Starbucks: by Carol Gould, FrontPageMagazine.com March 11, 2005

Carol Gould is an American who has been living in London for several decades and writing cultural commentary. A number of her commentaries have been published in Front Page Magazine, as has this latest. While the whole article is fun reading, here are snippets:

Recently an advisory was sent to one of the writers for “Current Viewpoint” from the Friends of al-Aqsa, a group based in Great Britain whose purpose is to promote the Palestinian cause. The advisory announces with considerable fanfare that the charity Oxfam has terminated its relations with Starbucks.

Explaining that the Islamic Human Rights Commission and Innovative Minds (a group supported by Friends of al Aqsa), the Palestinian Return Centre, the Muslim Association of Britain and the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign have been in meetings with Oxfam, it emerges that the campaign’s target is “pro-Zionist multinational chain Starbucks.” That is news to us. So, all those Frappuccinos we have been guzzling here at Current Viewpoint are in some way supporting rampaging settlers and angry rabbis?

The document from Friends of al Aqsa says the organisations listed above had expressed their concerns to Oxfam regarding its one-year contract with Starbucks. According to the narrative, Starbucks had agreed to contribute ‘100,000’ (a currency is not specified) to Oxfam’s rural development programme in the East Harare coffee growing region of Ethiopia. We are instructed at this stage of the document to read background material.

Then it all begins to take shape: the al Aqsa paper states that Starbucks chair Howard Schultz is a pro-Zionist activist who helps ‘student projects in North America and Israel give presentations on the Israeli perspective of the Intifada.’ We are told that Starbucks has been a sponsor of bowl4israel and supports occupation troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thanks are then proffered to the pressure groups and supporters who had petitioned Oxfam to cease its relationship with Starbucks, stressing that the petitioners ('those struggling for justice') had been instrumental in ensuring that Oxfam adhered to humanitarian values.

These kinds of behaviors in England and America make it impossible to take Muslim organizations seriously except to think that each is up to no good, no matter what it says to the contrary. Yes, indeed, all Muslims get tarred with the same brush because of really scurulous Muslims' behaviors and the fact that Muslims will not separate themselves into those who do not support jihadist activities. That leaves us always wondering about all of them since lying, deception, intimidation, and other behaviors sanctioned by Islam make Islamists seem like Middle Eastern derived mafioso.

So, we have to suppose all are up to no good, just to protect ourselves pro-actively. However, that does not keep us from heaping scorn and derision on the absurd behavior of some Muslims. In that way only, we can not take them seriously.

There is nothing evil in Starbucks, even if its founder is Jewish (that is a big deal to Islam, not me). If Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, strongly supports Israel, he is showing his rational side, and looking at what he has accomplished, he has plenty of rationality aboard. He puts out a damned fine product, and he taken loads of cash we have willingly pressed into his cash registers. My only wish for Howard Schultz is for him to get rid of that liberalism of his, but he never shoves that on me or into my Starbucks coffees, so I can live with it. Unlike Islamists, he seems like a truly kind and very generous man, e.g., tsunami relief in MUSLIM Indonesia, conveniently overlooked and disregarded by these Muslim johnny-one-notes.

If Muslims are productive human beings, in the really positive and rational sense of the term, they are so in the West, certainly not in Islamia. Islam is a hopelessly out of date, tired, boring, absurd, Puritanical religion and evil philosophy which just stifles its adherents. It even stigmatizes the Muslims who want to improve it by making Islam "moderate." Improvers are called "hypocrites" and are subject to murder by the code of shari'a. So the "moderates," who, by and large, seem to want to live and let live get the equivalent of lepers' bells or yellow Star of David badges which Islam and Nazis put on Jews.

Starbucks is immensely wealthy for a very good reason. That reason is that many, but not all, people LOVE its product. Why do they love it? Because it is a true pleasure to consume. It is a titillation in life and is appreciated as such. Why should coffee-loving Muslims cut themselves off from Starbucks? Because they are Middle Eastern Carrie Nation's who fit that wag definition of Puritans as those who live in constant dread that someone, somewhere is having a good time. That makes Islam's product, by contrast to Starbucks, crazy aunts in the attic.

Carol Gould sums up the situation in her final paragraph:

Campaigns like those promulgated by the British al-Aqsa group are retrogressive and counter-productive. When a Muslim company can produce as dynamic a coffee empire as Starbucks, or as clever a fresh food franchise as Marvellous Markets, and then give money and aid to all manner of men and women, I will applaud them. Yes, the agenda of this advisory is ‘Sharon is killing our children whilst Starbucks cultivates Zionist youth in America,’ but the spirit of the world at this moment in time is the earthquake of freedom movements emerging in the Middle East and we urge the al Aqsa Friends to enter that spirit, not boycott those incomparable Frappuccinos which we at Current Viewpoint fully intend continuing to buy with great passion in perpetuity.