12 -Resistance: Symbolism and Boycotts
Symbols matter, especially when they highlight solidarity with a besieged people. Three Russian cosmonauts arrived at the Space Station on Friday wearing blue and yellow, Ukraine’s national colors. Perhaps Putin was watching? Three Ukrainian tennis stars and four boxing champions returned home to fight on the front lines to defend their nation. Thousands of Georgians waved Ukrainian flags from their apartment blocs in Tbilisi.
Both in space and in sports, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s courageous rallying of his peoples (including both Ukrainians and Russians within Ukraine) has clearly been heeded, as even within Russia itself (where free speech and expression is forbidden and punished). A few brave Chinese bloggers have also responded positively to Zelensky’s clarion call, but at their peril, given the pro-Putin Chinese autocracy and its censorship.
American municipalities that established friendly relationships with their counterparts in Russia have begun to pull away. Doing so is again symbolic, but important. Cutting ties publicly with a Russian so-called “sister city” demonstrates that Putin has indeed ruptured normal dealings between ordinary Russians and their American “sisters.” Montclair, NJ; Dallas, TX; Des Moines, IA; and Tallahassee, FL have all sundered ties to Russia. Gainesville, FL has refused to go along. Another sixty-three American cities have similar official ties to Russian cities according to Sister Cities International, a citizen’s diplomacy nonprofit. Sister Cities is begging its members not to end their sisterhoods with Russia. But those that have already done so clearly see value in expressing solidarity – in joining Ukraine’s freedom struggle. Theoretically, continuing to commune with Russian cities keeps channels open, but the importance of embracing embattled Ukraine is much more salient and expressive.
Symbolic, but conceivably with an impact on the Russian war effort and its security technology, European and some American scientists are reducing cooperation with Russia. Nobel laureates have denounced the invasion in print, with signed petitions.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said that it would not collaborate further with Russia. It also cut off Russia’s access to its major physics facility near Geneva. Russia’s “aggression,” it said, “runs against everything for which this organization stands.” The International Congress of Mathematicians cancelled its planned July conclave in St. Petersburg, Putin’s home. Nearly 8,000 prominent Russian scientists have themselves publicly condemned the invasion as “unfair and frankly senseless.” We have become a “pariah,” they said.
Such symbolic actions may just be gestures, satisfying emotions. But as a past president of the American Physical Society suggests, “Scientists are often very influential members of their societies” and their views may conceivably remind the rest of the scientific and technical community “of the humanity of all individuals” when their leaders behave outrageously. Presumably, the three cosmonauts agreed.
Boycotts of major Russian exports and the ending of U. S. and European shipments of aircraft parts, electronic equipment, and many other goods valuable to a (nasty) war effort will clearly have more direct effect on Putin and his generals than the symbolic acts. Moreover, Russia’s invasion has enabled unprecedented and salutary unanimity between Europe and the U. S. Both have removed Russia’s access to almost anything of technological or commercial value. Australia has banned the export of its aluminum and bauxite to Russia. Keeping China from replacing Western goods and technology is now a key concern.
The withdrawal of European and British commercial firms from Russia and isolating its consumer and industrial complexes is also important, both directly – to cut off sources of foreign exchange and revenue from abroad – and also symbolically to remove comforting goods such as McDonald meals or Starbucks espresso. Even major petroleum giants like Shell, BP, and Exxon have (however reluctantly) left their Russian oil reserves and profits behind. And Russian-owned Luxoil, the second largest Russian petroleum corporation with 200 formerly Getty gas stations in the United States, has unexpectedly urged a quick end to Putin’s war in Ukraine.
There are some businesses that have refused to cut themselves off from Russia. Naturally, one is Koch Industries, which continues stubbornly to operate two glass manufacturing facilities. Swiss-owned Nestle is still there, too. So are two German supermarket chains, Metro and Globus, and Bayer, the big pharmaceutical firm. Another holdout is the American owner of Papa John pizza franchises. He lives in Moscow and refuses to cut his income stream even though all other American-connected fast food outlets have shuttered their counters. Procter & Gamble has reduced its product portfolio, but still clings to some lucrative sales, especially of Gillette shaving products. Possibly an American consumer boycott at home will concentrate its corporate mind. PepsiCo (unlike Coca-Cola) needs its resolve to leave Russia bucked up by American consumer action. Likewise, French and American consumers could discourage Danone from continuing to sell yoghurt to Russians.
In healthy contrast, Citigroup, the bank with the biggest American presence in Russia, is withdrawing from consumer banking, investment banking, and corporate lending. Goldman Sachs is leaving Russia as well. So are JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank. To some extent those abandonments of opportunities to make money in Russia are symbolic as well as commercial. Even so, the casting off of Russia, the globe’s eleventh largest economy (comparable to Australia) constitute strong responses to Putin’s aggression.
Simply seeing Starbucks closed and McDonald’s shut conveys a strong message to Russia and Russians. So does a shortage of Coca-Cola. Americans and Europeans ought to inform those companies that have failed to pull out fully from Russia that it is now time to go. As President Zelensky told the American Congress last week, Ukrainians “are fighting for the values of Europe and the world, sacrificing our lives in the name of the future.” Let us now join them by urging companies, cities, scientists, and everyone else who might be hesitating on all continents to do the same. At a bare minimum, Putin’s economy and pretensions deserve as much shunning, censoring, and boycotting as we can give.
Doing nothing, raising no voices, and maintaining business as usual enables Putin’s genocidal attacks on imperiled Ukrainians. Do let us urge any remaining complicit businesses to exit Russia.