TEHRAN (Iran News) – The emergence of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 was an awakening for the world oppressed people especially for the Muslim nations and the Palestinians as it showed them that they can stand up and resist against any arrogant country provided that there is will.

Since 1979, the oppressed people and Muslim nations have adopted new strategy for resistance against the world arrogance and they cornered the oppressors and put them in an intolerable condition so that the oppressors have resorted to the weapon of sanctions. Since the arrogant countries are unable to defeat the strong determination of the nations, they have resorted to imposition of sanctions and unfortunately the lackey governments and rulers are cooperating with those oppressors.

On Wednesday Algerian media reported that Algerian activists launched a widespread social media campaign demanding the boycott of French products and expulsion of France’s ambassador from the North African country following recent incendiary remarks by the Elysée Palace occupant.

Algerians took to Twitter and other social media platforms to reflect the extent of the country’s popular resentment of the offensive remarks recently made by French President Emmanuel Macron about Algeria’s ancient history.

Macron accused the ruling elite in Algeria of “feeding a grudge against France,” and questioned the existence of an Algerian nation before French colonialism entered the country in 1830.

The Algerian activists called the French president “ignorant” and urged a decisive response to Macron’s “encroachment” on the country’s history by promoting the hashtags of “Boycott of France” and “Boycott  French Products” as well as “Expulsion of the French Ambassador, a Popular Demand.”

The “Boycott French Products” was widely circulated in Arabic, French and English, with the activists sharing tables that classified French products and introduced Algerian products as a substitute.

In his remarks reported by the French newspaper Le Monde on Sunday, Macron claimed that the Algerian government had “totally re-written” the country’s history “not based on truths” but “on a discourse of hatred toward France.”

The French president also ordered the number of Algerian and Moroccan visas to be sharply reduced by 50 percent compared to 2020.

Paris said the decision had been made necessary by the former French colony’s failure to do enough to allow illegal migrants in France to be returned.

We know this fact that the industrialist countries are mostly dependent on their trade and selling their products especially to the developing and Muslim countries and their trade revenues are their the Achilles Heel and any rupture in their business chain can lead to the collapse of the governments and even lead to violence.

Since Muslim countries are unfortunately importers of commodities from the arrogant and industrialist countries, they have turned into a milking cow and it helps the arrogant countries to become rude continue their dominance.

If we have a look back at the history, we will see some movements have become successful in fighting against dictators or colonialism through boycotting the purchase of foreign countries. Mahatma Gandhi became one of the pivotal figures, if not the main figure, in India’s history in the Twentieth Century and he was of the first leaders who started the tactic of boycotting.

Gandhi encouraged Indians to boycott British goods and buy Indian goods instead. This helped to revitalize local economies in India and it also hit home at the British by undermining their economy in the country. Gandhi preached passive resistance, believing that acts of violence against the British only provoked a negative reaction whereas passive resistance provoked the British into doing something which invariably pushed more people into supporting the Indian National Congress movement.

It is a good international example for bringing down the arrogant and colonialist powers down or minimizing their meddling in other countries’ internal affairs.

The Persian Tobacco Protest is another example for fight for independence. The protest was a Shia Muslim revolt in Iran against an 1890 tobacco concession granted by Nasir al-Din Shah of Iran to the United Kingdom, granting British control over growth, sale and export of tobacco. The protest was held by Tehran merchants in solidarity with the clerics. It climaxed in a widely obeyed December 1891 fatwa against tobacco use issued by Grand Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi.

So Muslim nations through their unity can use boycott as a weapon against the threats of the world arrogance. Now that the Western powers are not in a condition to wage wars and fight against the nations because of the awakening of the nations, they resort to sanctions and restricting economic access of the countries.

Therefore, Muslim and any freedom-loving nations should use a counter-weapon against the Western tactics and boycott-versus-sanction tactic is the one of the best ways which can be used by the nation against the hegemonic worlds.

What Algerians have started can be spread among the other Muslim nations which can inflict heavy losses on the arrogate and dominating countries without firing any bullet like what the West does against other countries through imposing sanctions.

Muslim nations are now more powerful than any time and they can bring down the U.S. and its allies or any aggressive country like what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. Muslim states are populous and they are good markets for the West and now they can take advantage of this weapon of boycott as the West is nowadays is struggling with its economy and it cannot help losing its target markets and it is the best chance to punish the West’s unilateral policy.