The planned boycott of Shell filling stations didn’t have much effect, but activists are still hopeful of getting support for their campaign, writes Rehana Rossouw
SHELL South Africa has emerged from this week’s two-day boycott of its 850 filling stations as an untouchable company — not the first time a call for action against Shell has failed to take root locally.
The boycott, called by the South African Nigerian Democracy Support Group, was intended to show displeasure with the company’s refusal to push the Nigerian government to stop human rights violations against minority Ogoni
But South African consumers largely ignored the call to boycott Shell filling stations on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Shell spokesman Pieter Cronje said though it was too early to say whether sales had been affected, he estimated it would be minimal.
The only picket reported nationwide was at Shell’s Ben Schoeman Highway Ultra City between Johannesburg and Pretoria where 11 activists were arrested on a law prohibiting people from walking on a freeway.
The poor response to the boycott call makes a mockery of executed Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa’s address to a military court shortly before he was sentenced to death, in which he promised retribution for Shell’s alleged ravaging of his native Ogoniland and complicity with the Nigerian military
“I and my colleagues are not the only ones on trial,” Saro-Wiwa told the court. “Shell is here on trial and it is well that it is represented by counsel said to be holding a watching brief.”
“Its day will surely come and the lessons learnt here may prove useful to it for there is no doubt in my mind that the ecological war that the company has waged in the Delta will be called into question sooner rather than later and the crimes of that war will be duly punished. The crime of the company’s dirty wars against the Ogoni people will also be
In the late 1980s, Shell also escaped “punishment” in South Africa when local activists failed to respond to calls from Dutch anti-apartheid groupings to target the company in an attempt to force it to disinvest from South Africa.
At the time, consumer boycotts called locally during protest campaigns were mostly
While Shell’s headquarters in Holland were picketed and its petrol stations there sabotaged by anti-apartheid activists, the company — like in Nigeria today — quietly pumped millions of rands into anti- apartheid work, funding human rights, education and community-building initiatives — work which some branded “window dressing” and others applauded.
South African-based Nigerian democracy activist Emma Idighejo said he was not disappointed at the response to the boycott. “Our attitude is that this struggle is going to take some time and we will be using several tactics and methods along the way, for which our South African brothers have pledged their support,” he said.
“What is significant about this boycott is not how many people did not fill up with Shell, but that it was a consciousness-raising exercise, and in that regard I would say it was a success.”