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Politics on the rocks with a twist of
religion
By N Janardhan
DUBAI
- It is being gulped down not just for its taste, but
because it is a brew that mixes religion and politics.
Across Europe and the Middle East, new soft drinks like
Zam Zam Cola, Mecca-Cola and Star Cola are giving global
brands like Coke and Pepsi the jitters.
 Like
Coca-Cola, the label of Mecca-Cola uses the
red-and-white lettering, but the similarities end there.
The 1.5 liter Mecca-Cola bottles are Palestinian green,
with their labels printed in French as well as Arabic.
"Not to be mixed with spirits," reads the warning label.
Beyond that, the message on the bottles is
almost a pamphlet. "Ten percent for Palestine" and "10
percent for European charities" appear with a picture of
the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, one of the holiest
Muslim shrines.
Introduced in France by Tawfik
Mathlouthi, the 46-year-old founder of the leading
Muslim-oriented station Radio Mediterranean, Mecca-Cola
is being marketed and sold as a means of raising funds
for Palestine - 10 percent of the drink's 1.20 euro
price (US$1.14) goes to the Palestinian cause.
Selling 2.2 million bottles in just two months,
Mecca-Cola is rated a success, particularly among the
large urban Muslim communities in France and is set to
make its debut in other European countries.
Mathlouthi, Franco-Tunisian entrepreneur who
founded France's Radio Mediterranean, was inspired to
produce Mecca-Cola when he came across Iran's Zam Zam
Cola, named after the holy spring at Mecca.
Zam
Zam Cola and Star Cola found a good market last year
among Arab communities during a campaign to stay away
from western products at the height of angry protests
against US policies in the Middle East.
For
instance, the University of Sharjah in the United Arab
Emirates stopped selling soft drinks manufactured by US
multinationals, and instead sold Star Cola.
The
US economy is "surviving on Arab money, which is used to
supply the Israelis with monetary and military
assistance to kill the Palestinians who are resisting
the occupation for 50 years," Nawal Jasim, head of the
Women Students' Union at the university, said in an
interview.
"We are a billion Muslims and imagine
how much the US economy would be affected if each of us
boycott a soft drink can," she said.
That mood
helped Zam Zam Cola sell 10 million bottles in the Gulf
countries between June and September and the sales of
the UAE-based Star Cola shot up by 40 percent during
those months. In producing a French derivative,
Mathlouthi says he felt it was the best way to get
across a message that he was already conveying quite
successfully through his radio station. In May, he held
a daylong pro-Palestinian "radiothon" that raised
US$300,000 for the Palestinian cause.
"I have
now chosen to continue the work on behalf of Palestine
on a full-time basis through manufacturing and
distribution of Mecca-Cola to other European markets,"
perhaps Germany and Great Britain, and eventually back
to Islam's holiest site, Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and the
Palestinian territories," he said in an interview this
week in Dubai, where he intends to start Middle East
operations.
Explaining the brand name,
Mathlouthi said, "In these times where Islamophobia is
so intense, it became evident to us that if we wanted to
preserve our identity, we would have to come up with a
name that would federate us, unite us and unify our
efforts on behalf of Islam. To drink Mecca-Cola is for
us a concrete manifestation of our faith and of our
solidarity on behalf of Islam and the Palestinian
cause," he pointed out, while building a profitable
operation that eases human suffering.
Mathlouthi
is confident that in troubled times a politicized soft
drink will sell in the heart of the Islamic world,
adding that Saudi Arabia has already ordered five
million 1.5 liter bottles.
Several countries in
the Middle East, including Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Iran,
Iraq, Yemen, Jordan and Libya, are taking distribution
rights, he added.
Claiming that his campaign is
not anti-American and the drink not a competition for US
drinks, Mathlouthi said each bottle sold is a protest
against US President George W Bush administration's
foreign policy in the Middle East.
But Hashem
Orabi, a marketing manager with a private company in
Dubai, says the Islamic cola campaign represents a new
attack on the US's grip on fast food outlets, soft
drinks, leisure wear and cigarette brands.
"The
new drinks are making an impact on the market leaders,"
he said in an interview, but was skeptical about how
long they will last. "Coca-Cola is one of the world's
most valuable brands. It's not going to be put out of
business easily. It has the wherewithal to neutralize
the influence of the new brands," he said.
Moreover, Orabi said, "One can never be sure how
long ideology will influence one's tastes. If a
Palestinian state is born, will the new brands still
have the same appeal?"
Mathlouthi, however, is
optimistic. With an annual sales target of 200 million
bottles, he is already working on plans to launch Halal
Fried Chicken and Mecca-Cola-Coffee.
(Inter
Press Service)
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