A Muslim entrepreneur who calls for destruction of the “Zionist entity” is fighting U.S. “imperialism” with an alternative to an American cultural icon.
Frenchman Tawfiq Mathlouthi, a native Tunisian, launched Mecca-Cola shortly after Israel’s massive anti-terrorism action at the Jenin refugee camp last year to enable Muslims to boycott Coca-Cola and have their fizzy drinks too.
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Mecca-Cola’s labels urge consumers: “Don’t drink stupid, drink committed.”
Mathlouthi says that when Muslims “buy an American good they know they are helping American imperialism, which helps the crimes of the Zionist entity, and that they are giving money to kill their brothers.”
What began as a venture for French Muslims – starting with a recipe from the Internet and $23,000 – has garnered international appeal, with markets now opening up in Belgium, Italy, Germany, the UK, Spain and the United Arab Emirates. More than 2 million bottles were sold in November and December, and 16 million have been registered for delivery in the first two months of this year, according to Mathlouthi.
He expects to sell 250 to 300 million by the end of the year and says a “big merchant” in California has just put in an order.
The Mecca-Cola label says 10 percent of the profit from each $1.14 bottle goes to charities that assist Palestinian children and another 10 percent goes to European charities.
Mathlouthi has been pro-Palestinian since he was a child in Tunisia, the former place of exile for the Palestine Liberation Organization, according to a feature in the French newspaper LeMonde. The son of an Imam, he became a naturalized French citizen in 1998. Since 1992, he has hosted a talk show on Radio M?diterran?e that has become known for its anti-Semitic banter.
Destruction of ‘Zionist entity’
In the LeMonde interview, translated for WorldNetDaily, Mathlouthi declared that “Zionism is a racist anti-Arab ideology” that must be combated.
In response to Palestinian leaders who at least publicly have accepted Israel’s existence, including Yasser Arafat, Mathlouthi replied: “We are not fighting for the same Palestine.”
The French businessman wants the destruction of what he calls “the Zionist entity” and its replacement with an Arab state that covers the whole of British Mandate Palestine, LeMonde reported.
Mathlouthi added that this would be done “with the understanding that the Jews of the region might be able to stay and live there.”
He said he is proud to have a “non-Zionist” Jew working with his radio program and LeMonde added that Mathlouthi is known to hang up on callers “who slip from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism; but on the question of Israel he takes the same position as Hamas.”
Monitors of his program, however, note that he has received warnings from the government communications regulator, the CSA, for inflammatory content and believe that he invites the many callers who level fury against Jews and Americans.
In a Sept. 22, 2002, broadcast, a caller referred to “Israelis,” which brought an immediate retort from Mathlouthi: “What ‘Israelis? I don’t know any such thing. All I know is the Zionist entity.”
Another exchange went like this:
Listener: It’s the first time that I’ve heard this station. Why don’t you try to calm people’s minds, give a cleaner image? All I’ve heard is tirades since I tuned in.
Mathlouthi: Denouncing tirades when it’s just the opposite. It’s not in the Muslim tradition to turn the other cheek. We have an obligation to defend ourselves. We have to be firm. When you are faced with a campaign of denigration, hatred racism, you can’t deal with it gently.
Listener: We must always be in peace.
Mathlouthi: No, we have to be firm without being unjust. Injustice doesn’t go in Islam.
A listener named Sonia confronted Mathlouthi about Palestinian terrorism.
Sonia: And another thing, maybe there’s something better to do than putting bombs here and there.
Mathlouthi: The mask falls! We can do better than follow the example of an ideology of crime and apartheid.
Sonia: Isn’t there something else to do besides terrorism?
Mathlouthi: It’s not terrorism, it’s resistance. If France were occupied tomorrow I would give myself to my sacred duty for the fatherland.
In interviews with publications around the world, however, Mathlouthi has insisted that he wants to avoid possible accusations that Mecca Cola is “helping fighters or fundamentalists.”
“We are going to send books, school material, clothes, and medicine; no money, just goods,” he said, according to a story by the Arab-based Information & Technology Publishing Co.
In a New York Times interview he said, “Some choose violence; I am against it,” adding that “the Arabs have behaved like imbeciles.”
“We have to bring the United States to be a partner, and not a guardian,” he said. “America is the foster parent of the Arab world, and the Arab peoples are like minors under the guardianship of the United States.”
LeMonde noted that on his radio program, he can curse “the criminal barbarian regime of Saddam Hussein and then personally take four anti-war delegations to Baghdad joined by his ‘old friend’ L?on Schwartzenberg.”
The French paper said “these trips gave rise to a nasty rumor about Iraqi subsidies.”
Mathlouthi laughed, ‘If the Iraqis were backing me, frankly, I wouldn’t be running around looking for financing all the time.”
He told the New York Times that actually the biggest boost for Mecca-Cola would be war in Iraq.
“If there’s a war,” he said, “you’d have an extraordinary flare-up of Mecca-Cola.”
Not the ‘real thing’
Mathlouthi admitted he has received a few complaints from fundamentalist Muslims who charge he is profaning the sacred name of Mecca for commercial purposes, the London Guardian said. But he believes that “in the current anti-Muslim climate, any positive mention of Mecca can only be beneficial.”
Coca-Cola has responded to Mecca- Cola with a statement, saying Mathouthi had “identified a commercial opportunity which involves the exploitation in Europe of the difficult and complex situation in the Middle East. Ultimately it is the consumer who will make the decision.”
More than 40 million 8-ounce servings of Coca-Cola are sold every hour worldwide.
A UK spokesman for Coca-Cola said, “We don’t believe calls for a boycott are a proper way to further any sort of cause. As a business we don’t take a position in matters of politics or religion,” according to the Guardian.
“As far as we are concerned we are a business which is already local wherever it is,” said Martin Norris, communications director for Coca-Cola UK. “If you look at Palestine, we have a plant in Ramallah where we employ 200 people. I think we are one of the biggest investors in Palestine. If you look at the way we are considered there, we are actually extremely popular.”
The ‘Muslim Colonel’
Playing off of his success, Mathlouthi plans to open a chain called Hallal Fried Chicken and to create “T?l?-Libert?,” a European TV news channel, like Al Jazeera, that would broadcast in Arabic, French and English.
He already has registered the statutes of his broadcasting company in London because “it’s impossible to do this in France where the ideas of people who make decisions are tied up with Zionism,” he told LeMonde.
Mathlouthi distinguishes Mecca Cola from other Muslim knock-off drinks, such as Iran’s Zam Zam Cola – named for the Islamic holy water – and Qibla, which is named for the direction Muslims face when praying toward Mecca. Zam Zam Cola, introduced after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, had its sales spurred a few years ago when a Muslim cleric ruled that Coke and Pepsi were “un-Islamic.”
 Yasser Arafat chips sold in Egypt |
But none of these companies have turned their drinks into a political weapon, Mathlouthi said in a London Telegraph story, noting that no portion of profits are given to such causes.
“Mecca-Cola is not just a drink,” said Mathlouthi. “It is an act of protest against Bush and Rumsfeld and their policies.”
Other prominent anti-US and anti-Israel products that have hit Middle East markets include Yasser Arafat Chips in Egypt and, in the Palestinian Territories, Star Cola and Hero Chips, which are packaged with a picture of a boy about to throw a stone at an Israeli tank.
