�Buying Nothing Day� Can Save Someone�s Life

December 4, 2008 - 10:48 AM by Karin Kloosterman

A day before Buy Nothing Day (last Saturday), an American salesman lost his life, as bargain hunters in a Wal-Mart shop in Long Island trampled him to death. No one was going to get in the way of a good deal: shoppers walked on and killed the 34 year-old, while pushing their way through the door on Black Friday, the first Friday after Thanksgiving, and when Americans start their holiday shopping. TreeHugger wrote a good thought piece on the Wal-Mart death right after the incident.

buy nothing day israel image photo wal-mart One of the things I love about living in Israel is that people here are not driven with the same kind of consumerism you can find in North America. It’s a real relief. Maybe it’s because most of us aren’t caught up with Christmas, being mainly Jewish or Muslim. Don’t get me wrong, Israelis love a good bargain, but shopping over here — thankfully — has not become a religion.

In light of last Saturday being “Buy Nothing Day” in North America (and which was celebrated in Israel last Friday – see this post on FRFDR where to dumpster dive, participate in free markets etc), I’ve posted a story below, which I’d written after my first shopping experience two years ago in Bangkok, Thailand (on a vacation from my hectic life in Israel). Some food for thought about what drives us to shop, and consume:

Abercrombie and Fitch shorts, Birkenstock sandals, Gucci purses and Ray Ban sunglasses – I was faced with miles of aisles of goods in the shopping mall halls in Bangkok, Thailand. I looked at the products promising to make me more desirable, more pretty, more everything and wondered, do I have the power to choose not to choose?

I had anticipated the shopping experience in Thailand, where I was told that for tens – instead of hundreds and thousands of dollars, I could buy anything that my heart desired. But when faced with the prospect of what seemed like an endless sea of “knock-offs,” I started to feel pains in my stomach. Read more

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