In Defense of Divestiture

To the Editors of The Crimson:

In his article "The Immorality of Divestment" (11/23/83). Robert Conway suggests that Harvard establish a South Africa center which would function, in part, as a source of information about South Africa for the Harvard community. While it is true that such a center is sorely needed, it should not be established with the intention proposed by Mr. Conway--as a "new alternative" to the "immoral" demands made by many students and faculty that Harvard divest its resources from corporations and banks that do business in South Africa Indeed, his stand against divestiture is a weak position which he supports with a concatenation of illogical reasoning, ahistorical analysis, and, ironically, moral impotence.

Mr. Conway's major objection to demands that Harvard divest stems from the claim that by doing so the University would merely "dissociate itself from the South Africa question" and "walk away from the problem" By investing, he argues, "Harvard University can play an important role in influencing change." However, moral and factual considerations prove this argument unacceptable.

First, it is unquestionably immoral to invest in corporations that support an inherently evil system--even with the justification that one intends to "influence change" in that system. With "moral" reasoning that would render such an action permissible, what is to prevent someone from investing in a drug ring, expressing a desire to influence drug dealers to decrease sales to young children or to cut down on drug-related murder?

Secondly, Mr. Conway's argument naively presupposes the potential effectiveness of any shareholder pressure that Harvard might attempt to exert: the historical record contradicts this assumption. In 1977, only four of 350 corporations had withdrawal resolutions put forth by shareholders, and the average vote in favor of the Corporations' withdrawal was less than 3 percent. Moreover, since management has control over 80 percent of shareholders votes by proxy, and shareholders' resolutions are, by law, nonbinding requests, any resolutions that might appear are doomed to defeat. In fact, this has been the case each year, even resolutions calling merely for study of the South Africa question have been overwhelmingly defeated.

Similarly ridiculous is Mr. Conway's insinuation that Harvard should continue to support and reap profits from apartheid so that its students can remain concerned about South Africa. Whether or not Harvard divests, students who are sincerely concerned about human rights violations will find time to address them wherever they occur--in South Africa, in Central America, in Soviet Russia--and in the United States, for that matter.

Mr. Conway also argues against general corporate divestiture from South Africa who is intimately involved with the situation in that country and whose sympathy lies with the majority Black population. As such he proceeds to blast students and scholars for "self-righteously" advocating divestment, which, he claims, would "help entrench apartheid" and lead to "increased Black poverty." By mentioning that we do this "from the lofty citadels at Harvard," he insinuates that we are very far removed from the situation in South Africa--perhaps too far to make an intelligent judgement about what is best for its people.

That the Harvard community is indeed far from the South Africa scene is obvious: that we cannot make reasoned suggestions about what might benefit its people is much less clear. Yet one thing is certain: neither Robert Conway nor anyone else has the right to assume that they know better how to solve the problems of Black South Africans than do the Black South Africans themselves. Unfortunately, this is apparently what Mr. Conway has done, since nearly every Black leader, liberation organization, and anti-apartheid group in South Africa has unequivocally advocated divestiture of U.S. corporations and banks from South Africa. Many of these groups, including the ANC and SWAPO, have frequently--and recently--sent representatives to Harvard to urge the Harvard community to push for divestiture. Our actions are governed, therefore, not by self-righteousness, but by the constant reassurance of Black South Africans that divestiture is a most effective and desirable tool in ending the oppression of Black South Africans.

As a student of Afro-American history I find Mr. Conway's short-sighted patemalism disturbingly reminiscent of that of many Northern whites of the early nineteenth century. Claiming to represent the interests of Black people, these men fought the abolition of slavery because they felt that the resulting freedmen would be worse off than they had been as slaves. The parallel becomes still more striking when one remembers that in the meantime, ex-slaves such as Frederick Douglass fought vehemently for abolition. Just as these Northern whites chose to ignore Douglass (no doubt feeling that they knew better than he), so does Robert Conway ignore the sentiments of men like Nelson Mandela, the late Steven Biko, and the late Nobel Prize Winner and African National Congress Chairman Albert J. Luthuli, who has said. "The economic boycott of South Africa will entail undoubted hardship for Africans. We do not doubt that. But if it is a method which shortens the day of blood, the suffering to us will be a price we are willing to pay."

Unlike government puppets like Chief Buthelizi and Percy Qoboza, the true leaders see that "progressive change" is impossible within the confines of an inherently racist system which depends upon gross exploitation and oppression for its very existence. Therefore they advocate total divestiture--probably the single action most capable of bringing the deplorable South African regime to its knees. Stephen M. Taylor '84