We Must Act Now

HARVARD'S RECENT decision to divest form Baker International Corp. because of that company's failure to meet minimal guidelines promoting the status of Blacks in South Africa offered a rare bit of common ground in the campus divestiture debate. Those on both sides of the issue welcomed the step as a tangible demonstration--after years of inaction--that Harvard intends to follow its own rules when investing in companies that do business in South Africa. Not surprisingly, thought agreement ends there. For while opponents of view the ticker move as a drastic route to be pursued only after efforts all persuasion have failed, divestiture supporters itself represents the most constructive able. Harvard can play with respect to Baker's--or any South African activities.

The difference between the two positions is not, as some on both sides of the debate would have us believe, one of morality (divestiture) versus pragmatism (conditional investment). The fact that we discuss our policy towards that country at all means that we are, to some extent, hit in the jugular vein by the plight of South African Blacks and coloreds. But our outrage at the immorality of apartheid does not cloud our conviction that divestiture is the best practical way Harvard can bring about substantive change in that society.

At best, Harvard's current policy will encourage firms to adhere to the Sullivan and Tutu Principles, which require companies doing business in South Africa to provide an integrated workplace and advancement opportunies for a small percentage of Blacks--although Harvard's past laxity in enforcing these provisions and the willingness of companies such as Baker to ignore Harvard's appeals do not bode well for this best-case scenario. But whatever progressive influence American corporations might exert through measures such as integrated washrooms or the promotion of a handful of Blacks to management positions, is vastly outweighed by the support-and the legitimacy-investment lends the regime as a hole. The South African government depends heavily, on American investment and technology to finance and enforce its apartheid policies-policies that include, indirectly. South Africa's incursions into Namibia.

The argument for working within the system in South Africa superficially carries the weight of common sense. If you want to exert leverage in a situation you have to have your hand on the over. But history has a funny way of turning common sense on the head.

The crux of the anti-divestiture argument is that the dynamism of capitalism, steered by conscientious American firms, will naturally erode apartheid. In the age of supply-side economics. Capitalism-equals-freedom-equals equality is an easy equation to wallow.

But the facts, in South Africa are these: after the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, in which the government simply destroyed the internal opposition, the foundations of apartheid were sunk sleeper and deep into South African society. From 1960 to 1974. 1.5 million Blacks were forcibly relocated from "white" rural or urban areas to be kept in tin shacks in the destitute bantustans or homelands. Petty legal segregation was extended. The apparatus of the police state was crested, including a law permitting unlimited detention without trial. Despite these Draconian measures, the South African economy soared. Only the others country--Japan--outpaced South African in real growth in the 1960s. By the end of the decade, white South Africans were among the most affluent people in the world. Meanwhile, American corporations worked to integrate room and move Blacks into low-level management position.

And the 1970, the economic status of Blacks and little it at all. More than 80 percent of the country. Black population falls below even the government-acknowledged poverty line, and infant mortality grows to epidemic proportion.

The apartheid system has.. of come into conflict with the demands of a modern industrial economy. On the contrary, the system of enforced segregation has proven highly profitable. By containing Blacks to bantustans far from available jobs, apartheid creates a massive, migrant labor force which is difficult to organize and easy to suppress. Even where the dictates of industrialization have required some modification of existing race laws--such as the presence of Black workers in white cities--the government has been careful to preserve the essential elements of control. These urban workers, for example, are labeled "temporary sojourners" and are separated from their families and deprived of political rights outside their far-removed homelands.

But even if a convincing case can be made that economic growth will bring Blacks into economic parity with whites, it is more difficult to see that dynamic American corporations are going to challenge the South African Police state. The Soviet Union has proven that industrial growth and political repression aren't mutually exclusive.

The notion that American corporations can prompt redirection of these sweeping racist policies through incremental change in extremely unconvincing, in light of everything we know about South. Unlike the American South, Where racism existed in opposition to established constitutional principles, the white Afrikaaner policies of apartheid are part of an entire civil theology and political culture of race separation wherein the hereditary Afrikaaners often refer to themselves as "The White Tribe." Even the token reforms undertaken by the Botha government have drawn vehement criticism within the Nationalist government and have prompted a rightward shift in much of the Afrolaamer electorate. Far from warming to reforms in apartheid, white South Africa threatens a violent backlash.

The argument for working within the system is morally vacuous and ultimately disingenuous in view of the decades of stagnation and movement away from real reform in South Africa. A policy that claims to be working towards change while the system becomes more oppressive, more violent, more abominable, is a policy that has been coopted.

SIMPLY PUT, the most effective way for the United States to force reform or any change in South Africa is to threaten and carry out removal of all political, corporate, and economic support for the system. Although Harvard's divestment per se may not swing a particular corporation to withdraw from South Africa, it becomes more potent when combined with the divestiture efforts of other universities, state and Federal institutions and organizations, leading toward the goal of ending all U.S. corporate involvement with the current South African regime.

More important still, Harvard's divestiture would publicize the need to end American support for the white South African government at a time when Congress has finally begun to get serious about economic sanctions. As one of the country's leading education institutions and as the home of some of the most important liberal and conservative thought in the country, Harvard's decision to divest would add moral and intellectual credibility to the divestiture movement as a whole. The impact of such a move would far outweigh any minor workplace improvement made possible by what Harvard has euphemistically called "intensive dialogue."

Divestiture is not an exercise in moral hand-wringing, an effort to isolate ourselves from events in South Africa. We believe it is absurd and useless to argue that we can ever be morally pure, because everything in which we invest, everything we buy, and every place we spend our money is somehow connected to a venture or an idea we find morally repugnant. Of those who continue to charge us with trying to wash our hands of apartheid through divestment we ask, why divest from Baker? Why not invest only in South Africa-related companies so we can have an even bigger impact on apartheid?

Divestiture should be and is part of an activist program to work for change in South Africa. Divestiture should be accompanied by vigorous efforts to lobby Congress, the Reagan Administration, and individual corporations for economic and diplomatic sanctions against South Africa, and to grant educational and economic support directly to Blacks and coloreds. We applaud the recent actions by Trans-Africa and the Free South Africa movement for its pickets and civil disobedience outside the South African embassy and consulates and hope that more join this cause.

Finally, it is becoming increasingly clear that this is one of those issues in which the United States academic community will have to lead the fight. The recent arrests and riots that resulted in he murder of scores of South African Blacks only prove the impotence of what Republicans euphemistically call "constructive engagement." There seemed to be some hope for improvement last year when a group of conservative congressmen lobbied the Administration to take a stronger stand against Pretoria. But when the State Department whimpered its "deep regret" last week over the arrest of six leaders of the nonviolent United Democratic Front, it was again clear that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Those who argue that Harvard cannot be a powerful force for change might recall the catalyzing effect of the academic and student community's opposition to the Vietnam war. And those who would blithely defer to the fade at government for leadership in the fight against apartheid may ask themselves why international figures like Nobel Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Rev. Jesse L., Jackson came to Harvard to condemn investment in South Africa. Dante wrote that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in a time of moral crisis. In South Africa, an already intolerable situation is getting worse, not better Should Harvard remain neutral?

Any civilized society--say, for instance, a society that might be expected to respond to "constructive engagement" or "quiet diplomacy"--reserves the death penalty for crimes which threaten the very foundations of its existence. Urging disinvestment is punishable by death in South Africa. Is there any more telling evidence that divestiture might, just might, strike the match that lights the bonfire?

ULTIMATELY, THE ISSUE is moral--not in liberal or conservative terms, but in terms of what we will tolerate from other human beings. South Africa, as did Nazi Germany, thrives on a fear and prejudice that its rulers have elevated to religious and mythic proportions. Such systems do not die or change easily, and they do not bend to want we like to believe are the subtle democratizing influences of capitalism. Today, we would not give a second thought to ridding ourselves of any connection with Nazi Germany, a regime that along with few others is startlingly similar to South Africa in 1985. Why, like a nation of Neville Chamberlains, should we let events take their course a second time? We can and must make a difference.

The difference between the two positions is not, as some on both sides of the debate would have us believe, one of morality (divestiture) versus pragmatism (conditional investment). The fact that we discuss our policy towards that country at all means that we are, to some extent, hit in the jugular vein by the plight of South African Blacks and coloreds. But our outrage at the immorality of apartheid does not cloud our conviction that divestiture is the best practical way Harvard can bring about substantive change in that society.

At best, Harvard's current policy will encourage firms to adhere to the Sullivan and Tutu Principles, which require companies doing business in South Africa to provide an integrated workplace and advancement opportunies for a small percentage of Blacks--although Harvard's past laxity in enforcing these provisions and the willingness of companies such as Baker to ignore Harvard's appeals do not bode well for this best-case scenario. But whatever progressive influence American corporations might exert through measures such as integrated washrooms or the promotion of a handful of Blacks to management positions, is vastly outweighed by the support-and the legitimacy-investment lends the regime as a hole. The South African government depends heavily, on American investment and technology to finance and enforce its apartheid policies-policies that include, indirectly. South Africa's incursions into Namibia.

The argument for working within the system in South Africa superficially carries the weight of common sense. If you want to exert leverage in a situation you have to have your hand on the over. But history has a funny way of turning common sense on the head.

The crux of the anti-divestiture argument is that the dynamism of capitalism, steered by conscientious American firms, will naturally erode apartheid. In the age of supply-side economics. Capitalism-equals-freedom-equals equality is an easy equation to wallow.

But the facts, in South Africa are these: after the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, in which the government simply destroyed the internal opposition, the foundations of apartheid were sunk sleeper and deep into South African society. From 1960 to 1974. 1.5 million Blacks were forcibly relocated from "white" rural or urban areas to be kept in tin shacks in the destitute bantustans or homelands. Petty legal segregation was extended. The apparatus of the police state was crested, including a law permitting unlimited detention without trial. Despite these Draconian measures, the South African economy soared. Only the others country--Japan--outpaced South African in real growth in the 1960s. By the end of the decade, white South Africans were among the most affluent people in the world. Meanwhile, American corporations worked to integrate room and move Blacks into low-level management position.

And the 1970, the economic status of Blacks and little it at all. More than 80 percent of the country. Black population falls below even the government-acknowledged poverty line, and infant mortality grows to epidemic proportion.

The apartheid system has.. of come into conflict with the demands of a modern industrial economy. On the contrary, the system of enforced segregation has proven highly profitable. By containing Blacks to bantustans far from available jobs, apartheid creates a massive, migrant labor force which is difficult to organize and easy to suppress. Even where the dictates of industrialization have required some modification of existing race laws--such as the presence of Black workers in white cities--the government has been careful to preserve the essential elements of control. These urban workers, for example, are labeled "temporary sojourners" and are separated from their families and deprived of political rights outside their far-removed homelands.

But even if a convincing case can be made that economic growth will bring Blacks into economic parity with whites, it is more difficult to see that dynamic American corporations are going to challenge the South African Police state. The Soviet Union has proven that industrial growth and political repression aren't mutually exclusive.

The notion that American corporations can prompt redirection of these sweeping racist policies through incremental change in extremely unconvincing, in light of everything we know about South. Unlike the American South, Where racism existed in opposition to established constitutional principles, the white Afrikaaner policies of apartheid are part of an entire civil theology and political culture of race separation wherein the hereditary Afrikaaners often refer to themselves as "The White Tribe." Even the token reforms undertaken by the Botha government have drawn vehement criticism within the Nationalist government and have prompted a rightward shift in much of the Afrolaamer electorate. Far from warming to reforms in apartheid, white South Africa threatens a violent backlash.

The argument for working within the system is morally vacuous and ultimately disingenuous in view of the decades of stagnation and movement away from real reform in South Africa. A policy that claims to be working towards change while the system becomes more oppressive, more violent, more abominable, is a policy that has been coopted.

SIMPLY PUT, the most effective way for the United States to force reform or any change in South Africa is to threaten and carry out removal of all political, corporate, and economic support for the system. Although Harvard's divestment per se may not swing a particular corporation to withdraw from South Africa, it becomes more potent when combined with the divestiture efforts of other universities, state and Federal institutions and organizations, leading toward the goal of ending all U.S. corporate involvement with the current South African regime.

More important still, Harvard's divestiture would publicize the need to end American support for the white South African government at a time when Congress has finally begun to get serious about economic sanctions. As one of the country's leading education institutions and as the home of some of the most important liberal and conservative thought in the country, Harvard's decision to divest would add moral and intellectual credibility to the divestiture movement as a whole. The impact of such a move would far outweigh any minor workplace improvement made possible by what Harvard has euphemistically called "intensive dialogue."

Divestiture is not an exercise in moral hand-wringing, an effort to isolate ourselves from events in South Africa. We believe it is absurd and useless to argue that we can ever be morally pure, because everything in which we invest, everything we buy, and every place we spend our money is somehow connected to a venture or an idea we find morally repugnant. Of those who continue to charge us with trying to wash our hands of apartheid through divestment we ask, why divest from Baker? Why not invest only in South Africa-related companies so we can have an even bigger impact on apartheid?

Divestiture should be and is part of an activist program to work for change in South Africa. Divestiture should be accompanied by vigorous efforts to lobby Congress, the Reagan Administration, and individual corporations for economic and diplomatic sanctions against South Africa, and to grant educational and economic support directly to Blacks and coloreds. We applaud the recent actions by Trans-Africa and the Free South Africa movement for its pickets and civil disobedience outside the South African embassy and consulates and hope that more join this cause.

Finally, it is becoming increasingly clear that this is one of those issues in which the United States academic community will have to lead the fight. The recent arrests and riots that resulted in he murder of scores of South African Blacks only prove the impotence of what Republicans euphemistically call "constructive engagement." There seemed to be some hope for improvement last year when a group of conservative congressmen lobbied the Administration to take a stronger stand against Pretoria. But when the State Department whimpered its "deep regret" last week over the arrest of six leaders of the nonviolent United Democratic Front, it was again clear that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Those who argue that Harvard cannot be a powerful force for change might recall the catalyzing effect of the academic and student community's opposition to the Vietnam war. And those who would blithely defer to the fade at government for leadership in the fight against apartheid may ask themselves why international figures like Nobel Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Rev. Jesse L., Jackson came to Harvard to condemn investment in South Africa. Dante wrote that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in a time of moral crisis. In South Africa, an already intolerable situation is getting worse, not better Should Harvard remain neutral?

Any civilized society--say, for instance, a society that might be expected to respond to "constructive engagement" or "quiet diplomacy"--reserves the death penalty for crimes which threaten the very foundations of its existence. Urging disinvestment is punishable by death in South Africa. Is there any more telling evidence that divestiture might, just might, strike the match that lights the bonfire?

ULTIMATELY, THE ISSUE is moral--not in liberal or conservative terms, but in terms of what we will tolerate from other human beings. South Africa, as did Nazi Germany, thrives on a fear and prejudice that its rulers have elevated to religious and mythic proportions. Such systems do not die or change easily, and they do not bend to want we like to believe are the subtle democratizing influences of capitalism. Today, we would not give a second thought to ridding ourselves of any connection with Nazi Germany, a regime that along with few others is startlingly similar to South Africa in 1985. Why, like a nation of Neville Chamberlains, should we let events take their course a second time? We can and must make a difference.