Bok's Empty Words

A letter sent to Congress last week about South Africa reads: "We believe that legislative sanctions offer the best chance we have of encouraging peaceful change and avoiding increased violence and bloodshed."

Who wrote this letter? Ted Kennedy? Bishop Desmond Tutu? A prominent divestment activist? No, none of the above. It was President Derek C. Bok, who has spent many years justifying Harvard's colossal investments in South Africa, protesting the state of emergency and urging the U.S. to impose sanctions on that country.

Bok, as he did last summer, has recently taken a very active role in speaking out against the South African government's repression of Blacks. The above letter, written by Bok and signed by 94 college heads nationwide, is only the most recent in a series of statements against apartheid that Bok has issued in the past month. In late June, Bok signed a letter supporting Black South African leaders against their country's most recent set of repressive tactics. The following week, he sent an outraged telegram to P.W. Botha protesting the unlawful arrest of Zwelakhi Sisulu, the Black editor of a liberal South African publication and a former Neiman fellow at Harvard.

Bok's statements of concern are all very well, and his pressure on Congress is undeniably admirable, but would not his protest be considerably strengthened if it were backed up by Harvard's own divestment? Indeed, Harvard's failure to divest make his words sound hollow and his recent positive actions ineffective.

IN mid-May, Bok emerged from his office and addressed a group of students on his South Africa policy. His reasons for maintaining Harvard's investments in South Africa were two-fold. Firstly, he argued that divestment would only harm Black South Africans. (They would lose, he argued, the protection of the Sullivan principle which rate how well American companies work to end discrimination against South African Blacks in the workplace.) Secondly, he said that divestment would threaten the University's independence as an educational institution.

Bok's recent gestures, however, have undermined both of these arguments. Any sanctions imposed by the U.S., such as the bill that passed the House last week calling for complete American withdrawal from South Africa, would clearly harm Black South Africans far more than Harvard's divestment.

And as far as protecting the independence of the University, Bok's statements involve the institution into politics as directly as divestment would. Even if Bok claims these letters are personal gestures, they are clearly linked to Harvard in the public's mind.

But the real logical flaw in Bok's arguments is that he can not distinguish between divestment as an economically-motivated act or as a morally-motivated one. It is time that the University stop viewing Harvard's divestment as an economic issue and instead come to see it for what it could be--a significant political and moral step on the way to a larger national solution.

If the U.S. government were to divest of all holdings in South Africa, perhaps it would lessen the chances of a violent, bloody overthrow of the white supremacist government, and pave the way for a peaceful solution. If, on the other hand, Harvard were to divest, the economic consequences would not be so great. Apartheid could easily survive without Harvard's $416 million worth of investments. But Harvard's divestment nevertheless could make a powerful political and moral statement, a necessary step on the way to national sanctions. And it is especially necessary if Bok's lobbying is to have any effect.

U.S. divestment, if it ever occurs, will be a slow, gradual process. The first steps must be taken before the final step can be seriously considered. Bok has it in his power to make one of those essential first steps and he chooses not to. Without having made the choice to divest what monies he controls, how can Bok's call for sanctions be believable? How can his outraged telegrams, his signature on letters and petitions, be read as anything but empty words?

Students will be hard pressed not to see what may be Bok's sincere desire for national sanctions as no more than a cover for not divesting at home.

One only needs to take Bok's own words and apply them to Harvard instead of to the nation as a whole. "If we do not take this step and the violence continues to mount in South Africa," says Bok's letter to Congress, "will we be able to say that we did everything possible to forestall further loss of life?"

No.