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PAGE 8
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JANUARY 4, 1985
Tswana, by contrast, form separate ethnic communities that are
culturally quite distinct from those of South African whites or
Indians. In many respects, South Africa resembles a multiethnic
community such as Cyprus or even the old Austro-Hungarian Empire
far more than the United States. It is like other African coun
tries split by ethnic rivalries and populated by backward, tribal
peoples. South Africa's problems cannot, therefore, be resolved
along American lines.
Although Gann and Duignan don't carry the analogy further, others have made
these comparisons: First, that South Africa's 2� million Western-cultured
Coloureds (mixed race) are more analogous to Arnerica's blacks (who pre
viously were often called "colored") •
Further, the various pure-blood
tribal African nations, in their homeland setting, should be seen more akin
to the American Indian tribal nations (Sioux, Navajo, etc.).
South
Africa's critics, however, gloss over these very real distinctions and por
tray everything in simplistic white-black terms.
Authors Gann and Duignan take liberal churchmen to task for inflaming the
South Africa issue. They write, on page 3:
Churchmen no longer lead protest movements against "Godless Com
munism"; few leftist students o� university teachers cry out for
the protection of human rights in the Soviet Union, let alone in
North Korea, East Germany, or Vietnam. The liberal left argues
that we should "understand" the communists, that we should not
"provoke" them, and that we should try to soften their regimes by
promoting trade cultural relations, by extending loans on easy
terms, and by open or concealed subsidies. This is not the case
with South Africa, however; for that nation world opinion--or
what passes as such--instead demands sanctions, boycotts, and
cultural isolation.
The Mad Campaign for Disinvestment
Throughout America and even parts of Britain the campaign for "disinvest
ment" (sometimes called "divestment") in South African industry is growing
like a snowball rolling downhill. It began as a radical chic movement on
university campuses, where activists strongarmed university stock fund man
agers to sell off stocks in companies (350 of them, often the biggest U.S.
corporations) doing business in South Africa. The aim, of course, was to
force the stock values in these corporations down so much that the com
panies would feel compelled to pull up stakes in South Africa. The fact
that U.S. companies in South Africa offer the best working conditions and
pay for their non-white employees means nothing.
Now the movement has spread to several municipal governments, including
those of Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, D.C. This will spread as
i ore
ct
ties c9me under mioarity c���rQ].. -At least five �ta��s hav
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assed some form of disinvestment legislation. There is no agreed-upon de-
-fTnre-ron--of or limits to disinvestment. Some legislation attempts, for ex
ample, to force pension fund managers to sell off stocks of banks that lend
money to firms doing business in South Africa.
Some cities attempt to
screen out, from municipal contracts, all companies that even trade with
South Africa (about 6,000) not just those with plants there.