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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, APRIL 19, 1985
PAGE 11
campus of the University of California, demanding that the regents of the
university system sell off university-owned stocks in firms that do busi
ness in South Africa.
Nearly half of the school's students boycotted
classes. Radicals who led the anti-war and free speech demonstrations at
Cal Berkeley in the 1960s were on hand to instruct today's protestors how
best to protest. Students also have been demonstrating at Columbia Univer
sity in New York City and at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Anti-apartheid has now become the number one radical cause at the institu
tions of higher{?)learn1.ng.--And, of course, the protestscontinue in
front of the South African embassy in Washington. The most notable recent
"honorary" arrestee was 17-year-old Amy Carter, daughter of the former
president.
In Congress legislation is moving forward to make it illegal to import gold
Krugerrand coins into the U.S. (which will certainly increase the value of
those already in circulation here), prohibit new investment by U.S. firms
doing business in South Africa, and to stop the sale of computers to the
government, the latter with the expressed moralistic intention of making it
more difficult for the government to enforce its pass laws over the black
population. Of course, Japanese or European computers would quickly fill
the vacuum left by the withdrawal of U.S. computers from the market. But at
least, say the idealists, "U.S. hands would be clean."
On Tuesday, Senators Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts (who has all but an
nounced he'll be running for the White House in 1988) and Lowell Weicker of
Connecticut appeared before the Senate Finance Committee to push for the
above legislation. Mr. Kennedy made an almost incredulous comparison be
tween Nazi Germany and the current government of South Africa, stating that
while the Nazis sent the Jews to the concentration camps, the South Afri
cans were sending blacks to the homelands. (German Jews in the 1930s would
have appreciated a homeland!) Senator Weicker drew a similar comparison
between the 9 1egalized racism" of the Nazi government and that of South Af
rica--as if Pretoria were promulgating a set of Nuremberg laws. I wit
nessed this presentation over the cable "C-Span" network. What was amazing
was that nobody on the panel arose to boldly challenge Mr. Kennedy's falla
cious charge (except for a rather weak response by one senator). Instead,
committee chairman William Proxmire, a co-sponsor of anti-apartheid legis
lation, publicly praised both senators for their "eloquent testimonies."
South Africa is locked in a no-win situation. The government's decision
this week to scrap laws barring marriage and sex across the color line met
with a general "nothing has really changed" reaction.
(Interestingly
enough, a 22-member government committee claimed there is no basis in
religion or Scripture for the earlier ban on interracial marriage. The
politically-powerful Dutch Reformed Church, which had insisted on the
proscription in 1949, has lately undergone considerable liberalization.)
Meanwhile, the liberal Western news media continue to rail against police
suppression of unrest in the black townships. Yet, even in the news media,
one detects that some reporters have been disturbed over almost unbeliev
able incidences of black-against-black violence--even using the word
"savage" to describe accounts of assaults on black policemen, civic offi
cials and their families. There was one particularly brutal account of a
mob chanting black-power slogans, fists raised in the air, dancing around
the charred remains of an official they had burned to death. Such develop-