A Time to Shift Gears

THE ANTI-APARTHEID movement at Harvard should start to spend less time protesting the University's investment policy. While the value of past years of protest and education is evident--and has been confirmed by recent events--both the political situation in South Africa and institutional politics at Harvard have made material aid a more urgent priority than struggling over the morality of Harvard's investment policy.

Especially after Harvard Corporation member Roderick M. MacDougall '51--also University treasurer and chairman of the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility--acknowledged the importance of pressure from students and alumni in changing Harvard's investment policy, there can be no doubt that the continued high level of protest over the last two years is largely responsible for the University's recent decision to sell almost one-third of its investments in companies that do business in South Africa.

But what is the most effective strategy now for the anti-apartheid movement at Harvard? Divestment is important, but much of the symbolic victory at Harvard has already been won.

In the wake of the University's recent divestment decision, its position, both nationally and institutionally, is becoming increasingly contradictory. Harvard can no longer credibly claim to be holding the line for private institutions opposed to divestment.

Students, alumni, faculty and staff must continue to pressure Harvard to divest, but the intensity and character of that pressure does not need to continue to escalate as it has done over the past year. The time and resources of divestment activists could be better spent raising money and generating publicity for groups directly involved in fighting apartheid.

IN ALL FAIRNESS, the divestment movement has engaged in fundraising in the past. The Southern Africa Solidarity Committee (SASC) solicited a $10,000 donation to the South African Council of Churches to bring Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu to Harvard last January, and the divestment committee at the Law School held a benefit dance last April for the Congress of South African Trade Unions.

Protest, however, has always been the primary focus of Harvard activists. Thousands of hours of work have gone toward educating people about divestment and planning demonstrations and rallies. Education has been valuable: the majority of students on campus support divestment. But further education is not going to change University policy. Educational activities ought to be geared toward generating support for the African National Congress (ANC), the South West African Peoples Organization and a variety of other resistance groups that are little known and oft misunderstood in the United States.

That pressure from the majority of the community has not led to total divestment has underlined the undemocratic way in which Harvard makes decisions. The issue of university democracy deserves more attention in its own right, but it is no reason to continue protesting Harvard's investment policy at the expense of direct aid.

A rally can take hundreds of dollars to put on, a major one even several thousand. Past attempts at fundraising demonstrate the potential the Harvard movement has to generate a great deal of funds. That money will do more good providing food, medicine, textbooks and guns to people struggling in southern Africa than contributing to a political consensus in this country that is quickly becoming overwhelming.

The anti-apartheid movement here has begun a shift toward direct-aid activities: SASC is sponsoring a lecture tonight by a speaker from the African National Congress and will hold a benefit dance at the end of October. However, protest is still the top priority for Harvard activists. Until these priorities change, the potential for providing substantive aid to those fighting apartheid will hardly be realized.