Ironies Aren't Funny

THIS must be a joke. Harvard is considering divesting its stock holdings in RJR-Nabisco and Philip Morris because promotional techniques in third world countries are often heavyhanded, and the companies do not place warning labels on cigarette packs there.

Does this mean Harvard will finally divest from South Africa on the grounds that the promotional techniques of apartheid are often heavyhanded, and the birth certificates of Blacks there are not equipped with warning labels?

From the sublime to the ridiculous. That is the nature of travesty. It makes you feel like laughing hysterically, at the same time as you continue to beat your head against a wall.

Consider Harvard's failure to divest from South African-related stocks. The moral significance of this new divestment could only pale in comparison. This new idea is simply the latest in a string of ways Harvard has attempted to appear socially conscious while abdicating its ultimate responsibility to act in the most ethical way possible in every arena.

It seems hypocritical for President Bok to send students announcements on Harvard's commitment to fighting racial discrimination and insensitivity, as he did last year, while Harvard's investment policy continues to help to support apartheid.

And Bok's long, detailed paeans to teaching ethics in business are reduced to inconsistent babble when considered alongside his insensitivity to divestment.

Offering one-year fellowships to Black South Africans is nothing but an attempt to quiet pro-divestment complaints and make Harvard appear a bastion of altruism.

Two of the six South African fellows I've met here are janitors back home, and they said they will return to their positions upon their return. Coming to Harvard is like a temporary break from hell. That is not a commitment on Harvard's part. A commitment means you invest in someone's future, make a difference worth noting. Harvard teases students by allowing them to glimpse freedoms that it is helping to deny them.

THE only justification of the fellow system is that Harvard's administration is trying to invest in some sort of ROTC system, letting these people go back and take over the fight, armed with a liberal arts education. But bullets don't bounce off scholars.

This newest move doesn't surprise me. It is merely a demonstration of the hypocrisy that we hear every time the Administration says anything at all about South Africa.

Somehow, I find it hard to visualize Bok and the members of the Board of Overseers furiously scrubbing away at tears caused by the thought of an unwarned African puffing on a cigarette, when the thought of tens of thousands of Africans killed fighting for rights basic to humanity evokes a reciting of the obligatory,"Yes, apartheid is a terrible injustice," followed by the resumption of the tea party.

Please, folks, don't try to pawn off what must be a good business move as a surge of moral concern.