This paper was written by Dario Longhi, professor at Occidental College, for the student movement to divest college endowment funds from companies doing business in South Africa. Longhi begins with a basic explanation of the legalized racist system of apartheid. This is a policy of "separate development," justified by the Afrikaners' vision of themselves as a "chosen people." Longhi explains racial categories established by the 1950 Population Registration Act. Control over residence, jobs, and movements is achieved through a system of pass books. Africans are considered citizens of the fragmented, largely unfertile lands called Bantustans, comprising 13% of the land, which no nation in the...
This paper was written by Dario Longhi, professor at Occidental College, for the student movement to divest college endowment funds from companies doing business in South Africa. Longhi begins with a basic explanation of the legalized racist system of apartheid. This is a policy of "separate development," justified by the Afrikaners' vision of themselves as a "chosen people." Longhi explains racial categories established by the 1950 Population Registration Act. Control over residence, jobs, and movements is achieved through a system of pass books. Africans are considered citizens of the fragmented, largely unfertile lands called Bantustans, comprising 13% of the land, which no nation in the world has recognized. Africans are only temporary residents in land reserved for whites; Africans can be expelled from white areas for lack of a job, political activity, criminal record, etc. Longhi discusses the mechanisms by which apartheid maintains a system of cheap labor, for mines, farms, and in urban areas and industrial jobs. The Wiehahn Commission was appointed in 1977 to eliminate sensitive labor conditions as obstacles to foreign investment; this was done by trying to coopt the more privileged African workers within accepted unions, thus reinforcing the imposed separation between economic and political demands among registered unions. Longhi discusses the systems of repression in South Africa and the state of the struggle. The Terrorism Act allows for indefinite detention of any person suspected of opposing the State; the Internal Security Act allows preventive detention and the banning of a person "endangering public order." Banning restricts a person from all public activities and his/her movement within a certain area; advocating divestment can be interpreted as "endangering public order." The paper says the history of resistance goes back to the 1906 Bambatha rebellion, and labor mass resistance, peaking in 1946. This was followed by the mass nationalist movement of the 1950's, the Black Consciousness movement of the young Africans in 1976, and finally the growing politically-aware labor organization struggle of today. Longhi concludes by explaining why foreign loans are important for the South African regime to be able to alleviate the current crisis of massive unemployment among Africans and at the same time to increase its spending on defense and strategic projects. The paper mentions rural slums, the Transkei, Ian Leach, Caterpillar Africa Pty., the African Chambers of Commerce, and Citibank.
