Hand-Washing

NO ONE WOULD EVER DENY that South Africa is one of the most morally disgusting regimes in the world, as bad in its own way as the Soviet Bloc, Libya and the U.S. backed dictatorships of Latin America. The evils of apartheid--the laws by which South Africa's white minority oppresses the country's 22 million Blacks and other non-whites--deserve the concern and-energy of all Americans.

But in the debate over the means of battling apartheid, Harvard activists insist upon complete divestment above all else. That insistence is founded on several bogus assumptions:

* that selling stock in a company amounts to punishing that company and does something to diminish its involvement there:

* that the stocks Harvard sells would not be snapped up by far less concerned institutional investors;

* that divestment would not be just a one-shot deal, only a splash across the nation's headlines retaining its impact for maybe a month;

* that divestment would have no adverse impact on Harvard's $2.3 billion endowment, income from which provides as much as 42 percent of the yearly budgets of the University's 10 faculties to do what Harvard is here for--educating people:

* and most important, that how Harvard invests its tiny portion of American capital does more to battle apartheid than what people at Harvard can do as members of the nation's leading educational institution: discredit the South African government and, as through President Bok's South Africa Education Program, help provide top education for Black South Africans.

Opposing divestment is not a "conservative" position, just as supporting it is not "liberal." Rather, we see the dichotomy as ivory tower and pragmatic. The activists at Harvard want the University to make a grand statement, to cut symbolically Harvard's tenuous links to apartheid. (More than three-quarters of the South-Africa related companies in Harvard's portfolio do less than 1 percent of their business there).

Instead, we want the University to act pragmatically and responsibly--to do more than just engage in feel-good symbolism which does nothing actually to help South Africa's oppressed majority. We support everyone at Harvard calling on the Afrikaaner regime to change its ways. We support Harvard action, through proxy votes and other means, persuading its portfolio companies to go beyond instituting workplace reforms and advancement opportunities for Blacks and begin actively opposing apartheid. Most important, we support having the federal government put the heat on South Africa, through both diplomacy and well-coordinated, effective economic sanctions.

But we don't support divestment. It offers no promise of doing anything constructive to end apartheid. Rather, it is an intellectual cop-out, a Pontius Pilate-tike washing of the hands.