Comments on: The Four-Year Itch

By: Zack

Zack — Sat, 05 May 2012 20:31:55 +0000

I went to Wesleyan and did my undergrad thesis on some of this stuff. Wesleyan’s divestment campaign was the subject of an (angry) op-ed in The Citizen, so it wasn’t completely ignored in SA. Of course it had nowhere near the same effect as Soweto or even Uitenhage, but I think there’s a decent case for seeing the influence of the protests in Chase Manhattan’s decision, not to mention the CAAA – even if not in terms of direct causality, at least in a more general sense of both reflecting and propelling a broader shift in attitudes towards Pretoria.

That doesn’t really speak to your critique of the situation at hand, because ExxonMobil has a very different profile than does South Africa and its vulnerabilities aren’t readily comparable. But regardless of the likelihood of this divestment campaign reaching or even properly defining its objectives, I think there’s something to be said for encouraging college students do their best to shift the Overton window, even in campaigns where the likelihood of tangible “success” is limited.

By: nord

nord — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:18:39 +0000

You didn’t mention the current sudan divestment campaigns, which I find incompetent and corrupt, not realizing that saying “divest” simply means selling local business interests to the Chinese on one hand, or actually withholding medicine and equipment of all sorts, that go far beyond restrictions the US had against the communist bloc in the 1980s. From a competence standpoint, I’ve seen one campaign just google search company names and Sudan, and presto, a divestment list is formed.

As for the stock price going down, won’t happen – too many other buyers without the same restrictions. Companies will divest when negative publicity costs more than the benefits, but again, I think it will be many years or decades before the companies that have left Sudan ever return, even if the current divestment campaign “wins”.

By: Lemmy Caution

Lemmy Caution — Fri, 04 May 2012 01:07:26 +0000

"What we got right was that the international campaign to isolate and taint South Africaâ€s government played an important role in bringing about the end of apartheid." I went to college in the 80s, and I thought at the time that divestment was never going to work. Looking back on it, I think it was an effective strategy. Like you said, the local locus for protests was important. It also generated a lot of press and there were significant victories including US legislation.

By: Yvonne

Yvonne — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:14:39 +0000

These student movements might be seen as providing some suggestive and potentially disruptive social and mental programming. As I sit here typing an intriguing web advertisement for Chevron’s new “global human energy” campaign pops up in my browser. How did it get there? How did it know that I was thinking about these things? Awesome, as the kids say. Chevron = cool, amazing and benign!

Given the extent of the exposure of our students and other young people to this kind of mass programming, I will take “a complex, indirect campaign to morally taint” fossil fuel companies any day, as a legitimate – although perhaps misdirected – demonstration of protest in what might come down to be a battle for the Mind.

I *think* I will see you on Saturday.

By: Western Dave

Western Dave — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:31:30 +0000

Whether it was because my family hosted a South African exchange student my senior year of high school (he didn’t go back, to avoid army service) or because my dad was astockbroker and I had a pretty good understanding of things like endowments, mutual funds, etc. for a college student, I sat out most of the divestment movement stuff (although I did some token anti-apartheid stuff). My 80s was the beginning of two long-term projects: anti-racism and gay rights. I never really understood the point of the marches I went on (although in retrospect, the gay rights march I attended in Philadelphia in 1986 was probably empowering to many in the crowd who weren’t out yet). I was running workshops on “the day in the life of a black student” and trying to decriminalize gay sex. Some of this just goes to differences between national and international concerns. As an environmental historian, I can’t think of anything less effective than divestment (as opposed to fighting for tighter regulations around carbon emissions, getting rid of Corbett, making sure the Dems when the AG spot in the upcoming PA election to put the lid on fracking etc. etc.).

BTW, I live a block away from Sullivan’s OIC headquarters. When I took the train to work, I had a long running battle with them over their continued failure to shovel the sidewalk when it snowed.

By: J. Otto Pohl

J. Otto Pohl — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:28:08 +0000

The real parallel with South African divestment today is the BDS movement to free Palestine. But, I did notice that while the ANC and PLO were close that many of the American anti-apartheid activists on US university campuses in the 1980s were also very strong supporters of Israel. The fact that both states were racist colonial settler states seemed to be completely beyond their comprehension. Or at least something many of them would not and in some cases will still not admit.

While I don’t particularly have anything against white south Africans as people. I do find their domination of certain sectors of the Ghanaian economy to be annoying. Especially since their products tend to be extremely expensive, difficult to find substitutes for, and generally of quite shoddy manufacture. Logik one of the more common South African brands of electronics found here is notorious for their goods malfunctioning after only a couple of weeks of use.