PERSPECTIVE: Our generation’s South Africa

Three decades ago, President Ronald Reagan described U.S. policy toward the racist South African government as one of “constructive engagement’ &- a cruel rhetorical flourish. Under this policy of “constructive engagement,’ the Reagan administration provided the critical diplomatic and economic support to the apartheid regime, which was made all the more important in the wake of continued international pressure and worldwide boycotts. The white South African government needed a life preserver to keep itself afloat and keep black South Africans down, and the Reagan administration was all too happy to oblige.

Student activists here in the U.S. were the first to recognize this subtle fact and rallied public opinion against Reagan’s tolerance of one of the world’s most brutal regimes. But this was a struggle &- not a happy made-for-TV drama.

Here at Boston University, the school had close to $6 million in common stock in companies active in South Africa back in 1979. This provided a cause for concern in parts of the faculty and student body and the BU South Africa Task Force was launched to challenge the university’s stake in the apartheid regime.

Divestment was the order of the day, and student activists engaged in a host of activities to bring attention to the university’s investment in the regime: mock shantytowns were built on campus, hunger strikes were called for and students engaged in the general harassment of BU’s president, John Silber, and the board of trustees. Millions of dollars were divested from companies doing business in South Africa &- though, not all.

Just as faculty and students took up the historic calling to challenge the racist South African apartheid regime, we too face the challenge of lending our efforts and drawing attention to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians remain one of the few remaining stateless groups in the world. Those in the occupied territories are afforded zero legal rights. They can be killed, raped, maimed, tortured or imprisoned with absolute impunity. Property rights have a phantom existence. Just this past week, Israeli settlers set fire to a girls’ school and dumped waste water into a vineyard in the West Bank. It is this peculiar kind of hell that Palestinians have suffered for more than four decades now.

Just like President Reagan did for the apartheid regime in South Africa, the Obama administration and its predecessors have maintained a common commitment to be Israel’s protector in the international arena. This has little to do with any “special relationship” between the parties. Rather, the U.S. regards maintaining the relationship to be in its interest – a little Sparta that operates effectively as an offshore military base is seen as a strategic advantage to the world’s reigning military superpower. Israel serves that purpose.

But it is just this strategic advantage that has plundered the rights of Palestinians and made them non-citizens in their native land. Every year, the UN General Assembly votes on the resolution, “Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine,” and every year, the vote turns out to be nearly the same: 164-7 (Israel, the United States, Australia and a host of Pacific Islands in the rejectionist camp). The vote goes unreported in the United States, but for the rest of the world, eyes are open wide on exactly who is responsible for blocking a peaceful settlement.

Unfortunately, President Obama is content to leave the Palestinians in the situation of black South Africans circa 1960 (the time of the apartheid regime’s “separate development” policy). Besides the critical diplomatic support offered Israel in international bodies, which work to both absolve Israeli crimes and to silence reporting here in the U.S., the Obama administration penned a $6 billion, 10-year, military aid deal with Israel &- the largest in the history of the “special relationship.” The U.S. is, then, not only providing cover and excuses for Israeli crimes, but is also helping to cement Israel’s belligerent attitude by feeding it with weapons. In sum, the Israeli occupation &- just like the South African apartheid regime before it &- is wearing a U.S. life jacket.

The lesson for us students is stark – to educate people on the status of Palestinians and the crimes of Israel’s occupation and to challenge the Obama administration’s political, diplomatic, economic and military support of the new apartheid regime. Let’s not be afraid to use that word, either, in regards to Israel’s occupation regime – if it looks like and feels like apartheid, then it is apartheid. Even Israel’s own Defense Minister Ehud Barak has warned recently of the “apartheid” character of Israel and the threat it poses to Israel’s own interests.

Three decades ago, campus activism led the way to Congress ending its support for the South African apartheid regime over Reagan’s objections. The time has come for our generation to do the same.

Tyler Cullis is a first year post-graduate student in the School of Law.