Students v. Apartheid: I have Witnessed a Struggle That Spans 40 Years
This is not the first time that America’s elite campuses have stood up to lead the fight against Apartheid. I was there in the first battle in 1977-1978.
In the academic year spanning 1977-1978 I was a Freshman at Harvard College, and I found myself thrust into a journey of political awakening. I was confronted for the first time with the brutal reality of the struggle going on against the racist Apartheid regime in South Africa.
I won’t say that I was radicalised, but I was certainly educated, thanks to the Harvard students’ Southern Africa Solidarity Committee (SASC). Our goal was to force the university’s Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) to demand that Harvard divest itself fully from all companies doing business with South Africa.
This move to force divestment is not unlike the modern-day Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, or to the current protests sweeping across college campuses today; the scenes unfolding across my social media feed cannot help but make me look back over the past 46 years and think about how our protests were so similar, and yet so different.
Our anti-Apartheid protests were important, but they did not capture the worldwide headlines of the protests today. By April of 1978, our anti-Apartheid protests at Harvard were multivalent and growing, becoming increasingly effective. The campus newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, called our actions “the protest of the decade” and even The New York Times took notice — but only with a small, 95-word blurb on page 14:
Still, we did take bold action, including occupation and barricading. The Global Nonviolent Action Database (GNAD) described some ofo our tactics as follows:
On April 27, 1,500 students streamed into Harvard Yard in mass protest and took control again of Massachusetts Hall, barricading President Bok from his office. In an action that followed, 3,000 people participated in a torchlight procession as they passed through the streets of Cambridge. The next day featured a daylong physical blockade of University Hall.
We were peaceful, chanting simple slogans like “1–2–3–4, throw apartheid out the door; 2–4–6–8, don’t support the racist state“.
An early “encampment”
Some of use even went so far as to build an encampment to maintain constant pressure on the Harvard University. Students built what we called a “shantytown” in front of University Hall, which remained in place for several months.
Our efforts that year resulted in the Harvard authorities taking their first step towards divestment. While Harvard’s corporate managers rejected a blanket divestment in South Africa, they did agree to “review investments on a case-by-case basis”.
The protests, however, did not stop. We continued to protest, shantytowns continued to be built, and Harvard students maintained the pressure throughout the 1970’s and 1980's.
Unfortunately, Harvard never agreed to the demand of complete divestiture of its $400 million of South Africa related stock. However, the movement to divest spread from Harveard to other campuses, where our comrades met with more success.
According to the GNAD, “the University’s policy of gradualism and partial divestment contrasted with the complete divestment of universities like Yale and Columbia resulting from student protests on respective campuses“.
According to The Harvard Crimson: “Thanks to the tremendous resilience of the South African Solidarity Committee, Harvard cut its investments in South Africa by $230 million by the spring of 1987”.
Then and now: what is the same?
Looking back at my days of protest, I am filled with admiration and respect for the students that are leading the Pro-Palestinian, Anti-Genocide movements to end Israeli Apartheid that are playing out across the most elite campuses in America today.
While there is much that makes our struggle similar, there is much more that makes our fights different.
Apartheid is still Apartheid
Let’s be clear: Israel is an Apartheid state. Perhaps not exactly the same as South Africa, but the argument for comparing the two cases is strong. The United Nations, for example, has declared that Israel‘s occupation of Palestine amounts to Apartheid. Ex- US President Jimmy Carter, who famously engineered the Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt, has also declared Israel to be an Apartheid state. And Amnesty International agrees.
But let us also be clear: Israel is far worse than South Africa:
“For all its horrors and brutality, the apartheid regime in South Africa never used fighter jets and artillery to bomb the oppressed people living in the townships. Israel has, and continues to do so”.
Indeed. If the murder of anti-Apartheid activist Steve Biko by the South African authorities was the proximate trigger that caused American campuses to erupt in protest in 1977, I must say that it was nothing compared to the genocidal bombing campaign launched by Israel last fall, which the United Nations says has already killed over 35,000 civilians in Gaza, including 15,000 children, and causing US students to rise up once more.
But the stakes today are even higher today, because time is ticking away while people are being slaughtered en masse.
Jewish students lead the way
While members of the Black Students Association spearheaded the anti-Apartheid movement, and made up the bulk of the Southern Africa Solidarity Committee, the white contingent of the movement was in many cases led by Jewish students. Their activism reflected the best of the progressive Jewish anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa that made up a small but crucial resistance element in that country.
Today, Jewish students are again playing a vital and pivotal role in the Pro-Palestinian protests taking place at Harvard and other campuses across the USA. Indeed, anti-Zionist organisations like The Harvard Jewish Coalition for Peace, which were originally formed to support the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, have proven vital to the anti-genocide protests and encampments we are seeing today.
Faculty are on the right side
The faculty at Harvard were very sympathetic to our cause. Indeed, professors not only marched with us, many of them even taught classes and held lectures in the “shantytowns” that we erected in Harvard Yard.
Today, faculty members are once again joining the fight. We see courageous faculty members literally putting themselves between the protesters and the police, to try and offer their students some modicum of protection:
Unfortunately, all too often these brave faculty members end up paying a high price for their principles:
Then and now: what is different?
I do feel a link across the years to these brave students protesting against Israeli Apartheid and genocide. And yet the struggle of students today against the Israeli Apartheid and genocide of Palestinians is different in some very important ways.
In my day, non-violence was mutual
We marched under the watchful but passive gaze of the Harvard University Police Department, as well as the Cambridge, Mass. PD. They did not hassle us, they did not wrestle us to the ground, they did not pepper-spray us or beat us.
They did not arrest us.
The rule was that, as long as the protest remained peaceful, no authoritarian measures were taken, no institutional violence was deployed. We were, after all, the flower of American youth, the future leaders of American society, the best and brightest of our generation: we deserved to be heard.
Peaceful protests were not shut down
Students at Harvard had been protesting the Israeli genocide, led by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) — an analog to the indefatigable Southern Africa Solidarity Committee (SASC) of my time.
But on April 24, 2024, the university suspended the PSC and even closed Harvard Yard to prevent protests.
The suspension was done out of caution, the university said, in reaction to the pro-Palestinian protests and encampments that had “turned violent” in recent days.
To be clear: the violence is coming 100% from the police who were called in to “disperse” the crowds.
In response to the suspension of the PSC, the Harvard students continued to protest, and even set up their own Pro-Palestine “encampment” in the now re-opened Harvard Yard. The Harvard University Police Chief, Victor A. Clay, told The Harvard Crimson that after three days of the encampment, everything was copacetic:
“You can see in the Yard right now — we are keeping our students safe and they are protesting peacefully and it’s their right and we are going to support that,” Clay said.
Elsewhere, violence has become a first response
Unfortunately, students at other schools are not as lucky as the ones at Harvard. Students at Columbia University and other schools have been particularly targeted by violent police action.
In mid-April, Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shakif authorized the New York City Police department to arrest more than 100 students on charges of trespassing. The action has led to a law suit being filed against Columbia University for civil rights violations.
The university action follows a mysterious attack in January, when the pro-Palestine students had been attacked with “skunk water”. According to Wikipedia, Skunk is “ a malodorant, non-lethal weapon used for crowd control by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and marketed to militaries and law enforcement around the world.”
An investigation into the origin of the attack has been launched, but three months later, no culprit has been found (!).
The arrests at Columbia have sparked a wave of solidarity protests, and students have also been arrested at Yale University, Emerson College, New York University, Emory College, University of Southern California (USC), and the University of Texas at Austin. Indeed, the campus protest movement has gone nationwide, with more college campuses joining the protest almost daily.
You can see a full list of all the protest sites here on The New York Times website.
Then and now: what’s REALLY different
There can be no doubt that there is one glaring, gigantic difference between those of us who protested Apartheid in South Africa and those students today protesting Apartheid in Israel-Palestine:
We who protested in the 1970’s were seen as serious, well-meaning young people, taking up a cause for justice and playing the part that young people in society have always played: the role of society’s conscience. We were regarded as the “angry young men and women” who want to right the wrongs of the world.
But our demand for divestment was targeted at wealthy endowments and corporate managers. Unlike today’s BDS and pro-Palestine activists, there were never any broad “personal” targets in what we were doing.
Now, student protesters are condemned as racist anti-Semites, and Jewish students at prestigious universities say they “no longer feel safe”. Hasbarist operatives are feeding into the narrative, such as the conservative Rabbi who called on all Jewish students at Columbia to “go home”.
On the other side, many of the pro-Palestinian activists are themselves Palestinian, and many have suffered horrible losses of family members in the current genocide.
The personal nature of the conflict, with such widespread, deeply personal involvement, was something that we did not have in the struggle agaiunst South Africa.
There was never, after all, anything that even resembled a “South Africa Lobby” active in the US. In fact, what little PR activity there was in support of the Christian Nationalism of Apartheid South Africa was engineered indirectly by — ISRAEL. As Sasha Polakow-Suransky wrote in 2010:
“At its core, the Israeli–South African relationship was a marriage of interests and ideologies…Many members of the Likud Party shared with South Africa’s leaders an ideology of minority survivalism that presented the two countries as threatened outposts of European civilisation defending their existence against barbarians at the gates”.
Polakow-Suransky goes on to comment on the modern-day anti-Zionist protest movements:
…today, left-wing activists are attempting to paint Israel as a latterday South Africa…By calling for boycotts and divestment from Israel, these activists are following the script that proved so effective for the anti-apartheid movement during the 1980s.
Yes, we succeeded. But that was then; this is now.
Today’s protesters face formidable foes
Today’s protesters face the most formidable foes imaginable. The Israel Lobby controls the Government, the legacy mainstream news Media as well as most Social Media — not just in the US, but globally.
I have written extensively about the power and influence of the Israel Lobby in American life. The Israel lobbyists such as AIPAC, ADL and others, have the ability to decide which politicians win elections, which media personalities get platformed and de-platformed, which companies secure lucrative government contracts, and which reporters and commentators get heard.
AIPAC, for example, has almost complete control over which Democrats win elections, and which do not — as the boastful banner below indicates.
The US ruling elite are captured by Israel
On the other side of the US political duopoly, the Republican Party is also ruled by Israel through the 30 million “Christian Zionists” who belong to groups such as Christians United for Israel (CUFI).
The Christian Zionists now dominate the Republican Party, just as the wealthy Jewish Zionist donors of AIPAC dominate the Democratic Party. It is now axiomatic that no Republican can win office without the endorsement of CUFI, just as no Democrat can win office without the endorsement of AIPAC.
The Christian Zionists are fundamentalists who believe in the End Times. They believe that the Jews must return to the Holy Land and rule once more over Greater Israel (Eretz-Israel) in order for Jesus Christ to return.
For this to happen, the Christian Zionists know that the Palestinian people must be eliminated. This puts them in perfect lock-step with the genocidal Religious Zionists of Israel.
If you examine — even cursorily — the relationship that Zionist Israel has forged with right wing Christian Zionists in America, it becomes clear: the wildly racist Israeli settlers who are robbing and killing Palestinians in the West Bank are doing so with impunity, and with the blessings of their Christian partner/benefactors in the United States.
To put it bluntly: the US political establishment is Zionist to its core, and it will do whatever Israel wants.
This is why politicians like Mike Johnson, currently Speaker of the House of Representatives, have called for an “end to pro-Palestinian protests” and even deploying the National Guard to eradicate the pro-Palestinian protesters.
In December 2023, Johnson and his fellow Christian Zionists also passed a resolution in the House equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
BUT WAIT — IT GETS WORSE.
The police themselves have now been indoctrinated into racist Zionist Israeli tactics.
A militarised US police force “Made in Israel”
Most Americans are unaware of how deeply entwined the US has become with the Zionist state of Israel. For example, most people don’t know that since 9/11, US police forces send their officers to Israel to learn “anti-terror tactics” from the Israeli Defense Forces.
Those of us who are older remember when our police were NOT the hyper-militarised armed forces that we see today. We remark that the police today look and act as if they are in a hostile war zone, and the people thay are charged with protecting are actually a “domestic enemy” — Not unlike the way the IDF treat the Palestinians.
In fact, it is EXACTLY the way that the IDF treats Palestinians — and that is by design.
Most Americans don’t know that there is an organisation called JINSA —The Jewish Institute for National Security of America. JINSA operates a program called LEEP — the Law Enforcement Exchange Program.
LEEP was created in cooperation with the Israel National Police, the Israel Ministry of Internal Security, and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) to “support and strengthen American law enforcement counter terrorism practices”.
JINSA and LEEP sprung up in the wake of the 9/11 bombings of the World Trade Center. According to this promotional video:
“JINSA’s Law Enforcement Exchange Program (LEEP) program is designed to establish cooperation between American and Israeli law enforcement personnel and to give the American law enforcement community access to the hard “lessons learned” by the Israelis in the interdiction of and response to all forms of terrorism”.
Police department heads from all over the US travel to Israel for 1 week intensive training in “anti-terrorism”. Israelis also travel to the US to do more expanded teaching. Thousands of US police officers have been through these training programs.
As Amnesty International reported in 2016:
“Baltimore law enforcement officials, along with hundreds of others from Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Georgia, Washington as well as the DC Capitol police have all traveled to Israel for training. Thousands of others have received training from Israeli officials here in the U.S.
“Many of these trips are taxpayer funded while others are privately funded. Since 2002, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs have paid for police chiefs, assistant chiefs and captains to train in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)”.
Why would these Jewish groups pay to have US police forces train in Israel? Why would a group like the ADL want US police to haver cpmeraderie with, to be on the side of Israel?
Amnesty International highlighted this “moral hazard” thusly:
“Public or private funds spent to train our domestic police in Israel should concern all of us. Many of the abuses [by US police] documented, parallel violations by Israeli military, security and police officials”.
Snipers on rooftops
One thing is for certain, the police are treating the pro-Palestine protesters as enemy combatants:
Home grown Zionist shock troops
In 1977, our only adversaries (if you could call them that) were the police. There was no “pro-Apartheid” South African faction on campus to harass, intimidate, provoke and attack us the way these “Zionist hooligans” are attacking the pro-Palestine demonstrators.
Hitler had his Brown Shirts. Mussolini had his Black Shirts. The British had their Black and Tan. These were all violent, sadistic paramilitary factions whose job it was to keep their fellow citizens in line - by whatever means necessary, and in full violation of the law.
Now Bibi Netanyahu has his own phalanx of violent American Zionist shock troops, and they are becoming more bold, more violent every day, as Netanyahu and the Zionists become more desperate.
Hasbara in full swing
As if militarised, trigger-happy police weren’t enough. a full-scale Zionist Israeli propaganda campaign is already going great guns, and it is targeting the protesters. The story is the same old hasbarist narrative: these students are not showing solidarity with Palestine, they are supporting Hamas terrorism; they are not pro-Palestinian, they are anti-Semitic; they are not protesting a Palestinian genocide, they are calling for “a Jewish genocide”.
Even President Biden hopped on the Zionist bandwagon:
“Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews. This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous — and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country,” he said in a statement marking the Jewish Passover holiday.
It would be pathetic if it were not so pervasive.
Bibi Netanyahu: a Masterclass in manipulation
When we were protesting South Africa in the 1970’s. we never faced a force like Bibi Netanyahu. The leaders of South Africa, such as Botha and Vorster, were nowhere near the smooth operator Bibi is, and as leaders of an international pariah state, they generally kept a low profile.
But Bibi? He never stops calling American students, university administrations and faculty members all anti-Semites, and regularly calls on his AIPAC-funded minions in Congress to “rein in” what he calls “horrific” anti-Semitism.
Netanyahu recently recorded an address in English aimed at his US audience:
“What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific,” Netanyahu said. “Anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” claimed Netanyahu. “They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students […] They attack Jewish faculty,” he said. “It’s unconscionable. It has to be stopped,” he said. He argued the “response of several university presidents was shameful” and said more needed to be done.
Here is a clip of this Netanyahu’s vile, unhinged, arrogant and obnoxious speech:
That was then; this is NOW
It’s been almost half a century since I joined in the nascent movement to dismantle the racist Apartheid regime of South Africa. I am proud that I took part. I am proud to have participated in a movement that — eventually — resulted in the release of Nelson Mandela and the reformation of the South African state.
But my efforts, and those of my comrades camping out in front of University Hall in Harvard Yard in 1978 pale in comparison to what the young people of today are undertaking.
And yet — their message is spreading like wildfire.
The writing is on the wall
Polakow-Suransky was right to call out the similarity between the anti-Apartheid movement of the 1970’s and 80’s and the anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian movement that is sweeping across America’s campuses.
The power of student protest in America still exists, and whereas it took almost 10 years to finally defeat Apartheid South Africa, the global nature of today’s communications and social media means that the word — and the outrage — is spreading around the world at a pace that even the fascist authorities in the US and Israel cannot counteract:
From April 27, 2024:
“Activists at Warwick University [UK] announced the launch of a protest camp on Friday, stating “we rise up in unison with fellow students around the world”. Camps and barricades have also been formed at the Sorbonne University in Paris, while German police moved to clear a site in Berlin on Friday”.
Looking back: what has changed since 1977
I suppose that my reminiscing about my protest days in the 1970’s has only served to make me realise how much 9/11 “changed everything”.
Since the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon threw the US into a crazed rampage of a “war on terror”, I have come to see just how much those events changed us.
Suddenly, America was no longer a “shining city on a hill”, a bastion of freedom surrounded and protected by oceans— we were a besieged, beleaguered outpost of “civilisation” in a world full of dark and dangerous extremists, radicals and thugs who all want to kill us.
In short, we became Israel.
It makes sense that our police are now trained by the IDF as a result of 9/11. It makes sense that Bibi Netanyahu said that 9/11 was good for Israel, because it drew the US and Israel closer together, creating a unified entity facing a dangerous world together.
But if it was good for Israel, it was bad for America. It meant we had to sacrifice our liberty, sacrifice our freedom of speech, and sacrifice our sovereignty in order to pledge fealty to a foreign nation in the Middle East.
That loss of liberty, combined with the rise of a militarised, authoritarian society driven by external priorities and non- American interests, marks the biggest change and the greatest challenge for these modern-day anti-Apartheid activists.
#End
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'Apartheid is still Apartheid'
How simple and true...
🇵🇸💔🙏
Thank you for this article spelling out the similarities and differences between the two apartheid protest movements. If you haven't seen the documentary "Road to Apartheid" already, I highly recommend it. My mind was blown about how similar both apartheid South African and Israel were... The good friends both announced their apartheid policies (under different names) in 1948!