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Tuesday, February 6, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
South Africa
President de Klerk stumbles toward progress but U.S. shouldn't lift economic sanctions
South African President F.W. de Klerk on Friday began another chapter in the decades-old story of apartheid, but it remains to be seen if it will be the enjologue.
And because the ending to the terrible story is still being written, the United States and other nations must not yet suspend economic sanctions against South Africa.
De Klek deserves our backing for:
- Lifting the 30-year ban on the African National Congress and more than 30 other opposition groups.
Indeed, de Klerk's Parliament-opening speech outlined some positive steps that all long have yearned for.
- Promising to release Nelson Mandela, who has been jailed since 1962.
- Declaring a moratorium on executions.
- Suspending most restrictions on the media.
But even as de Klerk was outlining the steps that will bring South Africa closer to civilization, some members of Parliament could be heard voicing their displeasure.
And yesterday, Andries Treuuricht, the leader of South Africa's Conservative Party, which won 31 percent of the white vote in a general election in September, called on whites to mobilize against what he called de Klerk's "revolutionary left-wing announcements." The racist dunce had the audacity to call his movement a "freedom march" that he said was intended to protect whites from domination bv the 75 percent Black majority.
That such open and vocal racism still is allowed to flourish in the halls of South Africa's government is reason enough to continue sanctions. But there are more reasons.
Even while cabinet ministers are working toward a new political system in which all South Africans would have equal voting rights, they are saying that special protection would be required for whites. They also are reaffirming government support for segregated neighborhoods and public schools.
Even though political demonstrations are now legal, they still are unwise as long as the government's state of emergency remains in force. In townships near Johannesburg yesterday, police fired tear gas and buckshot into crowds of Black protesters.
And de Kleerk's speech Friday was not the first time the government has promised the release of Mandela. But the ANC leader still remains in the prison that has held him for 37 years. De Klerk set no firm timetable for his release. There is no deadline for giving Blacks the vote or giving them power in government
These facts are testament to the truth that there is no timetable for the end of apartheid. We shouldn't let de Klerk's stumble toward peace lure us into acting hastily. We must now redouble our efforts to help bring freedom to South Africa by keeping U.S. economic sanctions in place.
Richard Brack for the editorial board
Consumers beware
Unaware public may be endorsing apartheid
Many people unknowingly support apartheid by purchasing products made by companies that do business in South Africa. As consumers, we have the power and an obligation to let corporate leaders know by our letters or boycotts our displeasure with their interest in furthering the sweep of apartheid.
American Express Co., Apple Computer Inc., Bausch & Lomb Inc., Black & Decker Corp., Borden Inc., Bristol-Myers Co., Budget
Rent a Car Corp, Cascade Corp, Caterpillar Inc., The Coca-Cola Co., Colgate-Polmoline Co., Deere & Co., Dun & Bradstreet Corp., Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., Ford Motor Co., Kellogg Co., Kimberly-Clark Corp., Estee Lauder Inc., McDonnell Douglas Corp., Marriott Corp, McNally Pittsburgh, MGM/UA Comm. Co., Mentholatum Co., Mobil Corp., Monsanto Co., Motorola Inc., National Business Systems Inc., PepsiCo Inc.
Liz Hueben for the editorial board
Long hair doesn't define personality
Late last semester, a clean-
cut, Izod-sporting young
man yelled to me from his
balcony window. "Get a haircut!"
he advised.
I told him that I certainly would consider it, thanked him and continued on mv wav.
Balcony Man then began to give me more helpful advice that shouldn't go into print because of certain obscurity standards. I can say, however, that he ended his brief session with the word "himie."
Hippie! Me? I don't get it. Weren't those the wild smokin' and tokin' love children of the '60s? Was I one of them?
During Christmas break, for reasons other than Balcony Man's counsel, I got a haircut. This semester, my image is changed.
The long-hair prejudice also works in reverse. Some of my hippie friends hate all greens, but they love the greeks who are their friends.
"But those people are different," my friends tell me. "I know
Strangers, and even some people who knew me last semester, seem to like me better. One teacher told me that now I am "Joe College."
Chris
Evans
Staff columnis
Joe College? Me? What incredible personality change did I believe during that haircut to be unimaginable from Joe Hipple into Joe College?
I never understood stereotypes.
How could I judge an individual that I didn't know because he or she had a certain hair style, listened to punk music, lived in a Greek house, or liked to wear hats? I couldn't. Making value judgments based on a person's daily appearance or habits is stupid.
Plain and simple.
those people." They then go on to make fun of what they call the "greek stereotype." That seems similar to people who make fun of Blacks and then say they are making fun of the Black stereotype.
Uncontrollable prejudice will exist. Personally, I don't like all punk music, I have an unflattering opinion of a couple of greek houses and I laugh when I see people wearing silly hats, I like to think that they are stupid factors factorse my opinion of an individual on a one-to-one basis.
Long hair is not necessarily a fashion or a political statement. It's not a sign of rebellion or an insignificance, a way to save money on haircuts.
Growing my hair was something to do. I did it because I could. The reason I cut it was just as simple — I wanted to get a job. Prejudice against long hair seems even more important in employers than among students.
I am the same person I was last semester, but people apparently see someone else. So far this semester, one no has hurled insults at me from a balcony window because of my hair style.
People shouldn't see the hat before they see the individual, even if they think the hat is silly.
Chris Evans is a Hutchinson senior majoring in journalism.
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Tourists scamper onto the shoulders of a giant bronze statue of Karl Marx in East Berlin. Their companions snap two photographs of the Westerners pulling Karl's scarf and kissing his cheek.
U.S. should support Voice of America
Folly isn't illegal any more. Travel agencies are reporting jammed airplanes and trains to Eastern Europe as people flock to see drama more poignant than that in any theater.
But as the iron curtain rises on the
dominant play, a creeping laryn-
tal leap of the armor.
The Voice of America, a United States Information Agency radio network that transmits democratic programming into far reaches of the world did not star in the European drama, but did play a key supporting role.
Now a U.S. budget crunch might
in six of 48
languages. That'silly.
It's not clear who deserves blame.
President Bush's fiscal 1991 budget calls for $174 million for the Voice, up from $170 million this year.
Derek
Schmidt
Staff columnist
Bush wants the Voice to add a $1.5 million Tibetan language service. But Voice officials say his budget didn't even keep pace with inflation.
Richard W. Carlson, director of the Voice, decided how to allocate the funds. He said that amputating some language services was preferable to dismembering all of them by across-the-board cuts
On April 1, the Voice will stop broadcasts in Turkish, Greek, Lao, Uzbek, Slovenian and Swahili. Oppressed people from the Soviet Union to Southeast Asia to Africa will lose a source of ideas and hope.
British broadcasts still serve most of those regions. But in Laos, ending the Voice will end western program-
Congress will debate the Voice budget later this month. Lawmakers ought to expand it by the $2.9 million needed to continue broadcasting those six languages. Oppressed people in Asia and Africa deserve the same access to information that Eastern Europe has enjoyed, amid continual Soviet jamming for 42 years.
Critics often impast the Voice as nothing more than a tool of U.S. propaganda. But the Voice is part of the advertising campaign for democracy. Millions of people have switched from totalitarianism to democracy. It's a sort of ideological taste test far more important than the cola wars.
The broadcasts should continue. New democracies are grasping for information about their older cousins. Freedom-seeking people in Beijing, Kabul and Vientiane t tune in.
been saince is the golden" "This will cripple our efforts at a time of unprecedented change and opportunity," Carlson said of
monev shortage.
Budget problems at the Voice are not new. For the past four years, inflation and budget cuts have squeezed the Voice, resulting in fewer personnel and limited programming. But the current crisis would wipe out all programming for some oppressed people.
Freedom isn't die if the Voice withers or even if it vanishes. But in times of limited resources, Congress would be wise to consider that a few million dollars spent to nurture existing seeds of democracy worldwide might yield more than would the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to transplant democracy from the United States.
Economic aid and sanctions, political pressure and military involve cost more than air time. And in many cases, they might not be as effective.
Talk really is cheap, even at $2.9 million
> Derek Schmidt is an Independence senior majoring in Journalism.
Bush's China policy sends mixed signals
If the President of the United States thinks he has received a mandate from Congress concerning his China policy, what would he have considered a narrow scrape? The vote to override his veto of a bill to let some 40,000 Chinese students remain in this country was 62-37. It takes only 34 senators to sustain a veto; George Bush managed to recruit three more than the minimum needed. A solid majority of 62 senators still opposed him on this issue. The vote to override his veto in the House of Representatives was overwhelming: 390-25. If these are mandates, every back-yard bayou is a Mississippi.
Both the administration and the opposition emphasize that they wanted to grant the students safe haven. Ostensibly, they were divided over whether the President should do it by executive order or Congress by law. But, in effect, the vote was a congressional referendum on the Administration's China policy in general.
Paul Greenberg
Syndicated columnist
The Administration leans, toward business as usual, or at least, not too unusual, with Beijing. The opposition favors a harder line. So do most Americans if the lopsided majorities in both houses are any indication of popular sentiment. That is assuring, because the Administration's policy on China seems an amalgam of various fallacies that haven't worked against totalitarian regimes in the past. That policy is based on some tried and failed assumptions:
■ Communication itself is a goal in dealing with a Communist dictatorship. George Bush said, "I want to keep contact — I do not want isolation." It is not communication that matters so much in this case as what
democracies allow the last great fortification of totalitarian rule to escape criticism, the wrong message is communicated — namely, that the West is not serious about freedom. The West should accept vague gestures as the basis of better relations with Communist regimes. The masterminds of the late unpleasantness in Tiananmen Square, the Administration argued, have changed their spots. The evidence cited was the end of martial law in Beijing, the release of some democrators, and China's acceptance of American exchange students and a correspondent for the Voice of America.
But such changes are basically cosmetic. The repression in China continues in earnest, complete with arrests and secret trials. The press, radio and television are strictly controlled. It's hard not to suspect that the free world is being suckered again — like all those correspondents and diplomats who kept seeing hopeful signs in Stalin's Russia.
fut signs in Stain's russia.
"The foreign policy of the United States is the exclusive property of the executive branch. Sen. John Warner of Virginia said, "The Constitution of the United States... gives the President the power to impose foreign affairs." That assertion might surprise the gentlemen who framed it, and who gave Congress power over details like declaring war and appropriating funds for defense and diplomacy. Yet this dubious theme was echoed and again by the President's supporters, as if all it took to make it true was repetition.
As in other spheres, the Constitution provides a system of checks and balances in foreign affairs. The test of presidential statemanship is not whether an administration can best Congress, but whether this country can speak in one voice, unmistakably, for freedom.
Paul Greenberg is the editorial editor for the Pine Bluff (Ark.) Commercial.
CAMP UHNEELY
BY SCOTT PATTY
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