Academic boycotts of South Africa
Encyclopedia
The academic boycott of South Africa consisted of series of boycott
s of South Africa
n academic institutions and scholars initiated in the 1960s, at the request of the African National Congress
, with the goal of using such international pressure to force the end South Africa's system of apartheid. The boycotts were part of a larger international campaign of "isolation" that eventually included political, economic, cultural and sports boycotts. The academic boycotts ended in 1990 when its stated goal of ending apartheid was achieved.
During apartheid era, the boycotts were debated within anti-apartheid circles as to whether they were ethically justified and appropriate. Other critics of the boycott were various conservative groups worldwide who "disliked such anti-apartheid initiatives", and campus libertarians who "perceived a loss of academic freedom".
Subsequent research in the post-apartheid area has claimed that the boycotts were more a "symbolic gesture of support" for anti-apartheid efforts rather than a direct influencer of the situation. Additionally, the academic boycott was perceived by the targets of the boycott, South Africa scholars, as unjust and discriminatory
.
first called for an academic boycott to protest South African apartheid in 1958 in Ghana
. The call was repeated the following year in London
.
, a prominent leader within the anti-apartheid, described his clear support for the academic boycott of South Africa. He wrote that it needed to be maintained for institutions which had a bad record in opposing apartheid, but could be lifted for others as the political situation eased. The boycott had "certainly made a number of people sit up and take notice, especially the so-called liberal universities."
around the world disliked such anti-apartheid initiatives; campus libertarians
perceived a loss of academic freedom
; and some liberal South Africans argued that their universities, as centres of resistance to apartheid, made precisely the wrong targets."
"Such a boycott would cut a university off from its life blood, the nurturing flow of ideas.... The campaign plays directly into the hands of the destructive right-wing in this country which would also dearly love to cut us off from the world and its influences."
Solomon Benatar, a critic, wrote that "Academic boycott has been justified as an appropriate political strategy in the struggle against the oppression of apartheid. Moral outrage against racist policies has led to the claim that academic boycott is a morally imperative
component of a broader sanctions
policy. This claim has neither been substantiated by a reasoned ethical argument nor weighted against an ethically justifiable approach that is consistent with universal humanitarian aspirations and which allows rejection of apartheid to be coupled to constructive endeavours."
Solomon Benator, a professor at University of Cape Town
, and others advocated an alternative proposal: a "selective boycott"/"selective support" effort which would boycott South African organizations only if they were practitioners of apartheid and would extend support to organizations that did not practice apartheid. This alternative proposal was criticized because of both "the practical problems of implementation" and that "it implicitly endorsed the idea that political views are valid determinants of who should attend scholarly meetings, whose work should be published, and so on."
"In most cases, scholars and libraries were able to circumvent the boycott one way or another-for example, by using "third parties" in less antagonistic countries although with delays and at greater expense."
"Suspicions were created" ... "that a submission was really rejected for political reasons, not the reasons claimed", "that the high incidence of inactive research materials, such as biological agents and antibodies, received by South African institutions was not a mere coincidence"
Some invoke the comparison to claim that an academic boycott of Israel should not be controversial based a misconception that the academic boycott of South Africa was uncontroversial and straightforward. The reality, at the time, was very different. The effort was the subject of significant criticism and contentious debate from diverse segments. Andrew Beckett writes, in the Guardian, on this frequent mistaken comparison:
Other, such as Hillary and Stephen Rose in Nature, make the comparison and argue for an academic boycott of Israel based on a belief that the academic boycott of South Africa was effective in ending apartheid. George Fink responds to this claim in a letter to Nature:
The African National Congress, which was the leading anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, has published extensive documentation to support their assertion that the boycott campaign was, indeed, instrumental in ending apartheid.
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
s of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n academic institutions and scholars initiated in the 1960s, at the request of the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
, with the goal of using such international pressure to force the end South Africa's system of apartheid. The boycotts were part of a larger international campaign of "isolation" that eventually included political, economic, cultural and sports boycotts. The academic boycotts ended in 1990 when its stated goal of ending apartheid was achieved.
During apartheid era, the boycotts were debated within anti-apartheid circles as to whether they were ethically justified and appropriate. Other critics of the boycott were various conservative groups worldwide who "disliked such anti-apartheid initiatives", and campus libertarians who "perceived a loss of academic freedom".
Subsequent research in the post-apartheid area has claimed that the boycotts were more a "symbolic gesture of support" for anti-apartheid efforts rather than a direct influencer of the situation. Additionally, the academic boycott was perceived by the targets of the boycott, South Africa scholars, as unjust and discriminatory
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
.
Motivation
The African National CongressAfrican National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
first called for an academic boycott to protest South African apartheid in 1958 in Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
. The call was repeated the following year in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
British Academics
In 1965, 496 university professors and lecturers from 34 British universities signed the following declaration in protest against apartheid and violations of academic freedom. They made special reference to the issuance of banning orders against Jack Simons and Eddie Roux, two well-known progressive academics.We, the (undersigned) professors and lecturers in British universities in consultation with the Anti-Apartheid Movement Anti-Apartheid Movement Anti-Apartheid Movement , originally known as the Boycott Movement, was a British organization that was at the center of the international movement opposing South Africa's system of apartheid and supporting South Africa's Blacks.... :
|
United Nations
In 1980, the United Nations passed a resolution urging "all academic and cultural institutions to terminate all links with South Africa".Apartheid-era debate
"The ethical and other issues surrounding the academic boycott deeply divided the academic community, both within and outside South Africa."Proponents
"Boycott proponents argued that academics should not be treated as an elite detached from the political and social environment in which it functions, especially since some of the South African universities seemed to be tools of the Nationalist government."Desmond Tutu
Desmond TutuDesmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
, a prominent leader within the anti-apartheid, described his clear support for the academic boycott of South Africa. He wrote that it needed to be maintained for institutions which had a bad record in opposing apartheid, but could be lifted for others as the political situation eased. The boycott had "certainly made a number of people sit up and take notice, especially the so-called liberal universities."
- "They thought that just as a matter of right they would find acceptance because they were allowing blacks into their establishments. I mustn't belittle them too much, I think that they did stand up for academic freedom and so forth, but I don't think myself actually that they were sufficiently vigorous and the boycott helped to knock sense into their heads, to realise that they did have a role in seeking to undermine that vicious system [of apartheid]."
- "I would, I think, now still say that we maintain [the academic boycott] insofar as, if for instance academics from here want to go to South Africa then you want to look at who is inviting them. Under whose auspices are they going? Are they going to institutions that have a good track record in their opposition to apartheid? But I would say that as things begin to ease up, this ought perhaps to be one of the first of the constraints that goes to give some of these people the reward."
- "But I would myself say it is important for academics outside of South Africa also to say they want to reward places like UWC which stuck their necks out and then let these others get the crumbs that remain from the table."
Opponents
"Opposition to this boycott persisted throughout the 80s: conservativesConservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
around the world disliked such anti-apartheid initiatives; campus libertarians
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
perceived a loss of academic freedom
Academic freedom
Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.Academic freedom is a...
; and some liberal South Africans argued that their universities, as centres of resistance to apartheid, made precisely the wrong targets."
From within anti-Apartheid circles
Opponents from within anti-Apartheid circles "argued that ideas and knowledge should be treated differently than tangible commodities, that obstacles to information access could actually hurt the victims of apartheid (for example, retard medical research and, ultimately, reduce the quality of health care), and that an academic boycott (in contrast to economic, trade, or political boycott) would not even be noticed by the South African government. Change is much more likely to occur by providing information than by withholding it.""Such a boycott would cut a university off from its life blood, the nurturing flow of ideas.... The campaign plays directly into the hands of the destructive right-wing in this country which would also dearly love to cut us off from the world and its influences."
Solomon Benatar, a critic, wrote that "Academic boycott has been justified as an appropriate political strategy in the struggle against the oppression of apartheid. Moral outrage against racist policies has led to the claim that academic boycott is a morally imperative
Moral imperative
A moral imperative is a principle originating inside a person's mind that compels that person to act. It is a kind of categorical imperative, as defined by Immanuel Kant. Kant took the imperative to be a dictate of pure reason, in its practical aspect. Not following the moral law was seen to be...
component of a broader sanctions
International sanctions
International sanctions are actions taken by countries against others for political reasons, either unilaterally or multilaterally.There are several types of sanctions....
policy. This claim has neither been substantiated by a reasoned ethical argument nor weighted against an ethically justifiable approach that is consistent with universal humanitarian aspirations and which allows rejection of apartheid to be coupled to constructive endeavours."
"Selective" Alternatives
Solomon Benator, a professor at University of Cape Town
University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town is a public research university located in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, and is the oldest university in South Africa and the second oldest extant university in Africa.-History:The roots of...
, and others advocated an alternative proposal: a "selective boycott"/"selective support" effort which would boycott South African organizations only if they were practitioners of apartheid and would extend support to organizations that did not practice apartheid. This alternative proposal was criticized because of both "the practical problems of implementation" and that "it implicitly endorsed the idea that political views are valid determinants of who should attend scholarly meetings, whose work should be published, and so on."
Post-Apartheid analysis
"That most of the scholars in our study judged the boycott to be an irritant or inconvenience, rather than a significant barrier to scholarly progress, suggests that it proved more a symbolic gesture than an effective agent of change."Easily circumvented
"The academic boycott was more of an irritation than a true obstacle to scholarly progress.""In most cases, scholars and libraries were able to circumvent the boycott one way or another-for example, by using "third parties" in less antagonistic countries although with delays and at greater expense."
Perceived as unjust discrimination
"Many [South African] scholars felt left out, isolated, unjustly discriminated against.""Suspicions were created" ... "that a submission was really rejected for political reasons, not the reasons claimed", "that the high incidence of inactive research materials, such as biological agents and antibodies, received by South African institutions was not a mere coincidence"
Comparisons to academic boycotts of Israel
The academic boycott of South Africa is frequently invoked as a model for more recent efforts to organize academic boycotts of Israel.Some invoke the comparison to claim that an academic boycott of Israel should not be controversial based a misconception that the academic boycott of South Africa was uncontroversial and straightforward. The reality, at the time, was very different. The effort was the subject of significant criticism and contentious debate from diverse segments. Andrew Beckett writes, in the Guardian, on this frequent mistaken comparison:
- "In truth, boycotts are blunt weapons. Even the most apparently straightforward and justified ones, on closer inspection, have their controversies and injustices."
Other, such as Hillary and Stephen Rose in Nature, make the comparison and argue for an academic boycott of Israel based on a belief that the academic boycott of South Africa was effective in ending apartheid. George Fink responds to this claim in a letter to Nature:
- "The assertion [...] that the boycott of South Africa by the world's academic communities 'was instrumental in ending apartheid in South Africa' is a deception.
The African National Congress, which was the leading anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, has published extensive documentation to support their assertion that the boycott campaign was, indeed, instrumental in ending apartheid.
See also
- History of South Africa in the apartheid eraHistory of South Africa in the apartheid eraApartheid was a system of racial segregation enforced by the National Party governments of South Africa between 1948 and 1994, under which the rights of the majority 'non-white' inhabitants of South Africa were curtailed and white supremacy and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained...
- Anti-Apartheid MovementAnti-Apartheid MovementAnti-Apartheid Movement , originally known as the Boycott Movement, was a British organization that was at the center of the international movement opposing South Africa's system of apartheid and supporting South Africa's Blacks....
- Disinvestment from South AfricaDisinvestment from South AfricaDisinvestment from South Africa was first advocated in the 1960s, in protest of South Africa's system of Apartheid, but was not implemented on a significant scale until the mid 1980s...
External links
- South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid, Building Democracy - A curricular resource for schools and colleges on the struggle to overcome apartheid and build democracy in South Africa
- African Activist Archive - An online archive of materials of the solidarity movement and boycott movement in the U.S.A.