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OCR for page 40
no
which hardly 10 percent of the faculty comes from all three of those
majority groups discriminated against. He gives us an opportunity to
sense a little of the complexity of coping with human rights violations
when one is a victim of gross discrimination.
Next, we will hear, as a discussant, from Robert Kates, a geog-
rapher who has worked in overseas situations such as Tanzania on
problems of how Tow-income people wrest, in the face of natural haz-
ards, a harmonious relationship with the resources of the area. He
was, as you have heard, first chairman of the Committee on Human
Rights.
Then we will hear from Walter Rosenblith, a physicist and com-
munications engineer who became interested in the brain as a commu-
nications system and who has studied its electrical activity through
the use of computers and has been interested in communications on
a much broader scale. Most recently, as vice president of the In-
ternational Council of Scientific Unions, he has been concerned with
how scientists collaborate with each other in the face of human rights
· · · e
c ~scr~rn~nat~on.
I expect each member of the scientific group here today has
encountered in her or his own experience the question of how we
respond to the organization of a meeting of scientists in South Africa
and how we respond to the notion of bringing a South African scien-
tist to a meeting we organize elsewhere. Where do we take our stanc]
in the face of what we regard as discrimination of a political or social
or economic character?
We hope these issues will be exposed in the following discussion
in which you will join. First, Professor Ismai! Mohamed.
APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA
Ismail Mohamed
Mr. President, members of the academy, and honored guests. It
is an honor for me to be a guest speaker at this symposium on human
rights at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences.
and my fellow oppressed in South Africa value your concern for us.
We applaud your efforts to bring about a respect for human rights
and a democratic society in our country.
~ tale this opportunity to thank the National Science Foundation
and the City College of the City University of New York for financial
_ O ~
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41
support and the opportunity to spend my sabbatical there, as well
as the hospitality of its Graduate Center.
Our country faces serious social, political, and economic prob-
lems, and we are mindful of your concern that a new society should
emerge with the minimum possible upheavals in South Africa and
beyond its borders. We dare not be deterred from attempting to re-
solve these problems by the nationalist government's threats against
democratic forces and the front-line states.
Indeed, our people are more determined than ever to bring an end
to apartheid, oppression, and economic exploitation and to create a
nonracial, unfragmented, and democratic society in South Africa.
am going to tell you a little bit of our struggle to understand the
determination in the face of the mounting repression, what are the
events and forces shaping that determination, and perhaps, then,
briefly, in the light of those comments, ~ hope to discuss some of the
issues that must concern this academy.
Our struggle has been a peaceful one. First, against the humilia-
tion of race and caste organization of our society, in which we occupy
a position of inferiority. Second, to participate in the decision-making
process to determine our own destiny and that of our country. Third,
for the redistribution of the wealth of the land and, of course, for an
unfragmented South Africa. In short, our struggle has been about
the unacceptability of homelands.
That struggle was met with repression and armed violence of
the state. The state signaled by these acts that it was not prepared
to resolve the social conflict outside the parameters of apartheid.
Because that conflict could not be resolved on the political plane of
the liberation struggle, that struggle was extended by the African
National Congress to include armed struggle.
While black workers are part of the liberation struggle, their sig-
nificance has grown with time due to an expanding economy and the
inability of industry and commerce to rely solely on white workers.
The balance of forces on the factory shop floor and in the mines has
dramatically shifted to black workers.
The black workers' growing strength had its repercussions in
the community and amongst the students who could now challenge
the state's attempt to broaden its social base in order to preserve
apartheid. We note particularly the growth of the United Democratic
Front, which serves as a catalyst for the formation of opposition to
apartheid at all levels of society.
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42
The state's attempt to repress the growing opposition by de-
tention, by bannings, and by killings has led to the Revolution of
leadership to the grassroots. Within the United Democratic Front,
its leadership is hauled in front of the courts to be charged with trea-
son or they are detained without trial. Many have been assassinated
and murdered and they are increasingly being replaced by leadership
in the community-at-large, what ~ have called the grassroots.
They are being replaced by people in the so-called "street com-
mittees," in the defense committees, committees which have been
set up to defend ourselves against the security forces of the state. In
fact, we have reached a situation that all the peaceful democratic or-
ganizations are forced to operate in some measure clandestinely and
at the local level, and so new leadership is arising at the grassroots.
When apartheid will fad! to be, the new government and new
institutions will not rise phoenix-like; they are being created right
now through those street committees and defense committees.
In an attempt to stop these developments, the security forces
have occupied the townships and the schools and have attempted to
exterminate the exiles and external leadership. In so doing, they are
ensuring the growth of an internal, revolutionary, armed leadership
within South Africa. Because the problems leading to the strug-
gle have not been resolved, opposition to Pretoria's rules will gain
momentum until that system of apartheid is destroyed.
You know that 20,000 women marched to Pretoria on the 9th of
August in 1956 saying to then-Prime Minister Strij~om: "Strij~om,
you have struck a rock, you have unearthed a boulder, you will
be crushed." ~ can ted you today that boulder is reverberating
throughout the townships in South African society and it is gaining
momentum. In short, ~ am not overdramatizing when ~ say there is
a war being waged in the streets of the townships in South Africa.
With that kind of background to tell you, really, about what is
it that drives people along, ~ want to turn now very briefly to the
issues that must concern you. The concern of the oppressed people
in South Africa about the decisions that we make, or you make, at aD
the various levels confronting us is who wiD it help in that struggle
that is being waged in the townships and the streets. Will it help
those who rule over us or will it help us to liberate ourselves from
that oppression?
Let me turn to our role in the political struggle. ~ believe we
must destroy the lie that government is engaged in an orderly change
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when, as we know and ~ hope ~ have demonstrated, it is asking for a
license to prolong apartheid and the exploitation of black people.
We need to make clear that there is no possibility of resolving
the social conflict within the parameters prescriber! by governments,
the parameters of apartheid. In fact, we are being driven down the
road of escalating violence and bloodshed.
We need to educate others to the fact that there is not going to
be peace in our country until Mandela, Sisulu, Mbeki, and all the
other leaders in prison or in exile, people like Tambo, are released
and allowed to return, the ANC unbanned and a national assembly
convened to dismantle apartheid.
Let me comment, also, very briefly on the scientific and cultural
boycotts. While the vast mass of our youth are struggling to acquire
rudimentary knowledge of reading and writing, the children of the
rulers can reach out to an understanding of the universe, to the
theories of an expanding universe and of black holes millions of light
years away.
While the vast mass of our youth lack the most elementary
knowledge of health and hygiene they are the victims of disease, of
malnutrition and poverty the children of the rulers can reach out
to an understanding of the very basis of life, of DNA molecules and
of genetic materials and of electrical and chemical messages in nerve
endings.
Those who wield this kind of knowledge use it as a weapon
against those who do not have that knowledge. You know the rulers
arrogantly proclaim these achievements of mankind as their own
special achievement. We hear them speak of white art and of white
literature and of white music and of white mathematics and of white
science, thereby demolishing those who presumably have made no
contribution to the achievements of mankind.
~ want to say that those who have stood aside from educational
battles that are being fought in the schools and in the universities
have helped those who use education to batter our children into sum
mission. Therefore, the only meaningful question to ask in relation
to participation by those in South African universities and academic
institutions in international conferences and other forums is, Who
will be helped in that war that ~ spoke about?
You must clearly identify those struggling for liberation. It is
not sufficient to claim, as some South Africans do when they come
to international conferences, that they do not represent the South
African government, that they, in their institutions, have from time to
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44
time protested against apartheid in education, while at the same time
ignoring flagrant discrimination against blacks in their universities,
medical schools, research establishments, and other institutions.
Their actions help to legitimize the South African system. These
people often use apartheid as a shield to hide behind and white
prejudice to hide behind as a means of maintaining the status quo
and white privilege. We have to demand that they prove their role
in that war of liberation.
We should help set up international panels to set equal opportu-
nities and affirmative action programs and targets and exarn~ne the
credentials of those wishing to participate at the international level.
think that is the first step that we need to take.
Let me turn to the academic field at a broader level. For gener-
ations, our black youth have cried out for the right to an education
that will enable them to take their place in the ranks of the free
youth of the world, so that they may determine their own destiny
and that of our country.
They have battled for a system of education in which their values
and their ideals are not treated as inferior and of no consequence.
They found that the universities were closed to them, except in token
numbers, first by tradition and the prejudice of white academics, by
exorbitant fees and the lack of residential accommodation within
those universities or surrounding towns, and later by legislation.
On the other end, their white counterparts were given every
assistance to get into universities and qualify themselves to enter
the ranks of those who rule over them. In recent years, the so-
called Open universities" have adopted a more enlightened view,
motivated partly by the shortage of white academics. Because of
the international Isolation of South African universities, more blacks
have been appointed to academic positions.
We have heard the annual reaffirmations of the ideals of aca-
demic freedom and opposition to apartheid in university education.
As we have heard, the protests from time to time, as the police came,
battering our students on various campuses, but we have not heard
them about the racism in these institutions, the lack of appoint-
ments of blacks to positions in the governing councils or meaningful
programs of recruiting black staff.
We are concerned about the silence on the crisis in black edu-
cation. We must not forget the racism that lurks in the corners to
frustrate black advancement. So, here, too, in this area, we need to
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45
set up positive measures. ~ am suggesting panels to investigate that
situation.
To tell you about the racism that lurks in corners, a deputy
vice-chancellor once wrote to me (vice-chancellor is equivalent to a
president or vice-president of a college), "One can see that to appoint
you in a permanent position of authority over white students and
junior white staff would be to wound the very heart of Baasskap
White supremacy] and that there are limits to which we can go to
offend a government."
In short, he was saying, ewe cannot appoint you."
Or, as one head of a department once wrote to me, "they imean-
ing the university administration] would require the appointment tof
myself] to be strongly motivated in the sense that ~ should have to
guarantee that certain topics, presumably at honors and research
level, could not be taught by anyone else available." The mind bog-
gles at such bigotry and prejudice that still lurk in too many corners.
But ~ think it reinforces the view of a selective academic boycott
while helping them to set their house in order.
Now, the crimes of apartheid are many, and ~ cannot go through
them all. Perhaps just to give you a little bit of an insight into the
trauma of the lives of people in South Africa, ~ am going to tell you
very briefly of my own, not because we epitomize in any sort of way
the frustration of our people, but perhaps, on the contrary, because
we, ~ anti my family, live rather middIe-cIass lives.
If I tell you a little bit of my experience, then you might appre-
ciate the depth of what the people who do not have access to the
international community must go through. In 1976 I was detained
without charge or trial, and when ~ was thrown into that cell at
Caledon Square in Cape Town, I learned from the children in the cell
next door, 11-year-olds, that the strips of blankets that were hanging
from the corner of my cell is where they had found Story Mazwembe,
a political detainee, apparently having committed suicide a few days
earlier.
A few days later, ~ was transferred to a maximum security prison
and there ~ met Story's brother, and he had to learn from me what
had happened.
I shall never forget the morning of July 30, 1980, when we
discovered that our l~year-old son had fled the country to escape
police harassment. That morning ~ had to go and teach my students,
by far and large mostly white young students, 1~ and 18-year-old
boys, without betraying to them what was stirring inside me.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
south african
