Jonathan Zimmerman: Where are the protests against Mugabe?
[Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education at New York University, is teaching this semester at the university's study-abroad program in Accra, Ghana. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory," which will be published in the fall by Yale University Press.]
Accra, Ghana
Here's something cool to drop at cocktail parties: I went to college with Barack Obama. We had just one class together, as best I can recall, a placid lecture course on politics where neither of us said a whole lot.
But outside of class, on the lawns and quadrangles of Columbia University, the politics were anything but placid. The loudest issue concerned apartheid in South Africa. In 1985, two years after Obama and I graduated, 100 students would barricade a university building for three weeks to protest the university's investments in companies doing business in South Africa. A year after that, amid nationwide demonstrations, Congress would override President Ronald Reagan's veto and approve economic sanctions against the apartheid regime.
So why don't we care about Africa anymore?
Look no further than the mess in Zimbabwe, South Africa's oppressed and destitute neighbor, and you'll see what I mean. To be sure, every leading American politician - including Obama and his rival Republican John McCain - has denounced Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, whose goons have been murdering and intimidating opponents ever since a disputed March 29 election. That's why challenger Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of this Friday's run-off election, which he correctly called a "sham."
Where are the mock shantytowns at American universities, dramatizing the brutality of Mugabe's regime? Where are the actors and congressional representatives, staging sit-ins at Zimbabwean embassies and consulates? Where are the rock concerts and other benefit events, to generate support for Tsvangirai and other dissidents?
All of these tactics were staples of the anti-apartheid movement in my college days. But I haven't heard about any large-scale American protests against Mugabe, who has proven every bit as cruel and cynical as South Africa's apartheid rulers.
Why the double standard? You already know the answer: South Africa's oppressors were white. Thanks to our own racial blinders and stereotypes, we expect more of white leaders; they should know better. But blacks? Dictatorship comes naturally to them. It's what they do, you see ...
Read entire article at San Francisco Chronicle
Accra, Ghana
Here's something cool to drop at cocktail parties: I went to college with Barack Obama. We had just one class together, as best I can recall, a placid lecture course on politics where neither of us said a whole lot.
But outside of class, on the lawns and quadrangles of Columbia University, the politics were anything but placid. The loudest issue concerned apartheid in South Africa. In 1985, two years after Obama and I graduated, 100 students would barricade a university building for three weeks to protest the university's investments in companies doing business in South Africa. A year after that, amid nationwide demonstrations, Congress would override President Ronald Reagan's veto and approve economic sanctions against the apartheid regime.
So why don't we care about Africa anymore?
Look no further than the mess in Zimbabwe, South Africa's oppressed and destitute neighbor, and you'll see what I mean. To be sure, every leading American politician - including Obama and his rival Republican John McCain - has denounced Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, whose goons have been murdering and intimidating opponents ever since a disputed March 29 election. That's why challenger Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of this Friday's run-off election, which he correctly called a "sham."
Where are the mock shantytowns at American universities, dramatizing the brutality of Mugabe's regime? Where are the actors and congressional representatives, staging sit-ins at Zimbabwean embassies and consulates? Where are the rock concerts and other benefit events, to generate support for Tsvangirai and other dissidents?
All of these tactics were staples of the anti-apartheid movement in my college days. But I haven't heard about any large-scale American protests against Mugabe, who has proven every bit as cruel and cynical as South Africa's apartheid rulers.
Why the double standard? You already know the answer: South Africa's oppressors were white. Thanks to our own racial blinders and stereotypes, we expect more of white leaders; they should know better. But blacks? Dictatorship comes naturally to them. It's what they do, you see ...