BOYCOTTING SOUTH AFRICA

The cultural boycott of South Africa (“Conflict of Conscience,” by John M. Wilson, Feb. 24), is the most frightening issue this country has had to face since the days of the hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

It is frightening because Harry Belafonte and his cohorts (Trans-Africa and Artists and Athletes Against Apartheid) are now using the same techniques they abhor themselves.

It bothers me to see a man such as Belafonte now heading an extremist group in an attempt to force his personal ideology on the rest of us. Jerry Falwell’s philosophy is that if you do not manifest the same religious belief as he does, you are then branded as a heretic and targeted for political assassination.

Now Belafonte and TransAfrica Director Randall Robinson are using the same tactics. If entertainers do not do exactly as they say and espouse their political beliefs with respect to South Africa, they will be targeted for public embarrassment and economic sanctions.

But then it is easy for Belafonte to take that political position--he is economically secure and has nothing to lose by his outspokenness.

Belafonte is nothing but a hypocrite. He espouses rhetoric against apartheid, yet with his resources he could well have financed or arranged financing for the making of a film about the lives of Steve Biko or Nelson Mandella. But no! Instead, he choses to maintain his capitalistic position here in this country by making a silly little film called “Beat Street.” I’d like to know why. I think we all know why.

Why doesn’t TransAfrica and Belafonte target the major film studios for listing on the U.N. blacklist? All of them do business with South Africa by selling their films over there.

When Harry Belafonte and Arthur Ashe are willing to divest themselves of their wealth, put on military fatigues and pick up the gun to go into the bush with the ANC (African National Congress) as freedom fighters, they can call me and I will do the same. Until that time, don’t tell me what to believe or where I can or cannot go.

ALFRED JONES

Compton

Good for you, Linda Ronstadt and Ann-Margret, for doing what you do best and doing it wherever you want.

Maybe Victor Gbeho of Ghana should blacklist Ann-Margret for her charity work and donations to the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation or Ronstadt for contributing a track for the “U.S.A. in Africa” relief album.

Apartheid is wrong. Very wrong. But music is an international language. Why deprive the South African people of that pleasure too? WAYNE D. STALEY

Mission Viejo

I was immediately suspicious of the subtitle to “Conflict of Conscience,” and read Wilson’s story to see if it really explored “moral choices.” But all I found were descriptions of the economic effects of performing or not performing in South Africa.

Morality was made to seem merely the discomfort we all feel when our wishes bump up against the real world.

WILLARD OLNEY

Hesperia

What a laugh!

L.A. Philharmonic Executive Director Ernest Fleischmann mentions injustice in the Philippines, South Korea and El Salvador.

Doubtless he left, say, North Korea off this list because of its being so well known as a freedom-loving democracy. There is also no injustice, of course, in the Soviet Union, Cuba, Vietnam and Nicaragua.

Excuse me if I smell a big, fat, left-wing political agenda.

RICHARD WOODRUFF

Los Angeles

Contrary to the assertions of Wilson’s article, entertainers such as Goldie Hawn, Johnny Mathis and Rod Stewart who have performed in Sun City have not violated any cultural boycott of South Africa.

Although the article tried hard to gloss over it, the fact is that Bophuthatswana, where Sun City is located, is an independent country. Since it requested and received independence from South Africa, it has accomplished the following:

Abolished all of the race laws (apartheid) bequeathed to it by South Africa.

Legalized casino gambling.

Ended censorship of sex-oriented periodicals (e.g., Playboy).

Allowed uncensored radio and TV broadcasting.

None of these freedoms are permitted in South Africa, and all of them have been implemented by Bophuthatswana against the wishes of South Africa’s repressive government. How could these be the acts of a puppet government?

As Wilson’s sidebar (“The Lure of Sun City”) admitted, the South African government is now attempting to jam BOP-TV so that South Africans will no longer be able to receive its popular, uncensored programs. Yet my South African friends report a lively market in anti-jamming kits!

Clearly, the existence of a freer country nearby poses a problem for the South African government. It serves as a model for what could be done within South Africa, against the wishes of racist advocates of the status quo.

To be sure, Bophuthatswana, Ciskei and the other independent homelands may have been intended by South Africa to be puppet states. But once it has set them free, South Africa cannot control them.

The Times does a real disservice to the aspirations of the people in these new countries by going along with the boycotters’ propaganda claims that Sun City and Bophuthatswana are part of South Africa.

Kenny Rogers’ letter, by contrast, is right on target in agreeing never to appear in a nation where apartheid is in force. By the terms of his letter, he would be free to perform again in Sun City, where apartheid has been abolished along with other restrictions on human rights.

Articles like Wilson’s blur this vital distinction. Surely the struggling people of Africa’s newest countries deserve better than to be lumped in with the racists of neighboring South Africa.

ROBERT W. POOLE JR.

Editor/Publisher

Reason magazine

Santa Barbara

I am appalled that some of the most creative minds in show business cannot come up with a more suitable means for ending apartheid than a cultural boycott. What is needed is a positive action, a statement of what we are for.

If our stars are so concerned with ending apartheid, why don’t they appear in South Africa, collect their high fees from the white minority, and reinvest the money to improve conditions for the black majority? This way, apartheid pays for its own destruction.

As Marla Gibbs put it at the NAACP Image Awards: “It’s easy to remember what we are all against. Let us not forget what we are all for.”

KERRY J. DAVIDSON

West Covina

I found Joan Baez’s comments regarding American performers who appear in South Africa quite contradictory to her own actions of late. What gives her the right to call these people “sell-outs?”

Granted, these people are indeed sell-outs, but we don’t need to hear it from Baez. After all, isn’t this the same Baez who annually sings “Joe Hill,” a staunch union song, in front of a Coors-drinking audience at the Greek Theatre?

Isn’t this the same iconoclastic Baez from the ‘60s who now performs in Vegas and produces vacuous albums for great profit?

Apartheid is wrong and American artists who perform in that country should be denounced. However, I think that Baez should check out her own glass house before casting any stones.

ALFEE ENCISO

Los Angeles

It is ironic, that after spending last Saturday at the KLOS radiothon for African famine relief, I should arrive home to read Wilson’s story.

Certainly, the story itself was disturbing enough without finding that I had been incorrectly identified as an “agent.” I believe that comments attributed to me were either misconstrued or misunderstood because they do not represent the true feelings of myself or Barry Manilow.

There is no question that both the U.N. and our finest entertainers only have the best intentions at heart. Still, almost nothing is ever simply just a black-and-white issue; case in point.

MICHAEL AMEEN

Senior Vice President

Rogers & Cowan, Inc.