It’s Moral, It’s Symbolic, It’s Right

The California Legislature’s decision to divest the state of $11 billion worth of stock in companies doing business with South Africa will not bring down that country’s government. Nor will it force President Pieter W. Botha’s regime to dismantle apartheid. But as South African troops were shooting blacks in Soweto last week the Reagan Administration stood by, waffling over sanctions. By voting for divestiture, California said what the President would not say. The legislation, which Gov. George Deukmejian has said he will sign, requires companies in which the Legislature has invested state-employee pension funds to sell their South Africa-linked assets within four years. If the companies do not do so, and most will not, the pension funds will be invested elsewhere. California would be the 11th and largest state in this country to take divestiture action.

Opponents look at such divestiture as a self-congratulatory gesture that will stiffen the backbones of the Boers at the expense of South African blacks. More likely it will not be felt at all. The stocks, bonds and other investments that the Legislature sells will probably be bought by other investors. More significantly, California’s move will encourage other states to do likewise. Indeed, since the Legislature passed its bill, legislators in Alaska, Oregon, New Mexico and Ohio have expressed intentions to push for divestiture. But corporate America has only $1.8 billion invested in South Africa--hardly enough to give it substantial leverage with that government.

Divestiture is not a financial statement but a moral statement. For one thing, the legislation shows how far the Legislature and the governor have come in dealing with Pretoria’s racists. Bills like the one passed last week, which came on the heels of the University of California Board of Regents’ $3-billion divestiture, have languished in the Legislature for seven years. Last year the governor vetoed a divestiture bill that had bipartisan support. Whether it is proper for the legislators to make political statements with state employees’ pension funds is an open question, but surely they were motivated by the belief that investing in South Africa is not financially wise.

Divestiture is also a symbolic act. The Reagan Administration’s policies, in addition to producing no tangible results, have fostered the impression that the United States is an ally of the Botha regime. South Africa’s whites covet this impression; its blacks detest it. California’s divestiture will help demonstrate this country’s moral outrage at apartheid. And it may encourage the President, so weighted down by ideological baggage that he cannot see apartheid for the abomination that it is, to finally accept sanctions himself. When blacks share power in South Africa, as someday they will, they will look for evidence to determine where this country stood on apartheid. Actions like the Legislature’s will remind them.