Semester Focuses on South Africa : USC Experiment Attempts to Broaden Students’ Understanding of Apartheid

The controversy over USC’s investments in corporations that do business in South Africa has led to an unusual experiment in education this fall.

The university is sponsoring a theme semester, during which 20 courses are wholly or partly devoted to the study of South Africa and its apartheid system. Included are courses in business, film, international relations, religion, urban planning and education. Athol Fugard, the renowned South African playwright, is scheduled to be among the guest speakers.

“Our task is to have students know as closely as possible what life is like for various people in South Africa and what the issues and tensions there are,” explained drama professor Herbert Shore, one of the semester’s planners.

Hope to Rally Students

He and other teachers insist that they will not be preaching any political point of view. However, some professors hope the semester will rally what they complain are apathetic students to pressure the university’s board of trustees to sell off stocks of firms with South African ties.

“Some of us believe if knowledge produces enlightenment, the more you know about South Africa, the more you would conclude that divestiture is an important way to get rid of apartheid,” said Shore, who taught in Africa for many years.

Campus Demonstration

Last Wednesday, about 70 students held a campus rally outside the meeting of USC’s board of trustees to protest USC’s investment policies. Some students said they participated because of what they learned in the theme semester courses.

In 1987, USC began selective divestiture of holdings in firms not considered to be working toward racial equality in their South Africa enterprises. That policy, combined with a withdrawal of American corporations from South Africa, caused the share of the university’s portfolio with South African ties to drop from about 10% to 6.5%, according to university Treasurer William Hromadka. The portfolio is worth about $388 million.

Last spring, USC’s Faculty Senate and student government

called for total divestiture and a special advisory committee to USC President James Zumberge also recommended such a goal, although at a slower pace. The Rev. Leon Sullivan, the black American minister who in 1977 established widely followed principles of conduct for American firms in South Africa, decided two years ago that a complete pullout was necessary to challenge the white supremacist regime, the USC activists stressed.

1,030 in 20 Courses

However, Zumberge and the board of trustees decided in June not to change policies, stating that full divestiture could hurt both South African blacks and USC’s financial health while doing little to dismantle apartheid.

Similar debates have divided many American campuses. What is different at USC is that the issues this fall are formally part of a wide range of courses, some created for the semester, others slightly retooled. The 20 courses have a total enrollment of 1,030, out of an undergraduate student body of 16,100. Organizers claim that turnout belies the stereotype of USC students as more interested in parties than in politics.

“Education is just as important as economic action,” said Carol Thompson, associate professor of political science and another leader of the theme semester. Thompson, who has lived in Africa, recently polled her comparative politics class and discovered a lack of knowledge about the continent. Out of 240 students, only 30 could identify Namibia as a country in southern Africa.

She also put the class through a brief simulation of racial separation, forcing fair-complexioned students to remain quiet while allowing others to chat and eat. “It’s extremely important to look at our own racial attitudes, not just teach about a problem” thousands of miles away, she said.

The theme semester grew out of earlier, less ambitious programs led by faculty members who pushed for divestiture. They brought experts on South African issues, including the Rev. Sullivan, to lecture at USC over the past few years. USC also gives scholarships to several South African students and sponsors South African professionals for sabbaticals to study on campus.

‘Blood Money’

In the past, such activities were “somewhat precious, somewhat isolated from the mainstream of the university,” said Barbara Solomon, the dean of graduate studies who helped develop the semester. “The people who attended tended not to be freshman or people from fraternity and sorority row. We sensed it needed to be tied to the central academic mission of the university.”

There is some skepticism that USC’s administration approved the theme semester as a way to vent anger on the divestiture vote. “Some people call it a blood money move to get (us) off the trustees’ backs,” said Steven Lamy, associate professor of international relations. “I’d like to think that’s not the case. But I could be convinced either way.”

Nevertheless, Lamy participated, giving South Africa special emphasis in his foreign policy analysis course. During a recent class, he told the 35 students how American policy-makers want to ensure access to minerals in South Africa and prevent a Marxist-led revolution there.

Varied Responses

Some students seemed only vaguely aware that the courses are part of a special theme semester; they enrolled to fulfill requirements. But others were excited about the semester.

“I really think it has opened up a lot of eyes and heightened awareness,” said senior Misti Mukhopadhyay. She said she hopes Lamy’s course and a seminar she is taking about conflict in South Africa and the Middle East help her contribute to peaceful resolutions in a possible career in diplomacy.

Ryan Millward, a freshman business major, is taking Thompson’s political science course and a philosophy class that deals with apartheid and other contemporary moral topics. “I was pretty ignorant of the issue and basically wanted to be more informed about what’s going on there,” he said.

At a course on cinema and drama in South Africa, teachers Michael Renov and Doe Mayer discussed the recent crop of movies with South Africa themes such as “A Dry White Season,” “Cry Freedom” and “A World Apart.”

Renov and Mayer, who has worked in Africa, said they are concerned that most such movies are made by, and focus on, whites. They are trying to obtain copies of underground videos made by South African blacks. Meanwhile, they showed what is considered to be the first movie to have a black South African as its protagonist: “Mapantsula,” a 1988 film about a petty criminal who is drawn against his will into a political struggle.

On Oct. 21, Fugard, author of such anti-apartheid dramas as “Master Harold and the Boys,” will read from his works at the Bing Theatre on campus. That will be followed later in the month with USC drama division’s productions of two other South African plays: “Deep Ground” by Reza de Wet and “Born in the RSA” by Barney Simon.

Drama professor Shore helped translate “Deep Ground” from Afrikaner, the language of the Dutch-descended ruling group. The plot centers on how a white family’s isolation leads to murder and insanity, a metaphor about apartheid, he said. Student actors at first knew little about the situation but now, Shore said, they “are asking questions I’m sure they never asked before in their lives.”