Newspaper Page Text
Vol. xxvm, No. 4 Atlanta, Georgia January 27, 1984
Jesse Jackson...
“We must attempt to end the arms struggle across the world.”
by Karen Burroughs
Editor-in-Chief
“I had reason to believe that
something great would come
about/’ said Rev. Jesse Jackson,
in Martin Luther King Chapel on
January 11, speaking on his
recent mission to Syria. “I knew
where I was going. I knew the
path I was walking."
Jackson, who traveled to Syria
late last month, was chiefly
responsible for the safe return of
captured serviceman Lt. Robert
Goodman to the United States.
He remarked that it is the
responsibility of governments
and their leaders to bring peace.
“But how can our leaders regain
peace when they don’t talk to
the other leaders?" he asked.
“You ought to know the enemy,
communicate with the enemy.
Love the enemy that you might
have a chance to convert the
enemy. You do what it is worth
the risk for you to do."
"Peace is worth the risk,”
Jackson continued. “Someone
had to break the cycle of pain
and create new options.”
Jackson stated that when he met
the President of Syria, he saw the
opportunity to match logic and
“seize the moment." He told the
audience that he overcame the
arguments and survived intellec
tual failure to secure the return
of Goodman.
Jackson also discussed his view
toward the foreign policy of the
United States. “Across the years,
a foreign policy has been made
to be something so other -
worldly that it is foreign to
Americans,” he said. “Foreign
policy shouldn't be foreign to us
if it is our policy. Foreign policy is
comprehensible; the question is,
is it sensible?”
Jackson explained to the
audience that in order to do
anything well, one must become
an artist at it. He outlined the
three steps to becoming an artist
as theory, practice and art, and
indicated that these steps can
also be applied to the making of
foreign policy. “If we never get
the chance to practice it, then we
will never end up doing it well,"
he said. "We must have an
approach that is rational.
Threats, fighting and playing
Russian Roulette with nuclear
weapons is a bad approach.
Incentive must come from the
presidents.”
The Chicago-based minister
stressed that there must be a
committment to fight for justice
at home as well as peace abroad.
“Each generation has a challenge
— for us it is to serve. You can
only fail when you don't serve.
We must make room for the
locked out.”
“This generation must choose
responsibility over disregard,
love over hate and the human
race over the nuclear race,” he
continued. “Elect officials who
will risk for peace — who will
give peace a chance even if it
hurts.”
. "We must attempt to end the
arms struggle across the world.
Get men and women to study
war no more,” Jackson conclud
ed. "Fight for peace, give peace a
chance — our time has come.”
Rev. Jesse Jackson during recent
visit to Atlanta
Photo by David Perkins
Apartheid: Major Problem In South Africa
by Layli Dumbleton
reprinted with permission from
the AUC Digest
Apartheid (pronounced “a
par-thide”, or more commonly
"apart-hate”) is South Africa’s
constitutionally imposed and
legally enforced system of racial
separation. Whites, Asians,
"coloureds” (people of mixed
racial parentage), and Blacks are
forbidden to intermingle with
another, except in certain oc
cupational situations in which
non-white persons are subser
vient to Whites. White people
are given preferential treatment
under all circumstances; there
are extreme disparities in the
wage of the various groups, and
the government even goes so far
as to remove non-whites from
their neighborhoods in order to
make the most desirable proper
ty available to White.
All non-whites are denied
citizenship, but recently propos
ed changes in the South African
constitution are to give all
groups limited and nominal
"independence” within their
own groups. (The Afrikaner - or
White Parliament, which
regulates and maintains
apartheid, is still inaccessible,
physically and legislatively, to
non-whites.) The government
limits people of all four
classifications to their own living
areas, schools, churches,
busiensses, public facilities and
the like. The Blacks, being lowest
on the government’s "totem
oole,” receive the most of
everything.
The native Africans, about half
os whom have been forcibly
deported from their residential
areas, are removed to what are
ironically called "homelands,”
or Bantustans. In Afrikaans, the
official ianguage of the South
African government, which was
imported into the country by
early Dutch settlers, the term
“Bantu,” which refers to a Black
person, or native African, has a
connotation similar to that of the
American word “nigger.” The
word, African in origin, has been
adulterated by a racist regime,
and has taken a stab at the dignity
of those to whom it refers.
To get an idea of what life in
the “homeland” is like, or to.
what extent the South African
ruling class has violated the
human rights of the majority of
its inhabitants, consider the
following statistics: Blacks out
number Whites four to one. (The
ratio of Blacks: Whites:
Coloureds: Asians is 18.6 million:
4.5 million: 2.4 million: 0.75
million.) The per capita state
expenditure for the education of
children is ten times as high for
Whites as it is for Blacks. The
average White mine worker
earns six times as much as his
Black counterpart. The Whites
claim 87% of the land; the
Africans “possess” the remain
ing 13% and the Asians and
Coloureds live in isolated zones
of the White areas.
Many of the people who live in
the “homelands” live in shelters
made of corrugated iron and
wood. At worst, they dwell in
tents; at best, they are crowded
into large, dormitory-like
quarters, in which the sexes are
separated from one another.
Sometimes the beds are made of
cement. The wealthiest class of
Africans live like the American
lower middle class in urban
Continued on Page 5
Inside This Issue
Faculty Focus:
An Interview with Barbara Brown
ALL YOURS Literary Section... pg. 10
Guide to a Better You:
Your Sexual Health... pg. 11
Spelman's Model of the Year Candidate... pg. 6