Talk:Disinvestment from South Africa

Appropriate image request

I think that picture of a publicity poster for the campaign either from the UK in the 1960s or from the US in the 1980s would be a valuable addition. Alternatively, a photograph of a disinvestment organizing meeting or a protest gathering would be very appropriate. --CGM1980 19:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Some possible images, although I am unsure about whether we can use them on Wikipedia:

1. Disinvestment protest at the University of California:
   • http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/january10/olsen-011007.html
2. Disinvestment protests at Harvard University:
   • http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/mandela/20_conflicted_relationship.html
3. Disinvestment protests at Yale University:
   • http://www.culture-of-peace.info/ppa/chapter1-2.html
4. Copy of student newspaper at Vasser headlined with a plea for the university to disinvest:
   • http://specialcollections.vassar.edu/exhibits/fergusson_years/example01.html
     • This might be the best bet, as a copy of the newspaper's frontpage may be considered fair use, or at least I think so.

--CGM1980 19:50, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Assessment Comment

This article awaits a more global perspective. Even limiting the picture to the West, there are more than the two countries UK and US there. What were all of these other countries doing? This is particularly glaring in a section titled "Steadfast Rejection by the West" which only refers to Britain.Gallador (talk) 21:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I concur. Even reading it from a UK perspective, the article suggests that the British campaign for an economic boycott collapsed in the '60s and the world had to wait for the USA to take up the stuggle a decade later. While it is true that British governments were unreceptive thoughout this time, the Anti-Aparthied movement there was robust and unswerving. The article suggests that economic efforts against Apartheid were entirely US-lead. The effect is not unlike watching those American war films that ignore the role of the rest of the world in the Second World War.

For example, it does not mention the British student campaign against Barclays Bank which directly resulted in their complete withdrawl from SA in 1986. "the most fundamental blow so far of those that have begun to rain on the South African economy" (Anthony Sampson, author of Black and Gold). At the time Britain was by far the biggest investor in SA ($8.5 billion, 7 times the size of US investments) and Barclays was the biggest British operator. Chris Ball, the SA Managing Director of Barclays at the time, attributed the move entirely to the political pressure put on Barclays in the UK which was, foremost, the student boycott. This had lead to a drop in market share of student accounts from 40% to 13% in the space of two years.

I am not so familiar with AA movements in other countries, but I am sure that wherever there was significant investment, there would have been serious campaigns for disinvestment: the Anti-Apartheid movement was most effective because it was multilateral. Britain, and then USA, were the largest investors and so had the greatest potential to effect change. Unfortunately I lack the knowledge to rebalance this article myself... perhaps meanwhile it could be more accurately renamed "The US campaign for disinvestment from South Africa" Finiwiki (talk) 08:03, 15 February 2012 (UTC)Finiwiki

Future work

The criticism section could be further improved. --CGM1980 19:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, as I read more about the Sullivan Principles, I see now that they really don't belong in the criticism section. Sullivan did criticize simplistic divestment, but he advocated a form of selective disinvestment based on whether the behavior of individual South African companies met a certain ethical standard. --CGM1980 21:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The connection to the disinvestment campaign appears to be as follows: many organizations in the United States participating in the disinvestment campaign used the Sullivan Principles as criteria in determining whether they should disinvest from a particular company operating in South Africa. It was only if the company in question had not accepted or signed on to the Sullivan Principles was disinvestment undertaken. --CGM1980 21:30, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Out of time for the time being, but the solution is to add a new major section called "The Sullivan Principles (1977)" between the UN and US campaign sections. It appears to be significant development in that it impacted the perceived legitimacy/fairness of the campaign by the wider public. --CGM1980 21:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

To do note to self: a brief introduction/summary section giving readers a quick overview of the whole history is missing. --CGM1980 21:42, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Intro does not explain what happened

The intro does not explain what happened, or summarise the rest of the article. The intro should briefly define what Disinvestment involved.Lester 22:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Crime and Poverty

Is there any information on what influence the "disinvestment"-campaign had on poverty and crime in South Africa? --41.17.4.143 (talk) 19:02, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Numbers for disinvestment -

The table given in the University campuses section for "the numbers year over year for educational institutions fully or partially divesting from South Africa" isn't clear whether the numbers are cumulative:

	1984	1987	1988
Number of institutes divesting	53	128	155

--Chriswaterguy talk 07:08, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Anti-Apartheid opposition

I think that if Mangosuthu Buthelezi's views are mentioned, it should be clarified that referring to him as "anti-apartheid" is controversial. After all, he was a prominent figure in the bantustan system of the apartheid regime, and his position regarding apartheid was ambiguous, to say the least.--84.108.212.141 (talk) 08:37, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Ireland?

Is this article only about the US sanctions on Apartheid? If not, in Ireland in 1984 a group of workers in the largest retailer, Dunnes Stores, refused to handle South African produce. They lost their jobs, went on strike, won public support and by 1987 directly because of them Ireland passed sanctions on South Africa. More information here. 89.234.102.199 (talk) 09:13, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

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over-emphasis on Ramon Sevilla

There seems to be an excessive amount of material promoting the role of Ramon Sevilla. I was active in the divestment movement at Berkley in 1984-1986, and I don't recall ever hearing of Sevilla. I'm sure he made important contributions, but this seems way out of proportion and possibly a case of self-promotion.--76.169.116.244 (talk) 02:48, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Agreed—since no one has stepped forward to cite any RS, and I'm unable to find much of anything about this chap, I am going to edit to remove the multiple references. Ekpyros (talk) 17:59, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

GOCE copy-editing

NightHeron (talk) 18:24, 6 November 2023 (UTC)