By MIKE MAGEE
For ageing Boomers, it’s unimaginable to not hear echoes of Apartheid re-emerging with pressure 3/4 of a century after the battle for social justice right here and in distant lands was totally engaged. The Musk assault, disguised as “efficiency” is little greater than stealing cash from the poor to present to the wealthy, and widens an already extraordinary revenue hole.
The assault is massive sufficient to draw condemnation from a dying Pope Francis, pressured to remind Trump, Musk and their enablers of the historic Jesus and the tenets of Liberation Theology.
Our faculty years within the 1960’s have been accompanied by chaos and disaster, and guided by basic Judeo-Christian values. My faculty, the Jesuit-led Le Moyne College, was activist to its core. The motion was championed by two priests, brothers Daniel and Philip Berrigan. With the assassinations of JFK, his brother Robert, and MLK; LBJ’s Nice Society legislative battles; the Civil Rights motion; and the Vietnam Battle, America was actually on fireplace on the time.
It was throughout this decade as properly {that a} largely student-driven motion emerged to oppose Apartheid in South Africa and quickly unfold worldwide. A seminal function of that motion was mass schooling and demonstrations with a purpose of making financial strain on the leaders of South Africa by divestiture of all shares and investments that benefited the nation.
Elon Musk, born and bred in Pretoria, South African on June 28, 1971, is greater than a bit of aware of that historical past. Actually, Silicon Valley, the place Musk would finally accumulate his huge wealth, can be the house to Stanford College, a website of nice significance to the Apartheid motion and the battle for human justice. Extra on that in a second.
The financial battle in opposition to Apartheid could be waged unabated for over 20 years, reaching a head on faculty campuses within the late Seventies. The explosive progress of protests adopted the Soweto Uprising, a infamous occasion within the Soweto Township outdoors Johannesburg in June, 1976. South African police opened fireplace on youngsters demonstrating. The riots that adopted result in a stream of horrendous killings together with the murder of the South African Pupil Affiliation chief, Steve Biko, whereas in custody.
Nevertheless it was a sit-in, staged by Stanford college students to protest Apartheid, that redefined the battle by specializing in the usage of college divestiture to ship an “financial punch” to the ruling minority.
A choice made by the Stanford Board to oppose a Ford Motor Firm stockholder’s proposal to withdraw operations from South Africa supplied the set off. Stanford on the time held 93,950 shares of Ford Inventory. In response to the inaction, the Stanford college students launched a sit-in (captured by the Stanford Daily scholar newspaper beneath) contained in the Outdated Pupil Union Constructing at 1 P.M. on Monday, Could 9, 1977. Once they wouldn’t depart 5 hours later, 294 college students and college have been arrested together with the daughter of the U.S, Secretary of Labor, Jill Ann Marshall.
Six months later, after repeated demonstrations and disruptions on campus, the Board issued a statement that every of their trustees held a “deep aversion to the observe of apartheid”, and adopted a “South Africa-related moral funding coverage.” Nonetheless it took till 1985 for the college to “create formal funding insurance policies that explicitly set out pointers for investing in South Africa-related corporations.”
The burden of the world’s economic-induced isolation did finally prevail. Nelson Mandela was freed after 27 years of imprisonment, and shortly united in his efforts with President F.W. de Klerk to realize common suffrage. Collectively they shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. And a free election adopted one 12 months later.
Many people in the present day, in our 70s and 80s, as soon as once more really feel the acquainted strains of suppression and oppression within the conduct and actions of Musk, as he toggles emotionally between South Africa, the Silicon Valley, and Washington.
Violence is as soon as once more within the air, together with intense greed, cruelty, subjugation, and the focusing on of the economically oppressed majority. Oligarchal and super-aggressive, sadly there’s nothing new right here. Musk’s child-like conduct obsesses on a “super-hero” world and visions of Mars as he ravages the inhabitants of Mom Earth.
Given his life origins and path, may he too reply to intensive financial isolation? And this time it isn’t Ford, however Tesla, that’s entrance and heart.
Musk owns 13% of Tesla stock (valued at $120B) which accounts for 34% of his whole wealth. His profiteering with Trump is apparent, seen, and accelerating. A Tesla Divestiture could possibly be the probably approach to “ship us from evil” because it did with South African apartheid on April 27, 1994.
Wish to assist? 3 simple steps after which yet another.
1. Examine – Does your group personal Tesla inventory in any kind?
2. If sure, arrange a teach-in, to clarify Divestiture (as in SA Apartheid), its’ objective and utility.
3. Flow into and publish an internet petition to ask your group to divest of all Tesla holdings.
. . . and yet another, Copy and Share this publish with all of your contacts.
Mike Magee MD is a Medical Historian and common contributor to THCB. He’s the creator of CODE BLUE: Inside America’s Medical Industrial Complex. (Grove/2020).
