I just followed two links provided by Eric in a comment and saw video of myself from 35 years ago talking about the efforts that a number of us made to get Harvard to divest. [I had never seen either clip before.] I was pointed to the links by my sister, who sent me an email telling me that my mouth when I spoke then looks just like my son, Patrick's, mouth when he speaks – he is as it happens exactly the same age now as I was then. If you trouble to follow the links, you will find me speaking quite confidently about the effect that Archbishop Desmond Tutu's election to the Board of Overseers will have on Harvard's behavior.
I was absolutely correct. Stung by the election of Tutu, Harvard changed the rules for electing protest candidates to the Board of Overseers so that nothing like that would never happen again. Harvard was completely true to form, of course. Having done absolutely nothing to support the struggle against apartheid, they then gave Nelson Mandela an honorary degree after he was released from prison.
God, I hate them
23 comments:
He deserved that Harvard degree for all of the garbage he went through. In a Larry King interview many years ago, Mr. Mandela said that he was lucky for having books in prison to read like 'The Grapes of Wrath' and 'War & Peace'. That's the sign of a very wise, patient, and enduring man.
Yes, Nelson Mandela was an amazing human being. Most people could not experience what he experienced and be willing to forgive and seek reconciliation with their oppressors, as long as they sincerely expressed remorse for their conduct. I would not believe their expressions of remorse and would seek retaliation. His favorite poem was Invictus, “my head is bloody, but unbowed.” It was always a pleasure to hear him speak, with his unique diction, and to see him smile, notwithstanding the savagery of his travails.
It's strange that Mandela's favorite poem was Invictus, a work from Victorian Britain, written in the chief colonial power in Africa during the heyday of imperialism. I'm not criticizing him for that: in a certain sense it's a sign of how broad-minded he was, but I can't imagine other anti-imperialistic leaders choosing as their favorite work one from a colonial power.
Gandhi would not have done that nor Ho Chi Minh nor Fidel Castro.
I guess that Mandela is the bigger man for the breadth of his readings and for his willingness to learn from all.
s. wallerstein,
I surmise that the fact that the author of Invictus, William Ernest Henley, lived in Victorian England was not regarded as a liability by Nelson Mandela may derive from the fact that he knew more about Mr. Henley than you do. The theme of the poem reflects Henley’s lifelong struggle with serious health problems, including tuberculosis of the bone, requiring the amputation of his left leg. His friend, Robert Louis Stevenson, modeled the character of Long John Silver on Mr. Hensley’s gait. He and his wife also had the misfortune of being the parents of a very sickly daughter, who died at the age of five. James Barrie, a friend of the family, modeled the character Wendy in Peter Pan after her.
I should think that judging the merits of a writer based on the politics of the writer’s country is not a reliable metric. Should Tennyson or Browning be similarly rejected as sources of inspiration by Africans because they lived and wrote in Victorian England? Should Hemingway or Frost be judged by the fact that that the country of their birth once condoned slavery?
Another,
Please read my comment more carefully.
I don't judge the merits of anyone because of the country of their birth, but many people, in my experience, involved in struggles against imperialism, will reject writers who come from powers which have played in a role in their oppression. I was pleasantly surprised that Mandela did not do that as many in his position would have done so.
s. wallerstein: "Gandhi would not have done that nor Ho Chi Minh nor Fidel Castro."
Unlike Gandhi, Ho, and Castro, Mandela did not win a decisive victory.
(discussion from 26:45 - 38:45; & very sharp words for Desmond Tutu in the last couple of those minutes. For anyone who cares, the book passage that is cited in the discussion is from chapter 2 of Tutu's No Future Without Forgiveness)
I noticed that Prof Wolff used the South African pronunciation of "apartheid" when he was speaking in the video. I wonder why Americans almost exclusively pronounce it as if it were a German word.
Eric,
The correct pronunciation of “apartheid” is based on the following syllabization:
a – part – heid
I suspect Americans syllabize the word as follows:
a – par -theid, because the “th” combination of consonants is very common in English, and that is what they see when they look at the word.
Well, here’s an interesting piece of trivia. One of Fidel Castro’s favorite books was Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” a book about the Spanish Civil War written by an American, whose home country’s exploitation of Cuba he resented. This did not inhibit his admiration of the book.
https://favobooks.com/politicians/118-fidel-castro-classics-that-are-dear-to-him.html
Likewise, I would not be surprised if Gandhi, who was educated in Victorian England (1878-1881), read Tennyson and Browning, and possibly Henley’s Invictus. Surely his life encapsulated the line “my head is bloody, but unbowed.”
I have no idea what author’s books Ho Chi Minh read, or was inspired by, other than the works of Marx and Lenin.
Anonymous,
Hemingway is a bad example because first of all, For Whom the Bell Tolls is a pro-Republican novel about the Spanish Civil War and that would appeal to Fidel. Second, Hemingway lived in Cuba and supported the Cuban revolution at least in its first steps.
I genuinely doubt that Fidel enjoyed Robert Frost, your other example above, especially because Frost read poetry in Kennedy's inauguration, the same Kennedy who strived so hard to overthrow the Cuban revolution.
Postscript:
According to the link in my above comment, Castro also admired Hemingway's "The Old Man And The Sea," a book about endurance, the challenges of life, and its disappointments. the fact that Castro resented and disapproved of what he regarded as U.S. imperialism, it did not prevent him from appreciating, and being inspired by, the message of a book written by a citizen of an imperialist country.
s. wallerstein,
Actually, Hemingway and his wife left Cuba in 1960, after learning that Castro intended to nationalize the property of Americans living there. Thereafter, Hemingway offered his services to the CIA to spy on Cuba when using his yacht on fishing expeditions in the Caribbean.
"When Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independence of Vietnam from French rule on September 2, 1945, he borrowed liberally from Thomas Jefferson, opening with the words 'We hold these truths to be self-evident [,] that all men are created equal.'"
- George Herring, _America"s Longest War_, 2d ed. (1986), p.3
Another,
Did Hemingway really offer his services to the CIA? I'm not questioning your information.
It seems so miserable to me. When I googled "Hemingway/Fidel Castro", some photos of Hemingway smiling besides a young Fidel Castro appear. I've never liked Hemingway much (there are some parts of the Sun Also Rises which seem anti-semitic to me), but from now on I'll actively dislike him.
Another Anonymous,
There have been previous discussions here challenging the notion of "correct" language.
The pronunciation of the "ei" in apartheid is to my ear the most noticeable distinction between American speakers and South African (English-language) speakers. CBC & BBC broadcasters also use the South African pronunciation, in contrast to most US broadcasters.
It reminds me of the pronunciation of Assad. The usual American pronunciation differs from the pronunciation of English speakers who are familiar with Arabic or who are deeply familiar with that country's affairs.
LFC,
The discussion above began as one about who were the favorite authors of certain anti-imperialist figures, not whether they were in some way influenced by thinkers from first world countries, in this case, Jefferson.
In any case, when Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnamese independence in 1945, the colonial power in question was France, not the United States.
Eric,
There appears to be some dispute regarding the proper pronunciation of the word “apartheid.”
Every vocalization of the word which I have listened to on my computer pronounces it as: a – part – hide.
In the first of the two clips you attached to your original comment, Prof. Wolff does not use the word. The narrator, however, repeatedly mispronounces it as: a – par – thide.
In the second clip, Prof. Wolff does use the word, and pronounces it: a – par -thade.
Since Prof. Wolff taught in South Africa, I assume his pronunciation is the pronunciation used in South Africa, and is therefore accurate. In that case, most of the rest of the world is mispronouncing it.
Another Anonymous, yes, that is what I was implying. I was impressed by Prof Wolff's pronunciation. Germans tend to pronounce 'ei' as igh in high (Rhein). South Africans pronounce it as ay in hay. My question was why don't Americans use the South African pronunciation, which would seem the obvious thing to do when talking about a South African policy.
s.w.
The Ho Chi Minh quote was intended as a response to AA's implied question about who if anyone influenced Ho besides Lenin and Marx (in Ho's case it was apparently Lenin more than Marx, but that's a side point).
LFC,
Thanks for clarifying.
We also know that Ho Chi Minh wrote poetry, so he must have read some other poets. Victor Jara, Chilean folksinger murdered in the 1973 coup, refers to "poeta Ho Chi Minh" in his song, "El derecho de vivir en paz", "the right to live in peace".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOCC_s2hupE
Eric,
Out of curiosity, I decided to find a clip of a South African using the word “apartheid.” I found the following clip of Trevor Noah going back to South Africa to visit his grandmother.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s5iz6ml-qA
He uses the word twice. Interestingly, the first time he uses the word, he is addressing the audience, and pronounces it: a – par – thide.
The second time, he is talking to his grandmother (who was 91 years, 9 months old at the time of filming), he pronounced it: a – par – thade.
One possible explanation for the difference is that when he was addressing the audience, composed of people familiar with his TV show in the U.S., he used the pronunciation he believed they would be familiar with. When talking to his grandmother, he used the pronunciation that South Africans use.
The clip is worth watching just to see where Tevor grew up (Soweto) and to meet his delightful grandmother.
Another Anonymous,
I think I started to notice the difference in pronunciation about 20 years ago, when I had the honor of meeting through a mutual acquaintance Dr. Zena Stein, a delightful South African-born epidemiologist (who I was sad to read passed away just a few weeks ago at age 99). She pronounced her last name like "stain." Her family, from what I read, was originally from Lithuania, and I assume that the vowel sound in stain is closer to the Lithuanian pronunciation of Stein than the usual American "steen" or "styne." That's obviously not related to the pronunciation of "apartheid," but the latter has become a bit of a pedantic annoyance for me since then.
Eric,
Based on your reference, I read the obituary of Zena Stein published by Columbia University regarding her death. https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/memory-zena-stein-public-health-pioneer-advocate-justice
She and her husband led the anti-apartheid movement, in affiliation with Nelson Mandela, in South Africa. After emigrating to the U.S., they both taught in the School of Public Health at Columbia. She led a full and influential life, and her children are carrying on her phenomenal legacy.
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