4
Page 4-Tuesday, March 25, 1980-The Michigan Daily
Niniey Years of4 Editorial Free(hlom
Vol. XC, No. 137 News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Let's not flush student
fund's own the Fishbowl
With Mugabe's victory, the
real power struggle begins
I
IN JUST a few hours, the Michigan
Student Assembly (MSA) could
flush $15,000 of student money down
the bowl.
At their regular meeting tonight,
MSA members are scheduled to vote
on a proposal to renovate the Angell
Hall Fishbowl. And if somebody
doesn't stop them, student dollars -
which are intended for funding of
student programs - will be paying for
improvements to a University
building.
For several months, members of the
Student Alliance for Better Represen-
tation (SABRE) party have been
pushing the Fishbowl renovation plan.
If funds are approved tonight, work
will begin soon on improvements in-
cluding seating, tables, notice boards,
and electrical outlets. The University
will provide $15,000 for the plan, with
student money raised from the man-
datory $2.92 assessment providing.
another $15,000.
SABRE supporters of the plan
reasonably argue that students would
like the busy Fishbowl to be a comfor-
table, attractive student gathering
area.
But to transform the admittedly-
drab Fishbowl into a luxury aquarium
with $15,000 of student money should
hardly be a budget priority of our MSA
representatives. Indeed, it is curious
that one week MSA members should
discuss raising the mandatory student
government fee assessment, and the
next consider spending a significant
portion of the MSA budget on a
frivolous project.
The Fishbowl plan is more than
curious; it is blatantly political - the
MSA elections are only two weeks
away.
Student money can ;be best used for,
student programs; MSA has
traditionally apportioned its $77,000
per year budget to various student
groups requesting program funds. To
spend this student program money on
a capital improvement that the
University should fund is nothing less
than abuse of student dollars.
What's worse, the Fishbowl
renovation plan does not call for a
mere one-shot expenditure. Rather,
$5,000 per year for the next three years
will be devoted to the improvements.
This plan effectively ties the hands of
future Assemblies.
With the Damoclean sword of huge
tuition increases hanging over all our
heads, now does not seem the ap-
propriate time for $30,000 -worth of
tables and benches in the Fishbowl.
Even MSA President Jim Alland, a
SABRE member and supporter of the
plan, has said, "This is not a'
renovation that is really needed in a
time of budget crunch.'
We can all live with the Fishbowl as
it is. Let's not take this dive.
As most foreign observers predicted,
Robert Mugabe and his "Marxist" forces in
the Patriotic Front won a majority of the
black seats in the recent parliamentary elec-
tions- in Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia. The
size of Mugabe's victory took almost
everyone by surprise, however. Mugabe's
supporters won 57 seats in the 100 member
Parliament, enough for Mugabe to be named
Prime Minister-designate without the endor-
sement of his former ally, Patriotic Front
leader Joshua Nkomo.
Across Africa and throughout most
politically informed Afro-American circles,
the Mugabe victory was met with intense
satisfaction and resounding joy. The long
guerrilla war between the patriotic Front and
the racist regime of former Prime Minister
Ian Smith had at last ended. The puppet
government of Bishop Abel Muzorewa,
established last year to preserve white con-
trol over the central bureaucracy and
economic institutions of Zimbabwe, was
defeated in a democratic general election.
The only notable black American who
received the news of Mugabe's victory with
great displeasure was conservative columnist
Bayard Rustin, who promptly registered his
"sour grapes" in the pages of the Wall Street
Journal.
MISSING FROM MOST accounts of the
news from Zimbabwe, however, was any
detailed historical understanding of the roots
of the conflict between the African
nationalists and the white settlers. More im-
portant still was the lack of commentary on
white South African perceptions of Mugabe's
victory.
The real guerrilla struggle between whites
and blacks in Zimbabwe began in 1893, shor-
tly after the representatives of a commercial
company, the British South Africa Company,
settled the territory. In 1893 and again in 1896-
97, Africans fought the colonial expansion of
white settlement. These early black protests
were vigorously suppressed.
The first national election in the colony of
Rhodesia occurred in 1923, when white voters
severed their dependence on the British South
Africa Company and opted for responsible
government. Eventually the nation was tran-
sformed into a self-governing colony under a
British governor. Technically, the British
government retained the right to discourage
By Manning Marable
and even to void any legislation which
discriminated against the black- population.
But in practice, this meant that several
thousand white settlers would have un-
challenged rule over several million Africans.
IN 1915, AFRICANS were said to live in an
area of about 24 million acres in, Rhodesia.
White immigrants were granted 3000-acre
farms per single family, but began to demand
even greater amounts of land. The result was
the Land Apportionment Act of 1931; which
limited the amount of African-held land to 7
million acres, amounting to only 6 acres of
voters roll. Thus, white supremacy in politics
was tied directly to white supremacy over the
land.
The victory of the Patriotic Front in last
month's election was a vote for peace and the
construction of a new, democratic, biracial
government. Such a state canonly exist when
the economic basis for the racial confron-
tation-the ownership of the land and all its
resources-is redistributed to the African
majority. Mugabe must be prepared to
weather the storm of white opposition from
white South Africa and the U.S. government
in returning the land to its rightful owners.
TO DATE, THERE are some indications
that Mugabe may not be prepared to engage
in this kind of struggle. Indeed, some South
African officials have concluded privately
that Mugabe's "socialist" government would
be less likely to attract Western capital in-
vestment than a regime led by either
Muzorewa or Nkomo. Subsequently, Zim-
babwe would become economically a vassal4
or dependent state of South Africa, receiving
most of its food, technology, and financial
assistance from the apartheid regime.
Mugabe has already declared publicly that
his new government would not give bases to
black guerrillas fighting against apartheid in:
South Africa. Only hours after Mugabe's vic-
tory, Brian Grubb, president of the all-white
Rhodesia Chamber of Commerce, pledged his:
support to him. One bank director, Sir Henry
Macdowall, declared that Mugabe would
eventually "appreciate the value of main-
taining a viable free-market economy"
dominated by whites.
From the vantage point of African history,
Mugabe's recent electoral success must be
seen as only a brief moment for satisfaction.
The dictatorship of the Smith government has
ended. But the real cause of the strife-the
inability of African people to control their own
socio-economic strategies for develop-
ment-still festers. Last month's victory of
the Patriotic Front amounts to the beginning..
of the real struggle for black power in
southern Africa.
Manning Marable is an associate
professor of history at Cornell Univer-
sity's Africana Studies and Research Cen-
ter and is a leader of the National Black
Political Assembly.
Robert Mugabe
land per African in the territory. As the
African population grew from one to six
million by the 1960s, the demand for land
became the central concern of militant
African protest leaders in Zimbabwe.
When white Rhodesian leaders declared
their "unilateral declaration of independen-
ce" from Great Britain in November, 1965,
the black struggle for land was elevated to the
level of a war for national liberation. The
government of Ian Smith initiated a new Land
Tenure Act in 1969 which forcibly removed
thousands of black families from lands allot-
ted to whites. Simultaneously, the Smith
regime eliminated blacks from the common
LETTERS TO THE DAILY:
Comm unistParty has active campaign
Big brother not welcome
as a visitor in the boudoir
E VEN THE truest patriots of this,
great nation may be violating cer-
tain statutes in a place they would
never imagine they could-their
bedrooms.
For the better part of this country's
existence, sex laws inspired by our
Puritan forefathers have stood on the
books. In more than 25 states, all man-
ners of sexual activity other than in-
tercourse between married men and
women is proscribed by law. Some
states go so far as to officially limit the
diversity of permissibje activity even
between a married couple; oral sex is
cited as being illegal in some areas
while other, laws go after such
"problems" as couples who would
mate in positions other than those at-
tributed to the Christian missionaries.
If it sounds as if the state gover-
nments' ideas are a little antiquated,
well, few lawmakers would deny that.
But imagine what would happen to the
brave state legislator who attempted
to get such intrusive legislation purged
from the books: he or she would
become the object of the ire of
thousands of self-styled moralists.
Besides, those laws have their pur-
poses. They can be used to prosecute
people whose other offenses don't
amount to much of a jail sentence, but
whom the courts somehow want to get
off the streets.
So the silly statutes stand, and are
perpetuated even by the judiciary. The
Rhode Isand Supreme Court recently,
upheld the state's fornication law,
ruling that sex between consenting
unmarried adults does not fall within
their right of privacy.
One wonders what aspects of one's
life are protected by privacy safeguar-
ds, if sexual behavior is not. Sexual
prohibition may just be the most offen-
sive example of big government.
Those who participate in what must
surely be Ann Arbor's most popular
pastime remain technical outlaws.
So the next time you find yourself in
the arms of that special someone, be
alert. The vice squad may be wat-
ching.
To the Daily; .z
When I read your March 19
article "Students organize for
Presidential choices," I was
disappointed to note that all the
"choices" were from the
Democratic and Republican
parties. In fact, there are several
third party campaigns
underway. One of these-the
campaign for Gus Hall and
Angela Davis of the Communist
Party. U.S.A.-is perhaps the
most active Presidential effort on
this campus.
Under the theme "People
Before Profits," the Hall-Davis
program addresses the real
issues of the '80s and suggest
serious proposals towards
solving the problems we face.
Among the proposals are cutting
the immense military budget and
transferring these funds to
needed social programs for
education, housing, health care,
jobs and the like; nationalizing
the greedy energy corporations;
closing all nuclear power plants
and placing these under public
control; requiring serious
affirmative action programs in
every school, office, and plant:
and providing socially useful jobs
for all.
For University students, who
face 11 per cent tuition and dorm
rate hikes, a meager 6.1 per cent
black student enrollment, the
threat of unemployment or
underemployment upon
graduation, and now a possible
military draft, the benefits of
these proposals are evident.
Like all independent parties,
the Communist Party is faced
with restrictive ballot laws such
as the requirement to collect
18,000 signatures of Michigan
voters to get on the August
primary ballot. (A party must-
then get a certain number of
primary votes to get on the
November ballot). The Ann
Arbor Young Workers Liberation
League has been especially
active in collecting signatures
and in publicizing the campaign.
Since January, literally'
thousands of University students
have signed petitions to put Gus
Hall and Angela Davis on the
ballot and many have been
spoken to or received literature
about the campaign.
The students supporting Hall
and Davis are organizing
seriously and actively for a°-¢
Presidential choice and deserve
the attention of Tlhe Michigan
Daily.
-Tim Freeman
Ann Arbor Young
Workers Liberation
League
March 21
I
Militarism and capitalism
Labor is under attack
l d1 0 -17-F
THE MILWAU KEE JOURNAL
sow /WE
vom BELIM
I!1! 19 AT
RESURRECTION.
To the Daily:
Today American labor is under
attack by big business and the
government with a viciousness
not seen in decades. Giant cor-
porations are wreaking havoc
with the lives of millions of
workers. In Detroit alone tens of
thousands of autoworkers have
been thrown out in the street with
no prospects of finding another
job. Union militants are being
persecuted for standing against
Carter's austerity program.
Last July in Detroit at the
Communication Workers of
America National Convention,
Jane Margolis, an elected union
delegate representing thousands
of workers was seized, handcuf-
fed and dragged from the conven-
tion floor-all to prevent her from
speaking against the anti-labor
policies of Carter! Margolis is
suing the U.S. Secret Service,
challenging this outragious at-
tacl on the independence of the
labor movement from gover-
nment intervention.
In the Steelworkers Union,
which is prevented by its own
bureaucratic misleaders from
the right to strike, Keith Anwar is
prevent more and worse- defeats
for campus labor.
An Ann Arbor cult/sect called
Revolutionary Workers Group
(RWG) which politically suppor-
ts the Clericals for a Democratic
Union (CDU) and Campus Labor
Support Group (their student
front group) claims to pose a
strategy for campus labor
solidarity. But what have they
done? In their one big chance to
prove in action that they stood
with campus labor, members of
CDU stabbed the AFSCME
workers in the back by crossing
their picket lines during that bit-
ter strike 3 years ago this month.
Coal miners have one word for
this: scab.
With this record it's no wonder
that CDU, following the decer-
tification of UAW 2001, lost a cer-
tification drive in '78. The Spar-
tacus Youth League is the only
real campus labor support group
on this campus. We didn't cross
the picket lines of AFSCME in
'77, we walked them, urging all
students and workers to stay off
the struck campus. The SYL
stands for this fundamental prin-
ciple of trade unionism: picket
To the Daily:
The current upsurge in
militarism is the logical prbduct
of the present capitalist
system-a system based on the
exploitation of the many by the
few. In order to dominate foreign
markets and gain access to sour-
ces of raw materials and pools of
cheap foreign labor, the U.S.
ruling class requires a large and
modernized military force.
Militarism is also a bulwark of
class rule at home. At a time.
when capitalism's economic
crisis is intensifying, it should not
be forgotten that military forces
have been used in the past to
crush strikes and quell social
unrest. To the Socialist Labor
Party, the vast Miajority of the
American people are workers.
They have no stakerinesupporting
Movie ag
To the Daily:
So the Daily didn't like the
movie "Chapter Two" (Daily,
March 19). 1 should have known.
Do you know how nice it is
occasionally to see a movie in
which everyone is'rich, beautiful,
skinny, and has no greater
problems than the spectre of a
former spouse? No one worrying
about inflation, where their next
meal is'coming from? No acne or
heartbreak of psoriasis? No
the military plans of the Carter
administration.
But to protest those plans
without taking a:class position is
not enough. Any opposition to the
increasing manifestations of
militarism must ultimately come
to grips with the class-divided
basis of capitalist society that
makes militarism a certainty.
Only with the establishment of a
Socialist Industrialist Republic of
Labor under which goods would
be produced for use instead of for
profit and the industries would be
collectively-owned, can a world
free from war, poverty, and suf-
fering be brought about. It is im-
perative that the Russian "t
workers convey a similar
message to their rulers.
-Archie Sim
March 21
reat escape
agony of defeat--only the ecstasy
of a happy ending?
Frankly, the movie didn't even
deserve the extensive coverage
that the Daily's reviewer
afforded it, but it was a great
escape. You know, there are days
when the public can't even stand
the suffering of Bambi or Snow
White-we do enough on our own.
Sometimes, it's realistic to be
unrealistic.
-[Wlla [.each
MiarchlIII
A bbs' quote clarified
I
To the Daily:
I wish to clarify a statement
quoted from Shelagh Abbs in the
March 12 Daily.
Although Shelagh is a member
of The Fund for Animals, she is
not a spokesperson for the
organization. It is important to
nnt that it is NOT the intentinn of
quoted was what Shelagh meant.
It is our intention that in the.
hope of deterring future acts of.
cruelty to animals, the visibility
of our "IN MEMORY OF B.K."-
buttons will serve as a reminder
to all that deplorable acts of this
kind are not acceptable or ex-
eusable. and will not he tolerated
'&. ~X