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Meeting Those People across the Pole Only a very tiny percentage of the people who would die in a nuclear war have ever met anybody from the other side, or even imagined such a meeting. Seems a little strange. The good news is that through the initiative of individual citizens and private groups thousands of Americans have recently been going to the Soviet Union as "citizen diplomats." Increasingly, they are also able to welcome Soviet citizens here in the U.S. The encounters between these grassroots diplomats have been challenging, surprising, satisfying, even heart-warming. Stereotypes are being replaced by direct knowledge, and political enmity by personal connections. The process is just starting, pointing a way toward normal relations. Every meeting helps to create a new context for official negotiations between the governments. As citizen diplomats like to say, "If the people will lead, the leaders will follow." Through stories, background articles, and practical information, these publications tell how you can become involved —as a traveler, as a participant in your own community, or as a viewer of "spacebridges" or user of other electronic links between the two societies. Citizen Exchange with the Soviet Union (a guide in magazine format) $4.95 Citizen Summitry: Keeping the Peace When It Matter? Too Much to be Left to Politicians (a 396 page paperback edited by Don Carlson and Craig Comstock) $11.95 Order both for $14.95 (postpaid) from: Ark Communications Institute, 47 Lafayette Circle, Suite 282A Lafayette, CA 94549 FOOD FAIR APRIL 8-18 Fremont Northwest Beaverton Corbett 4000 S.W. 117th 5909 S.W. Corbett 3449 N.E. Fremont Open 7 days 9-9 Open 7 days 9-8 Open 7 days 9-8 BANDS Showcasing work by award winning designers. We Get a good night’s sleep with a buckwheat hull pillow that supports your neck and relieves body tension. Head for Northwest Futon for a little natural rest. Futon, furniture, bedding, lighting and more. Head rest 400 SW 2nd 242-0057 Hours: Mon-Fri 10-6/Th 10-7/Sat 10-5 M o n 7 M Wl E FUTON b\ Studio 311 D IS C O V E R THE F IN E ART OF A M E R IC A N C RA FT The Real Mother Goose AShop Washington Square S.W. 9th &Yamhill and Gallery 620-2243 223-9510 2 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1987
!» $ & ftArtist Fay Jones has been a frequent CSQ contributor. In her hometown Seattle she’s represented by Francine Seders Gallery. In Portland she shows at Laura Russo Gallery. Sketch above is a self portrait. I The Clinton St. Quarterly is published in I Oregon, Washington and National editions ! by CSQ—A Project of Out of the Ashes J Press. Oregon address: P.O. Box 3588, j Portland, OR 97208, (503) 222-6039. Wash- ■ ington Address: 1520 Western Avenue, | Seattle, WA 98101, (206) 682-2404. Unless I otherwise noted, all contents copyright i 51987 Clinton St. Quarterly. SS Stacey Fletcher, Robert Williamson Qualitype Camerawork Tim Braun, Laura Di Trapani Typesetting Harrison Typesetting, Inc., Lee Emmett Marmilmar, Qualitype Proofreading Betty Smith Office Assistant Michele Hunt Contributing Artists Tim Braun, John Callahan Fay Jones, Gene Gentry McMahon Carel Moiseiwitsch, Royal Nebeker Ronna Neuenschwander, Joellyn Rock, Lisa Stone, J.R. Williams Intern Lianne Hirabayashi Printing Tualatin-Yamhill Press Thanks Judy & Stew Albert, Dave Ball, Randy Clark, Jeannine Edelblut, Abbie Hoffman, Jim Jaeger, Rick Jones, Maria Kahn, Craig Karp, Deborah Levin, Peggy Lindquist, Julie Mancini, Theresa Marquez, Melissa Marsiand, Doug Milholland, Kevin Mulligan, Julie Phillips, Sherry Prowda, Jeremy Rice, Marlyss Schwengels, Jim Styskel, Hunter S. Thompson, Waggle and Friends, Sandy Wallsmith, John Wanberg, The Clinton 500 Volunteer needed for Portland CSQ office. Please call 222-6039. ON THE COVER Beyond Sanctions: U.S. Policy and the Reagan Doctrine— Ronald Waters Another approach to bringing apartheid to its knees—an alliance with the frontline states. Shock of the N ew - Robert M a When one ns home from another land, the familiar is never quite the same. The Insurance Crisis— Krag Unsoeld The inside poop ing rates, p lfm ^ j in skyrocketing coverage and whose hand is in whose pocket. f t S e c u r i ty—the central obsession of the “American Empire”—has been an elusive, shifting goal. As a nation, the price we've paid has been high, because what we’ re searching for is ultimately un- definable. As the generation driven by the twin spectres of the Great Depression and World War II fades from the scene, it’s critical that we reexamine our objectives before we squander what remains of our resources—personal, national and natural. Both the depth and longevity of the Depression left deep traces on those who survived it. FDR’s New Deal and the Big One finally pulled the nation out of its mire, but immediately post-War, a new pattern seemed to emerge. The “Ozzie and Harriet” single family became the norm, the perfect target for the advertising age. Each family struggled to acquire the house, car(s), appropriate appliances, all while acting right on the job, one “you couldn’t afford to lose.” It was simple for the insurance industry to zero in on individual families and businesses, offering them “protection” from every imaginable calamity. Though Social Security existed to meet the elderly’s most pressing needs, little thought was given to the societal cost of the tens of millions of individual contracts for insurance protection. Women, Feminism and Social Justice— Sevin Hirschbein A look at the state of current feminism and how feminists can build coalitions and produce needed change. ls Anyone There?— Susan Policoff A report from the front, where love is more like a 15 letter word. $3 Message of the Fetish— Janies Winchell Never look a gift book between the covers&rbe prepared for what lurks therein. Why You Are Not Signing- Mam Michnik A statemerK^coiscience from a leader of Solidarity. Nationally, the insurance system chosen was the War Department, dubbed Defense to fit the times. The monies freed up after WWII were turned into housing, consumer credit and a rising manufacturing capacity. When the Korean con f lic t came along , defense spending quickly reabsorbed much of the available tax dollars, and recessions were the inevitable result. The consumer economy burgeoned up to and even during the early stages of the Vietnam war, but in each case, the military held onto a slightly larger percentage of the - GNP after the war than had been the case before. Deficit spending became the norm. Now, despite the lack of any actual engagement, our military budget is at a wartime level. It’s as if the entire nuclear age is a response to our failings at Pearl Harbor—never again unprepared. Once again our protection is coming at a very high cost. Early on, manifest destiny, that sense that we play a God-ordained role on the planet, left our natural resources vulnerable to any and all comers. After all, we would soon be in new lands, across the sea or south of our borders, and there was more of everything ahead of us. Today, some of the most predatory practices have been controlled. But we are still overcutting forests, running through minerals and peThe First Day: State Pen— Al Israel Rose Conrad and Dostoevsky have no monopoly on horror. One man’s personal experience. Predictions for the Year 2000—John Callahan Gimmicks, gadgets and other madness from the Northwest’s noted futurologist. Read this before making out your will. troleum, and strip mining our farm- la n d s , as i f a n y th in g th a t diminished our standard of living— our consumer profile—was a threat to our well-being. So where does this all leave us? Overall personal incomes are dropping, especially among the working and middle classes. Insurance costs have risen considerably as a percentage of our incomes. Our nation’s military bill has grown so considerably that social programs get short shrift. The only way we maintain our ever declining trade balance is through export of unfinished natural resources. Ours is a nation of considerable imagination and intelligence. As it stands, the children of the Depression and War era generation have yet to define well-being and security in a new way—one that will allow it to be passed on to our successors. We must build, not drain our vital resources. Our investments should be in education and in fras truc tu re . Our insurance should become more social, less individual, with government playing a larger role in offering coverage and self-insuring. And the military just needs to be curbed and the nuclear umbrella dismantled. There’s still time for us to leave a legacy of hope, not fear to the generation that follows. That will be our only lasting security. DM
DO J U M P Movement Theatre's " OFF THE W4LLS " Friday & Saturday May / ,2,8,9,/5, & /6 £CHO THEATRE I 515 SE 37th for ticket information call 231-1232 VINTAGE AND NEW MATERIALS FOR THE RESTORATION AND REPAIR OF YOUR OLD HOUSE OR BUILDING. « LIGHTING « HARDWARE * PLUMBING * MILLWORK SPECIALIZING IN: TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY LIGHTING MON-SAT 9 -5 : 3 Q 9 0 1 N. SKIDMORE PORTLAND, OR 97217 5 0 3 - 2 4 9 - 0 7 7 4 RED > ROSE SCHOOL The Red Rose School offers classes to help us better understand our position in society and our ability to change it through social action. Classes meet one evening per week. Tuition fo r one course is $25 ($15 low income); no one will be excluded fo r inability to pay. C la sses start the week of April 13. Life Under the Plague Gay Men’s Writings in the Age of AIDS Terry Miller, Mondays Women and Work Dorinda Welle, Mondays Contemporary Indian America John Talley, Tuesdays Who Rules Portland? Guest Speakers, Wednesdays The Blues Had a Baby: Rock and Race Jan Senten, Wednesdays Women’s Visionary Literature Karin Herrmann, Thursdays Community Organizing Natasha Beck, Thursdays Anarchy: Theory and Practice Don Chambers, Sundays On Photography Sally Markowitz, Sundays Don’t miss our Open House and Forum on Sunday evening, April 12. The forum will be on Culture and the Movement, featuring a panel of local progressive artists and cultural activists discussing the state of left culture today. Open house: 6 pm; forum: 7 pm. Friends’ Meetinghouse, 4312 SE Stark. For more information and a brochure, call 230-0488. CLASS© & UWKSROPS S U M M E R ' 8 7 June 15 - A u g u s t 22 Excellent national faculty. Beautiful location 10 minutes from downtown. Library, Cafe, Sales and Exhibition Galleries. Workshops/Classes year-round. College credit/degree program. Call or write for schedule! 8245 SW Barnes Road, Portland, Oregon 97225. Telephone: 503/297-5544. Georgiana Mehl. Watercolor & Colored Pencil. 20" x 20" Calligraphy Ceramics Drawing/Design Etching Fibers/Textiles Metal Photography Surface Design Tapestry Woodworking X hop5 Z34-60Z7 Ra inyday Flowers IRRESISTIBLY BEAUTIFUL blooming orchids, poinsettios, holiday wreaths, and arrangements all IRRESISTIBLY PRICED for holiday giving. SPRING EXPLODES at Rainy Day Flowers with blooming FREESIA $5 and $10 each • order by phone • w e deliver metro-w ide (Hillsboro to Gresham) • flowers sent around the world NOW TWO LOCA TIONS TO SERVE YOU SEVEN DA YSA WEEK Loehmann's Plaza Yamhill Marketplace 641-7229 248-9524 W5JI MC AMEX 4 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1987
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BEYOND T T Then the Reagan administration took office, it de- r r veloped its ownparticular rationalefor U.S. relations with South Africa. Among the factors it cited were South Africa ’s strategic position on the oil routes around the Cape of Good Hope, the South African market for U.S. goods, U.S. investments in the South A frican economy, South Africa ’s standing as an ‘'anticommunist” state in the region, and, perhaps most important, South Africa ’s supply of strategic minerals. Last July, in a White House speech, Reagan reiterated his administration’s view that these considerations determ ined U.S. interests in the southern African region. , Botswana exports diamonds, and possesses undeveloped reserves of iron, manganese, chromite, and uranium. Mozambique is also rich in strategic minerals, although its exact potential remains largely unknown because of the lack of exploration prior to independence. The one possible exception to this list of minerals available outside South Africa is platinum-group metals. And even in this case, Zimbabwe may prove to be a source. This uncertainty—reflecting an Foremost among these was the March 1986 decision to provide aid to the UNITA rebels, thus extending the Reagan Doctrine to southern Africa. At the same time, the White House has issued only the mildest of rebukes to South Africa for its repeated incursions into southern Angola, even though such moves reportedly disrupted U.S. diplomatic efforts to secure an agreement with the Angolan government on Namibian independence. Thus the administration has not only Yet it makes little sense for the United States to remain so closely connected with South A fr ica—and hence with apartheid. For one thing, the white minority regime will almost certainly have to give way, sooner or later, to the black majority. Furthermore, South Africa is not the only country in the region where U.S. interests can be served; indeed, a more stable southern Africa can also be a source of raw materials, provide opportunities for investment, and satisfy security concerns. Thus an informed U.S. self-interest does not dictate continued links with Pretoria but, rather, better relations with the governments and 100 million inhabitants of the other regional nations. Take the issue of sea lanes, for instance. If the United States wants to protect oil routes, it could, instead of depending on South Africa, build up the navies of the coastal states of Tanzania, Mozambique, and Angola, and strive more earnestly for the independence of Namibia. Eventually, the United States might secure naval berthing rights in these countries, as it did in Somalia and Kenya. Minerals provide another important example of the available alternatives. Currently, imports from South Africa account for 67 percent of the industrial diamonds used in the United States, 67 percent of the platinum, 56 percent of the chromium, 38 percent of the vanadium, 33 percent of the manganese, 24 percent of the uranium, and an undetermined amount of the gold. It is conceivable, though, that these minerals could be obtained from other countries if the West were to extend the same financial and technical assistance to them that it has given South Africa. Angola is very rich in resources, exporting petroleum, diamonds, and iron; it also has copper, uranium, and manganese. Zambia has cobalt, uranium, and gold, and exports copper. Zimbabwe mines 40 minerals, including gold, nickel, coal, lithium, copper, chrome , and fe rroch rom ium . ignorance of the region’s resources—results from the historical patterns of Western investment, which has developed South Africa’s resources while neglecting those of other countries. By 1984, the total value of all U.S. private bank loans to South Africa was roughly $4.6 billion, whereas between 1980 and 1984 Zimbabwe was suffering a “ capital drought.” In some cases, these discrepancies have been a matter of deliberate U.S. policy. The Reagan administration eschewed a strategy of “ punitive sanctions” against South Africa at the same time that it was levying just such sanctions against other states in the region. For example, in 1983 Washington huffily withdrew $5 million in aid to Mozambique; by 1985 relations had improved, resulting in a U.S. promise of “ nonlethal” military aid—yet no such aid was ever delivered. U.S. aid to Zimbabwe has been steadily reduced, from a high of $75 million in 1982, to $65 million in 1983, $40 million in 1984, $30 million in 1985, and $25 million in 1986—all, apparently, in retaliation for Zimbabwe's “ pro-Soviet” foreign policy. In the fall of 1986, miffed over a July 4 speech by a Zimbabwean official strongly critical of U.S. policy toward South Africa, the White House refused to release $13.5 million in aid already allocated for Zimbabwe. It is the Reagan Doctrine—the recasting of regional issues into East-West terms and the support of insurgencies in a campaign against communism—that leads the administration to make some of its most damaging policy initiatives. heightened the civil war in Angola but, by enshrining anticommunist ideology as the basis for its approach to the region, has also prevented U.S. policy from being as flexible as it should be. The United States needs to make a transition to improved relations with the regional states, looking ahead either to the arrival of a black government in South Africa or to the improved economic viability—including the capacity to supply minerals— of the other countries in the region. A NEW APPROACH he fact that Congress overrode Reagan’s veto of sanctions legislation indicates how much domestic concern there has been over U.S. policy toward southern Africa—particularly toward South Africa. Yet, sanctions alone against South Africa will not be adequate; there will also need to be a complementary strategy of contributing to the economic development and the defense of the frontline states. This kind of approach will have to be worked out in cooperation with leaders in the region, to ensure that U.S. policy reinforces efforts already being made. As Jesse Jackson has stated, Africa needs an econom ic deve lopm en t scheme on the scale of the post-World War II Marshall Plan. Not only does this analogy indicate the magnitude of the necessary aid, but it also suggests that the United States should treat the leaders and people of southern Africa with 6 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1987
ANCTIONS I t is the Doctrine reca s t^ i s s u e ^ t e m ^ s u m AND THE REAGAN DOCTRINE agan of regional into East-West and the iport of communism the same respect the United States showed Europe—something, many observers claim, that it has not done in the past, with a resulting loss of consistency in its policy toward Africa. Even before the recent international clamor for sanctions against Pretoria, those states living in the shadow of. apartheid recognized the need to reduce economic dependence on South Africa. At a meeting of nine countries in Lusaka in April of 1980, the Southern African Development Coordinating Conference (SADCC) was created to foster “ economic liberation.” SADCC represents a clear rejection of a rival vision for the region: South Africa’s Constellation of Southern African States (CONSAS), through which Pretoria has sought to reinforce existing economic links—by offering joint economic projects and devel- opm en t a s s is ta n c e —and thus to maintain its control over regional affairs. In August 1986, at a meeting or me Southern African Customs Union, the South African spokesman announced that his government would pass on sanctions intended for it to neighboring nations and, furthermore, would impose its own sanctions on the frontline states. In the communique issued from Botswana during Jesse Jackson's Africa tour, it was stated that in light of South Africa's intentions “ the world community should carefully consider increased economic support for [the frontline] states.” Washington seems to have begun to do so. In July, Reagan announced that Secretary of State George Shultz and AID adm inistrator Peter McPherson aid for the frontline states—that the next phase of the struggle against apartheid must be fought. Comments by members of Congress and State Department officials indicate that the evolving aid package to southern Africa may add up to no more than a five-year, $500-million program emphasizing regional transport, harbor rehabilitation, and food security. And even this amount of aid may run into problems in the White House, given the contradictions between this sort of devel- opm en t scheme and the Reagan Doctrine. Yet despite these potential obstacles, the time is now right for work toward a major new initiative. A number of efforts have helped to set the stage: Jackson’s call for increased aid, trade, and investment with each of the frontline states; the State Department’s continuing attempt to pursue a diplomatic strategy; and the November 1986 visit to Washington of SADCC chairman, Vice President Peter Mmusi of Botswana. Mmusi and his delegation expressed dissatisfaction with the current level of support for SADCC and asked for clarification of the Reagan ad- m in is tra tion ’s proposed $500-million p a c k a g e o f r e g io n a l e c o n om ic assistance. [Author’s update: Currently two proposals are on the table. The administration is asking for a $93 million supplemental proposal for Fiscal Year 1987-’88, to be followed by $400 million over the period FY ‘89-’92. This is inadequate and puts the heavy burden of funding onto the next administration. Bills in both the House (HR1034, sponsored by Rep. Bill focus on “ developing transportation routes and industry along the major alternative corridors, adding to the locomotive and rolling stock of the frontline states and stimulating more trade between South Africa’s neighbors.” Shultz’s emphasis on alternative corridors, which reorient regional trade away from South Africa, stands in contrast to remarks Reagan had recently made about the economic integration of the regional states under the leadership of South Africa—“ the industrial engine upon which their future depends,” as he put it. And it is striking that Shultz prominently cited the Beira Corridor as an example of intended U.S. assistance, since that project is based in Mozambique, a country that would seem to be a candidate for the application of the Reagan Doctrine. Yet Shultz took the eminently reasonable view that the United States would aid SADCC “ not simply as gestures against South Africa,” but because SADCC's transport projects “ are solid foundations for the future of the regional economy.” There is a question, though, of whether U.S. aid will rise to meet southern Africa’s needs. SADCC projects still require an additional $2 billion in funding. If that were the extent of the regfon's needs, a U.S. commitment of $500 million might seem reasonable. But to this $2-billion figure must be added increased sums to assist refugee resettlement and to repair the infrastructure damage caused by Pretoria's regional destabilization tactics, and an additional $2 billion for security assistance over the next five years. ylsurgencies m a ampaign against would study the U.S. assistance role in southern Africa to determine “what can be done to expand the trade, private investment, and transport prospects of southern Africa’s land-locked nations.” The president subsequently suggested that $500 million of additional funding might be made available for regional projects such as those undertaken by the SADCC. And Shultz emphasized that the joint AID-State Department study would The United States is already involved, along with the Netherlands and Sweden, in financing the $270-million Beira Corridor project, and AID is reportedly in the process of drafting a request for development projects in Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana, and Malawi. Nevertheless, even with this substantial multilateral participation, pledges of support need to be dramatically increased. It is at this level—securing additional Gray—D-PA) and Senate (S475, sponsored by Senators Kennedy and Weiker) call for $100 million in immediate supplemental funding for FY’87 and $700 million over the next consecutive five years.] Yet even if Washington does pledge a substantial amount of economic aid for development, there will be much more it needs to do to alleviate the regional effects that sanctions against South Africa will have. One obvious line of action that leads the administration to make some of its most damaging ■ policy initiatives. Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1987 7
would be to provide various incentives for U.S. corporations not only to disinvest from South Africa but also to reinvest in one of the other southern African states. SADCC is beginning to make trade and investment a major thrust of its programs. Already its intraregional trade promotion currency is U.S. dollars, which might facilitate increased trade and investment by American firms. DEFENSE ut it is unrealistic to expect U.S. companies to make such reinvestment on any significant scale as long as the South African Defense Force and its surrogate rebel armies continue to launch attacks against regional targets. And economic development in general is not possible in countries whose dominant concern—rightly so, in these cases—is security. For this reason, it is crucial that the United States and other Western powers providing southern African states with economic development fund ing also provide su ff ic ien t assistance for defense against aggression. The politics of southern Africa has been plagued by a glaring contradiction: the United States and other Western nations have seemed incapable of supporting the legitimate security interests of black states in the region, while in the past they have eagerly given military aid to South A frica—even supporting its nuclear power program, which may have led to a nuc lea r weapons capab ility. If, as .Chester Crocker recently stated, the emphasis of U.S. policy in Africa is the relationship between “ political and economic stability,” then Washington must take southern African nations’ security concerns seriously. Currently, U.S. defense assistance is woefully inadequate. In 1986, out of the relatively small sum of military aid provided to the frontline states, the largest share went to Botswana and Malawi (which received, respectively, $9.3 million and $1.3 million); smaller amounts were sent to Swaziland, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, and nothing at all to Lesotho and Zambia. The $11-mil- lion total of military aid to the region conyls Jesse Jackson has stated, Africa needs an economic development scheme on the scale of the postWorld War II Marshall Plan. The United States should also treat the leaders and people of southern Africa with the same respect the United States showed Europe. stitutes only 5 percent of the entire southern Africa foreign assistance budget. That figure needs to be increased; a variety of new programs needs to be implemented to enhance security. To begin with, the United States should shift gears and help the frontline states recover from the disruptions caused by Pretoria’s destabilization campaign rather than abet that campaign. Through USAID Security Supporting Assistance programs, funds could be provided to assist refugees, help solve balance-of-payments problems, provide infrastructure support, and otherwise counteract the .damage inflicted by the regional conflict. In addition, just as Western nations airlifted oil to Zambia during the Rhodesia crisis, air power might be used now to deliver critical resources where insurgents have made their acquisition by normal means either dangerous or impossible or where South Africa is successfully employing strangulation tactics. Another important step which is already being taken is to make SADCC projects less vulnerable to attack. For example, relatively safe areas could be selected as project sites, and the timetable for completing the projects might be accelerated. Technical measures such as built-in safety features and monitoring devices might also be considered. Some U.S. policymakers and members of Congress have opposed such aid in the past. In 1979, State Department director of policy planning Anthony Lake stated that putting arms into the conflict in southern Africa would be “ inappropriate,” violating “American domestic attitudes.” During congressional authorization deliberations in 1981, Representative Millicent Fenwick argued “ that there was a basic policy of our government not to give FMS [Foreign Military Sales] credit assistance to any of the frontline states for fear that military assistance would fuel the conflicts within that region.” Instead, it has been argued, economic assistance can be used as a valid substitute for military assistance. But U.S. policy on military aid has been inconsistent, if the goal is to avoid exacerbating the regional conflict. Aid to UNITA, for example, only inflames the civil war in Angola, whereas military assistance to Luanda might well promote stability by increasing Angola’s ability to deter attacks from both South Africa and UNITA. And the persistence of conflict in the region, even while Washington has refused military aid to frontline states, serves to emphasize the fact that the most destabilizing force in the region is South Africa. In light of Pretoria’s apparent determination to continue to destabilize and weaken its neighbors, the U.S. policy of refusing aid to frontline states should now be rescinded. BEYOND SANCTIONS y now, it is beginning to seem that although international sanctions were in te n d e d , re a s o n a b ly enough, to bring serious pressure on the white minority regime in Pretoria, they are actually resulting in only a particular kind of disinvestment: firms have withdrawn management responsibility but keep making their products available, thus continuing to profit from the relationship with South Africa. This is no reason to denounce the general principle of sanctions. Rather, we should take this occasion to fine-tune the strategy by focusing sanctions more effectively on the continuing trade mechanisms of U.S. firms and by pursuing a more comprehensive, regionwide policy. The SADCC countries do have the potential, if they receive adequate aid, to achieve the political stability and economic development that would provide a long-term regional antidote to apartheid. This, above all, is why U.S. policy must continue to undergo a metamorphosis. Through Congress, the American people have communicated their desire that the United States work toward change in South Africa; now that end must be pursued with the necessary means, including greatly increased levels of both economic and security assistance to the frontline states. Another step would be a positive U.S. response to the proposal recently made by Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, chairman of the frontline states, that Ronald Reagan visit southern Africa or that leaders of these states visit him in Washington. This initiative might have begun an extremely important dialogue. Given the cynicism toward U.S. policy that is widespread in southern Africa, it represents great courage and eagerness for regional peace and development on the part of these leaders. But Reagan’s rejection of this overture seems to confirm the suspicion that U.S. policy toward the region, rather than pursuing America’s interests in a logical and positive fashion, is a strange mixture of rigid ideology and color-consciousness. Reagan could become a formidable force in the next stage of the struggle against apartheid. Instead, he is once again a barrier to the genuine independence of the southern African states. Unfortunately, the kind of “ Marshall Plan” envisioned by Jesse Jackson may be somewhat naive; Washington may not be willing to treat African states as genuine “ allies.” Only by doing so, however, will Washington be able to strike at the heart and tentacles of apartheid and, at the same time, to pursue long-term U.S. interests in the region. Ronald Waters, professor of political science at Howard University, is the author of South Africa and the Bomb (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1986). He was a member of Jesse Jackson’s delegation that visited the southern Africa region last August. This excerpt is reprinted with permission from the author and from WorldPolicy Journal ($18/yr.—777 United Nations Plaza, NYC, NY 10017). 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“ Tababu Bolo: White Man’s Hand/Spoon”—1986 THE HOCK OF THE NEW: A POSTAFR ICAN ODYSSEY By Robert Maletta Sculptures by Ronna Neuenschwander oets have ears, but the world of sound is unkept, chaotic, and barbarous. -Paul Bowles The day of my departure from Senegal, I was having my last dinner at a Portuguese restaurant. Outside, beyond the swinging pink doors, a man raised a wire cage full of shrill fluttering finches. In a moment of extravagance I bought the box and released the captives into the street. They spread like a cloud of locusts and fled over the rooftops. I felt a sudden release. . . I was leaving Africa. After three years, I realized that one phase of my life was ending and that soon another would begin. I was moving into another dimension, like someone being pulled from one dream into another. There are times when life’s ironies are not very elegant. I was barely twenty-four hours into America when I realized the absurdity of my situation. Yesterday, I was avoiding the pickpockets in Dakar; today, I am commuting from New Jersey to New York City on a Grayliner. My shoes are still dusted with the umber soil of Africa. The bus glides from tree-lined avenues to a congested tollway. Streamlined, air-conditioned comfort. This is a novelty from the anarchy of travel in West Africa with its screeching chickens, complaining goats, squalling babies, and rambunctious crowds piling onto shabby Peugeot buses. On this bus I don’t hear a whisper. It is the funereal air of people separated by vast distances. I feel like I have entered into a church. I resist the urge to fold my hands in prayer. At the Port Authority Terminal on 42nd Street I witness a curious spectacle: people in a hurry. Secretaries in tennis shoes, students clutching packs, businessmen with briefcases, a thousand others with undefinable purposes pouring into the melting pot of Manhattan. They spill past me in a slurry of faces pinched into tight masks of determination. Plugged into Walkmans, tuned out, slapping past, swinging through, dashing by—a human cataract fused into the graffitic squalor of the Lexington Avenue Express. I am, once again, in the land of the go-getters. In Senegal, my work involved living for long periods of time in villages. In a setting of enigmatic baobab trees and huts of millet and thatch pitched against the burning sun, one’s nervous system tunes into a more elemental threshold of awareness. It was not without struggle. Living outside of America meant going cold-turkey from the distractions that normally turned me away from myself. Africa meant long hours alone getting to know the blind side of this social illusion called “ I.” One ruminates upon the past. Forgotten incidents and people that had been lost in the shuffle of time were retrieved in the silence of a dark hut. What seemed like scattered, unrelated fragments of my life story began to fit into a larger pattern, even if that pattern only revealed the limited breadth and depth of my consciousness. I learned to fall in step with the natural rhythms of a day wholly predictable in its maddening routine of talk, food, and work. Rising with the sun, I worked in the cool hours of the morning. The afternoons were small eternities of desultory gossip over cloyingly sweet tea, or escapes into a sweat-soaked sleep. Around sunset another meal. At twilight I would shake out the mosquito net. I read by the light of a small lamp, listening to the mice play on the rafters. After the Moslem prayers, the night slipped into absolute silence except for the bray of a mule or a soft voice in the distance muffled in the velvet folds of evening. It was the simplest life I will ever have .. .simple to the point of distraction. I did not regret leaving it: I simply left. What I did not realize fully was the extent to which I was affected by my experience. For a relatively brief but intense period I was outside of America—the self-referencing security of America— and not allowed to walk away from my circumstance. I was forced to be with myself. Senegal was a place so hard and spare that it precipitated a series of crises within me about who I thought I was and who I really was. What I learned shook me to the roots about how I would stand in relation to America and its values. Africa was more than just a continent to me; it was an incubator—but for what I would not know until I returned. There was no way back. America lay ahead, and for me, a semblance of normality. As the Air Afrique flight cut its way westward through the night, away from Africa, I felt like Iwas scattering my ashes over the Atlantic ocean. Iemerge from the labyrinth of subways somewhere outside of Grand Central Station. Disoriented, I am not sure which way I should proceed. All around me people tramp by with an air of purpose. They are going into the ground, or escalating into the sky. They are turning wheels around and around making the world spin faster and faster. They have places to go, things to do. It is a whirligig of activity set against a cityscape of Boschian design—indigestible, surreal, hallucinatory. Henry Miller called this the “ air-conditioned nightmare,” and was revolted by the inhuman contours of the Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1987 9
“Reality Check”—1986 skyline. People seem so insect-like against these massive eruptions. I wander like a Luddite in a city where every human action seems a feeble ass e r t io n a ga in s t an ove rwhe lm ing anonymity. In Senegal, it seemed that almost every other day I was being asked by villagers to take them back to America, sometimes in jest, but more often in earnest. America was the Emerald City. We had the cornucopia and they wanted some of what tumbled out. On Fashion Avenue there are Senegalese illegal immigrants selling cheap jewelry. They are the clever few who by hook or crook found their way to Manhattan to reap their fortunes. Even though I can speak to them in their language they hold little fascination for me. They look hassled and wary. A lookout is posted to each corner of the avenue to watch for police. In a second, they can have their goods bundled up and fade into the crowd, ready to return when the coast was clear. A window display touts mid-summer sale specials on naugahyde shoes and pastel shirts. Things. An effluvia of things. Once I took it for granted, but now I am having a mild panic attack debating the morality of having more than two pair of shoes. There seems to be enough to go around—the abundance of things is d e l ir io u s ly tem p t ing . Yet, wa lk ing through parts of the city it is evident that the chasm between the rich and the poor has yawned even wider. I am amazed at the number of new cars on the streets, and the number of street people. I see a man picking through the garbage cans eating whatever he can find. A woman with a baby on her lap holds a placard that reads, “ No home. No money. Need change for baby formula and diapers.” There were beggars in Senegal, but they had their role in Muslim society; hence, a kind of dignity. Here, that man and this woman are frauds upon society—to be ignored. On a street corner in the U.S. there is nothing dignified about a can of coins and a baby on the lap. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. .. the unctive air of Great Art. It is here that I his is a novelty from the anarchy of travel in West Africa with its screeching chickens, complaining goats, squalling babies, and rambunctious crowds piling onto shabby Peugeot buses. On this bus I don’t hear a whisper. begin to feel the incipient nauseau of things. I was mugged by the abundance of art. Jordaens, Botticelli, Titian, De Hooch, Hals, Fragonard. From the dun- colored days of the hivemage (where I once counted sixteen shades of brown outside my hut) to the color-riot of Rousseau. Glutted. . . I can no more digest this feast than I could eat 50 slices of cream cheese pie. I sit in a corner of the Impressionist Gallery watching the museum visitors passing their faces absent-mindedly from one masterpiece to another with the ind iffe rence of people eating hors d ’oeuvres. Van Gogh is consumed like a cracker, Renoir like an olive. Sic transit gloria mundi. I feel peevish. People are crashing against the surface of things. It seems that any critical faculties we once had are drowned in a sludge. If we see the thing, we do not see the meaning. Seurat is a picture of dots; Cezanne becomes a guy who painted square apples. It all begins to look the same and we are profoundly unimpressed. I have a vision leaving the Met. I see America tranquilized by things. The transient distractions things brought us will soon pass, leaving us dispirited, a little more anxious and craving. We have become the products of manipulations by people producing things. We receive our guidance from the ersatz authority of money. In the process we substitute the authentic events in our lives for the de- mogoguery of someone else’s thing. We have almost everything at our fingertips. . .including a vast howling emptiness that things could not fill. In my vision I see a world created in our image: n Senegal I was forced to open my eyes. A mirror had been held up to me and I was compelled t o . look at myself in the most unflattering light of the African sun. confusion, noise, violence. At the root of it all we are terribly, terribly afraid. It is not a pretty sight. America seems to be a nation of sleepwalkers. I feel like a man failing into a sleep, lulled to sleeji by the smothering warmth and softness of security. In Senegal I was forced to open my eyes. A mirror had been held up to me and I was compelled to look at myself in the most unflattering light of the African sun. My romantic notions had been scoured away—I was left with my ruins. In their place, a deeper sharper reality, the world as it appears between ideas. These were the eyes I would return with to America. And what does it mean, now? I grope for a connection to that past life, seeking something vital to bring back. One day in a sandy field in Mauritania I found a sunbaked turtle carcass. How it got there was beyond me. But there it was, a shriveled reminder of some wandering urge. . . life’s traces. In America, I will have to search it out in phenomena more complicated and less archetypal; a bus full of people, for example. Why? I am struggling to remain awake; afraid that the obvious will become too familiar and I will forget to see and not just look beyond the surface of things, beyond conformity and mediocrity, into the secret heart of things—being genius—that I saw standing beneath that burning sky looking at that leathery corpse. Writer Robert Maletta lives in Seattle. This is his first story in CSQ. Artist Ronna Neuenschwander lives in Portland. Her work included North African imagery even before she visited the area in 1983-84. 10 Clinton St. Quarterly— Spring, 1987
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THE INSURANCE CRISIS AND-THE PUBLIC RESPONSE I BY KRAG UNSOELD ILLUSTRATION BYJ.R. WILLIAMS he message from Portland’s Birth Home Ma te rn ity Cen ter was terse. “ This letter is the bearer of very sad news. The Birth Home will have to close its doors after four years and 398 families. We have become another unhappy statistic in the malpractice crisis.” Yet another victim was added to what’s become known as the casualty insurance crisis. Skyrocketing premiums and cancelled coverage have forced countless businesses and public entities radically either to curtail their activities and ser- vibes, or else drop out of the market altogether. Gynecologists, day care centers, public parks departments, roofing contractors, school districts, truckers, municipalities, tavern owners—indeed all of us have felt the pinch. So it is to be expected that a broad coalition has emerged to push for political solutions to the problem. Largely guided by the insurance industry, this coalition has zeroed in on the nation’s civil liability, or tort, system as being the culprit. It cites frivolous lawsuits in record numbers, generous juries and, of course, greedy lawyers as responsible. To curb these alleged abuses, proposals to limit damage awards, apportion liability differently, limit lawyers’ contingency fees and eliminate punitive damages have been offered in virtually every state. Legislatures in 40 states had approved some sort of response to the casualty crisis before adjourning last summer. On the other side of the issue, trial lawyers and citizen groups have joined to This cycle o f cash flow underwriting during periods of high return, followed by the massive premium hikes as the chickens come home to roost, is very common in the property and casualty insurance market. stave off what they believe is an assault on victims’ rights to fair compensation. Former Federal Insurance administrator under President Ford, Robert Hunter, founder and president of the National Insurance Consumer Organization commented, “ (The crisis] is a self-inflicted problem. The insurance companies caused it and now they’re trying to correct it by jacking the rates up to excessive levels.” With high rates and the threat of massive cancellations to buttress their demands, insurers are blatantly attempting to limit their liability and restrict the recovery of damages for injuries, thus boosting their profits. The other side believes the solution is to implement more stringent regulation of the insurance industry. This is not the fairest of matches, however. The insurance industry is one of the richest, most powerful, most unregulated and most unscrupulous coalitions in the U.S. In 1944, for instance, a federal court in the Southwest ruled that existing insurance cartels were in flagrant violation of anti-trust laws. The next year, with the approval of the McCarren-Ferguson Act, Congress exempted insurance from all anti-trust provisions. In 1979, after the Federal Trade Commission published a study that was critical of the life insurance industry, Congress stepped in once more and barred the FTC from ever again studying any part of the industry. In most instances to date, government has tended to provide greater protection for the insurance industry than for the public. LIABILITY CRISIS: MYTH OR REALITY? here are countless anecdotes to i illustrate what’s referred to as the judicial system run amok. For instance, there was a $1.5 million settlement for the drownings of three men fish- ing in a storm which the National Weather Service had failed to predict. Or the $500,000 collected by someone injured while trying to use a power lawn mower to trim a hedge. Another case resulted in a $260,000, plus $1,200 a month for life, award to someone who was injured while allegedly “ breaking and entering” a public school. The industry has used examples like these to explain the $46 billion industry underwriting loss experienced between 1975 and 1984 and to justify the casualty insurance premiums increase of $25 billion in 1985—that’s $100 for every woman, man and child in the United States. The total U.S. insurance bill for 1985 was more than $300 billion—$160 billion for property and casualty alone. But little, if any, of the industry’s evidence to justify the assault on the legal system holds up under closer scrutiny. The National Center for State Courts looked at the data from the 13 states that keep records of tort filings. The Center found that from 1978 to 1984 there was a 9 percent increase in lawsuits filed. Population in these states had grown by 7 percent, leaving a per capita tort filing increase of only 2 percent. Insurance companies and, among others, the federal Justice Department’s Tort Policy Working Group, have argued that the growth is 758 percent over the past decade. This rate actually is accurate for suits filed in federal courts. But 95 percent of all tort cases are brought in state courts. Tales of skyrocketing jury settlements are similarly suspect. A representative of Jury Verdicts Research, Inc. recently told a Congressional subcommittee that “our studies do not support any claim of recently escalating jury verdict awards.” Iq fact, a Rand Corporation study showed that the median award in liability cases has remained essentially steady at $8,000 (constant 1979 dollars) between 1960 and 1984. The federal General Accounting Office (GAO) reported that offsetting the reported $46 billion industry underwriting losses—the difference between premiums collected and benefits paid—was $121 billion of investment returns. By putting the hundreds of billions of dollars it has at its disposal to work, the industry cleared $75 billion during the 10 years leading up to 1984. Not only did the industry pay no federal taxes on this profit, but it also received $125 million in tax rebates. Even in 1985, during the worst phase of the supposed crisis, the insurance industry reported a net profit of $2 billion— a very modest rate of return of about 6 percent. This did not include the $2.2 billion of dividends that were paid out to stockholders. All other industries report such dividends as part of profits. The property and casualty insurance stock index in turn voted a resounding endorsement of the industry’s condition by sending the index up by 50 percent in 1985—almost twice the rise of the Dow Jones Industrial index. Even the outrageous anecdotes fail to hold water. The foolish hedge-mower, conceded leading tort reform lobbyist Victor Schwartz in Business Week, was a locker room invention. The National Weather Service was knowingly using faulty equipment. And the individual injured while supposedly “ breaking and entering” was really a student who fell through a skylight which the school had been court ordered to cordon off. As Business Week editorialized on January 12, 1987, what insurance crisis? Consumer advocate Ralph Nader was right on the mark when he called the crisis “ the greatest commercial hoax that I have ever observed in the United States, both in terms of its size—tens of billions of dollars—and in terms of its manufactured figures and phony anecdotes.” FAST AND LOOSE UNDERWRITING GAMBLES t ’s true that the insurance industry suffered a slump in its profits with 1985 and 1985 being the low point. But even the Insurance Service Organization and the National Association of Independent Insurers, both industry trade groups, were candid enough to blame their industry for its financial dilemma. The late ’70s and early ’80s were a heady time for insurers. Investment returns soared as high as 25 percent. So it was little wonder that the industry engaged in what the National Association of Independent Insurers characterized as a “ brutal price war.” There was such a race to secure investment capital within the industry that the MGM Grand Hotel was able to purchase $75 million of retroactive fire insurance in 1981 after its devastating 1980 conflagration. The underwriters gambled that investment returns during the time that the suits were dragged out in court would far exceed their liabilities. (MGM quickly settled out of court and had to sue the underwriters who resisted paying the settlements.) This binge of price cutting—what economists call “ cash flow underwriting” — went on for six years beginning in 1978. By 1984, the combination of the Federal Reserve Bank’s hard nosed monetarism and the worst recession since the 1930s swept inflation and high interest rates right out of the system. Investment returns plummetted to 3-4 percent. People attending the National Qon- vention of Independent Insurance Agents of America in September 1984 were warned to brace themselves for sharp premium hikes. At this meeting there was no mention of a liability crisis. But premiums quickly rose by as much as 1000 percent. This cycle of cash flow underwriting during periods of high return, followed by the massive premium hikes as the chickens come home to roost, is very common in the property and casualty insurance market. Most industry observers agree that it has operated on a 10 year boom and bust cycle for the past 50 years. Richard Marquardt, Washington State Insurance Commissioner, believes that 12 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1987
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