Suchergebnisse

A case of Black Panther activity at Yale in 1970 is reviewed. A history of this period by J. Taft (Mayday at Yale: A Case Study in Student Radicalism, Boulder: Westview Press, 1977) fails to provide adequate background; nor does it deal adequately with the problems of oral history in handling interview data. Taft's portraits treat people either as disruptive radicals or befuddled liberals, ignoring the complexity of the situation; radicals have irrational motives, while the academics are unfailingly rational & disinterested, both misleading portraits. Taft's uncritical faith in the law does not recognize that unfair trials took place during this period. In Panthers & Bulldogs: A Comment, David Bromwich notes both the occurrence of violence & intimidation on the part of the Panthers, & the lack of representative voting & intimidation of voters in the vote to strike. Claiming that B. Seale deserved a fair trial was considered an extreme right-wing position, despite the dangers of abandonment of law, but the judge in the Seale trial was, in fact, a liberal, & sympathetic to the issues raised. The 1960s had merit as a time when money & self were not the primary concerns. W. H. Stoddard.

Presented is a review article which is partly descriptive & partly policy oriented. The descriptive part provides an examination of the Spro-Cas study projects sponsored by the South African Council of Churches & the Christian Instit. A review of the material compiled & processed in the several study projects is discussed with an assessment of some of the arguments advanced to support the basic philosophy of the Instit, eg, radical changes must be effected in South African society if a catastrophe is to be avoided. The projects were concerned with six major aspects of the apartheid society: economics, law, politics, sociology, the church & education. It is suggested that there can be little doubt that the projects embody the most comprehensive & thorough attempt to analyze the complex South African society & its problems. Proposed are cures for the ills that have come from within South Africa in recent years. Projects are described in some detail & the realism of the conclusions is questioned. Although the conclusions reached & policies suggested are quite radical in the South African setting, the 150 scholars who were engaged in these projects are not prepared to disobey the law in any way & do not encourage others to confront the regime by illegal means. This possible necessity is not even considered except in relation to the church which, in the opinion of one contributor, could be morally justified to ignore the racial law. Examined are the key propositions that South Africa should develop into "an open plural society" & "its political framework" should become a federal polity. The methods by which these ends are to be achieved appear to be unrealistic (devolution). The relationship between an "open plural society" & the federal polity also is inadequately considered. The political alternatives suggested by Spro-Cas are criticized because they fail to appreciate the primacy of the political solution. The political solution which, hopefully, will be an essentially nonracial federal polity can be only the outcome of effective external & internal pressures including violence, or at least, the real threat of violence. After the federal bargain has been struck -- a compromise between competing racial groups, conflicting ideologies & territorial autonomies -- an open plural society may emerge, not before, even though there may be some movement in that direction prior to the federal bargain. Of course, if no such bargain is struck in the foreseeable future, the inevitability of an all-out, suicidal race war is no longer in doubt. Spro-Cas must be given credit at least for considering desirable alternatives for a new South(ern) Africa &, in addition, for stimulating in various ways black community programs & the Black Consciousness Movement without which fundamental change would probably have been further away than now & the eventual clash still more severe than it is bound to be. AA.

The oppression of Polish women may be divided into interwar, postwar, & contemporary periods. The first period was characterized by low educational levels, discrimination in wages, & poor working benefits. With the establishment of the People's Republic of Poland in 1944, emancipation of socialist women greatly improved conditions. The 1956 Polish October marked a slower pace of progress for women. Research indicates fewer promotions & lower pay for equally qualified women & discrimination as an intrinsic element of the superstructure. Current pregnancy policies are inadequate, day care is poor, playgrounds & institutions for children are lacking, & the call for population increases burdens the F. The proposals of profamily advocates would rob women of their advances & include several oppressive features. Polish women are aware of their situation but do not know what needs to be done, partly because they do not know of the strategies of Western women's movements. The Polish bureaucracy will have to consider the radicalization of the workers if they are to continue their rule, & should view the family as a unit of minimum consumption. In Commentary on B. Koski's "The Situation of Women in Poland," V. Graham reveals that while improvement has been made in Poland, the scarcity of goods & services burdens women enormously. Analysis of Polish household incomes indicates that those with money have the means to purchase luxuries not normally available to the general public. Some of the statistics given by Koski on education & employment of women are questionable, & analysis of other statistics indicates that something more than education is keeping women at disadvantaged employment levels. Koski hints that he himself questioned this. 7 Tables. L. Kamel.