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Subject: 
Re: Bummer of the Week: LEGO Made in China
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Thu, 6 Sep 2001 17:18:45 GMT
Viewed: 
1287 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Ka-On Lee writes:
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Arthur writes:

Do you think we should trade with the very worst
of governments in the hope that the revenues empower workers in some small
way? Or do you think trade sanctions do have a place in the modern world?

What a loaded topic I got into.  Like you mentioned trade sanctions worked in
South Africa, but it haven't worked for Iraq and Cuba.

   This is questionable.  Citing trade sanctions as effective allowed
   the apartheid regime to save face--it was OK for the conservatives
   to admit defeat at the hands of the rest of the industrialized First
   World, but to admit that violence and unrest had reached critical
   levels and had made the apartheid state imminently untenable would
   have no doubt added support to the far-right nationalist movement.
   There were a lot of folks who were predicting great bloodshed before
   apartheid would end, and in a sense the sanctions led the way out.
   I know of no South Africans--at least not white ones--who suffered
   because of the trade sanctions, and I've talked to a few about it.
   The *social* shunning, on the other hand, was far more effective
   because many South African politicos had been used to moving in
   international circles.  But a lot of the academics didn't suffer
   any sanction at all, because many of them were quite liberal all
   the way through.  Having a government monitor breathing down your
   neck at every lecture can force you to confront the system's
   excesses rather immediately.  :)

   Just my two cents--but I really don't think sanctions were at
   all critical to bringing down the apartheid regime.  From the
   start of sanctions (UK, then US, then Europe) to the final admission
   of defeat in 1989, we're talking 15-20 years.  I don't know whose
   argument that will support, but it's a valid point to make--that
   it was African action that put the regime in immediate peril, not
   economic sanctions.  Sanctions, as so often pointed out before in
   .debate, tend to hurt those without power first.  De Beers was
   *still* making money hand over fist from the blue earth around
   the Witwatersrand all through the "sanctions" period--I don't doubt
   that without militant liberation movements and active resistance,
   we might still have an apartheid South Africa in place.

   One could, of course, make the case that sanctions made the lot of
   the black and coloured population bad enough that they rebelled
   openly, but that would be very hard to prove or sustain.

It is doubtful that
trade sanctions would bring major positive changes in China.  The communist
still have tight control of their military, and they can easily pull the
'nationalism' flag to blind the people and blame the 'foreign imperialist' for
every bad things.

   I agree 100%.  This was definitely the case in South Africa, at
   least for the bulk of the white population.

   best

   LFB



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Bummer of the Week: LEGO Made in China
 
When I mentioned South Africa, I was talking more about how individuals could keep the struggle in the public consciousness by avoid the products of companies who did invest in South Africa. As far as trade sanction are concerned, I think at the (...) (23 years ago, 7-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Bummer of the Week: LEGO Made in China
 
(...) What a loaded topic I got into. Like you mentioned trade sanctions worked in South Africa, but it haven't worked for Iraq and Cuba. It is doubtful that trade sanctions would bring major positive changes in China. The communist still have tight (...) (23 years ago, 6-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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