Word: movements
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...coroners place the moment of death sometime this past spring, when the divestment movement failed to conduct a single rally, plebicite, building takeover or successful blockade...
...divestment movement had capitalized on this spring fever for many years. In 1985, activists were able to assemble over 5000 students in Tercentenary Theatre to hear Jesse Jackson and other pro-divestment speakers. In 1986, the South African Solidarity Committee (SASC) mobilized a group of students and assembled a small town of shanties in front of University Hall, seemingly indicating the vitality of the divestment movement. In reality, however, the movement's days were numbered...
Thus the disease which plagued the divestment movement was insipient well before this year. But it was this spring--when the only move that activists could make was a failed blockade of a South African diplomat--that its poor health became apparent. SASC leaders, however, attempted to disguise their failure, calling their effort a "symbolic blockade" that wasn't really meant to work...
...fellow mourners, I will leave it to the historians to debate exactly what "symbolic" means. What is not debatable is that a political movement that can only generate "symbolic" protests that weren't meant to succeed is a dead movement...
...portray the divestment movement merely as a victim of national trends. Yes, time was working against the movement, but with the proper strategies and medication, the cause could have lingered on a few more years...