cover image The Apartheid Crisis: How We Can Do Justice in a Land of Violence

The Apartheid Crisis: How We Can Do Justice in a Land of Violence

Oliver F. Williams. HarperCollins Publishers, $8.95 (124pp) ISBN 978-0-06-250951-2

Catholic priest and business-ethics consultant Williams considers the proper Christian response to the call for American corporations to divest in South Africa. He is especially effective in contrasting the lives of the black bourgeoisie and underclass, delineating the sources of apartheid and tracing the Afrikaners' theology of separateness to the doctrines of the Dutch Reformed Church. Williams urges reason and pragmatism, which translates into an ethics of stewardship under which American corporate clout would promote black welfare by its very presenceas is exemplified by the policies of Johnson and Johnson and Coca-Cola, which groom blacks for management positions. Williams is optimistic that such leverage could change South Africa's political contours.(September)