Letter from America
by SIMON MARKS
As a tide of pro-Palestinian protests spread across US university campuses, I found myself 8,000 miles away in Johannesburg, which seemed somehow apt. Several people I met there suggested that history in America was repeating itself.
They remembered the Eighties, when anti-apartheid demos by students forced businesses to reassess their interests in South Africa and piled pressure on then President Ronald Reagan to take a tougher stance towards the regime.
In America, many think another historical comparison is more fitting. In 1968, the country was convulsed by student protests against the war in Vietnam. In the White House, Democrat President Lyndon Johnson chose not to seek re-election, sparking a heated primary contest within his own party. That summer, the party’s convention in Chicago saw battles between police and protesters outside the hall. Inside, Democrats fought bitterly among themselves before choosing Hubert Humphrey as presidential candidate. That November, Republican Richard Nixon handily defeated him.