Lowell House Protest Not Nonviolent

To The Editors of The Crimson

There has, I think, been a great deal of misunderstanding of the concept of non-violent protest. I consider myself a liberal and an activist might be taken more seriously by liberals and activists than if a member of the club enunciated them, I wish in particular, to refer to a recent meeting of that club, at which a representative of the South African government spoke and to the recent occupation of the Harvard Cooperation of fices.

It is safe to say that most students at Harvard deplore the apartheid policy of South African, and I applaud those who engage in peaceful protest against that policy. It is a grave mistake, however, to label the two most recent protests as peaceful there have been allegations that the police at the Conservative Club meeting used executive force to clear a way for the diplomat as he as like Lowell Houses I consider these allegations to come from a reliable source I was not however, present, and so will not comment on that them I will comment on that part of the protest that involved lying down in front of the South African's car to prevent his leaving. Violence consists in the use of physical force to prevent an individual from doing what he is at liberty to do: this action was a violent action, as violent, although no one was injured in it, as that ascribed to the police.

Is violent protest justifiable? If one defends the American Revolution. It is on occasion. I will not presume to define all the conditions necessary for violent action to be morally right, but I will lay two minimal requirements. First, the liberty which the protester blocks must be one he or she believes to be wrong: he must be using violence to restrain someone in a way he wishes the law would. When the civil rights movement staged sit-ins, when Blacks rode in the front of segregated busses, the "liberty" attacked was the liberty of bigots to deny dignity and rights to Black people. Do these protesters wish to deny to the Corporation the right to conduct it, business? Do they wish to deny to an individual the right to drive on a public thoroughfare? Or should the law prohibit these things? My second condition is that all other means of protest be exhausted. Such was the case when peaceful demonstrators were attacked with tear gas, as it is now in South Africa where writers are banned for their words and marchers are tortured and killed. Nothing comparable applies at Harvard: so long as those of us who would like to see pressure applied against a bitter and oppressive regime have the means and the freedom to persuade those in a position to take such action, we further our cause by pursuing peaceful paths. Rallies, debates, circulars, and meetings are inevitably more trustful than needless and unjustified conformation. The only result for which the can hope is the alienation of those of which the letter can hope is the alimentation of those of moderate views.

The protesters at Lolwell House evidently wished to register their disapproval of the presence of a South African at Harvard. I do not understand their motives. As strongly as I discharge with that government, I would not wish to deny it the right to present its views, much less to deny my right and the right of other students to heat them. Last year I hosted a South African, and learned something useful about the reasons however twisted, for the continuation of apartheid; I imagine the diplomat could be a similar source of information. More over, how van we judge what the government's reaction would be to sanctions to the pullout of American companies if we will not listen? Contrary to popular belief, oppose apartheid is not necessarily to oppose American companies investment: there is no monolithic liberal position on the divestiture question--arguments exits on both sides-- and to have no gauge of how South African might react hardly helps us make an information decision. Similarly the Corporation will not be persuade to sell stock in IBM by the violent action against them, but only through argument stronger than those which oppose divestment.

I understand that a dean of the University was present in an official capacity at the Lowell House meeting, this I think was a mistake on Harvard's party not because it lends dignity to South Africa, something nothing can do, but because it heaps shame on the college. Violence against the person of the diplomat, however, is at least as shameful.

Those who participate in violent protest represent only a small fraction of Harvard students, although they receive most of the publicity. As individuals, I like many of them; as activists willing to sacrifice time and energy, I applaud them. Their violence, however, and their apparently ill considered positions, I deplore. David A. Rabson '85