Defense of... ...Silvers

To the Editors of the Crimson:

Congratulations are in order to the authors of the anti-Damon Silvers letter you published on March 15, 1984 for reaching unprecedented lows in pettiness. While there many have been problems with Silvers' article, their criticism was irresponsible and destructive to a far greater extent than the impact of those students who have failed to take a position on Harvard's investments in South Africa. I can only question their motives. Surely Harvard's divestment is no longer paramount among their goals or such comments would have been made in a constructive rather than divisive manner.

One does not have to be radical to believe in divestiture. One only has to believe in self-determination. Perhaps Damon's less radical approach will avoid the alienation of "the system" which has hampered Harvard's divestment in the past. But I'm not sure of that either. Perhaps I owe the anti-Silvers position a word of thanks. It is increasingly hard to believe in "the system" and working within it when it is engaged in artificially propping up apartheid governments. It is difficult not to become alienated by "the system" when it creates "Advisory Committees" to, at least in part, diffuse student energy, rather than build upon it. But if my option is an equally hypocritical radical group engaged in tacky backbiting, perhaps I'll keep struggling with the system I am at Harvard. My grandmother thanks you, radicals.

I hope that in-fighting will not discourage students from supporting divestiture. There is, at the center of all this, a moral imperative which should never be allowed to waiver from sight Harvard will divest. Jill C. Violet '86