'Stacked Cards'

To the Editors of the Crimson:

I am deeply distressed by issues brought to light by the recent invitation of Hassan Abdul-Rahman, director of the PLO in Washington, by various Black, third world and Arab student organizations to speak at the Law School Tuesday. I question neither his right to speak nor his right to a platform at Harvard, despite the repugnance with which I view his position.

What disturbs me is the way in which the talk was carried out. Jewish students were informed of the talk only four days before Rahman's arrival, allowing no time to propose an alternative speaker or at least establish the terms of the speech on different grounds. Furthermore, rather than allowing questions from the floor, the organizers requested that the audience submit written questions from which they made random selections, making any meaningful exchange of ideas a travesty. In effect, the cards were stacked against us and to demonstrate, so as to assure that the other side of the issue would at least be heard, was our only choice.

I question the educational value of such politicking. I arrived with my appropriate placard and screamed my position while inside. Rahman and his supporters screamed theirs. Our individual identities were subsumed in our flags and titles, leaving no room for a common ground or the search for one. What we witnessed, instead was a debate of hatred. I would argue that we learn very little from such screaming, that we merely reinforce established prejudices. A university should be a place for the free and open exchange of ideas: it should be an environment in which we can voice our opinions freely, with no practical consequences, and change them just as freely 10 days or 10 months later. While King Hussein or Menachem Begin face serious constraints to their positions and actions, we do not.

There is no reason why we at Harvard should play out the conflicts of the world on a microcosmic level: we have the exciting opportunity to find new and more creative solutions and perhaps to change the grounds of conflict both within and without the university walls.

I would like to offer an alternative vision to the present scenario and I invite discussion from anyone who shares my dissatisfaction. Imagine that rather than a surprise invitation of a PLO leader, whose hostility toward Israel is known Jewish, Arab, Black and Third World organizations co-sponsored a series of speakers--a moderate Palestinian, a moderate Israeli, a leftist Israeli and a representative of the Arab nations. What if we not only agreed upon the speakers but met afterwards to discuss their varying viewpoints? What if we joined our strengths to cooperate on this small task and in so doing learned something about who the "other" is, learned in a small way to transcend the anger of our fathers and mothers? What if we really did find a way "to beat our spears into ploughshares..." ...what if?

If peace is not within our reach, moving toward it, learning to talk rather than scream, certainly is. Rona Shapiro '84   Member, H-R Zionist Alliance