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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Volume 31, No. 25. October 8, 1968

Letters To The Editor

page 6

Letters To The Editor

U.S. Needs Us

Sir-What a pity it was that Plymouth Rock didn't land on the Pilgrim Fathers instead of the other way round.

This remark is not humorous, it is part of the tragic truth that because of the inert nature of that rock, death for the Indians, enslavement for the Negroes, and spiritual disaster for the homeless New-Americans resulted. And they have become enslaved by a brutal and cynical oligarchic business-world. Will this unsagacious society mature to arise distinguishable from the concrete and steel they have created.

This extends beyond spiritual and mental deprivation. Lately our attention has been drawn to the ten million people suffering from malnutrition in the USA. There is an overproduction of food problem where the Treasury pays farmers nor to utilise a certain percentage of their properties because it is not economically profitable to distribute the excess food to the human slagheap created by the capitalistic system. To have starvation right there in the same country, where wealth and poverty exist side by side,' is a tragedy for everyone of those ten million people.

Because of these ironic conditions the 'Aid to America Society' has been formed within Victoria University with the objective of alleviating human suffering and deprivation within the Republic of the United States of America. This Society hopes to collect money which will be presented to the American Ambassador to New Zealand. No student could fail to sympathise with this previously overlooked underprivileged area. We are disinterested politically, simply keen that no Americans should die of malnutrition or other mistreatment.

If support is forthcoming we shall send a Communique to the United Nations and endeavour to enlist the support of other Universities in the world. We hope you will be enthusiastic about this practical opportunity to help America.

We remain devoted to our cause,

Lindsay Pope.

Drusilla Megget.

Thanks!

Sir-As might have been expected (and hoped for) my recent article, headed "The Death of God", provoked a good deal of thought and discussion. To those few students who actually became vocal (or rather, literary) in their protests, I am grateful, for the contents reveal, if admittedly no sympathy, at least the fact that I may have touched a few raw points somewhere. After all few people bother to react defensively if this is not the case. The literary few were outraged and unconvinced by my argument when all is said and done, no-can be argued into anything that he does not want to be argued into. Present all the rational arguments you please, all the absolute proofs and their conclusions for any thesis-the plain fact of human nature dictates that nobody will be convinced about anything unless he is willing to be. Recognising this, I do not propose to carry the argument any further myself. In the last analysis my only plea is this: that you may reject or accept the Christian position as you wish (my article was written to defend its intellectual integrity, not for the purpose of instant conversion), but please, let there be honesty in thhe motives for your choice. My original point remains-that if Christianity is rejected (and one is entitled and free to think as one pleases), let it not be on the grounds of so-so-called 'irrationality', or because it fails to satisfy the demands of the intelligent thinker. I believe that the Christian position is able to hold its own against any alternative philosophy, and that it provides a good deal more than intellectual satisfaction. Let it be openly admitted that the real factors behind its rejection or acceptance involve a good deal more than cut-and-dried consistency, although a system must he consistent before any thinking person should be expected to follow it. They involve the will and disposition of the individual, who for reasons other than necessarily logical ones may not be prepared or inclined to accept the responsibilities and implications of this or any position.

Finally, thank you Mr. Pettigrow, Mr. Silver, Miss Follick and Mr. Cropp for your inspiring and courteous attempts to state the Opposing position with the dignity and integrity worthy of those who have the human capacity to think and to reason.

Yours faithfully,

Julie Belding.

For Everything

Sir-In reply to David Harcourt's article on the Language Requirement, may I say that, anything he said there notwithstanding, I consider it supremely arrogant for anyone to formulate, or want to formulate degreecourse requirements according only to his subjective preferences. I am sure that neither he nor anybody else can provide a convincing argument that any unit is objectively and intrinsically more worth studying than any-other.

I agree that, in the present debate, it depends on how you regard the B.A. degree; but I propose to disregard it. Tradition in this case should give way, not to a conflicting would-be tradition, but to a more pragmatic approach. Ideally, in my view, universities would give no degrees -employers and other interested peoplep would look to results in individual units for guidance. No units would be compulsory, nor would there be any compulsory prerequisites, although departments might indicate what amount of knowledge and/or proficiency was taken for granted in any given unit.

Any combination of units that the timetable did not rule out would be possible. Employers would widely advertise their preferred units and grades, and grades, and students could study what they liked, concentration on strictly vocational training or on a "broad education" or on any combination thereof — as they pleased.

One of the main limiting factors would be the impracticability of having an infinite number of units taught at a university.

Cheers,

P. D. Zohrab.

[David Harcourt replies: "I have a "subjective preference" for the view that Peter Zohrab is probably more subject to "subjective preferences" than I am, However if he has anything worthwhile to say, he could undoubtedly spout forth at the next meeting of the Education Sub-Committee."—ed.]

Dear Jim

Sir-Dear Jim, I love you. When I was at primary school we used to have the odd pimp. You know what we used to do with them? String them to a wall and flick them with rubber-bands. Dear Jim, rumour has it that you are a pimp. What should we do with you? Perhaps a little playful vengence wouldn't go amiss. If it's one at primary school, why shouldn't we do it here at our noble institution. If they do it in Chicago and Vietnam, why shouldn't we do it here? Yet isn't this a very primitive, basic, perhaps animal reaction? However, in Vietnam they don't use rubber bands, either side, and yet dear Jim, rumour has it that you hold Vietnam as a show-case of dedicated Western attempts at justifying basic human motivations. Perhaps you could understand why I love you so, for I too am a primitive being.

Yours exclusively,

S. R. Radick.

Protest

Sir-"The Green Berets" was a stupid and pathetic film, but I think I would almost prefer the inanities of John Wayne's sickening patriotism to the ill considered and equally pathetic attempt of some students to register their protest against it.

The argument against the American, and New Zealand Government's action in Vietnam is overwhelming on legal, moral, and even military grounds. Action should be taken against anything that can be associated with it. But in this case "action" consisted of foot stamping, with obscenities and other remarks being yelled at the screen. The yelling was not even in appropriate places, the German-speaking American soldiers at the beginning, for example, not causing the Obvious comparison. This type of activity can only react to the disadvantage of the anti-war movement in general, and students in particular.

I would venture to suggest a reasonable protest in this case could have consisted of a small demonstration outside the theatre at the Friday 8pm session, with possibly a petition to the manager asking him to stop screening it. Perhaps this is not very exciting, but it would make the point without evincing the hostility of others -as this behaviour did. If some person had felt really bad about the matter they could have attempted a sit-in the foyer, and no doubt have demonstrated to the general public that our police are every bit as efficient as these in Chicago.

David Cropp.

Oh, Lord!

Sir-In the Salient of July 30 the drama critic, Bob Lord, said "Perhaps the play [Two Gentlemen of Veronal would have been other things in other hands … I refuse, it's my whim and I can be condemned for it, to criticise this production for what it would have been. I can only pass my opinion on what was there . . " In his review of Downstage's "Knickers" in the latest issue, he denies this "For the revue to succeed as it should" he says, "it needs not only to make us laugh but also to show us something of ourselves, our way of life, that will make us think."

This little statement of Aims and Beliefs leaves the reader with the impression that only one sketch succeeded, "but even this failed to come across as fully as it might." This is, presumably, according to his view of what "Knickers" should be.

I can only pass an opinion on what was there, and my opinion is that it was very good fun. I to have been to "Knickers" twice and found it quite the funniest thing I have ever seen at Downstage. It contains some brilliantly vicious satire, much at Keith's expense, and some truly beautiful trips into absurdity. It certainly was not, when I saw it, the typical rehash of cribbed overseas humour set in the traditional frames of student revue sketches. This was what I had expected and what Bob's review could lead unsuspecting readers to think. I don't laugh easily, and the show made me laugh a great deal. If this is the criterion, then the production is a success.

To paraphrase David Lean, I am sure Hall, Smith and Whitehouse would admit that they could not write and perform the kind of revue that some critics would write and perform, if they could write and perform revues.

Yours,

Bill Evans.

[Bob Lord replies: "Thank you Bill for your pleasant note; it is good to be reminded of what other people see as your inconsistencies."-ed.]

Oh, God

Sir-I've grown a trifle bored to read these rants against the Lord

To make the world in seven days with one day off deserves our praise Miss Follick whose undoubted wit—why yes—she uses words like

Shit

And Crap, most rational

just the gear

it must be rather hard to smear two thousand years or so of Him (of course he's just a feeble whim—a concept, read your Sigmund Freud)

Well I mean to say you know He's enough to make any decent upright young New Zealand girl annoyed.

A fascist too, a pusher—Yea—the type to lead young folks astray enough—Miss Follick, cross your—let's crucify the bum again.

Yours very righteously indeed,

Don Franks.

Training College

Sir—I am deeply ashamed.

I have hatred and contempt for training college students. Claudia Coory, in her Salient Editorial last week, assured me that student teachers are reviled by normal students like you and me. You and I have this attitude that "training college students are in an intellectually inferior institution and that deserve nothing but contempt." We think of student teachers as "a marauding tribe Intent on destruction" and of the university as "a convent to remain aloof from the world."

Honestly, I didn't know! Who would have thunk that a peaceful, harmless person like me had such reactionary attitudes? How was it that I never suspected that "many student teachers do traverse the mighty walls of the university, almost to be overcome by the intellectual snobbery exuding from the lecture theatres"? How long have I been persecuting training college students?

It's got to stop. It's not good enough for we normal students to protest that we've never sneered at student teachers or to pretend that we can't tell the difference between student teachers and normal students. They know that we have this hatred and contempt for them and if can't go on any longer. They must be brought in from the cold, clapsed to our collective bosom, etc., etc. But I hope that Claudia Coory won't mind my suggesting that, if we are to "raise the status of training college students (to use her expression), they would generally assist us by carrying small placards reading: "I am a despised student teacher. Love me." Or something along those lines, anyway.

Yours faithfully,

David Harcourt.

Trotsky

Sir-This whole correspondence seems rather pointless so long as Messrs Fyson attribute to me-and the Spartacist Club-views, we do not and have never held I find it imposible to work out how they, or anybody, came to the conclusion that the Sparacist League broke with the Pabloite Fourth International over the issue of guorilla war. This is simply not true, as those members of their group know who have been supplied with the documents about the origins of the Spartacist League.

The other reason why this correspondence is pointless is that the Fysons not only misrepresent our position, but also their own. They deny being 'Pabloites' because the organisation with which they solidarise has expelled Pablo; but in fact their entire tactical position is based on a declaration by Michel Pablo that the epicentre of World revolution is in the Third World, accepted by the 1951 conference of the Fourth International. It is this resolution which constitutes the revision of Trotsky's political thinking and this revision on which the Fysons base their position; it is this revision which the Spartacist League opposes. Pabloism involves, first a refusal to recognise that without the Western working class securing socialism the workers' revolutions elsewhere must inaugurate regimes whose degeneration from the basic norms of Marxism will slowly lead to their abandoning the objective of socialism, either voluntarily, or as a consequence of defeat in a war with the capitalist world. Second, Pabloism rejects working class revolution in the countries outside the heartland of Western capitalism and believes substitute for the working class-such as, but not only the guerilla movement-can achieve the same objectives. Thirdly, it refuses to recognise that the Chinese and Cuban revolutions, because they have involved the working-class only peripherally, have led to the creation of states even more deformed at birth than Stalin's Russia, more vulnerable to imperialist attack, more inherently unstable, and with a far greater distance to go to achieve socialism. Fourthly, Pabloism, by tailending Stalinist movements which have refused to realise the deformity of their Marxism, have been accomplices in the betrayal of the Indonesian, Ceylonese, Algerian, Greek and now the French revolutions. The Stalinist group they are tailing along behind now-until it sells them out as Castro has already sold out Czechoslovakia—is the Cuban ruling party.

I confine this letter to a clear statement of the Spartaeist and Pabloite positions, because the Fysons' misstatement have made people confused about the issues, at stake, and their misstatements, whether intentional or not, should not be allowed to stand. Their position should be stated as what it is-the view, in the words of Australian Pabloite Nick Origlasse that 'to accept at the present time the views of Trotsky expressed in his theoretical works would be to adopt a disastrously wrong political position'. The Fysons do show in the style of their letters, if not in their content what they believe in: a Marxism which is only expressed to calumliever'. whose hallmark is the niate someone not a 'true beroutine villification heresy hunt and the announcement that 'so-and-so (never the National or Labour Party, but a 'deviationist') must be exposed'. It is to cleanse Marxism of this kind of puerility that Trotsky worked throughout his life, and this that the Spartacist League still stands for. If their concent conceptions of Marxism did not disqualify the Fysons from any pretence of Trotskyism, their methods of controversy certainly would.

Yours etc.,

Owen Gager, Chairman, VUW Spartacist Club.