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Nov. 3, 1965 THE SKYSCRAPER Page Three Panel Evaluates Red China Policy A new form of protest to the United States' policy toward rec ognition of Red China the open discussion was introduced at Mundelein and 31 other colleges and universities across the country when the Americans for Reap praisal of Far Eastern Policy launched the first of a series of telephone hookups with promi nent authorities on the situation Sunday, Oct. 24. About 200 Mundelein students i;nd guests heard the broadcast at McCormick Lounge. The first of the discussions was scheduled for Oct. 24, United Na tions 20th anniversary, a day which should signal the beginning of our effort to strengthen the United Nations, said the group's information pamphlet. Broadcast from Yale University, the program included speakers John K. Fairbanks, professor of history, Harvard University; Nor man Thomas, Socialist party leader; Norman Cousins, editor, Saturday Review, Michael Har rington, author, Other America; Congressman William Ryan and Allard K. Lowenstein, program or ganizer and former foreign policy advisor to Vice-president Humph rey. Leading the local discussion was Dale Pontius, professor of political science, Roosevelt University. Mrs. Edward Chobanian, instruc tor of Indian and Southeast Asian history, introducing the program, stressed the community aspect of the organization. This is a grass-roots approach to the situation, she said. We want people to start thinking and talking about the problem. We are not sponsoring demonstrations, protests or marches. This is not the correct approach. The approach was reminiscent of President Johnson's advice dur ing the steel confrontation, Let us sit now and reason together. All of the speakers impressed the need for this alternative area of confrontation with China, besides the Vietnamese warfront, although some of them differed on the con tinuation of military struggle. Briefly summarizing the logic behind his position on America's Far Eastern policy, John K. Fair banks said that Viet Nam is a struggle in power politics between the United States and China. Each country, he said, follows a model, and part of the United States' problem is the narrowness of vision in evaluating the Chinese model of warfare and ideology. The Washington View, Fair banks said, sees the Vietnamese situation as an attempted take over by the Chinese. The Peking view is analogous, he said, except that the United States is portrayed as the im perialist power. A unique aspect of the Chinese attitude is that they regard South Viet Nam as a peo ple's war against capitalism, he added. Consequently, the United States is on a collision course with China; we're not winning and we're not losing. This could end like Ko rea, he said. Since this confrontation with China is purely military, he said, the only alternative to all-out war is to get China to make more international contact, such as we have with the Russians. Yet we can predict that this will bring us more trouble, he said. I am a pessimist. Can we 'get' with China to the point where we would co-exist? he asked. In answer to his own question, Professor Fairbanks raised an other. Is the problem (of ina bility to co-exist) due to cultural differences? Fairbanks pointed out some of the basic characteristics of Chinese culture that have been unexplored and kept separate from their effect in Vietnamese context: the Chi nese pride in their independent culture, being the largest and old est single state for 4,000 years; their frustration in the 20th cen tury at having to assume the pos ture of a semi-colonial nation,- their concept of political unity, seen in their insistence that Tibet and Taiwan remain part of the Chinese empire despite political boundaries that refute this; their by Brenda Dinneen concept of rule by superior per sons using ethical standards, op posing the Western theory of rule by law ; their faith in the mo bilization of the populace, the placement of the individual into so ciety to suit individual needs and values. These basic differences, Fair banks said, must be explored, be cause We can't understand Mao in terms of Western culture. The Chinese don't have a wrong tradition, he said. Reiter ating, he stated: It is not inferior, not superior, but different. Again mentioning the problems that more levels of confrontation with China may entail, Fairbanks countered his pessimism with the thought that It will place the whole Vietnamese situation on a higher perspective. Building on Fairbanks' logic, remaining speakers repeated de mands for political reform in Viet namese policy, with the added im plication of the basic immorality of war. Norman Thomas suggested that the exclusion of China from the UN is upheld under a false idea of defense. We will either co-exist or die together, he said. We must abandon the policy of insist ing that Chiang Kai-shek repre sents China, while he actually rep resents our seventh fleet. There is too much emotion in our Viet Nam policy; we need facts for thinking, he added. The 80-year-old Thomas first questioned the position of the United States in this actual civil war, begun after the Geneva treaty of 1954 which divided Viet Nam into two separate countries, North and South. We were the 'firstest with the Russian Acknowledges Award for Literature This year the Nobel Prize in literature goes to a citizen of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Sho- lokhov, 60, a Cossack from the region of the Don River and a self-proclaimed Communist, who publicly states that his heart belongs to the Party. Although the fourth Russian to receive this award, he is the only one to accept it with the blessing of the government. A few years ago American movie-goers found themselves deeply impressed by the Soviet film, The Fate of Man, a post war story about a man who tries to begin a new life after the death of his whole family and his own shattering experi ences as a war prisoner on the German front. Wide World Photo MIKHAIL SHOLOKHOV, au thor of And Quiet Flows the Don, said that he will gratefully ac cept the 1965 Nobel Prize for Literature at the December award ceremony in Stockholm. He is the fourth Russian to re ceive the prize. by Halina Konopacka Belief in Man's Dignity The author of the short story on which the movie was based is Mikhail Sholokhov. The same belief in man's dig nity, in the desire to stay alive in face of the meaningless reality, is repeated in the rest of this writing, using the same anti-intellectual regional ap proach dealing with familiar and limited subject matter. Only one of his works directly sup ports the policy of the Soviet government. Virgin Soil Up turned describes the beginnings of collectivization in the Don region. The Nobel Prize was awarded for the four volumes of the epic, The Silent Don, published in 1928. This novel, last in the rich 19th-century Russian epic tradition, is often compared with Tolstoy's War and Peace, because of their common theme of the significance of a major historical event in the life of an individual. The first two volumes of The Silent Don, are the most pol ished and most significant parts of the novel. Life of Turmoil And Quiet Flows the Don tells of the turmoil in the years of the Civil War following the revolution of 1917. The hero of the novel, a young Cossack, Gregor Melekhov, more sensi tive than most of his fellow Cossacks, fails in making the quick adjustments of submission needed during such times. As a youth he begins a life long love affair with Aksinia, the wife of his neighbor, but forced by his family, he mar ries another girl. The unso phisticated and hopeless love of Gregor and Aksinia, the bru tality of Aksinia's husband, the unhappiness of Gregor's wife are only the introduction to the endless chaos in Gregor's life. Distaste for Brutality As a member of the Tzar's Cossack regiment, he voices his distaste for the proverbial bru tality of his peers, clashes with his attachment to the Cossack tradition, and joins the Reds to fight against the Tzar. There he is appalled by the treatment of class enemies, for Gregor, being a Cossack, does not consider himself Rus sian and finds the cause of worker and peasant alien to him. His further drift brings him to the Whites, the sup porters of the bourgeoise gov ernment, then to the independ ents who want to create a free Cossack state, and finally to a group of bandits. In the meantime his wife has died and Aksinia, who had de cided to follow her lover into the war, has been killed by a bullet. Gregor, tired and in different, a traitor to all groups, returns to the village. The picture of him holding his lit tle son at the doorstep of the house which no longer belongs to him closes the story. Honesty to Self Although G r e g o r's escape from cruelty and his protest against the blind submission of an individual to authority are purely spontaneous, they reflect the author's belief in man who never became a traitor to him self. Finally, after reading the book one can state with relief that although the Nobel Prize committee never explains its decisions, this time it is not dif ficult to understand. Sholok- hov's political convictions and his regionalism did not prevent him from writing And Quiet Flows the Don as a novel of universal appeal, a statement of the dignity of man. i mostest' in intervening in the civil war, he said. When questioning intervention, he concluded, the United States must also submit herself to exam ination. The humanity of the American people objects to the Vietnamese war, which involves killing not only armies but civilians, he said. The United States' alleged goal of establishing self-determination is hypocritical, he said, as wit nessed by the continuing religious wars and the United States De partment of State's role in advo cating the downfall of the Diem regime, which had been a demo cratically elected administration known for disagreements with the United States in their role in the Southern crisis. These are atrocities, not be cause we want them so, but be cause the method of war makes them so. What end justifies it? he asked. Norman Cousins, too, questioned the killing of large numbers of people by mistake in America's unilateral decision to bomb, inde pendent of the UN or NATO and the fighting of a war without the decision of Congress. Extending the question of mo rality, Michael Harrington de plored the effect of the Vietna mese war, not only the causes. It is impossible that the rest of us (outside of Viet Nam) con tinue with life and politics the same. Harrington seemed most im pressed with what he called the danger of advancement of war psychology that comes with build up in Vietnamese activity op position to dissent, as evidenced by the roar of indignation raised by many newspapers and congress men at the recent end the war protests. Escalation of war threatens not simply those who die, but Ameri can domestic and economic poli cies he said. The whole climate of peace is endangered by war in Viet Nam, added Congressman William Ryan. There is an immediate need in Congress for searching and re examining of our policy. The draft proposal presented by the congressman summed up and reiterated individual proposals; a call for immediate cease-fire in Viet Nam; United States' negotia tions towards recognition of the People's Republic of China, admis sion of them to the UN and readiness to join China in proj ects of mutual advantage and con cern. Commenting on the speakers, and answering audience questions during a short discussion period, Professor Pontius stressed the positive character of negotiations with Red China. What is wrong with our present policy, he said, is that we seem to be in a bind, unable to do anything but react. We have a duty to bring China into the world of nations. I'm not sure we're the nation to do this, he added. As the Americans for Reap praisal of Far Eastern Policy would have it, The Prince would be debunked, and Machiavelli's ghost would be haunted with an old man's question . . . What end justifies it?
title:
1965-11-03 (3)
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Women and Leadership Archives http://www.luc.edu/wla
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Mundelein College
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Student newspaper for Mundelein College
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