“We know what politics is. When you are intervening in a discourse about war, you are engaging in politics,” he says. “We are not afraid of politics.”

Passing on Politics

Many student groups evaded stark partisan positions on the war in an effort to gain wide appeal.

The campus Democrats and Republicans, who had debated the issue of war in the fall in a broader debate on U.S. foreign policy, refrained from holding a formal debate when the fighting had begun.

“It was difficult for groups with different viewpoints to find a topic that both sides agree upon as important,” says Harvard Republican Club member Michael Alperovich ’04.

From the start, students explicitly avoided political confrontation.

It wasn’t until March 11, two days before the “Emergency Anti-War Rally” that the Harvard College Democrats issued a statement opposing America’s “nearly unilateral engagement” in the war.

Saying that the time had come to take a position on the war, the statement by the College Dems acknowledged the divisions in their own ranks and denied that it was speaking for all Democrats.

“We recognize that it is not the position of every Democrat on campus to be opposed to the war,” said club President R. Gerard McGeary ’04. “That is an important distinction to make.”

At the time, HRC spokesperson Mark Silvestri ’05 criticized the Dems’ decision to formally state their position.

“I think it is obvious that the Democrats, along with many liberals here, would like the [U.S.] not to use force. For them just to formalize it doesn’t really change many things,” he said.

While the Democrats were reluctant to take a political stance, the Republicans said that the question of war best be addressed by “putting political beliefs aside.”

“We wanted to do something with a positive message that would reflect well on our campus image,” Alperovich says. “It wasn’t really a political thing.”

On April 7, HRC began collecting signatures and distributing flag pins in support of the American troops in Iraq. In a response similar to that during the war against Afghanistan, the rally garnered hundreds of signature from pro- and anti-war students alike.

“As a club, the war was a divisive issue,” says HRC member Brandon Trama ’06. “We decided that from a non-partisan standpoint, we wanted to voice our support for the troops overseas.”