'Third World'

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Of late there has been much talk of a minority student center on campus. "Third World Center" is the expression that has been coined to refer to it. And, sadly, the name "Third World Center" has come to be used loosely by all the concerned parties--students and administrators.

A little history may be in order. Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, first used the term "third world" to refer to a group of non-aligned, developing countries that united in an effort to focus world attention away from the cold war rivalry of the superpowers to the problem of inequitable resource distribution between the rich and the poor nations. Culturally, these Third World countries have little in common; their economic and apolitic demands are what unites them.

In this regard, it is hard to see what a minority student center that fulfills the social, cultural, and educational needs of Harvard undergraduates who are mostly citizens of the United States has to do with the Third World. Sanjeev Mehra '82