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The editors of BodyPolitik clarify an earlier post about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia University.
To paraphrase Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a brutal, “petty[,] and cruel dictator.” He routinely denies the Holocaust took place, has “called for the destruction of the state of Israel,” provides aid to terrorists, treats women abominably, and executes teenaged homosexuals. We think it is fair to say that Ahmadinejad is a scourge of humanity.
Yet, we think Columbia University was right to invite Ahmadinejad, not because of any of his own qualities, but for two other overarching reasons.
First, preventing Ahmadinejad from speaking only enhances his stature. As NPR notes, this type of condemnation “may be just what the Iranian president needs to shore up a shaky political position at home.” Yet, allowed to speak, Ahmadinejad “elicited laughter and boos from the audience” of Columbia students, and quickly illustrated the emptiness of his rhetoric of benevolence and peace. This demonstrates that Americans should not fear losing a public relations war with a dictator who publicly proclaims his horrible acts frequently and with pride. We believe Americans, like the Columbia students in the audience, are fully capable of listening to such a figure and dismissing him on their own - without college presidents or politicians telling them how and what to think. As Bollinger noted, Ahmadinejad’s speech “is consistent with the idea that one should know thine enemies, to have the intellectual and emotional courage to confront the mind of evil and to prepare ourselves to act with the right temperament.”
Second, Ahmadinejad’s speech sparked an intense, in-depth dialogue on the meaning of free speech and liberty on college campuses and across the nation. Countless news outlets and pundits debated the virtues and drawbacks of Columbia hosting such a figure, as did many college newspapers. In fact, on our own campuses of William and Mary and the University of Pennsylvania, we observed more passion and activism on this particular issue than on the 2008 election, the genocide in Darfur, and even the war in Iraq. We ask, what better way to demonstrate the superiority of liberty and freedom to a violent, repressive figure than to show him that his appearance will not only fail to win converts to his side, but will actually strengthen the very civil society that allows him to speak?
-Jordan Grossman and Ryan Powers, Editors, The Body Politik
UPDATE: Over at AlterNet, two Columbia students argue that “Columbia’s invitation to Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not only shows the world the importance of free speech, but also demonstrates what free speech means. ”
Those who oppose Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia argue that we are giving him a soapbox. Ahmadinejad is clearly not challenged for venues in which he can promote his twisted ideology. His ability to spread his heinous views is evidenced by the fact that Americans are well aware of these positions. If we didn’t let him speak here, he could just as easily spread hate from Iran. The difference in bringing him to Columbia is that we will have the opportunity to challenge his claims, whereas we can only cringe when he speaks from Iran. What Columbia has chosen to do is to put him in a context where he cannot take advantage of the bully pulpit, where he must defend his actions to students and academics, where, for once, he is in a conversation rather than a monologue.
Well, I’m actually convinced. Great post. I was against him being here because I was uncomfortable but I really support the points you made.