Mahmoud Ahmadinejad At Columbia University.
olumbia University invited Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak. In his introductory speech, the Dean of the University, Lee Bollinger, spent ten minutes blasting Ahmadinejad.
He said, “Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” adding, “You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.”
The Iranian president, seated 10 feet, or 3 meters, away from him on the stage, wore a frozen smile. The anti-Ahmadinejad portion of the audience, which looked to be about 70 percent of it, cheered and chortled.
Bollinger praised himself and Columbia for showing that they believed in freedom of speech by inviting the Iranian president, then attacked. He said it was “well documented” that Iran was a state sponsor of terrorism, accused Iran of fighting a proxy war against the United States in Iraq and questioned why Iran had refused “to adhere to the international standards” of disclosure for its nuclear program.
”I doubt,” Bollinger concluded, “that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions.”
I guess my question here is, what was the point of doing that? It strikes me as incredibly rude, and kind of tacky and cheap. I’ve hunted around a bit, and can’t find anything telling why the University invited Ahmadinejad to speak. Why would you invite him to speak, and then rail him? It’s fairly obvious that the only reason why Bollinger made the speech he did was because he realized that it looked bad for the University to have a speaker such as Ahmadinejad, and he was trying to save face. In short, Bollinger blasted Ahmadinejad to score points and settle his protesting students down.
I have no problem with Ahmadinejad being asked to speak at Columbia. College students should be exposed to all sorts of views. Guys from the Discovery Institute get invited to speak all over the place, and I figure it’s the same deal — let the kids hear the bad ideas as well as the good, so they can learn to distinguish between the two. My problem is, okay, Ahmadinejad was asked to speak, and they’re taking some heat for that, but instead of explaining their thought process, Bollinger makes a rude and insulting speech instead. If the guys from the Discovery Institute go there to speak, will Bollinger blast them for their ridiculous ID ideas? Will he call them a bunch of cheap con artists and quacks who are using a thin scientific veneer to promote teaching religion in science classes? Why do I have the feeling that the answer is “no”?
I’m not saying that anything Bollinger had to say was incorrect, I’m just saying that it was tasteless. If something must be said, then a simple, “We don’t believe in these ideas, and we don’t support these ideas, but we have him here so our students can hear him speak, and hear his views, digest them for themselves, and come to their own conclusions. This is America, and he’s got a right to his ideas, even if we think they’re wrong.”
The whole thing, to me, smacks of someone — Bollinger — realizing he was in trouble, and scrambling madly to save face in any cheap way he could. I’m disappointed that a theoretically learned man has to resort to name-calling and cheap shots in an attempt to save face, and also disappointed with those who are lauding him for it, as though he did anything other than be rude to cover his own ass.
(Photo credit: Mrzine.MonthlyReview.org.)
September 25th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
WELL SAID. dont know why he was there, either, but once invited, he should be treated civilly.
One would expect an institute of higher learning to behave with more decorum.
Isnt the exposure to ideas and viewpoints which may or maynot coincide with your own one of the basic premises of education? if one wishes to study in a “closed “curriculum, home schooling is more appropriate than a university environment. If one opts to seek a university level education, then one should be prepared to hear opinions which one does not share, and then, perhaps discuss them in a calm. civillized, reasonable manner.
Has the epidemic of “Trollish” behavior found a home in academia now , too?
JavaElemental Reply:
September 26th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Apparently. I guess I’m just amazed that the president of a University thought this was going to be a good way to address the controversy. Instead, he just poured more gas on the fire, and made himself look a fool.
September 25th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
I agree. I saw it on the news last night and thought the same thing. Did you hear the comment where Ahmadinejad was asked about the treatment of gays in Iran and he replied that they didn’t have any homosexuals in his country? Priceless!
JavaElemental Reply:
September 26th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Yeah, I saw that — can’t blame the audience for laughing about it either, because I think I would have, too. Of course, considering that they apparently hang homosexuals in Iran, maybe they don’t have any!
September 25th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I agree with all the comments. Not only was Bollinger rude…it showed his ignorance as well. Imagine that from a University!
JavaElemental Reply:
September 26th, 2007 at 11:48 am
That’s what I thought. The whole episode was just utterly without class.
September 26th, 2007 at 2:06 am
Bollinger *invited him* and then insulted him to his face. How crass. Americans have shown the world that they are rude and arrogant and don’t know about diplomatic language.
JavaElemental Reply:
September 26th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Hey, now, that’s not fair. There’s at least three Americans right here in this thread who all think that Bollinger’s behavior was rude, crass, and classless, and I very much doubt that we’re the only ones in the country. I don’t blame “all Muslims” for terrorism, or “all Iraqis” for Saddam Hussein, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t blame “all Americans” for the actions of one idiot in a university.
September 26th, 2007 at 2:57 am
And in addition to everything else you said, what we as a country really need right now is to piss off and personally attack Iranian leaders, right?
JavaElemental Reply:
September 26th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Well, you know, the proper thing to do when you see a wasps’ nest is to bang it with a stick to see if you can really stir them up. That’s always great entertainment.
I mean, good lord, even Bush managed to not be too incendiary when he addressed the UN before Ahmadinejad did yesterday. If President Bush can manage not to say anything too stupid, you’d think the president of a university could do the same.