It is not a black-and-white issue for me. I wish it was; no doubt it began as one.
When I first heard (last week?) that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to speak at Columbia University yesterday, I was in high dudgeon. Immediately I decried Columbia president Lee Bollinger's decision to permit the man even to visit Columbia's campus. 'How can these things be?' I asked myself, incredulous at such indecency.
But now I am somewhat ambivalent. I applaud Mr. Bollinger for taking a hard-line stand with Mr. Ahmadinejad; I am glad that he called the Iranian president a 'petty and cruel dictator.' Or am I?
Yes, it is good to confront and debate ideas and policies. Yes, it is noble to challenge the zeitgeist; to take a moral stand in the face of evil. But there are dangers, very subtle dangers, in taking the 'higher road.' Two such dangers come to mind this morning.
The first is to confuse calling a guest at an American university a "petty dictator" significant or even courageous. On one level it is plainly bad manners. On another level it is the sort of spoken deed that is really a boast and conceit: look at us confront! look at us fight! look at us inquire, challenge, decry! (We must also not forget that other great conceit: look at how tolerant we are! see how open-minded we can be! look at the depth of our understanding!)
Is Lee Bollinger really a fighter? Is he really courageous? Yes, of course he is. At the very least, he is willing to speak in a manner that might offend supporters of the Iranian president who live, work and study in the west, particularly on the west side of Manhattan. But is insulting a guest in one's own parlor anything like a bold confrontation, particularly when the guest expects it, even desires it? What about Mr. Bollinger traveling to Tehran to berate the Iranian president? What about him standing in Mr. Ahmadinejad's own parlor and pompously declaring his Iranian host "uneducated"?
What I am ultimately saying is that I fear some Americans think the country has now "dealt" with Mr. Ahmadinejad, that we have torn off his mask, shown him to the world as an ego-maniacal simpleton, and sent him on his way, duly chastised, duly warned. We have faced evil, confronted it, stared it down; we have shown evil and ignorance the face of goodness and knowledge.
But we have done no such thing at all.
Secondly, we have ineluctably fallen prey to a new mythology: The Iranian president came to America in peace, but the peacemaker was mocked, abused, ridiculed! He came with an olive branch, but he will leave having been scourged with that very symbol of peace! The fodder for propaganda is perhaps now even more abundant than ever. Had Mr. Ahmadinejad been kept at a safe distance, his propaganda could only reach so far. But now he has proof -- soundbites and vidclips -- that America is a capricious host, a divided and unfriendly place, full of spies (he called one reporter a CIA interrogator), dripping with sarcasm, antagonistic towards peace. He is that peace; his is a peaceful nation.
How sad, even tragic -- or so the chorus will sing -- that America -- and its Jewish constituency, no doubt -- should have rejected a 'noble' man bringing such a noble, gentle peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
13 comments:
Rather than put the Iranian President down, the Columbia President should have let Ahmadinejad dig his own grave as he inevitably would have once he began to speak. "In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin..." [Prov. 10:19].
My feeling is that Bollinger's "petty and cruel dictator" remarks were aimed at deflecting criticism from himself.
Dearest pewster,
Great points!
BG
Bill, yours is the most thoughtful treatment I've read of this subject. Columbia shouldn't have invited Ahmadinejad to speak in the first place. But once they did, it's simply crass and treacherous for Bollinger to subject him to a scathing verbal attack when he is there as Bollinger's guest. Ahmadinejad may have deserved the treatment, but Bollinger demeaned himself, his university, and his nation in the administering it. Bad manners indeed.
MS,
Thanks for the praise, dear friend.
Your point is well-taken.
Peace.
BG
I'm with you, this looks real tough (or whatever) in the short term but not very wise for the long term...thanks for pointing this out so clearly...
I can't help but recall how some University campuses don't even have the guts to stand up. I think of my former and gutless Concordia University who crumble before hardline student associations - especially the leftist/Palestinian ones who have actually succeeded in having guest speakers be canceled. I think of Daniel Pipes and others like him.
Is it me or was that interview on 60 Minutes with leader from Iran simply infantile? Not as bad as Barbara Walters with Hussein but still sophomoric nonetheless.
Even So,
Have I ever said how much I love your screen name? Well, I love your screen name.
Thanks for stopping by. Let us pray that the whole Columbia/Iran event is not more show than substance…and not more harm than help.
Peace,
Gnade
Commentator,
Surely you realize the whole problem: you are just an angry male -- an angry Canadian male, to boot!
I did not watch much of the 60 Minutes interview. I will have to force myself to sit through a CSPAN replay. Perhaps you would like to elaborate on how you feel (and I am all for feelings: this is a touchy-feely kind of place, as you know).
Seriously, what did you think of the whole interview (besides infantile)? I'd love to hear you grind out a few choice phrases.
Peace and mirth,
Gnade
The problem is that it matters not what Mr./Dr. Bollinger said. It was the invitation which bestowed legitimacy upon Mr. Ahmadinejad. This speech was not for us. It was for his constituents in Iran. The Iranian press will and has spun it as a triumph, and Columbia's fecklessness has done quite a bit to set back the cause of Iranian democracy, I'll wager.
Cheers.
R. Sherman,
Because I think you are on to something, I beg you to enlarge on your suggestion that this all has hurt the democratic reform movement in Iran. Why? How so?
BG
I must admit that I speculate, but consider: We know that many Iranians are executed for things which are not considered crimes in the west. Iranians travel to study in other countries. They have satellite television. It is virtually impossible in this day for a country to completely cut off its citizens' access to the outside world.
(North Korea being the exception, because of more than 50 years of isolation; Iran was "westernized before the mullahs took power in the late 70's.)
I assume there are those in Iran who desire a western style democracy. Indeed the blogiverse is replete with Iranian bloggers in the west, aching for change. For those inside Iran, an appearance by "I'm-a-dinnerjacket" at a "bastion of liberalism" like Columbia University legitimizes him and the regime. Perhaps these souls then feel abandoned; they feel they have no friends or allies.
Stated differently, if those who stand for freedom of thought, speech, creed and action give succor to a tyrant, what hope is there?
Cheers.
(Now I have to wait a day before commenting on the next post, because, although I heard the same program, two comments in one day is rude.)
:)
Here's another good take on the Bollinger affair:
http://www.american.com/archive/2007/september-0907/lee-bollinger2019s-illusory-idealism/
Peace.
Bill, Canadians angry? P-shaw, p-shaw. But I am. Especially considering they call me to make contributions. I can't bring myself to give money to an institution that failed to preserve intellectualism.
To be perfectly honest I can't isolate one specific thing. I can't say I fully can rationalize or intellectualize it either. It's just the sense I got and how the whole thing unfolded. I can't put my finger on it.
That and I changed the channel.
In fairness, I suppose, it must be tough preparing to interview an unknown and creepy quantity like the Iranian leader. His smirks were spooky and were right out of a Scooby-Doo cartoon.
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