By Darren Mcvey
Last Monday, the United States proved why American society is one of the freest societies on earth. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran and professed enemy of America, Israel and freedom in general, was the guest speaker at Columbia University in New York City.
On the surface, it seems like an indescribably bad idea to give an avowed enemy such a prestigious platform, especially when everyone knew what he was going to say. It may not be so damaging after all. The most pragmatic approach is to break down the damage done to each party.
First, how did Columbia make out? Columbia looked very bad when word came out that the school invited one of the remaining halves of the Axis of Evil to speak at their campus.
Columbia President Lee Bollinger also promised to provide a strong challenge to the dictator in his introduction.
Bollinger stood firm with his decision to allow the event, and the absurdity of the invitation began to subside.
Columbia School of International and Public Affairs Dean John Coatsworth described the event as a chance to understand the world. This is an important distinction from the usual liberal motive of understanding people with whom we differ (i.e. the enemy.) It is true that we must listen to our enemies to understand them. When al Qaeda claims the center of the War on Terror is in Iraq, we must listen, that means ensuring victory there. When Ahmadinejad says he wants to wipe Israel off the map, we must listen, and ensure that he never has the capability of doing that.
Bollinger promised a strong questioning of Ahmadinejad and he delivered. Bollinger ran through Ahmadinejad’s list of grievances against humanity and called the tyrant a “petty and cruel dictator.” Bollinger’s challenge won his university a great deal of credibility.
So, Columbia came out looking pretty good. They exhibited Ahmadinejad in all his vile absurdity. Although it may not have been the right thing to do, inviting Ahmadinejad turned out alright for Columbia.
The Ahmadinejad speech turned out well for the United States, too.
Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch, however, pointed out one negative that came out of the event. Koch noted that Bollinger’s attacks on Ahmadinejad were all about Iran’s threatening of Israel. Although Ahmadinejad has threatened America’s destruction, Bollinger made no mention of that.
Koch also points out that this can be construed by Arab and Iranian television to present America as an unwavering ally of Israel, which is true.
Although this is slightly damaging to our image in the Middle East, that image would not have been saved by Bollinger standing up for America.
Nonetheless, what better way to back up President Bush’s rhetoric about freedom, liberty and open society than by inviting the leader of an enemy regime to speak freely on our soil? The White House knew that if Ahmadinejad spoke truthfully about his intentions to carry out a second holocaust, he would look crazy.
If he didn’t, he would look like a liar.
It turns out he looked crazy. The most entertaining moment of Ahmadinejadís address came when he claimed there were no homosexuals in Iran. He also held true to his statement that the Holocaust has not been positively confirmed by historians.
Although these statements drew laughs from the audience, there is really little funny about persecution of homosexuals and Holocaust denial.
These statements helped to make Ahmadinejad a laughing stock in the western world. Too bad Iranians don’t get the joke.
Ahmadinejad, of course, was playing to the home crowd back in Iran. He presented himself as a serious academic given a prestigious platform, and that does little to help us with democracy in Iran. Iranians got to see their dictator substantiated by American freedom and the West got to see, again, how crazy this dictator is.
Despite the media firestorm, not much has changed because Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia. I’d call this one a draw.
