I was already teething with annoyance at the one-sided, fanatical response to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presence at Colombia University on Monday. But after reading the nationalist dogma dripping from Joe Trovato’s Wednesday column “Ahmadinejad Invite Unpatriotic Insult”, I knew a merited response was in order.
Dissecting the basic flaw of Joe’s argument lacks little brainpower. In the opening paragraph he contends — rightly — that “This is America, and the fact that the Iranian president, an archenemy of our government, can come here on our soil and speak his mind is an example of our most fundamental freedom at work. This is the beauty of our great nation…”
How touching. Yet only several lines later, Joe blasts Colombia for extending the invitation to Ahmadinejad, stopping just short of labeling it treasonous and settling on a condemnation of the university as being “unpatriotic”.
First off, playing the “unpatriotic” card is a cop-out; an act of mudslinging that undermines constructive intellectual discourse. It is overly simplistic and rarely accurate, and the label has lost its flavor since Republicans used it as a rhetorical weapon to squash dissent following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. For many, patriotism amounts to blind and unquestioning obedience — actions which most people would not consider in-line with the values of this country.
To call Columbia unpatriotic for hosting Ahmadinejad is a complete contradiction. How can exercising America’s championed cherished right — its “most fundamental freedom” — be considered inherently un-American? I don’t think I could think of anything more American than an institution of higher education providing a free-speech forum for a controversial leader.
University officials certainly did not offer a warm welcome. Perhaps Joe missed the opening speech by Columbia president Lee Bollinger — an extended condemnation of the Iranian leader’s opinions, perceptions, and actions that effectively made him look like the world’s biggest asshole before he even took the podium. In highlighting Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust, he eloquently and forcibly stated “you are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.” Not a very gracious host.
As for Ahmadjinejad’s “opinions”, anyone who dubs the Nazis’ slaughter of European Jews in the 1940s a “myth” is clearly delusional. People tied to the Holocaust who hear such blasphemy are undeniably disgraced and insulted. Yet similar sentiments are shared by relatives of 9/11 victims when they are told by conspiracy theorists that their government is responsible for the death of their loved ones. Yet such outrage did not prevent Kevin Barrett from teaching a class at this university last fall that included a discussion of his views that 9/11 was orchestrated by U.S. officials — nor did people accuse UW of being “unpatriotic” in allowing him to teach. When the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater permitted Ward Churchill, who infamously classified victims of 9/11 as “little Eichmann’s”, to speak on campus despite nationwide cries for his head on a stick, no one questioned the patriotism of UW-Whitewater or its staff.
Of course, Americans’ pledge that everyone will be provided the opportunity to speak in no way means that everyone will listen. In all the media coverage and public protest against the Iranian president’s visit, virtually none bothered to look at the substantive content of his speech. What’s the point of exposing people to different perspectives and all that fuzzy warmth that forms the rhetorical backbone behind the First Amendment if no one bothers to actually listen to what people like Ahmadinejad have to say? It’s easy to discredit the Iranian leader’s words just because he’s a “bad guy”. But that doesn’t mean that all of his statements lack relevance in a world that is being increasingly shaped by perspectives and divided by misunderstanding, intolerance, a failure to communicate effectively.
Iran is a threat to the United States and the world at large — which gives credence to the idea that we should reign him in and challenge him, not shun him and adopt President Bush’s fatal tough-guy “You’re with us or against us” mentality. In no way does engaging the enemy betray our troops fighting overseas. Maybe if our political and diplomatic leaders did as good a job engaging world leaders as Columbia officials did, our military men and women would not be overseas in the first place.
