Ahmadinejad at Columbia

On the floor of the Senate last Monday, Mitch McConnell spoke about the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Columbia University in this way: "Just think. A university that prides itself with its core curriculum on a free exchange of ideas, brings in this man to speak who is a champion of state-sponsored terror."

Hearing one of my elected representatives make a statement as dangerously illogical as Mr. McConnell's was not only infuriating, but heartbreaking. It is times like this -- times when we are confronted with people and ideas that we don't like -- that the polity really gets a good examination. Public controversies are like EKGs for the body politic -- our values are stressed and we get to see how healthy the democracy is.

And like it was during the McCarthy era, the prognosis is not so good. Like during the years after World War II, lately we've been overindulging in the meat and potatoes diet of fear and patriotism. No wonder it's getting harder and harder to exercise our rights.

But my public outrage at turning the word "freedom" into a misnomer is tendered with personal sadness. My uncle, Adrian Scott, was one of the so-called "Hollywood 10" -- the 10 writers, producers and directors who were called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1940s and 5'0s to answer questions about their allegiance to the Communist party. Whereas most people brought before HUAC pleaded the Fifth Amendment protecting them from self-incrimination, the Hollywood 10 all used the First Amendment, arguing that the committee had no right to question their political or religious affiliations. My uncle was sent to jail for that. In America. In the 20th century.

In my family, freedom isn't something whined about insipidly in the lines of a Lee Greenwood song. Freedom is something important enough to fight and die for. I learned about American freedom at Columbia University, where my father and mother also graduated. So this namby-pamby "core curriculum" that the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky likes to talk about as if it's a dirty word is one of the most important educational experiences of my life. And second, I grew up with stories of very specific speech acts met with very specific punishments -- and all in the name of some very non-specific ideas about what "Freedom" means.

There is the rhetorical rub: the capital-F-Freedom that President Bush and Lee Greenwood and Mitch McConnell drone on about when whipping us up to fight and die in Iraq. But it's the small-F freedoms, those places where the rubber hits the road, where Americans show themselves to be real freedom-lovers or just bumper-sticker owners.

As much as I'd like to pretend it isn't true, America was founded as a haven for, among other things, religious extremists. Georgian England wasn't having much of the Christian extremism being practiced, and so the New World provided both a religious and an economic freedom not found in Europe. (Rhode Island, I'm looking at you.) My favorite professor of my favorite core curriculum class at Columbia phrased it like this: the Bill of Rights was written negatively -- that is, its clauses were phrased in such a way to express that the government shall not infringe upon our rights to do this or that -- in order to define the limits of governmental power over the rights of individuals in the most concrete of terms.

And my professor continued, "It's easy to imagine fighting for the freedom to worship a Christian God, but that is not really where Jeffersonian democracy gets good." Where you really get into the meat of things is at Ku Klux Klan rallies, and hard core porn, and champions of state-sponsored terrorism.

What is scary about the visit of Ahmadinejad to Columbia is not that Jewish student groups are protesting his visit, or that some activists are making the horrifyingly simplistic assertion that Ahmadinejad is the "New Hitler." These activists are slow to learn that the market value of "New Hitler" goes down every time it is used on someone who says that they are against Israel.

But what is truly scary about Ahmadinejad at Columbia is the reaction of the public at large to his visit. One of my coworkers publicly argued that America shouldn't let the president of Iran speak because America is free, and free countries don't let terrorists speak. This is a horrifyingly common position among those lucky enough to have lived so far without having had their rights infringed.

Why does this never change? Why, after having made this very mistake after World War II, can Americans make the leap from capital-f-Freedom of bumper stickers and press conferences to the real, actual freedoms enjoyed in the present? Why don't we understand that our personal speech is protected only insofar as everyone's speech is protected?

To answer your implicit question, Mitch McConnell: Yes. A university such as Columbia whose core curriculum is based on the free and equal exchange of ideas usually does produce students who support the free and equal exchange of ideas. The unfortunate outcome of being educated by academics is that the one often comes out of academia with the idea that the public is best served with more information, and not less. Truth does not grow in isolation, but instead needs to be forged in the heat of debate.

This is what I learned from my uncle, and this is what I learned at Columbia. I am proud of both of them for putting into practice what others only preach.

Comments

[reformislam]

Muslims Against Sharia condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the decision of Columbia University to provide a speaking venue for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Apparently letting Akbar Rafsanjani speak at the National Cathedral was not the height of American Dhimmitude, because providing a venue for the world's foremost anti-Semite, whose proclaimed goal is the destruction of the USA and Israel, definitely takes the cake. What is surprising is that we don't hear any complaints from Columbia alumni who should be ashamed of their silence.

More on the subject:
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=38223
Why Does Columbia host Ahmadinejad?
http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2007/09/brilliant-commnetary-on-ahmadinejad.html
Absolutely The Most Brilliant Commentary on Ahmadinejad & Columbia (R-rated language)

[DrColes]

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already stated his “Mein Kampf” to the world; he is an enemy of the state to all non-Muslims nations. Does history have to repeat it self? http://tinyurl.com/2znnvl

[SamThornton]

Ahmadinejad is Iran's Bush, only not quite as stupid. He's Iran's punishment for acting like jerkoffs for the past 25 years.

[dzho]

Ben- We heard the terrorist pretty clearly on 9/11: do you suppose this is unrelated to our "choosing not to hear it" for the preceding decades?

[CarmanK]

Ahmadinejad is the elected representative of a middle eastern country and his reception as Columbia University was rude, ill mannered and beneath a really free society. He is only a threat to the US and Israel, to the measure that we allow him to be. And those who would shut him up, are like Bushies all rhetoric, no spine. If we had captured binLaden (dead or alive), would we be in Iraq? I doubt it. The people of 9/11 and that includes the living and the dead, have not received justice.
If we had captured binLaden would Hezbollah have attacked Israel or vice/versa? If Bush had captured binLaden, would we be the least bit concerned about Iran! I think not, because we would be working with the UN and others to make the peace. The mushroom cloud is the Bush/Cheney/Rice weapon against the American people. Tom Friedman said it yesterday. He will not vote for a Presidential candidate that is stuck on 9/11, we need a "New president" that begins anew on 9/12.

[laocoon]

people should only be allowed to speak if we generally approve of them. In a FREE country people with unpopular views should be silenced. Dont you liberals know what Freedom means.

[steven]

Well said Ms Scott, well said. I had a some what similar experience a while ago. Expressing my displeasure with wire tapping at a friends house, I was rebuffed with "You don't know how lucky you are that you can say such un-american... blah blah.
The gist of what I was told was; that I didn't have a right to use my rights, and the conversation ended with "they are taking God out of everything". It seems like discourse and critical thinking has been turned on it's head like with double speak from "1984" by Orwell. I seriously and regularly wonder if our country is heading off a cliff as Germany and many other societies have done in the past.

[Ben Dixon]

One of my coworkers publicly argued that America shouldn't let the president of Iran speak because America is free, and free countries don't let terrorists speak.

Who ever your co-worker is who said this has hit the nail on the head. Freedom can only flourish in a land of laws and civil discourse. Terrorism is none of these things. Yes in an ideal world a free society would allow everyone with differing ideas to sit down and rationally discuss things over a cup of tea. However, this is the real world and even free societies have the ability, the right, and the responsibility to come together as a collective and say "your ideas are so venomes, so contrary to ours that we choose not to hear it."

[steven]

By letting him speak and not putting him on the defensive, you allow him to hang himself if he is as big an ass hole that he has been portrayed as.

Further, if we are going to be that beacon of freedom to the world- then we will have to live up to it. It is like saying we are a nation of laws and then not living by those laws. It's very hard to be the good guys, but if we don't act like good guys- we won't be the good guys.

[AOGutierrez]

If you choose not to hear it how do you know an idea is venomous and contrary to ours? If you know that because you've already heard it and have come to the conclusion that it is is venomous and contrary to our ideas then you are no worse for having heard it. Perhaps the best thing is to let the idea be heard coming from the mouth of its originator so that it can fail to persuade others as it failed to persuade you.

Comments like this point up the worst sort of intellectual fear and cowardice and demean the courage to trust the innate powers of individual judgment that define democracy, in general, and the American experiment specifically. Let anyone speak. Let me decide for myself.

[Ben Dixon]

Point taken, everyone should have to listen to either the KKK or the Black Panthers at least once to know what they are saying. However, that dosn't mean we have to invite them in to our house and listen to them again and again and again and again.

[EspressoAtNoon]

People who are quick to censor are generally people who are trying to deceive. Censorers fear that if their opponent(s) are given an opportunity to verbally state their case, the censorers' deceptions may become evident.

It's very easy to demonize someone by selectively choosing and perhaps distorting soundbites, never letting him fully explain and articulate his positions.

It's very important to Zionists who want to see the U.S. invade Iran that this guy not be able to dispel some of his mischaract­erizations­.

[Hass]

Actually, we welcome terrorists and dictators to speak at places like Columbia, as long as they're "our" terrorists and dictators.

In comparison with his hostile accusations against Ahmadinejad, this is how Columbia's head Lee Bollinger welcomed Pakistani "President" Musharraf (who really IS a dictator who illegally seized power in coup d'etat in a nation that has been supporting and backing Osama bin Laden)

Bollinger: "President Musharraf is a leader of global importance and his contribution to Pakistan's economic turnaround and the international fight against terror remain remarkable - it is rare that we have a leader of his stature at campus"

More: http://www.iranaffairs.com/