Smartest Man in the Room
Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia University has been getting an incredible amount of attention in the media, political and activist circles around the country. As someone who was born in Iran and lived in Tehran for 17 years, I want to give you my assessment of how I believe Ahmadinejad's visit will be viewed elsewhere in the world with the main conclusion that as he said his goodbyes to the audience in the university's hostile environment, one thing became clear: regardless of what you may think of his values (or lack thereof), he proved to be the savviest person in the room.
Let's begin with the massive protests. It was no surprise that there were thousands of people in the streets of New York protesting unconditional freedom of speech and his right to speak his mind. He knew that the city was home to over two million Jews, and that he would face massive protests. But that is precisely the martyr-like image that he was intending to create. Standing on that stage after a hostile introduction by the Columbia University president and in the face of thousands of protesters may have made him look lonely and illegitimate in the West. But to the eyes of many around the world, he looked like a hero and someone who was speaking what they are likely to consider "the truth" in the face of a bully. On August 31, this blogger wrote that one of the main reasons why the United States has not effectively addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and vetoed 47 UN Security Council Resolutions against Israel (14 under Bush II, 7 under Clinton, 7 under Bush I, and 19 under Reagan) is the strength of Jewish lobby in America and "the willingness of millions of Jews in America, including many liberal ones who normally support sensible foreign policies, to roll over, make an exception, keep silent and even vocally cheerlead America's support for the Israeli occupation." Massive protests in New York very much reinforced that assertion as almost all of the signs related to Iran's nuclear program and none relating to its actual human rights violations. I would have had a lot more admiration for the protesters if they focused more on Iran's primary crimes on women, youth, homosexuals, Baha'is and political dissenters instead of a predicted imaginary military attack against Israel that has not happened. Iranians will watch the protests and see that the main concern of the American people is not the oppression of Iranians, but Ahmadinejad's anti-Israel rhetoric.
The president of Columbia's criticisms of Ahmadinejad's crimes before his speech was very constructive. But Bollinger did the cause of free speech and America's image in the Middle East a great deal of disservice when he went on for almost 19 minutes name-calling Ahmadinejad before allowing him to speak and not really thanking him for accepting Columbia's invitation to speak. Ahmadinejad scored a second point when he criticized the Columbia president for giving the audience what he called a "vaccination" before Ahmadinejad had a chance to speak. He said that in Iran, they allow students and professors to freely exchange ideas without instructing them how they should feel about things. That, of course, cannot have been farther from the truth. Nonetheless, many in the room related to his argument, promoting the students to applaud, hence ridiculing those who introduced him. It is understandable why Columbia would be inclined to give such an introduction to defuse some of the pressure that was asserted on the university due to massive criticisms of the institution for allowing Ahmadinejad to speak. But he went too far, which gave Ahmadinejad the opportunity to successfully attack back and score some sympathy.
But the most tragic part of the event was the Q and A segment. The Iranian regime is as vulnerable with regards to its domestic policies as America is with regards to its foreign policy and war in Iraq. It is true that Iran has occasionally funded various groups that have been hostile to U.S. interests. But the United States has done the very same thing to Iran and much more. An example which Ahmadinejad pointed out to was Reagan's sales of weapons to Saddam, which he used against in Iran for eight years. I can still vividly remember the sound of sirens, duct taped living room windows and American-funded air strikes.
And yet, most of Bollinger's questions focused on Iran's foreign policies. By keeping the focus on international issues, Columbia gave him an easy way to turn the conversation around time and again and criticize American policy. One question was why Iran was enriching uranium, which Bollinger naively ended with "would you stop?" And why should they stop? There is no evidence that they are building a bomb, they are a member of the NPT, which gives them the right to enrich uranium, and their two main open enemies -- Israel and America -- both possess nuclear weapons, with the former not being a member of NPT and the latter breaking its rules by not moving toward the treaty's ultimate goal: elimination of all nuclear weapons.
Many Iranians hoped that Columbia would take this opportunity to keep the focus of questions on Iran's brutal domestic policies. And yet, of the five or six questions that were asked, astonishingly, only one related to human rights, with women and homosexuals put together in one question as if they didn't deserve their own individual questions. But for the most part, the questions that were asked of him were significantly superficial. This is not because questions with regards to anti-Israel and anti-American rhetoric aren't important. But rather, they are nothing new! Iran has been issuing such empty rhetoric since the Islamic revolution in 1979. Yet that's what they have been: empty rhetoric for domestic consumption, not an official policy declaration. But human rights crimes, stoning of women for infidelity, arresting unmarried people for dating or holding hands in public and killing homosexuals for being have been going on for almost three decades. As someone who was arrested in Tehran at age 16 for the crime of being on a date, I can attest to that fact. Here are some questions Bollinger should have asked: Will you allow women to have the right to initiate divorce from their husbands or obtain a passport without the consent of their husbands? Will you allow boys and girls to date or go to school together? Do you promise that the people in Iran can be safe in publicly criticizing you or the Supreme Leader Khomeini? Will you guarantee people's rights to wear whatsoever clothing they choose in public? Will you allow people to convert away from Islam to other religions? Would you support a free UN-administered referendum for your people to vote on whether they want an Islamic republic or a secular democratic republic? If yes, will you respect its outcome?
Without asking these significant questions or any meaningful understanding of more than 2,500 years of Iranian history, Columbia provided an environment for Ahmadinejad to criticize American policy, divert every viewer's attention from the country's brutalities and oppression and play to the audience's idealist beliefs that scored him more applauses than any meaningful challenge to his stance and record on issues that mattered the most.
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Their law
Their culture
Their business
They had a popular revolution to make Iran this way. If they want a different Iran they will have another one.
I don’t like many things about American culture. Should I tell you what you need to change? Would you appreciate that?
Would someone please tell me why Iran is singled out for this criticism when many other Islamic countries are the same as Iran? Saudi Arabia is much worse (in western eyes) but they are hardly ever criticised. It least women can work, drive and go out of the house unchaperoned in Iran.
Could it be this whole thing is nothing to do with human rights and more about another attempt to destabilise another government.
Could it be the pot calling the kettle black. There are and always will be people who deny the holocaust. And they live in the United States. I really can't see much to crticize Iran for re cutting off heads. Until fairly recently Americas used to blow them off with massive amounts of electricity. Lately the world has come to view the United States as barbaric, violent and cruel. Homosexuals are not well treated in America. Remember the young man who was beaten and left hanging on a fence til he died. Not a nice thing. Look at the response to Craig's pecadillo.
"I really can't see much to crticize Iran for re cutting off heads"
Yes, they're "barbaric" because they chop off your head, while we're "Civilized" because we use needles instead. (And I don't know if we still do, but we used to use poison gas on some of our citizens, too).
I have a friend from the ME who once explained his puzzlement at our view of whipping as a legal punishment, which we consider "barbaric". The way he put it:
If you get whipped, you suffer a lot of pain and humiliation, and you need to take a couple of days off from work to recover. But when it's all over and done with, you can go back to your job, get on with your life - and you damned well aren't going to do it again!
With our system, you get sent to jail, lose your livelihood (and the livelihood of your dependents) suffer humiliation and degradation, and when you look at recidivism, it's not very effective - the prison system tends to promote (through association and poverty) rather than deter repeat offenders.
Which system is really more humane? More civilized?
excellent post. i have one comment. iran is a sharia state. all of your complaints are acceptable under the laws of the state. why aren't you in iran giving your life for your unalienable rights as a human, as an iranian? i would ask the same thing of americans regarding the events of the past 6 and a half years in the USA. what's it gonna take to stand up and fight for what's yours?
Mr. Sedaei -- I appologize for my typo earlier in your last name. Peace.
Mr. Sadaei ~ Thank you for your perspective. We need more intelligent viewpoints from those that have lived and suffered under all repressive governments. Unfortunately, we live in a world where most information piped out to the people is contaminated from the start, with fallacies and bias. Objective critical thinking is painful for many because it requires intellectual integrity. It challenges the individual, the institution, state, etc. Tainted information becomes rant, doomed policy, and more tragic classical entertainment on a global scale. You would think we would have learned more from the Greeks. Thanks for listening to the obvious.
As you have lived in Iran it would be interesting to ask you why you would move to the country that is most associated with Middle East turmoil, whether it be Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine. Also some effect (slack) has to be calculated in for the fact that Iran is now a Sharia Moslem led nation (because of U.S. interference in the 50s). As well The Iranian President may be head of state but he has about as much political power as the Queen of England, in effect none! So he can spout all the verbiage he wants and can still not be held responsible for what Iran may or may not do. As well unfortunately (and one of the reasons I don't read or listen to the MSM anymore) he has been misinterpreted many times in his comments about Israel or other Middle East problem areas. He did not say that Israel should be wiped off the map, he said it should disappear in the sands of time. That to me at least means that the people of Israel should finally realize that the only way they are going to be able to live in peace in the Middle East is to make an accomodation with the original Palestinians. By that I mean all peoples of the area, Zionists and Palestinians create a new entity which belongs to all. Impossible ? I don't think so and neither does the Iranian President.
I agree that one serious problem we have is the (deliberate, I feel) misinterpretation of his remarks in translation.
How many times have you heard that he is a "Holocaust Denier"? Yet I haven't found a statement he has made that actually says the holocaust didn't happen. The closest I could find was a statement to the effect that "The Holocaust does not give Israel the right to do whatever they want to anyone in the region". Please, if I'm wrong, point me to a link. Also, he never said that Israel should be wiped off the map, he said the Israeli GOVERNMENT should disappear into the sands of time. Perhaps he should have just taken a page from Bush and said it's time for a "Regime Change" in Israel.
While I admit that it's difficult to translate some of this stuff accurately, it seems that not only are we not trying, the US media is deliberately distorting his words and boiling them down into carefully-spun sound bites.
Why should we expect him to provide meaningful discourse (rather than propaganda) if he knows his words are just going to be twisted to suit our ends?
We Americans tend to be very shortsighted when it comes to any wrongdoings carried out as public policy. For example, refer only to the CIA's active participation in overthrowing the democratically elected president and placing the puppet Shah in his place, while at the same time instructing in the creation of the Iranian secret police agency. The situation finally boiled over with the siege of the U.S. embassy and relations with Iran have plummeted ever since. Together with other European nations, we have for a very long time left huge unwelcomed footprints all over the Middle and Near East and the chickens have finally come home to roost. As long as we continue to play the part of the offended virgin and refuse to confront our missteps in foreign affairs, the confrontations will continue.
Not only have we, the US, demonstrated to the world that we are hypocritical fools, we have also shown that we are bigoted assholes. I'd say the president of Iran accomplished his mission in spades with his visit to New York.
Not that I like him any more than Saddam, but if we cannot engage him on an intellectual platform and show that we are capable of entertaining his assertions and then rejecting them on solid moral and intellectual grounds, do we really have a leg to stand on?
Can we really tell him that his country needs to become more like the US, given what is happening here and in Iraq? Don't forget which countries have been bearing the burden of the flood of refugees that have been pouring out of Iraq, and which countries have the most to gain or lose from the eventual outcome of the FUBAR that is known as the US War In Iraq.
There is no doubt that his performance has succeeded in the eyes of the audience he was playing to. Will we ever get intelligent leadership back in this country, or are we to remain a salivating, unthinking horde from now on?
Can we ever get anything beside a media slut or a fence post for a president again? Ahmadinejad's offer to debate Bush would be laughable, if it wasn't our leader that was the one that was too inarticulate to introduce himself, let alone debate the fate of the world.
Somehow, I am reminded of trying to hold a handful of sand while standing in the surf.
Thanks for the clear-headed viewpoint expressed in your post. People are getting tasered for their opinions. You can't get a word in edgewise on the Bill O'Reiley show. Why Columbia University President Bollinger would give a lecture to preface a debate is to cover himself from attack by some of the groups present.
Bush doesn't have to face hecklers - he has "free-speech zones" set up so that protesters in America are not seen on TV expressing dissent.
At UCI we see the same cowardice and pandering to the right wing in the firing of Professor Chemerinsky before he even assumed his duties as a Dean of the new law school. Again, a group of right-wingers was behind that, although Chemerinsky is a distinguished Constitutional Law expert according to all in the legal profession.
At UCLA during the sixties and seventies, I never saw such behavior by the Chancellor or the President of the University despite the student riots and a major cultural war resulting from the illegal war in Vietnam.
Bollinger can't have it both ways - either ban the speaker or let him speak. How parochial and pedagogical has college become. Maybe the little kids should just stay home with Mamma and go to McDonalds with their Walkmans and Playstations. This is a University, Dammit.
Amen.
You are correct. Except for the initial wet noodle bashing from Bollinger (so pathetic) this QA was about as stimulating as having tea with one's grandmother. And their applause...now that spoke volumes, much more so than any of their inane questions.
But no doubt in time Columbia students & faculty will improve their skills when it comes to entertaining the enemy. They do seem motivated...
A most excellent post, thank you for your insight.
Many of my friends were taken in by Amadinejad's promotion of logic and reason. But to promote logic and to extoll reason is not the same as possessing them.
There were many holes in his rationale, and the ludicrous tone of the forum, as established by the host, allowed the man to contradict himself in so many ways. It's as if he knew he had a free ride with these charlatans, and could spew out fallacies unchallenged.
He should have been grilled directly on his policies and intolerance, rather than insulted. If we had treated him politely, but with criticism, it would have made us look bigger. Instead, he came off as a victim.
This was a great assessment of the events. It is wise to look at things objectively. Some conservatives feel that putting yourself in someone elses shoes is the first step towards giving in. This is not true. We can keep our values while understanding all sides of an argument or conflict. In this small world, if we don't look at things from the perspective of others we are doomed.
This blog by Sam Sedeai is much more informative than Ahmadinejad's public speaking or ANY American talking head's BS.
Thank you for the information.
have a nice day :D xxoo SI
Watching the debacle unfold yesterday, I was thinking that Bollinger obviously does not trust the intelligence and ability to debate of his students. Otherwise, he would not felt the need to introduce an invited guest speaker with insults.
He would have felt confident that his students would have learned enough about the Iran regime to ask the right questions about human rights and to pose the right follow-up questions.
But then I thought, that there are no journalists in the American mainstream media, who are able to pose the right questions and to follow up, not regarding if the interview the president of Iran or the U.S.
So obviously American universities do not teach their students the right information to enter these kinds of debates, so Bollinger had to do what all politicians are doing: Tell the people what they have to think.
The big result of the whole debacle then was the homosexuality remark. Well, if a senator of the U.S. has to troll public restrooms to get some homosexual loving for fear of exposure, this country is certainly not much superior to a country, which denies homosexuality completely. Both countries are products of religious extremist groups forcing their views on everybody.
It does not matter if you raise your hands or your behinds to heaven to pray, discrimination is always wrong.
Like the other commenters said, this guy is one savvy politician who managed to keep answering questions with questions - however, I agree that we (as a collective) lost out on the chance to really ask him the tough ones. Why? Are we worried about offending or upsetting him? Isn't it a little too late for that?
Iran's domestic issues are Iran's problems, and the US certainly doesn't have the "moral authority" to confront Iran on any of those issues. The Christian right is as much against women and gays as any right wing Iranian, and if it were in power it would do just as much damage. In fact, neither Iran's domestic issues nor the bogus issues of Israel should have been the focus, but rather how the two nations could begin to work together.
Free women or we bomb Teheran? You mean that's not an intelligent foreign policy? Um, no.
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