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Learning Moment

Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger just set a new academic standard. The university as a moral force, a leader in struggles for peace, freedom and justice. Here’s Bollinger’s speech, an exercise in stark clarity. Bollinger’s bio suggests this might be a bold new course for him.* So maybe he is shining a light, as academics are supposed to do, showing a new way forward.

Among the many parts I liked, is this part where in plain terms he calls Iran the enemy in Iraq, and asks A’jad why he’s supporting terrorists who kill American troops. How come everyone else seems to have such a hard time saying that?  

A number of Columbia graduates and current students are among the brave members of our military who are serving or have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.  They, like other Americans with sons, daughters, fathers, husbands and wives serving in combat, rightly see your government as the enemy. 

Can you tell them and us why Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq by arming Shi’a militia targeting and killing U.S. troops? 

More like that:   

 Twelve days ago, you said that the state of Israel “cannot continue its life.”  This echoed a number of inflammatory statements you have delivered in the last two years, including in October 2005 when you said that Israel should be “wiped off the map.” 

Columbia has over 800 alumni currently living in Israel.  As an institution we have deep ties with our colleagues there.  I personally have spoken out in the most forceful terms against proposals to boycott Israeli scholars and universities, saying that such boycotts might as well include Columbia.  More than 400 college and university presidents in this country have joined in that statement.  My question, then, is: Do you plan on wiping us off the map, too? 

Here, Bollinger calls on Ahmadinehad to choose whether he is a liar or an ignorant peasant:

In a December 2005 state television broadcast, you described the Holocaust as a “fabricated” “legend.”  One year later, you held a two-day conference of Holocaust deniers.

For the illiterate and ignorant, this is dangerous propaganda.  When you come to a place like this, this makes you, quite simply, ridiculous.  You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.   

You’re even embarrassing the French, Bollinger says. 

You continue to defy this world body by claiming a right to develop peaceful nuclear power, but this hardly withstands scrutiny when you continue to issue military threats to neighbors.  Last week, French President Sarkozy made clear his lost patience with your stall tactics; and even Russia and China have shown concern.

Why does your country continue to refuse to adhere to international standards for nuclear weapons verification in defiance of agreements that you have made with the UN nuclear agency?  And why have you chosen to make the people of your country vulnerable to the effects of international economic sanctions and threaten to engulf the world with nuclear annihilation?

Fascinating principle put forward here by Bollinger, a free-speech scholar:

… to be clear on another matter - this event has nothing whatsoever to do with any “rights” of the speaker but only with our rights to listen and speak.  We do it for ourselves. 

This part is pretty funny.  Total schoolyard:

… Frankly, and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions.  But your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us.  I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do.  Fortunately, I am told by experts on your country, that this only further undermines your position in Iran with all the many good-hearted, intelligent citizens there.  A year ago, I am reliably told, your preposterous and belligerent statements in this country (as in your meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations) so embarrassed sensible Iranian citizens that this led to your party’s defeat in the December mayoral elections.  May this do that and more.

Whole thing here. This is by any measure, a rude greeting to a guest, and A’jad was a little put out.

“In Iran, tradition requires when you invite a person to be a speaker, we actually respect our students enough to allow them to make their own judgment, and don’t think it’s necessary before the speech is even given to come in with a series of complaints to provide vaccination to the students and faculty.”

Translation:  You’d be off in a van before these words left my mouth, and so would your students if there was an squawking. 

Of course Ahmadinejad is, by any measure, no guest.  Were he not here under his protected status as leader of a United Nations member nation, he might be subject to arrest.  He was invited to Columbia, but Bollinger did make it clear he intended to call him an asshole.

Bollinger was clearly under tremendous national pressure to smack A’jad around a bit, and he rose to the occasion, saying to the martinet’s face what no one else has yet. At a time when there are demonstrators carrying signs that say, “Ahmadinejad is bad but Bush is worse,” Bollinger has stated exactly what Ahmadinejad represents.  Murder. Chaos. Lies. Oppression.  Pick your cause: The U.S. in Iraq, women’s rights, gay rights, free speech, democracy, Israel, genocide. Let’s make it simple: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Ahmadinejad is on the wrong side of it.

Clearly not all of Bollinger’s students were ready for this message.  But Bollinger has just made it more acceptable for professors to speak up, and may have shifted thinking somewhat within the Ivory Tower.  There is such a thing as unadulterated evil in the world about which it is not necessary to equivocate. For the rest of us ignoramuses, particularly those in Congress and the media, he has just clearly stated the case for military strikes to remove Iran’s ability to menace and meddle in the affairs of its neighbors.  When George Bush goes on the air to announce that air strikes are under way, he can read straight from Bollinger’s text. 

Some lessons for today.  Phony relativism and neutrality provide shelter for despots, and do not represent any kind of academic virtue. There are absolutes in this world. Despite the prevalence of PC free-speech restrictions and the promotion of distorted history and world views on American university campuses today, despite the role they have played in recent decades providing moral support and cover to brutal dictatorships, attempting to thwart legitimate efforts to advance the cause of freedom in the world, universities can still play an important and constructive role in the life of our nation.  But it takes bold, unflinching leadership.     

Let’s hope Bollinger himself is among those who have learned this lesson, and that he does in fact emerge as a leader. Bollinger’s Columbia bio is down for renovations, which is interesting.  Here’s Wikipedia. He’s a free-speech scholar who was “criticized for taking a neutral public position on controversies in 2004-5 regarding intimidation of students by professors in the Middle East Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) department alleged by the pro-Israel advocacy organization The David Project.”  Sounds like, in this case, he’s ditched the neutrality.

NY Sun: Teaching Moment. Great minds think alike.

Welcome Salon, etal.  Come on in.  What happens when a university president challenges deeply held principles of academia? Uh Oh. I wish I could tell you how they’re taking this in Iran, but no news is no news. Hang on, Iran just trotted out some Persian sockpuppets!War with Iran, no joking matter. OK, maybe it is. Check this out. Some Saudi chicks just did to the Sharia cops what Bollinger did to A’jad. Only they used pepper spray.  Sad news from the ‘Stan, where man’s best friend gives all. Hey, what are you watching this week … this magnificent failure?

Topics: Iran, academia

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:41 am on Tuesday, September 25, 2007

12 Responses to “Learning Moment”

1. Texas Bob Says:
   September 25th, 2007 at 9:24 am

   Today, looking over the corpse that once was American academia; I think I just saw its eye twitching. Perhaps it isn’t dead after all. Congratulations to President Bollinger for a speech well written and delivered. Right on target.

2. The_Real_JeffS Says:
   September 25th, 2007 at 9:34 am

   I liked the speech, but I am holding off on any congratulations. Academia may be twitching, but there are certainly diseased parts remaining. We’ll have to see how future treatments work.

3. Banjo Says:
   September 25th, 2007 at 10:07 am

   Bollinger will be kept busy in coming weeks explaining why he’s getting so many kudos from the right.

4. Barleymash Says:
   September 25th, 2007 at 10:45 am

   I applaud Bollinger’s gutsy and informed confrontation, but it also makes me a bit sad. I hate the fact that a petty martinet like Ahmadinejad has the courage to take questions from a hostile audience while our own president cowers amidst pre-screened sycophants as his lackeys hide protestors behind barricades and within “Free-Speech Zones.” (Have you ever heard of anything as un-American as a Free-Speech Zone? It’s despicable.) So to me, the question isn’t “Why did Columbia allow Ahmadinejad to speak?” After all, this is America. Most of us aren’t afraid of words. The question is “Why is OUR president, with the unimaginable power of the United States of America behind him, personally such an intellectual coward?” And, of course, why does our media put up with it?

5. tanstaafl Says:
   September 25th, 2007 at 11:27 am

   “He was invited to Columbia, but Bollinger did make it clear he intended to call him an asshole.”

   That was implicit in the invitation ?

   The venue was something like Columbia’s “world leaders” series, wasn’t it ?

   Prestigious.

   Lee Bollinger embarrassed me somewhat in prefacing A’jad’s remarks by virulently condemning an invited guest.

   (and nobody’s thinks A’jad’s a bigger asshole than I do)

6. tanstaafl Says:
   September 25th, 2007 at 11:45 am

   In some ways, I think it was good for some of the 600 in the room to see A’jad up close and personal.

   Kind of de-mystifying to see the dancing around and to hear some of the more absurd utterances straight out of his mouth

   A Columbia undergraduate (I think she was) who was in the room commented afterwards that the evil was “palpable”.

   One of the more interesting observations.

7. RebeccaH Says:
   September 25th, 2007 at 12:04 pm

   As satisfying as it is to think that Ahmadirtybird might have squirmed a little in front of that crowd, I seriously believe the man is impervious to criticism from infidels. Bollinger could as easily have given that speech in explaining why he would not invite a murdering, dictatorial criminal to speak at his university.

   As for the Pepper Spray Girls of Saudi Arabia, I hope the cell phone pictures get around the world like viral video.

8. RealClearPolitics - Blog Coverage Says:
   September 25th, 2007 at 12:42 pm

   Live-Blogging Ahmadinejad, Day 2

   Please read here for a full recap of yesterday’s event’s in NYC. Today, having made headlines with his speech at Columbia University, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad goes before the UN General Assembly to speak in the afternoon. Hot Air has…

9. The Thunder Run Says:
   September 25th, 2007 at 1:11 pm

   Web Reconnaissance for 09/25/2007

   A short recon of what�s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.

10. Robert Says:
    September 25th, 2007 at 2:24 pm

    Bollinger #$%&@ up in inviting Ahmadinnerjacket to Columbia in the first place. If what Bollinger said was true, ol’ dinnerjacket should be lying in the sun at Club Gitmo, not in NY spreading propaganda at a formerly distinguished university. Trying to bail himself out by speaking the “truth to power” just makes Bollinger look weird.

11. saltydog Says:
    September 25th, 2007 at 4:06 pm

    If Bollinger is such an expert on free speech, why does he misuse the concept to justify inviting Ahmamadman to Columbia in the first place. Nothing about free speech says that every person must be provided a microphone–paid for by those who disagree with him. What happened was that this man and his country was given the prestige and sanction of a major U.S. university.

    I appreciated Bollinger’s speech, but I agree that it could have been–indeed ought to have been–given on the occasion of his visit, without giving him sanction by giving him a platform. It’s bad enough that the man is allowed into he country (which is as good a reason as any to remove the UN from this country).

    Since it did happen, I’m glad to see that the vile little troll showed himself to be a vile little troll. I hope that there were students there who have brains enough left that they were able to see what was before them. I was disappointed to see, however, that the students were more upset by Bollinger’s supposed bad-manners, and the troll’s ridiculous assertion that Iran had no homosexuals, than they were about the more serious essentials of Iran’s evil.

    I am with Critter in hoping that other’s will draw some courage from Bollinger’s remarks.

12. materialist Says:
    September 25th, 2007 at 8:47 pm

    Bollinger failed to impress this academic. His diaribe strikes me as a evident piece of ass-covering, inappropriately delivered as a series of rude (albeit true) insults to an invited guest.

    Now let’s see how fast ROTC comes back and how soon the minutemen, and other Americans who just happen to have different opinions, are treated with respect at Columbia. Is anyone prepared to hold his breath while this “expert on free speech” causes it to be reincarnated at Columbia after being so dead so long under his stewardship?

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