Roger L. Simon: Roll on, Columbia, Roll On

As most readers know, those worldly "progressives" [sic] at Columbia University are hosting a speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after the Iranian president addresses the thugocrats and parking violators in the General Assembly. Freedom of speech, doncha know? At Columbia it evidently extends to Holocaust deniers and adherents of the belief that global chaos will bring on the Mahdi (Shiite messiah).

I have a question for the Columbia crowd, since Holocaust deniers are welcome, would you allow a speaker in favor of a return to black slavery? I hope not. Well, that's how I feel about Holocaust deniers.

What are the speaker rules at Columbia? Does anybody know? How far can you go? Please leave the info here, if you have it.

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I'm pretty sure that Columbia will not allow any and all Holocaust deniers to speak there. They have standards - you have to also be a "death to america" type.

I suspect that the "death to america" qualification is actually the more significant. If you've got that, they don't care what else you've done - you're their (wo)man.

I can't help contrasting this with UC Davis rescinding their invitation to Larry Summers. Something tells me that Columbia and Davis are pretty similar in their world view and tolerance levels, and if Ahmadinejad had been invited to Davis, I really wonder if Maureen Stanton and the other petitioners would have been nearly as offended. Seems doubtful.

Ok, cynical analysis. When Israel started defending itself, Jews stopped being a liberal/Leftist victim class. Shortly thereafter they became an oppressor class. Blacks, however, are still a victim class.

So the Left will happily host a Holocaust denier, and attack anyone who even jokes about black slavery - by whites. Blacks enslaving Blacks (or Arabs enslaving Blacks) goes down the memory hole.

As an alumnus of the College (76-77), I put nothing past the current residents and management (if that is the term) of my old school. Most of the senior occupants consist of a group that still is waving their "manhood (Sexhood?)" at their soon to be dead parents, failing to realize that when trying to relive their youth after the age of 45, they run the risk of being cranky and crazed old men and womyn (not a typo). Given that many heroically speak truth to power from tenured positions, this is a pathetic picture. And don't discount careerism: agreeing with all around you helps when undergoing peer reviews.

Their younger acolytes are often a combination of the angry-in-need-of-therapy, un-tenured suck ups looking for votes, and the type of self important, exhibitionist students who will parrot whatever teacher says. And feel very brave and noble about it.

Finally never underestimate the power of peer pressure: many years ago three was a well known experiment where a subject was placed with a group of four planted researchers. A symbol was displayed with the group having to verbally identify the symbol (square, triangle, etc.). the subject was usually placed last or second to last in the order. At a given point the group would begin identifying circles as oblongs, squares as triangles, etc. this often led to extreme anxiety by the subject, and often went to the subject agreeing with the other viewers and BELIEVING it.

This helps explain why many don't bother to counter demonstrate: for them college is a short term trial to be gotten through, they have their own thoughts and don't want to be subjected to group pressure or castigation, or face the real penalties of truly speaking truth to power: witness what happened to students who stood up to an of the Gang of 88 at Duke: failing grades, law suits, etc. As a strong conservative - semi libertarian when it wasn't popular, I can tell you it ain't easy.

I think that James Taranto had it right. He had a wonderful reductio ad absurdum conclusion from this invitation.

I don't understand why the U.S. government has given him visa rights to do anything outside of his U.N. functions.

Does President Bollinger really believe that by asking Ahmadinejad "hard questions" he is suddenly going to have an epiphany and renounce his call for the destruction of Israel? The truth of the matter is that Bollinger is on an ego trip. He wants to be seen as a player in international politics. He is looking for his 15 minutes of fame. Look at me I am so important that I was able to get the President of Iran to speak at Columbia. People are being kind when they call President Bollinger a fool.

That is part of the insanity. These folks do believe that "if I could only talk to him" there could be an understanding that would resolve the conflict and change the course of history.

Ahmadinejad seeks an apocalyptic end to the world as we know it. It is a primary driver behind his quest to obtain nuclear weapons - that he plans to use on Israel, the US and maybe Europe. After all, we are in what is known as dar al-Har.

LTEC, you are suggesting common sense. If you have no guiding principles and can't distinguish good from evil or right from wrong, then why not let Ahmadinejad speak.

The sad part is that people will actually go to hear him and be persuaded by his insanity.

Sam, I understand the pragmatism. Here's the blinding glimpse of the obvious solution. Get rid of tenure.

There's a distinction between whom they will ALLOW to speak and whom they will INVITE. They are SPONSORING the man, not just permitting some fringe group to invite him.

Here's the deal. If you're the U.S. armed forces (including ROTC of course) then you're not welcome because you don't let out gays join up. However, if you're the Iranian regime and you outlaw homosexuality and kill gays by hanging them from the end of cranes and slowly strangling them, then you get the red carpet treatment. Lee Bollinger is pumped up about both sides of it.

Didn't Columbia kick Evan Coyne Maloney off campus for asking around about the then-(still?)-current Middle Eastern Studies chairman, who said some openly and virulently anti-semetic stuff?

I think it's worth it to start taking down the names of Ahmadinejad's supporters and well-wishers now, so that we'll remember who we're dealing with when he nukes Israel. They'll be quick to distance themselves once he fulfills the rhetoric they're applauding.

Barret: That is part of the insanity. These folks do believe that "if I could only talk to him" there could be an understanding that would resolve the conflict and change the course of history.

Lest we forget, this guy isn't just a Holocaust denier, he is someone who according to our Generals, is funding and arming our enemies who are killing our soldiers. There are claims that he also was one of the militants who stormed our embassy in 79. He continues to threaten to use nukes to wipe out Israel. He is our enemy. Would these people have Hitler and Stalin come speak at Columbia?

I don't get what the big deal is. Columbia's SIPA is a school dedicated to the study of international relations and politics. Ahmedinajad is one of the most important political leaders in the world. This is a unique opportunity for students of IR to meet a controversial and important practitioner, and their doing so will ultimately BENEFIT the US by assisting in the intellectual development of the next generation of our leadership. You may not like the guy - but that's beside the point in this case.

Medical Students should never actually cut open a human cadaver during their training.
Law Students should never actually observe a Court trial while they're in school.
Law Enforcement students should never handle a gun until they're cops.
Students of Physics should not go see a super collider until they have a Doctorate.

And students of international politics should never actually engage with international politicians, particularly not ones that may be a good study is problem regimes. The should only hear speeches from our homegrown politicians. Don't want them being exposed to reality or anything.

That's not a bad idea dclydew. As long as they get to do an actual autopsy on him afterwards, I am all for having Ahmadinejad speak at Columbia.

Why would anyone think that only by hearing him in person will one get this great insight into his personality that cannot be obtained in any other way? Please explain to me what will be gained other than given such a despicable person a forum to spew his hate. Clearly the current diplomats that have heard him in person haven't been able to change his views.

The problem with the "engagement" argument is that the folks involved are rather "selective" of their "engagement".

eurojosh and dlydcw: I really wish what either of you described was actually the case here.

The problem isn't with Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia, or with contrasting the strength of our culture's fearless approach to inquiry and dialogue with his backward, closeminded paranoia -- especially since nothing like it would ever occur were the parties reversed and George Bush were to visit Iran.

That isn't what's up here. Bollinger's stunt is just another one-way street demonstration of the Western intellectual class' bottomless naivete and capacity for self-delusion when it comes to charlatans and gangsters posing as statesmen and men of the people -- all of it presented as olive branch-bearing mangnanimity.

What Bollinger and other hothouse flowers in the West who think of themselves as exquisitely culturally sensitive don't understand is that their reflex projection of admirable Western notions of concilliation, concession and compromise are perceived in the more Hobbesian precincts of our planet as weaknesses and invitations to aggression.

It took me a decade and a half doing business in the developing world to learn this -- the hard way.

But perhaps Bollinger knows this, and his guest is just another tool in the political Left's endless struggle against the West, or another wet towel to snap at the Bush Admninistration.

Well, actually it might be rather amusing to have Ahmedinejad go into one of his full spittle-spraying nuke-the-jooos Amerikka-the-great-Satan return-of-the-Twelfth-Imam death-to-gays Islam-uber-alles diatribe in front of an audience of American students and the usual academic tools. Especially if they dimly begin to percieve that he really means every word.
It might get really interesting. Kind of like a mongoose in a whole pit of cobras; Lots of squirming involved.
As I said, it might get really interesting.

Be careful what you wish for. Since this is Columbia, there is always the possibility that they will give him a standing ovation.

"...Since this is Columbia, there is always the possibility that they will give him a standing ovation."

Well, if he does go into full rant-on, and gets a standing ovation at Columbia it might be quite a wake-up call all the way around, and not just inside the auditorium, either.

LarryD.."Weren't there people who thought the same about Hitler, back before WWII?"

U.S. Senator William Borah, speaking right after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939:

"Lord, if I could only have talked with Hitler, all this might have been avoided."

I agree. Our "admirable Western notions of concilliation, concession and compromise are perceived in the more Hobbesian precincts of our planet as weaknesses and invitations to aggression."

The argument that you need to hear him in person to gain insight is ridiculus. He is just getting a forum to disseminate his evil hatred. He will answer questions with the same double talk, evasive manner as always. Do you think he does not know that he will be asked the women and gay questions? In the end, the libs will chalk it up to cultural misunderstanding versus manipulative, lying, conniving, calculated behavior. We already know what he is - evil. Should we all try heroin so we have firsthand experience to know the stuff will kill you? This is not about free speech.

My view is that simply entertaining Ahmadinejad gives him a certain stature he does not deserve. If he was allowed at Ground Zero, he would be praising Allah under his breath and swearing to inflict one thousand times or more damage on the US if he can.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Yzg5YmI0MDhjZTlhZTA3MjNkMTFhNDUxZjRmYjFiZWY=

September 20, 2007: Roll on, Columbia, Roll On

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