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Ahmadinejad! (A Public Entry)
Sep. 24th, 2007 05:34 pmLook...I know that the Iranian "president" is a tinpot dictator--everyone knows that. But he is an intelligent man who is legitimately trying to make peace with the rest of the world while attempting to keep his country true to its own vision of leadership and culture. That leadership and culture are most definitely NOT something I or any Western democracy would ultimately support...but it is his country, and he can run it however the fuck he wants to.
And when you invite a dignitary of any sort to speak at your campus, YOU TREAT HIM WITH BASIC HUMAN RESPECT. Hey, I agree with many of the President of Columbia's statements regarding Ahmadinejad...but their delivery was highly, highly questionable. You DO NOT invite somebody to your University simply to cut him or her to ribbons. You let them speak, and then you hold a dialogue--which may get fierce and combative (I've had plenty of go-arounds with creationists in my time when they've come to speak at the university's where I've taught)...but must, MUST follow proper decorum and civility.
I will publicly state that I think what Columbia University did was more than a little wrong. It was a bear-baiting, nothing more. Admittedly, many of Ahmadinejad's statements were ludicrous, such as "We do not have homosexuals in our country." Don't bet on it, buster! It is right to laugh at ludicrous statements. But bringing the man to you campus simply to relentlessly attack him, when he has clearly announced that his purpose in coming there was to help relations between our countries, is just gauche.
But, unfortunately, it's also so, so typically American.
So I say to the American people who actually have a lick of sense: Let the guy be. Let him run his damned country however he wants--and laugh at his willfull blindness if you will--but treat him with respect. There's good reason the United States has always been viewed as a enemy state in the Middle East, and it has nothing to do with our ridiculous, knee-jerk support for Israel (a country that I, personally, would love to see eliminated just because its presence alone is so destabilizing).
The US is hated in the Middle East because our nation has a massive superiority complex when it comes to dealing with Third World nations. "We know what's best for you" sums up our entire foreign policy toward the Middle East since...well, forever. It's just a continuation of British Colonialism. Simply put: this is bullshit. The only people who know what's best for their country are the citizens of that country themselves. That doesn't mean we can't criticize them, attempt to educate them, embargo them if need be, and so forth...but to tell other countries how to run themselves is the same thing as telling other people how to live their lives. No one wants some asshole standing over you demanding that, say, you wear a rainbow afro wig every day of your life to show that you're a True American, right? Well, standing over a Middle Eastern country and telling them "You will be a US-style democracy or we will make you do it" is really not that different.
The goddamned world--America in particular--needs a massive dose of civility. And when the leader of a Third World hellhole whose people are forbidden to wear jeans because they are "un-Islamic" comes off as ten times more civil than the citizens of one of the most powerful, culturally-permissive, and generically "free" nations in the world, then guess what people? Something stinks at home, not over in Iran.
And when you invite a dignitary of any sort to speak at your campus, YOU TREAT HIM WITH BASIC HUMAN RESPECT. Hey, I agree with many of the President of Columbia's statements regarding Ahmadinejad...but their delivery was highly, highly questionable. You DO NOT invite somebody to your University simply to cut him or her to ribbons. You let them speak, and then you hold a dialogue--which may get fierce and combative (I've had plenty of go-arounds with creationists in my time when they've come to speak at the university's where I've taught)...but must, MUST follow proper decorum and civility.
I will publicly state that I think what Columbia University did was more than a little wrong. It was a bear-baiting, nothing more. Admittedly, many of Ahmadinejad's statements were ludicrous, such as "We do not have homosexuals in our country." Don't bet on it, buster! It is right to laugh at ludicrous statements. But bringing the man to you campus simply to relentlessly attack him, when he has clearly announced that his purpose in coming there was to help relations between our countries, is just gauche.
But, unfortunately, it's also so, so typically American.
So I say to the American people who actually have a lick of sense: Let the guy be. Let him run his damned country however he wants--and laugh at his willfull blindness if you will--but treat him with respect. There's good reason the United States has always been viewed as a enemy state in the Middle East, and it has nothing to do with our ridiculous, knee-jerk support for Israel (a country that I, personally, would love to see eliminated just because its presence alone is so destabilizing).
The US is hated in the Middle East because our nation has a massive superiority complex when it comes to dealing with Third World nations. "We know what's best for you" sums up our entire foreign policy toward the Middle East since...well, forever. It's just a continuation of British Colonialism. Simply put: this is bullshit. The only people who know what's best for their country are the citizens of that country themselves. That doesn't mean we can't criticize them, attempt to educate them, embargo them if need be, and so forth...but to tell other countries how to run themselves is the same thing as telling other people how to live their lives. No one wants some asshole standing over you demanding that, say, you wear a rainbow afro wig every day of your life to show that you're a True American, right? Well, standing over a Middle Eastern country and telling them "You will be a US-style democracy or we will make you do it" is really not that different.
The goddamned world--America in particular--needs a massive dose of civility. And when the leader of a Third World hellhole whose people are forbidden to wear jeans because they are "un-Islamic" comes off as ten times more civil than the citizens of one of the most powerful, culturally-permissive, and generically "free" nations in the world, then guess what people? Something stinks at home, not over in Iran.
