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[jtsmr]

I'm sure there're many opinions on the soon-to-be-made appearance of President (I feel strange using the term) Ahmadinejad at Columbia University sponsored by the Near/Mid East Studies department there.

Dershowitz made some interesing commentary this morning in reference to this farce:

a: This will be a public relations coup for Ahmadinejad

b: Columbia University is an EXTREMELY leftist university

c: Ahmadinejad will seize this as an opportunity to propagandize every question asked of him.

d: Columbia University has been known to be Judeophobic, anti-Israel and has been known to fail students if they made any counterviews than the University's.

e: Columbia University has never invited a Prime Minister of Israel.

f: Ahmadinejad has forebad women to attend soccer matches or even to smoke.

Free speech does not exist in Muslim countres that I'm aware of.  I lived in Turkey for a while. And I can't say it exists there, too many stories of imprisoned journalists; and I know a few Turkish journalists who can make your hair stand on end with their stories. Does Ahmadinejad understand free speech or is he, like many Muslims, taking advantage of Western traditions to advance his own world view? 

Why give this motherf***er a platform to demonstrate his narrow thinking? to promote a credibility???

Americans are so goddamn stupid in this regard, liberal Americans I should say.  Americans have this warped notion that because they inherently feel their values are correct, freedom of expression or freedom to dissent, that non-Americans will somehow cherish and regard in the same way these values.  WHAT A FOOL Bollinger is!!  Ahmadinejad couldn't care less about our cherished insitutions but will only use them to make Americans look foolish and gullible, a man whose regime exports terrorism!  For godssake folks, wake up!!

And I don't see a contradiction in having Ahmadinejad interview on 60 minutes!  It's a journalistic/magazine program whose purpose is to provide as much "hard" and/or investigative NEWS as possible.  Having someone who DOES NOT share your institutional values but mocks them in preference for a theological model, his right I suppose you Americans would say, is intellectual maschocism.

Perhaps Nortre Dame was right in refusing Tarik Ramadan a visa as Visiting Professor at its university.  And Ramadan, I've read him, is a lot less blunt than Ahmadinejad.  He is more cleve.  Notre Dame realized that.

You have to draw the line in the sand folks.  Boundaries, even intellectual ones, exist whether they're recognized or not.

[prytania3]

Eddie Said was a prof at Columbia, so what's your point?

[jtsmr]

Eddie Said was a prof at Columbia, so what's your point?

Who said anything about "Eddie" Said?  Will there be a medium preceeding or following Ahmadinejad with her Ouija board to summon the dead Said?  I'm unclear.

[mrbreeze]

Having someone who DOES NOT share your institutional values but mocks them in preference for a theological model, his right I suppose you Americans would say, is intellectual maschocism.

No, it is called democracy and listening to the other side's viewpoint. The invitation says a lot about a government and a system in the US that does some really stupid things in the world (e.g. Iraq) but at least, it does not control its educational institutions.

Quit the hysterics and the fanaticism. This is not Fox News.

MRB

[larryc]

I would not have given the little rat f*cker a platform for his views. But I will defend the right of Columbia University to do so. We have become way too comfortable with restricting speech in this country in recent years.

[prytania3]

Eddie Said was a prof at Columbia, so what's your point?

Who said anything about "Eddie" Said?  Will there be a medium preceeding or following Ahmadinejad with her Ouija board to summon the dead Said?  I'm unclear.

I just remember when Columbia students were all in an uproar over Said because he was in the PLO. He left and they wanted him back.

The guy is speaking. Free speech. Get it?

[ptprof]

How does this not violate Columbia's Hate Speech policies?

[rockprof]

Columbia is a bit disingenuous in claiming they are big supporters of free speech when Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist was physically chased off a stage there by protesting students in October of 2006.  He was an invited speaker of the Columbia College Republicans.  I don't believe students were disciplined for this.  He was also invited to come this year and Columbia rescinded his invitation.

Some of the most intolerant people I know are radical leftists.  Unfortunately, those people seem to be running Columbia University.

[jtsmr]

Having someone who DOES NOT share your institutional values but mocks them in preference for a theological model, his right I suppose you Americans would say, is intellectual maschocism.

No, it is called democracy and listening to the other side's viewpoint. The invitation says a lot about a government and a system in the US that does some really stupid things in the world (e.g. Iraq) but at least, it does not control its educational institutions.

Quit the hysterics and the fanaticism. This is not Fox News.

MRB

You have got to be kidding?!  What continues to fascinate me about Americans is their "feel good" naivete, their liberal quest to be "good", "saintly" and the other s*** they force onto other peoples because they inherently know what is "good" for other tradtions.  You see, Mr.breeze, you don't see the disservice you're committing by suggesting "other sides should speak" because of what you refer to as a democracy?  Why do Americans imply that this is "correct"? that others "need" it?  Hence, the quagmire called Irak. Why do you people do this?  Please expalin.  Does Ahmadinejad comprehend American democracy? Does he?  Or is he a tangible, physical form of "hate speech"?  And are you suggesting that true, practiced democracy should be tolerant of intolerance, hatemongers?  Love our enemies?

Would you also, btw, think that hanging nooses in campus trees is freedom of expression, dissent?  Within the rights of the Bill of Rights? Hate speech?

Please expalin. It is too red, white and blue for me.

[jtsmr]

Columbia is a bit disingenuous in claiming they are big supporters of free speech when Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist was physically chased off a stage there by protesting students in October of 2006.  He was an invited speaker of the Columbia College Republicans.  I don't believe students were disciplined for this.  He was also invited to come this year and Columbia rescinded his invitation.

Some of the most intolerant people I know are radical leftists.  Unfortunately, those people seem to be running Columbia University.

I concur.  What I'm attempting to say to mr.breeze's post is that because Westerners have enjoyed years of "freedoms" and "access" regardless of how we may argue against these, itself a freedom let's not forget, we often have the compulsion to overlay our cherished democractic principales onto other traditions and cultures without attempting the slightest comprehension, that these cherished principales may be entirely alien and untried, if not undesired, by other traditions and cultures.  Please understand this.

Ahmadinejad does not originate from a part of the world that has practiced and defended and/or extolled the virtues of dissent and expression.  This is neither right nor wrong.  However, when Americans argue that he has the "right" to speak, to free speech this is naive, arrogant self-reflection, the kind that drowned Narcissuss.  Ahmadinejad does not have this right because he neither originates from a country that has made this right law nor, of course, does he promote such a right. By suggesting that Ahmadinejad should be given the right to speak his side, is an attempt to "Americanize" him by overlaying American values onto him in this context.  He couldn't care less.

 Americans want to be good samaritans. Beware.

[scheherazade]

Personally, if I lived closer, I would go to hear what he has to say.

Am I an anti-Semite?  No.  Do I agree with terrorism?  No.  But I'd like to remind you of a little history.  Very few leaders read Mein Kampf, even after he took power in such a militaristic way.  One of the few to do so was Churchill, who was one of the first to speak out against against Hitler even before he became PM.  He spoke about Hitler's plans, laid out in a very public book, and warned other governments to thwart him quickly.  Other countries, such as the U.S., did not agree, in part because they did not believe him.  Later, several leaders read the book, but by then it was too late.

In short, it's best to listen to those that frighten you.  Anyway, I'm less concerned about the propaganda he may spew (somehow I don't think he'll have a huge following) than the propaganda he gains every time we violate the Bill of Rights in this country.  What do you think Al-Jazeera is going to do with a story about how the Iranian president came on a goodwill visit and was not allowed to speak anywhere?

[acrimone]

I blame the mayor.

The State Department has to let him into the country to get to the United Nations building.

But the mayor of New York does not have to let him go anywhere else.  He can have an invitation to Columbia all he wants -- but the mayor doesn't have to let him travel to campus.

[larryc]

Ahmadinejad has the right to free speech because every human being on this planet has the right to free speech. That is a founding principle of this country. Rights are not granted by governments, they are inherent.

[acrimone]

Ahmadinejad has the right to free speech because every human being on this planet has the right to free speech. That is a founding principle of this country. Rights are not granted by governments, they are inherent.

What he doesn't inherently have is a right to travel Uptown. :)

But yes, I agree with the sentiment.

[jtsmr]

Personally, if I lived closer, I would go to hear what he has to say.

Am I an anti-Semite?  No.  Do I agree with terrorism?  No.  But I'd like to remind you of a little history.  Very few leaders read Mein Kampf, even after he took power in such a militaristic way.  One of the few to do so was Churchill, who was one of the first to speak out against against Hitler even before he became PM.  He spoke about Hitler's plans, laid out in a very public book, and warned other governments to thwart him quickly.  Other countries, such as the U.S., did not agree, in part because they did not believe him.  Later, several leaders read the book, but by then it was too late.

In short, it's best to listen to those that frighten you.  Anyway, I'm less concerned about the propaganda he may spew (somehow I don't think he'll have a huge following) than the propaganda he gains every time we violate the Bill of Rights in this country.  What do you think Al-Jazeera is going to do with a story about how the Iranian president came on a goodwill visit and was not allowed to speak anywhere?

Lucky you to have the taken-for-granted freedom to suggest, even to write, of violations of the Bill of Rights. Would you wager that our brethren in Muslim countries can easily suggest their own constant, historically consistent Human Rights Violations?  Even Orhan Pamuk had to appear in Turkish court for insulting the Turks "Turkishness." Please. What a ridiculous abuse of free speech.  But it should be respected, each countries description of itself whether it flies in the face of American democractic sensibility or not.

Yes, keep your enemies closer or closest.  Which says nothing about according them rights and principales.