Are the Controversial Comments of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Really So Threatening?
Kurt Andersen, author of the novel HeyDay and host of NPR’s Studio 360, writes in New York Magazine :
For a while now, I’ve fretted that we’re turning into a nation of weenies and permanently enraged censors, that too many of us are afraid of letting disagreeable or uncomfortable ideas into the limelight. If it’s not the p.c. overreach of campus ‘speech codes’ or the attempts to criminalize ‘hate speech,’it’s the FCC’s crackdown on cussing in PBS documentaries and the Secret Service’s keeping protesters fenced off in ‘free speech zones.’ But during the last month, this impulse to squelch—indulged by the left and the right and the milquetoast middle—seems to have reached some kind of tipping point, as if we’ve entered a permanent state of hysterical overreaction . . .
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Lol thats great. Very nice and funny picture.
My initial reaction was anger at Columbia for inviting the little neo-Nazi Ahmedinejad to speak at all. Then when he did come to the US, and Bollinger attacked him, I enjoyed a moment of schadenfreude at Ahmedinejad’s embarrassment and discomfiture.
However, when Dan Simmons pointed out on his forum that it is the ultimate in bad manners to invite someone into your home and then attack them, I was reluctantly forced to acknowledge the truth of that thought. It’s just that I was so glad that someone (even if it was that nimrod Bollinger) threw some hard shots at the Iranian dictator in a public forum, where he would be forced to either a) answer the charges or b) slide around them (which can be just as telling and which is what he did), that I was willing to compromise my principles. That’s a mistake, and boorish behavior to boot, no question about it.
But when it comes to dangerous anti-semites like Ahmedinejad, people who prefer a world filled with religious fascism and hatred and death to a world filled with freedom and peace, it’s awful hard to remain objective and true to your core principles.
So, okay, if he’s invited to speak, then it shouldn’t be used as an excuse for an ambush. But that begs another question: why invite him to speak at all? Was it solely as an excuse to publicly attack him? Or do some of the folks at Columbia actually respect this jackass? After all, they wouldn’t invite David Dukes to come and speak about racial issues; the man has less than zero credibility. What would be the point? You know where the man stands, and you know he’s a dangerous hate-monger. As an example, were he alive and operating today, would they invite Hitler to speak at Columbia, knowing what he stood for, what he planned to do? I don’t think they would.
Far better to invite someone with some semblance of credibility. As much as I disagree with what Bill Clinton believes in and stands for, I still respect him as a former president who operates within the range of “normal” behavior (sexual improprieties aside), and who, as public figure, should have the opportunity to present his views to an audience. But someone as clearly off-base, as wildly ridiculous and dangerous and damaging as Ahmedinejad? Columbia has the right to do it, but what terrible judgement the exercised. In the aftermath of the whole episode, as far as I can see, they didn’t accomplish anything except the bad behavior that Simmons excoriated. Not one person I know changed their mind about any of Ahmedinejad’s thoughts, ideas or actions (admittedly an anecdotal opinion). Nor was this a relevelatory experience – Ahmedinejad said exactly what he has from the very beginning, and the only people that watched his speech were political junkies who already know what the man is all about, so I fail to see what was really accomplished. Maybe it was just an excuse for Comumbia to kill two birds with one stone – show how fair-minded they are for inviting the man to speak, and then showing how PC they can be by attacking him mercilessly from the get-go.
Our tradition and constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech means the freedom to say and write what we think, but it is not a guarantee of a platform from which to spread those thoughts. Not everyone has something to say that is worth listening to or reading about, nor should everyone be provided with access to the pulpit just for the hell of it. (Some folks probably think that very thing about my over-long post.)
Kurt Andersen is right about political correctness. It’s a dangerous thing to practice. Far better to exercise some judgment on who you give the microphone to when they don’t have a right to it based on an issue of fairness or law, and then let the chips fall where they may.