Ahmedinejad's Visit to Columbia
So apparently Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is visiting Columbia University and this has ruffled quite a few feathers. I think Mayor Bloomberg is doing the right thing. In this country, universities have the right to invite who they want to speak and individual citizens have the right to attend or not attend, to protest or not protest. That's one of the great things about living in a free society.
A major part of the opposition to Ahmedinejad's visit is his call for the destruction of Israel and his statements in the past denying the Holocaust. So what, the man's clearly a nutcase, but he's entitled to his opinions just like anyone else, isn't he? After all, how different are people that deny evolution compared with those that deny the holocaust? The former are even found in the highest echelons of our current government.
The problem is that the Holocaust is often viewed as a great exception. Free speech is great, EXCEPT when it concerns the Holocaust. After all, so many European countries have anti-Holocaust denial laws and ban Nazi symbols. Perhaps they're right. After all, the Holocaust is probably the single worst thing that has happened in human history. Sure, religious persecution is as old as humanity and religion itself, but never was it carried out with the systematic scheming and planning as during the Holocaust.
And when the anti-Holocaust denial laws were enacted in immediate post-World War II Europe, they probably made a lot of sense in a continent struggling to comprehend what had just happened. But do they make sense now? 60 years later, aren't we mature enough in our modern democracies to allow for unconditional free speech and have people make their own informed, free decisions? Why, even after more than six decades, are we still so touchy regarding the Holocaust that we are willing to make exceptions to the concepts of free speech and expression that we hold so dear?
So I don't think there's anything wrong in Columbia's decision to invite Ahmedinejad. Don't get me wrong, I have problems with the "liberal intellectual crowd" as well. A few years ago, former Iranian President Khatami was speaking somewhere in the U.S. and when pressed on one topic, he said that homosexuals should be given the death penalty. If any Republican or evangelical said that on stage, he would have been booed off stage or worse. But in the case of Khatami, the audience sat silently and listened without so much of a response. I would have expected the crowd to walk out en masse or something of the sort. Surely, our liberal ideas should not be dependent on who's speaking? Similarly with the event involving the leader of the Minutemen who was speaking in Columbia that Bloomberg mentions in the above article. I think the Minutemen are over the top and I do not agree with their vigilante justice methods, but they have a right to speak their opinions. Universities in this country should uphold free speech in all forms, whether in the form of a vigilante, xenophobic cowboy from the southwest or an anti-semitic nut case from the Middle East.
Getting back to Ahmedinejad, yes, he denies the Holocaust and rails for the destruction of Israel. But he's a politician and he does that to get votes. How different is he from our politicians (Giuliani, McCain, et al.) that continue to connect (or attempt to connect) 9/11 with Iraq, and demand that groups like MoveOn.org be "thrown out of the country", notwithstanding constitutional guarantees of free speech in order to get votes? So let's relax, just treat Ahmedinejad as the "McCain of Iran" or "Giuliani of Tehran" and boycott his rants just as we would of those of the Republican nut cases over here.
A major part of the opposition to Ahmedinejad's visit is his call for the destruction of Israel and his statements in the past denying the Holocaust. So what, the man's clearly a nutcase, but he's entitled to his opinions just like anyone else, isn't he? After all, how different are people that deny evolution compared with those that deny the holocaust? The former are even found in the highest echelons of our current government.
The problem is that the Holocaust is often viewed as a great exception. Free speech is great, EXCEPT when it concerns the Holocaust. After all, so many European countries have anti-Holocaust denial laws and ban Nazi symbols. Perhaps they're right. After all, the Holocaust is probably the single worst thing that has happened in human history. Sure, religious persecution is as old as humanity and religion itself, but never was it carried out with the systematic scheming and planning as during the Holocaust.
And when the anti-Holocaust denial laws were enacted in immediate post-World War II Europe, they probably made a lot of sense in a continent struggling to comprehend what had just happened. But do they make sense now? 60 years later, aren't we mature enough in our modern democracies to allow for unconditional free speech and have people make their own informed, free decisions? Why, even after more than six decades, are we still so touchy regarding the Holocaust that we are willing to make exceptions to the concepts of free speech and expression that we hold so dear?
So I don't think there's anything wrong in Columbia's decision to invite Ahmedinejad. Don't get me wrong, I have problems with the "liberal intellectual crowd" as well. A few years ago, former Iranian President Khatami was speaking somewhere in the U.S. and when pressed on one topic, he said that homosexuals should be given the death penalty. If any Republican or evangelical said that on stage, he would have been booed off stage or worse. But in the case of Khatami, the audience sat silently and listened without so much of a response. I would have expected the crowd to walk out en masse or something of the sort. Surely, our liberal ideas should not be dependent on who's speaking? Similarly with the event involving the leader of the Minutemen who was speaking in Columbia that Bloomberg mentions in the above article. I think the Minutemen are over the top and I do not agree with their vigilante justice methods, but they have a right to speak their opinions. Universities in this country should uphold free speech in all forms, whether in the form of a vigilante, xenophobic cowboy from the southwest or an anti-semitic nut case from the Middle East.
Getting back to Ahmedinejad, yes, he denies the Holocaust and rails for the destruction of Israel. But he's a politician and he does that to get votes. How different is he from our politicians (Giuliani, McCain, et al.) that continue to connect (or attempt to connect) 9/11 with Iraq, and demand that groups like MoveOn.org be "thrown out of the country", notwithstanding constitutional guarantees of free speech in order to get votes? So let's relax, just treat Ahmedinejad as the "McCain of Iran" or "Giuliani of Tehran" and boycott his rants just as we would of those of the Republican nut cases over here.
posted by Vivek at 12:58 PM
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