About the Ahmadinejad Interviews… September 21, 2007

I dropped my opinion on the upcoming Ahmadinejad interview at Columbia University over at the Life Of Rubin blog. Mr. Rubin said that he was disappointed in Columbia for honoring an enemy of America with a keynote speaking engagement.

As an academic, I couldn’t say that I was bothered by Ahmadinejad’s speaking per se; in and of itself having a controversial (or even tyrannical) speaker give his viewpoint at an academic institution is not necessarily a bad thing. This is something I learned from my 11th grade English teacher. However, while I’m quite left — and, dare I say, “liberal” — I couldn’t quite stomach the air that the Iranian President assumed during his interview with 60 Minutes, in which he stated that he couldn’t understand why some Americans might consider his planned visit to Ground Zero insulting (and couldn’t believe some Americans believe Iran to be terrorist):

I disagree with you on the Columbia count. Columbia is not a place where political issues are supposed to come into play, it’s supposed to be an institution of higher education. IMO, Ahmadinejad, to academia, represents “the opposing viewpoint”. It’s “the other side of” the Bush policy regarding terrorist states, esp. Iran & Syria.

When I was in high school, my (Jewish) high school English teacher made us read a portion of the Communist Manifesto by Marx/Engels and was going to have us read a piece of Mein Kampf. We DID get the handouts of the Manifesto (though we never did a unit on it). The teacher almost got fired over Mein Kampf.

His defense was that he wanted us to see “all the viewpoints” and to hear the “story from every point of view”. He got to keep his job, but got a stern warning. IMO it is important to hear all sides of a story.

That being said, Ahmadinejad’s COMING to speak isn’t the issue. It’s the TIMING. Which plays into his colossal denial in the second piece. Forget the “not knowing it would be insulting” part. That might be a genuine naivete/apathy. He might not actually realize.

But to not even have an inkling that at least SOME Americans consider your country a terrorist nation? I mean COME ON. Does he not have contact with anyone with ACCESS to a TV? Does he not realize: Iran’s not on anyone’s A-list and hasn’t been for quite some time? Shouldn’t he have put 2 and 2 together after all those summits and meetings? Why did he put together 130+ countries to form a “non-aligned movement”? He doesn’t even think a FEW ppl in America might not like IRAN? AFTER the Holocaust conference and AFTER “wipe Israel off the map”?

WTF, President Ahmadinejad. WTF.