President Ahmadinejad of Iran at Columbia

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is in New York today, and will be speaking at Columbia University. Perhaps I should not be surprised that this has generated controversy. I'm listening to The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC as I write this; today's broadcast includes a discussion of this issue, and seems to have garnered a decent variety of opinions.

One point that has come up is the statement by John Coatsworth, the dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, that he would invite Adolf Hitler, "[i]f he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty". Now, debate may have been a poorly chosen word, as it invokes an image of people standing at lecterns, intelligently discussing an issue from opposing sides; but his larger point, which I think is getting missed by many people, is that President Ahmadinejad represents a very real phenomenon in the world: there are people who deny the existence of the Holocaust and who strongly dislike Israel, and who call for its destruction. There are people who are opposed to much of what the United States likes to think that it stands for. The comparison to Hitler is apt, in part because many Americans did not believe that Hitler's beliefs were as severe as they were, or that his policies were as destructive as they were. A speech by Hitler on American soil might well have revealed his views and policies for what they were, prompting the US to enter the war earlier than it did, and potentially shortening the war (including reducing the war's casualties).

(Let me be clear: I am not advocating that the US go to war with Iran. Nor am I saying that we should shut our eyes to that possibility.)

As I understand it, President Ahmadinejad was initially invited to speak to the students of the School of International Studies, some of whom will presumably go on to assist future American diplomats or even to be diplomats themselves. The point is to expose these diplomats-in-training, who may have to deal with President Ahmadinejad (or some facsimile) professionally, to a person of his views in an academic environment before the students have to deal with it in a professional environment.

At least one caller on the Brian Lehrer Show indicated that students could get this type of exposure anywhere. I beg to disagree. In school I read about racism in books, and saw documentaries on it, but the phenomenon only became real to me once I witnessed it in person. Reading President Ahmadinejad's speech in a newspaper, or even seeing it on a newsreel would not have the same effect, and would not carry the same weight as seeing and hearing him in person. If this wasn't the case, we wouldn't pay tens or even hundreds of dollars to see our favorite artists in concert, families of murder victims wouldn't want to be personally present at the trial of the killer of their loved ones, and neither the wreck of the Arizona nor that of the World Trade Center would be tourist destinations. (Incidentally, why is it that people pose for pictures in front of the tangible reminders of some of the saddest, bloodiest days in our nation's history, and smile as they do so? Thousands of people died here: why are you smiling?)

Another point is whether President Ahmadinejad will consent to be questioned, or whether he will simply deliver his speech and then refuse to answer any questions. The solution to this is to have him answer at least some questions first, as a condition for his being able to speak.

Another caller made a comparison between the university's allowing President Ahmadinejad to speak, but kicking ROTC off campus. I think that this comparison is the result of a major misconception of what Columbia is. Columbia is not a monolith, with a single dictatorial leader making all decisions. It is a collection of schools, each of which is semiautonomous, and each of which has several departments, the departments also being semiautonomous. Comparing the actions of a department of one school with those of another, or those of the upper administration, or those of the student body doesn't reveal any sort of hypocrisy, but merely underscores the heterogeneous nature of the institution. As an analogy, if I like the Yankees, but my brother likes the Mets, is my family hypocritical? Or if I'm a satunch conservative Republican in the Christian Right, but my wife is a flaming liberal Independant who identifies with the Quakers, is my family hypocritical?