| The LAT's Rosa Brooks isn't impressed by the show put on by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week and calls the whole thing a "farce." Bollinger was quick to describe the encounter as "free speech at its best," but Brooks says that only happens "when someone really does speak truth to power." And Bollinger didn't need much courage to criticize Ahamadinejad. "If Bollinger had invited President Bush to Columbia and made those same unvarnished remarks to him," and Bush actually tried to answer a couple of critical questions, that "would have been free speech at its best." |
Ah, well, Mr. Bones, are not thee and I principaledly for free speech even at its very WORST, then? For it, even when it "speaks nonsense (maybe even lies) to imbecility," as it were, instead of "Truth to Power"?
But let's hear from the little lady direct:
| Ahmadinejad was playing to global public opinion, and though he lost some PR points for incoherence and general bizarreness of message ("In Iran, we don't have homosexuals"), he gained some for coming off as a bit more mature than his prissy, infantile host. ("In Iran, when you invite a guest, you respect them," Ahmadinejad observed dryly.) Bollinger, meanwhile, was playing to a different audience. After taking a beating for giving Ahmadinejad a forum, he was eager to show the media, alumni, concerned Jewish organizations and a raft of bellicose neoconservative pundits that he was no terrorist-loving appeaser of Holocaust deniers. In a narrow sense, both Ahmadinejad and Bollinger achieved their goals. Ahmadinejad showed that he could be dignified in the face of crass American bullies, which will play well abroad -- and may even buttress his dwindling prestige in Iran. And Bollinger showed that he can be a crass American bully, which, in our current political climate, is what passes for "courage." |
What's really goin' on here, O Bones? Myself, I'd prioritize the forum-granting first and account it authentically l*b*r*l. Should the forum-granter turn heckler, whether spontaneously or under pressure of crass bullyin' from the general direction of Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh and perhaps even the dread unspeakable AIPAC itself, why, that's a serious offense against adult decency and good manners, obviously, but what has it do with Free Speech? President A of I said his say freely, and so did President B of C -- where's the problem? What's to object to?
"In Crawford-untainted America, when we invite a speaker, Mr. President, we primarily want to hear what she says -- 'respect' is only an optional icing on the cake,."
'Nuff said![1]
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[1] I've said enough to resolve the matter of fact decisively, but one may idiotically generalize and daydream much farther on than that. Suppose, goose-and-ganderwise, that President B. of C. is invited to the I. of President A. strictly quâ "respected guest" and not at all as "invited speaker." Nevertheless, since all Presidents and presidents and "presidents" whatsoever are ex officio addicted to the sound of their own voices, it would surely be very disrepectful and uncollegial for A. to deny B. of C. at least one oratorical outing in the Islamic Republic. What sort of an auditory should the lone Bollinger Lecture ever be delivered to, then, at Qom U.? Ideally to one that didn't know twenty words of English between all seven hundred of them, I suppose, but would that arrangement really be workable? Even if workable, would the arrangement be properly hostly-respectful? How about a picked pack of mad mullahs who understand spoken English perfectly but can be reliably counted upon to deplore pretty well everything that any native speaker is likely to say in that medium? But wouldn't it be difficult for President A. of I. to pick such a select pack as that?
I daresay that plan might give President B. of C. a really ding-dong battle in the Q&A session after the only Bollinger Lecture ever at Qom, for the mad mullahs of Twelverdom have rather a lot to say for themselves that is scarcely available in English. But since it is indeed scarcely available in the Language of Invasion, poor President B. of C. wouldn't have a clue where his fiercely disagreeing questioners are coming from, and isn't it almost quite as bad, really, that Respected Guest should find his select assembled auditory materially incomprehensible as linguistically vice-versa?
Clearly the correct answer in immediate practice is that President B. of C. should not be reciprocally invited by President A. of I. on any terms whatsoever, and I believe we may safely count on THAT!
As to how to evaluate the inevitable nonreciprocation, well, I'm tempted to throw the little lady's "And Bollinger showed that he can be a crass American bully, which, in our current political climate, is what passes for 'courage''" straight back at her: as if His Excellency Amadínejád were not equally, or even more severely, courage-challenged than the Hon. Bollinger is, more tied down to what one's own crazies back home will put up with!
A. of I. loses on points to B. of C. not only on that account, but also, as I consider, because A. of I. cheated at Columbia, unleashing an oration that makes excellent sense on invited-speaker terms, but is indefensible altogether as any sort of presentable behaviour emanating from a Respected Guest. "I grab this on YOUR principles, and I deny your right ever to countergrab anything on OUR principles" -- that's the pith and gist and crux, and if it's any better than naked Rancho Crawford and occult Castle Cheney, let somebody point out to me what I have missed.
Clearly B. of C. is no hero, but to make him out a positive villain compared to A. of I. is only to fall off the horse on the other side.
(Doesn't anybody have any proper sense of measure any more?)
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Well, but how about Little Miss Piggy :
| You know where I'm going. Is it necessary to say when one speaks of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that you disapprove of him, disagree with him, believe him a wicked fellow and are not amused that he means to have missiles aimed at us and our friends? If it is, I am happy to say it. Who, really, isn't? But THIS HAS BEEN OUR HISTORY: TO LET ALL SPEAK AND TO FEAR NO ONE. That's a good history to continue. The Council on Foreign Relations was right to invite him to speak last year--that is the council's job, to hear, listen and parse--and Columbia University was well within its rights to let him speak this year. Though, in what is now apparently Columbia tradition, the stage was once again stormed, but this time verbally, and by a university president whose aggression seemed sharpened by fear. |
Golly, maybe there is hope for us all, Mr. Bones!
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