Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a strong impression on Columbia University students Monday, proclaiming that no homosexuals live in Iran and that there is not enough evidence to support claims of the Holocaust. If lively debate and a strong taste of the international climate is what Columbia was looking to cultivate, its invitation to the strongly bigoted figure hit the mark.
Ahmadinejad without doubt is, as Columbia President Lee Bollinger said in his introductory remarks, a “petty and cruel dictator,” but his presence on campus offered student insight on a figure who is often mentioned by the media and presidential administration, but rarely deconstructed. Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia may be students’ greatest chance to see such a polarizing international figure up close, presenting his shtick without a voiceover commentary. As a history lesson and exercise in acknowledging — though by no way accepting — disagreeable views, the Iranian president’s comments were relevant.
By offering Ahmadinejad a forum for his spiel, Columbia allowed the man’s words to speak for him. No audience member at Columbia was persuaded to adopt the president’s radical views or support his politics. By avoiding direct answers to audience questions, Ahmadinejad revealed why Iran is such a problematic player in world politics. Columbia’s invitation to Ahmadinejad was hardly an endorsement of his politics or extremist views, but rather an opportunity for students to see the man spurting his rhetoric and better understand the social environment in Iran.
When Iranian ambassador Javad Zarif took questions from Boston University students via teleconference in February, 1,200 people showed up for the rare opportunity to engage a player in a powerful Middle Eastern administration with a strong stance against Israel. Some students wore signs calling Iran a terrorist organization, and others showed up out of curiosity. The event was meant to encourage discussion about world politics, and for those who turned out, it did.
As talk between Iran and the United States is infrequent, Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia was a rare chance to see a figure within a mysterious regime. Whether his speech reaffirmed views students had about Iran or prompted them to reconsider previously held opinions, the invaluable experience of witnessing history being made was a lesson from Columbia to its students.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
