OTHER VIEWS
Repelling The Revulsion You Stand For
New York City
B
efore speaking directly to the
current president of Iran, I have
a few critically important points
to emphasize.
First, since 2003, the World Leaders
Forum has advanced Columbia's long-
standing tradition of serving as a major
forum for robust debate, especially on
global issues. It should never be thought
that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in
any way implies our endorsement of those
ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to
resist those ideas or our naiveté about the
very real dangers inherent in such ideas.
It is a critical premise of freedom of
speech that we do not honor the dishon-
orable when we open the public forum
to their voices. To hold otherwise would
make vigorous debate impossible.
Second, to those who believe that this
event never should have happened, that
it is inappropriate for the university to
conduct such an event, I want to say that I
understand your perspective and respect
it as reasonable. The scope of free speech
and academic freedom should itself
always be open to further debate ...
Third, to those among us who experi-
ence hurt and pain as a result of this day, I
say on behalf of all of us we are sorry and
wish to do what we can to alleviate it.
Fourth, to be clear on another matter
— this event has nothing whatsoever to
do with any "rights" of the speaker but
only with our rights to listen and speak.
We do it for ourselves ...
Lastly, in universities, we have a deep
and almost single-minded commitment to
pursue the truth. We do not have access to
the levers of power. We cannot make war
or peace. We can only make minds. And
to do this we must have the most full free-
dom of inquiry.
Let me now turn to Mr. Ahmadinejad.
Brutal Crackdown
Over the last two weeks, your government
has released Dr. Haleh Esfandiari and
Parnaz Axima; and just two days ago, Kian
Tajbakhsh, a graduate of Columbia with a
Ph.D. in urban planning. While our com-
munity is relieved to learn of his release
on bail, Dr. Tajbakhsh remains in Teheran,
under house arrest, and he still does not
know whether he will be charged with a
crime or allowed to leave the country.
Let me say this for the record: I call on
the president today to ensure that Klan
Tajbaksh will be free to travel out of Iran
in partnership with the YIVO
as he wishes. Let me also report
Institute, of Holocaust studies.
today that we are extending an
Since the 1930s, we've pro-
offer to Dr. Tajbaksh to join our
vided an intellectual home for
faculty as a visiting professor in
countless Holocaust refugees
urban planning here at his alma
and survivors and their chil-
mater, in our graduate school of
dren and grandchildren.
architecture, planning and pres-
The truth is that the
ervation ...
Holocaust
is the most docu-
According to Amnesty
Lee C.
mented
event
in human his-
International, 210 people have
Bollinger
tory.
Because
of this, and
been executed in Iran so far this
Special
for
many
other
reasons, your
year ... This annual total includes
Commentary
absurd comments about the
at least two children ...
"debate" over the Holocaust
These executions and others
have coincided with a wider crackdown on both defy historical truth and make all
of us who continue to fear humanity's
student activists and academics accused
capacity for evil shudder at this closure of
of trying to foment a so-called "soft
memory, which is always virtue's first line
revolution." This has included jailing and
of defense.
forced retirements of scholars.
Will you cease this outrage?
As Dr. Esfandiari said in a broadcast
interview since her release, she was held in
Israel's Destruction
solitary confinement for 105 days because
Twelve days ago, you said that the State
the government "believes that the United
of Israel "cannot continue its life." This
States ... is planning a Velvet Revolution"
echoed a number of inflammatory state-
in Iran.
ments you have delivered in the last two
Let's be clear at the beginning, Mr.
President. You exhibit
all the signs of a petty
and cruel dictator.
•
•
And so I ask you:
Why have women,
members of the Baha'i
faith, homosexuals
and so many of our
academic colleagues
become targets of
persecution in your
years, including in October 2005 when you
country?
said that Israel should be "wiped off the
Why in a letter last week to the secre-
map"
tary general of the U.N. did Akbar Gangi,
Columbia has over 800 alumni cur-
Iran's leading political dissident, and over
300 public intellectuals, writers and Nobel rently living in Israel. As an institution, we
have deep ties with our colleagues there.
laureates express such grave concern that
I personally have spoken out in the most
your inflamed dispute with the West is
forceful terms against proposals to boycott
distracting the world's attention from the
Israeli scholars and universities, saying
intolerable conditions your regime has
that such boycotts might as well include
created within Iran?
Columbia. More than 400 college and
university presidents in this country have
Holocaust Denial
joined in that statement. My question,
In a December 2005 state television
then, is: Do you plan on wiping us off the
broadcast, you described the Holocaust as
a "fabricated" "legend." One year later, you
map, too?
held a two-day conference of Holocaust
Funding Terror
deniers.
According to reports by the Council on
For the illiterate and ignorant, this is
Foreign Relations, it's well documented
dangerous propaganda. When you come
that Iran is a state sponsor of terror that
to a place like this, this makes you, quite
funds such violent groups as the Lebanese
simply, ridiculous. You are either brazenly
Hezbollah, which Iran helped organize
provocative or astonishingly uneducated.
in the 1980s, the Palestinian Hamas and
You should know that Columbia is a
Palestinian Islamic Jihad ...
world center of Jewish studies and now,
Let's be clear at the beginning,
Mr. President. You exhibit all the
signs of a petty and cruet aictator.
My question is this: Why do you sup-
port well-documented terrorist organiza-
tions that continue to strike at peace and
democracy in the Middle East, destroying
lives and civil society in the region?
Proxy War
In a briefing before the National Press
Club earlier this month, General David
Petraeus reported that arms supplies from
Iran, including 240mm rockets and explo-
sively formed projectiles, are contributing
to "a sophistication of attacks that would
by no means be possible without Iranian
support."
A number of Columbia graduates and
current students are among the brave
members of our military who are serving
or have served in Iraq and Afghanistan ...
Can you tell them and us why Iran is
fighting a proxy war in Iraq by arming
Shi'a militia targeting and killing U.S.
troops?
International Sanctions
This week, the United Nations Security
Council is contemplating expanding sanc-
tions for a third time because of your
government's refusal to suspend its ura-
nium-enrichment program. You continue
to defy this world body by claiming a
right to develop peaceful nuclear power,
but this hardly withstands scrutiny when
you continue to issue military threats to
neighbors ...
Why does your country continue to
refuse to adhere to international standards
for nuclear weapons verification in defi-
ance of agreements that you have made
with the U.N. nuclear agency? And why
have you chosen to make the people of
your country vulnerable to the effects of
international economic sanctions and
threaten to engulf the world with nuclear
annihilation?
Frankly, and in all candor, Mr. President,
I doubt that you will have the intellec-
tual courage to answer these questions.
But your avoiding them will, in itself, be
meaningful to us ...
Lee C. Bollinger's introductory remarks
Sept. 24 at the Columbia University School
of International and Public Affairs' World
Leaders Forum with Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Bollinger is presi-
dent of Columbia and former president of the
University of Michigan. This is an abridged ver-
sion. A full transcript is available at
JNonline.us.
October 4 • 2007
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