Op-Ed
The Dos and Don’ts of Playing Host
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Agree to Disagree
Agree to Disagree
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What’s on everybody’s mind is the big news yesterday: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial appearance at Columbia University. What’s not: Palestinian advocate Dr. Hanan Ashrawi’s speech at Cornell last week. Yet both of these events speak to a similar question: Under what circumstances, and with what consequences, should a respected American university invite a controversial figure to address its constituency?
Within the past week, at least three such invitations were extended, two of which were accepted: the first and most contentious culminated in Ahmadinejad’s appearance yesterday; the second, and far less disputed, in Ashrawi’s speech last week — and a third, conferred by Columbia Dean John Coatsworth on Fox News to Adolph Hitler, which went unanswered. (Nazi party spokesman Joseph Goebbels was not available for comment at press time).
Faced with three such speakers — a spokeswoman for the mainstream Palestinian point of view, a power-thirsty dictator and a (long dead) war criminal with the most evil of ambitions — this question of where to draw the line puts you in a real pickle, if not an impossible conundrum.
Because on the one hand, I agree with Columbia President Lee Bollinger’s assertion that “vigorous debate is impossible” without listening to “ideas we deplore,” as he said in an official statement last week. On the other hand, I agree with the dean of Columbia Law School’s opinion that “a high-quality academic discussion depends on intellectual honesty,” of which he suggested Ahmadinejad is clearly bankrupted.
What’s far less of a dilemma — yet perhaps more likely to incite chaos — is the manner in which universities receive, moderate and, if necessary, dissent from their speaker’s message.
At Columbia yesterday, Bollinger did a good job of making clear that we “do not honor the dishonorable when we open our public forum to them,” as he said in his opening remarks, calling the Iranian president out as a “petty and cruel dictator.”
Ahmadinejad’s speech, while exhibiting all of the hallmarks of his hateful ideology — a denial of the Holocaust, accusations against the United States of supporting terrorism and a refusal to acknowledge that homosexuals exist in Iran — still culminated in a few victories for academic freedom: the opportunity for Bollinger and Columbia students to publicly dissent from hate speech, as well as an “official invitation” from Ahmadinejad to Columbia students and faculty to speak in Iran.
If Bollinger and Ahmadinejad were Columbia’s Odd Couple yesterday, then Cornell’s president and Yasser Arafat’s former spokeswoman were a veritable Sonny and Cher last week.
A large crowd of Ithacans and Cornellians filled Bailey Hall to hear what Dr. Ashrawi characterized as President David Skorton’s “warm and touching introduction.” While Ashrawi may be viewed as a relatively moderate voice by some, she still acknowledged that Palestinians will never recognize a permanent Israeli state (even while claiming that a two-state solution is necessary), and blamed the election of Hamas — though, as she admitted, “free and fair in technical terms” — largely on the Israeli occupation. From there, she accused the United States of hypocrisy for enforcing sanctions against Hamas, an organization which has openly embraced terrorism, while not endorsing sanctions against Israel.
And on these pointed questions of occupation, terrorism and American foreign policy, where was Skorton, the other speaker on the stage?
Never in his opening remarks or commentary did our president challenge Ashrawi on her facts; most notably on the issue of Hamas, he might have pointed out that Israel had withdrawn all of its troops and civilians from Gaza in 2005 — meaning that the Hamas-dominated election in 2006 was entirely post-occupation.
Never did Skorton depart from Ashrawi’s notion of an historic Palestinian state, instead claiming in his introduction that she grew up in “Ramallah, Palestine,” a sovereign state that does not appear anywhere in my atlas. She was, in fact, born in an occupied land — but the occupier wasn’t Israel: in 1946, the land was controlled by Great Britain, and when Ashrawi turned three years old, it passed to Jordan, an Arab nation that also never attempted to create an independent Palestine.
And never did Skorton defend America, or its support of Israel.
The point here is not that Skorton should have antagonized Ashrawi, or even served as a counterpoint — she is neither as powerful nor as violent as Ahmadinejad, and is deserving of our respect, not “insults,” as the Iranian leader charged Bollinger with hurling.
Yet her soft-spoken tone of voice and pleasant demeanor should not have belied what was a fairly radical point of view (even if it is the prevailing Palestinian ideology), and by allowing Ashrawi to dominate the event with biased stances and unchallenged content, Skorton legitimized not just her right to speak, but also her message.
And that message had its intended effect: leaving the event, there were no boos and scattered applause as was heard at Columbia yesterday; instead, Ashrawi left to a number of standing ovations led by an enthusiastic Skorton, and a Sun headline the next day, “Palestinian Leader Promotes Peace” (Sept. 21).
All this brings us full circle to the initial question: under what circumstances, and with what consequences, should a respected American university invite a controversial figure to address its constituency?
When the university is able to distinguish itself from the speaker’s message — to endorse the right to make a point without necessarily endorsing that point — then we’ve met a necessary, though perhaps not sufficient, criterion for extending such an invitation.
From the radical demagogues — the Hitlers and the Ahmadinejads — universities have little to fear. It’s the quiet doublespeak that bewitched Skorton that scares me.
Rob Fishman is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at rbfishman@cornellsun.com. Agree to Disagree appears Tuesdays.
I am not here to promote the
I am not here to promote the views of the Iranian President but it was thoroughly disgusting to watch how Mr. Bollinger conducted himself. I wonder where he learned to arbitrate. By the way, it shows his character, sic.
America preaches to the world to how the rest of us should adopt her ways and boast of liberties & rights but hearing the President of Columbia University, I wonder if someone can teach him simple courtesies, decency of conduct and common sense. Please note that it is wrong to invite someone as a guest and disrespect him so outright. Read the biography of the Prophet of Islam and learn how he conducted himself even in front of adversaries.
Finally, here is something for the President of Columbia University – “Mr. Bollinger, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel tyrant. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do. I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these or change yourself”. His own words slightly modified.
"America preaches to the
"America preaches to the world to how the rest of us should adopt her ways and boast of liberties & rights but hearing the President of Columbia University, I wonder if someone can teach him simple courtesies, decency of conduct and common sense."
Some people don't deserve such courtesies, the Iranian President being one of them. However, Bollinger should have realized that attacking Ahmadinejad in the manner that he did would lead to Ahmadinejad pretending to be the victim of an unmitigated attack. The whole premise of an open, engaging debate was a farce anyway; there was no way Ahmadinejad would address any of the legitimate points raised by Bollinger.
So happy someone finally
So happy someone finally called out Skorton for this. I was there and was completley outraged by his behavior. I was sure after he would have at least released a statement, but nothing ever came and Skorton, unlike Bollinger, behaved cowardly in the face of injustice.
Ashrawi
The speaker's surname is Ashrawi.