[Marxism] LA Times editorial on Bollinger/Ahmadinejad

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-brooks28sep28,0,7795418.column?coll=la-tot-opinion&track=ntothtml

 From the Los Angeles Times
The Bollinger/Ahmadinejad farce
If the Columbia University president were to introduce Bush the way he 
did the Iranian president, that would be an act of free-speech bravery.
Rosa Brooks

September 28, 2007

Imagine the scene: As angry protesters march outside, a nation's 
unpopular president prepares to address students and faculty at a 
prestigious university. Introducing the president, the head of the 
university is bluntly critical of his guest speaker: "You, quite simply, 
[are] ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly 
uneducated. . . . I doubt you will have the intellectual courage to 
answer [our] questions . . . I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical 
mind-set that characterizes so much of what you say and do. . . . Your 
preposterous and belligerent statements . . . led to your party's defeat 
in the [last] elections."

Unfazed, the president rises to begin his speech. His sometimes bizarre 
remarks generate hoots of derision. But he plows on civilly, though he 
ducks and weaves when faced with critical questions from the audience.

When the clock runs out, many are dissatisfied with his answers. But 
everyone applauds the courageous head of the university, who wasn't 
afraid to speak truth to power, and everyone praises the student 
protesters, who exemplified the democratic values of dissent and free 
expression.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if something like that could happen in our country?

No, no, I mean really happen in our country. Tuesday's farce in New York 
at Columbia University, starring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 
as the Unpopular Presidential Guest and Columbia President Lee C. 
Bollinger as The Man Who Spoke Truth to Power, doesn't count because it 
was just that: a farce.

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."

Bollinger's tactics went down well with the New York media, anyway: The 
New York Sun rhapsodized about a "Teaching Moment," while the New York 
Times expressed the pious hope that "what Americans and Iranians will 
remember is that image of professors and students, in a true democratic 
forum." And Bollinger seemed quite pleased with his own performance. The 
Bollinger-Ahmadinejad Show was "free speech at its best," Bollinger 
modestly explained to reporters.

Sorry, no. "Free speech at its best" is when someone really does speak 
truth to power, and power stops blathering long enough to engage with 
inconvenient ideas. If an Iranian professor, inside Iran, had said what 
Bollinger said to Ahmadinejad, that would have been brave.

Or -- stay with me here -- if Bollinger had invited President Bush to 
Columbia and made those same unvarnished remarks to him, and Bush had 
toughed it out and struggled to answer half a dozen unfiltered, critical 
questions from an audience not made up of his handpicked supporters . . 
. . Well, that too would have been free speech at its best.

Unfortunately, that's not the kind of thing you're likely to see in America.

It's odd, because Bush -- like Ahmadinejad -- makes plenty of statements 
that, to paraphrase the eloquent Mr. Bollinger, could be characterized 
as ridiculous, provocative, uneducated and fanatical. (Take Bush's 
repeated suggestion of a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 
attacks, for instance.) And as in the case of Ahmadinejad, some of 
Bush's preposterous and belligerent statements contributed to the GOP's 
defeat in the last elections.

But so what? Here in the land of free speech, elites -- including those 
at universities -- too often collude to keep our own president in his 
safe little bubble. (Those who forget to pretend that the emperor is 
fully dressed, such as Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House 
Correspondents Assn. dinner or Jimmy Carter at Coretta Scott King's 
funeral, are instantly chastised for being "inappropriate.")

This week, a global audience saw Iran's "petty and cruel dictator," as 
Bollinger called him, courteously parrying questions from hostile 
students -- something viewers won't see our democratically elected 
president doing.

So fine, let's congratulate ourselves for showing Iran just how many 
freedoms we have in America. But when we get done congratulating 
ourselves on our fancy freedoms, let's figure out why we can't be 
bothered to put them to use.

rbrooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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