Ahmadinejad is Mah Homeboy

A lot of people have been asking about my experiences with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to campus yesterday. I decided that rather then tell the story over and over again I should just tell it once on this blahg. So, I apologize for the break from out typical tone of petty irony and arrogance. I also apologize for the length of this post. Anyone looking for dumb humor can probably skip it. And here we go:

The Controversy
Columbia University invited the insane dictator of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to come give a talk as part of its "World Leaders Forum." Ahmadinejad has become infamous for his oppression of gays and women as well as his views that the Holocaust did not exist and that Israel should be annihilated.

The sides were not split down a simple partisan line on this issue. Rather, they were shattered into many factions: Angry Jewish protesters, angry military personnel, angry feminists, angry homosexuals, angry proponents of free speech and angry liberal conspiracy theorists. Basically the argument boiled down to this: By allowing him a platform to speak are we legitimizing his views?

The Event
While the actual speech filled up within minutes of its announcement, a large overflow broadcast was conducts on the south lawn. This is what I ended up attending and it was rather packed. Here's a picture courtesy of Bwog:


The Interesting Part
So, rather than sit around and watch the various campus protests, my dear friends Gelseigh and James joined me in exiting the campus gates to mingle with outside protesters. These people would have loved to be on campus, but Columbia, thankfully, decided to require a valid student ID to gain access to the quad.

Now our main goal was to pick out the people with the craziest signs and engage in debate with them. We all split up.

The first man I spoke to was carrying a sign which portrayed a large swastika with Ahmadinejad's head on top. The debate, in severe paraphrase, went something like this:
Me: Don't you think it's a little ridiculous and offensive to compare this man to Hitler?
Him: Well let me first tell you that I'm a Holocaust survivor and I watched my sister die next to me in a concentration camp.
Me: (stunned silence)
Him: This man wants to do just what Hitler did. He wants another Holocaust.
Me: I don't deny that, but don't you think that it's important to allow him to speak before that can happen? As a means of spreading awareness maybe?
Him: Why should he have a right to speak here? You're legitimizing his ideas by allowing him to speak here.

(insert 10 minutes of elevated debate. The rest of it is carried out in screams from the man)

Me: How are we supposed to know how to respond to this guy if we don't allow anyone to engage him directly?
Him: He's had his time to speak. Bringing him here is sponsoring a hate rally. You don't know what you're talking about.
Me: It's not a hate rally, it's a forum to question him.
Him: You don't know anything. I wish you were there in the camps with me. I wish you had seen my sister die.
Me: (silence) ... I'm sorry you feel that way. (I walk away).

At this point a reporter came up to me and told me I held up very well and that the guy was totally out of line. I answered a few questions and went back into the crowd to calm down a little then find someone else to argue with.

When you started talking to people in the crowd itself about 6 reporters would show up with notebooks and mics and cameras as soon as it started. Needless to say, it's a little tough to debate with all this crap shoved in your face, but it was an experience.

The next group I approached was of two women with an "Ashamed to be Alumni" sign. James started arguing with one of them and I the other one started in on me. This was nice, because as soon as you started arguing about 5 other people tended to jump in and shout you down.

The premise of this debate was a little less heated. They believed that we would be brainwashed by the man. We disagreed and said that the main pillar of higher education was learning to question what was said to us. It moved on to a discussion of whether we had the ability as college students to question him, to which we answered that we out of anyone probably had the best ability to question him.

Then some angry man jumped in and called me naive and an idiot. I told him I wasn't going to debate anything with him if he was going to attack me personally. He responded that what he meant was actually an idea of Stalin's of the "useful idiot". I told him that I was not a useful idiot and that I didn't think it was appropriate for him to use Stalinist rhetoric against me. He told me I had no idea what I was talking about, that diplomacy is useless and that the only answer is war. I responded that war sure helped us on the road to peace in Vietnam and both Iraq wars. He responded that he was in the Gulf war and that if they had taken out Saddam it would've created peace. I responded that our foreign policy should definitely become one of assassinating any foreign leader we don't like. He called me an idiot again and walked away.

The Speech

It was time to leave the madness and go back in the gates to watch the speech. PrezBo opened up by essentially owning the fuck out of Ahmadinejad. It was a little disappointing to see him cave so much to the public pressure of the people that had just been hurling unfounded insults at me all morning. He did need to make it clear that we were not in support of this guy's politics though, so maybe it was good.

Ahmadinejad then proceeded to ramble for about 40 minutes about science and religion. He made absolutely no sense for the majority of it. Gawker managed to grab this quote from somewhere:
"In the teachings of the prophets, one reality shall always be attached to science: the reality of purity of spirit and good behavior. Knowledge and wisdom are pure and clear reality. Science is a light."

Yep.

Well, the question-and-answer was a bit more interesting. He managed to dodge every single question pretty masterfully.
"Do you believe in the destruction of Israel"
"*Long rant about Palestine's right to exist*"
etc.

The highlight of the speech was definitely when a question was asked about homosexuality. At first he ignored it. The question was then repeated. He answered:
" In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country ... In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this."

Conclusion
Well, all-in-all it was an intense day. The speech was mostly passive and harmless, but the discussions it inspired were more valuable than all the weeks of classes I've been to at this school. This is what a university is supposed to be and I'm glad our President had the sense to invite the man to come speak. I was shouted down numerous times, told that I should've died in the Holocaust and told that I couldn't possibly know anything about politics or the world in general. But I feel like if I managed to get something out of the experience in spite of all that, then the university has done its job. Hats off to our administration...for once.

Here's some pictures from inside the gates: