As Tufts University students, we ought to take pride in our institution's commitment to global leadership and active citizenship. Therefore, we should be embarrassed by and ashamed of the spineless rhetoric evinced by the Tufts Daily's staff in their editorial "Let the speaker speak" (Sept. 25).
Lamenting the "negative shadow" cast upon Iranian President Ahmadinejad during his introduction at Columbia University, the editorial presents a defense of the politician that would make Iranian diplomats proud. Not only omitting any analysis of the true injustice of Ahmadinejad's speech (i.e. the fact that it was allowed to happen at all), the Daily also compromises its journalistic integrity by failing to identify the leader as what he undeniably is: a terrorist in presidential clothing.
The Daily's disturbing willingness to blur both moral and political realities is glaring from the start of "Let the speaker speak." Initially citing Ahmadinejad's denials of the Holocaust and homosexuality and his typical Israel-bashing with an unnerving apathy, the editorial staff proceeds to censure Columbia President Lee Bollinger's remarks as comparably "troubling."
They level this charge in the name of fair and open discourse, reasoning that Bollinger had "no right" to indict the leader until after his speech. In fact, the Daily states that it would have preferred a more cordial introduction that "informed the audience of the speaker's background and accomplishments."
Put simply, however, this entire argument is deeply flawed for three reasons.
First, to declare that Bollinger had "no right" to accurately introduce Ahmadinejad as the corrupt megalomaniac that he is is to imply that one's actions have no consequences. Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," sponsored the "International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust" (a pseudo-academic conference devoted Holocaust denial), is believed to finance Hezbollah and, according to President Bush, heads a government that has been supplying Iraqi insurgents with armor-piercing explosives specifically designed to kill American soldiers.
For those of us unable to casually ignore the horror of Ahmadinejad rule, Bollinger's honesty is a far cry from the moral defects and frightening implications of the Iranian leader's statements and actions.
Second, and equally confounding, is the Tufts Daily's apparent belief that Bollinger's remarks somehow shrouded Ahmadinejad in negativity, thus undermining "fair communication between the Iranian president and the audience." While it is laughable to intimate that the world's most dangerous political leader needs any help in portraying himself as just that, the Daily's more serious mistake comes in its assumption that Ahmadinejad is capable of "fair communication."
Constructive dialogue and purposeful debate are governed by certain overarching norms. These include empirically-based argumentation, a respect for the other's viewpoint, a commitment to rational thought and the acknowledgement of a possible justification or legitimate defense of each party's position. However, when one side is so removed from reality that it shrugs off the Holocaust as myth, these norms become irrelevant.
Ahmadinejad and Western audiences can never understand each other or hope to arrive at some utopian middle ground of acceptance and progress. And this is how it should be.
When confronted with a raving and virulent demagogue, accommodation and appeasement are as futile as they are self-defeating. It is for this reason that Ahmadinejad should not have been granted a platform at Columbia, as constructive dialogue and the Iranian president are no more irreconcilable than compromise or peace with Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden.
Third, the Daily's wish that Bollinger introduced Ahmadinejad by listing his accomplishments is absurdly tragic - absurd in the humor of the suggestion but tragic in the seriousness with which it was posed. While it is comforting to know that our university's newspaper wants to pad the ego of a nuclear ambitious radical, it is unclear what accomplishments the editorial staff has in mind.
True, Ahmadinejad has allegedly helped kill Americans in Iraq and has defied the world in violating myriad United Nations treaties on nuclear non-proliferation. And yes, he has developed an impressive array of Jew-hating diatribes that he can produce at a moment's notice while also plunging his country into economic disarray despite massive oil and natural gas reserves (no easy feat, mind you).
But these hardly seem like bragging points. The fact of the matter is that Ahmadinejad's long list of accomplishments is no more inspiring than an escaped convict's rap sheet. If anything, Bollinger did the Iranian president a favor by softening up the crowd with a few hackneyed comments about "petty" dictatorship.
In his classic treatise, "The Art of War," Sun Tzu writes, "If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will win a hundred times in a hundred battles ... If you do not know yourself or your enemy, you will always lose." As the future leaders of the United States, we are slowly forgetting the value of this maxim. While military conflict with Iran and similar regimes is far from desirable, there is nevertheless a war at hand.
It is an ideological war, a struggle between the decency and democratic values of Western societies and the dangerous radicalism that has consumed the Middle East and appropriated one of the world's great religions.
To engage this enemy and construct a sound strategy for its defeat, we must first recognize it as the unrelenting evil that it is. And, in the matter of President Ahmadinejad, we must fight our democratic instinct to respect that with which we do not agree and categorically reject the hatred of he who seeks to destroy us.
Recently, the editorial staff of the Tufts Daily urged students to "grow up." In light of "Let the speaker speak," it is time they took their own advice.
