A Platform for Hate

Part of why I love New York is its penchant for attracting epochal controversies, such as the indescribable foolishness of Columbia's Lee Bolinger inviting President Ahmadinejad of (The Islamic Republic of) Iran to speak to the student body yesterday.
President Bolinger defended his action, saying, "If Hitler were in the United States, and...he were willing to engage in a debate...we would invite him" (quoted in WSJ, 9/25). The Times (predictably) defended the invitation as well: "We can imagine no better way of laying bare the bankruptcy of Mr. Ahmadinejad's views than to have him speak...at a university forum."

Much of the debate surrounding the visit has centered on the idea of free speech. Many have argued that for Columbia to deny President Ahmadinejad a platform to speak would be equivalent to a suppression of ideas. "Let him come," they say, "and we will prove to the world just how ridiculous his views really are." In this light, the derisive laughter, and biting criticism that haunted the bearded Iranian throughout his visit represent a victory for America.

Unfortunately, Lee Bolinger and the Times editorial staff have badly misjudged the nature of Ahmadinejad's ideology, and thus grossly misapplied the free speech protected by the Constitution. The First Amendment does not guarantee the right to say anything at all--I cannot run down Sixth Avenue shrieking profanity, or tell my friend that I'm going to kill him. The First Amendment rests on the principle that speech is principally a mode of rational discourse, not a cloak to veil tyranny, oppression, and extremism.

President Ahmadinejad has repeatedly denied that the Holocaust took place, and has called for the immediate dissolution of Israel. He represents an oppressive, theocratic state, perhaps the single largest government sponsor of terrorism worldwide, a state founded by a man who popularized the notion of America as the "Great Satan." At his direction, millions of dollars have flowed into the bank accounts of Hezbollah and their allies. His government produces a stream of propaganda (I generally try to steer clear of polemics, but the word has a place, and it's here) that advocates a distorted view of history, morality, gender relations, and religious devotion. In short, President Ahmadinejad is not interested in rational discourse.

In his editorial piece in the WSJ today, Bret Stephens draws out the Hitler comparison made by Bolinger. Say Hitler of 1939 (not yet a genocidal maniac, but a maniac nonetheless) had come to Columbia, and ranted and raved about Aryan supremacy, to the derision and bold refutation of the American academic elite. He notes wryly that, while a few in the audience would quietly reflect that he ought to be arrested on the spot, most would disparagingly muse how to make the fool "see reason." Many of those same scoffers would have found themselves bleeding and dying on the battlefields of Europe a few years later, realizing too late that the appropriate response to a man who has abandoned reason is not an argument, but a well-aimed gun, and a jail cell. I use forceful language only to drive home the point: if you find yourself locked in a room with a rabid dog, you do not reason with it.

Now, Ahmadinejad is neither Hitler, nor a rabid dog. I doubt very much that he wants either to kill all Americans, or ignite World War III. However, he consistently engages in irrational, violent, inflammatory discourse with the world, a discourse he maintains in glaring opposition to an understanding of reality that is blatantly obvious to most Westerners. In inviting him to Columbia, Bolinger gave his ideas a status they do not deserve: he has created a platform for hate to address the world. For the rest of his petty, megalomaniacal life, Ahmadinejad can now glowingly boast how he spoke at an Ivy League University, how American elites are really open to hearing his view of life, how his warped picture of reality was given equal status with the American vision on a world stage.

There is wisdom in America engaging our admitted adversaries with diplomacy. There would be wisdom in America exchanging embassies with Iran, with American diplomats discussing Mid-East politics, and nuclear proliferation, with Iranian ministers. However, there is real difference between the realpolitik mindset that cautions nations to keep their enemies closer than their friends, and the naievete of an intellectual trying to engage a polemical dictator in a reasoned debate.

Serious biblical scholars do not invite mystics claiming that Jesus was an alien to seminars on historical criticism of the Gospels; World War II historians do not invite conspiracy theorists claiming that the Illuminati orchestrated the Holocaust to seminars on Hitler's Germany; Ivy League institutions should not extend invitations to debate to men who oppose us as enemies with an irrational, extremist vision of life. It is not a matter of free speech; it is a matter of prudence.