ahmadinejad speech

In a wide-ranging speech, Mr Ahmadinejad laid into the administration of US President George W Bush, who had addressed the General Assembly earlier in the day.

"Unfortunately human rights are being extensively violated by certain powers, especially by those who pretend to be their exclusive advocates," Mr Ahmadinejad said, without mentioning the United States by name.

"Setting up secret prisons, abducting persons, trials and secret punishments without any regard to due process, extensive tapping of telephone conversations intercepting private mail... have become commonplace and prevalent," he added.

The US and Israeli delegates walked out before Mr Ahmadinejad's speech.

He continued by criticising the US-led invasion of Iraq, which he said was "occupied under the pretext of overthrowing the dictator and the existence of weapons of mass destruction."

"Unfortunately, we are witnessing the bitter truth that some powers do not value some nations or human beings and the only things that matter to them are themselves, their political parties and their groups."

I came out of the dialogue among University President Lee Bollinger, President Ahmadinejad, and the Columbia community entirely impressed by all parties involved. Given such a unique opportunity, the general student body and the speakers afforded the height of respect and patience to one another, and while each was receptive to the claims being made by the opposing sides, at no point did the interlocutors defend their own views any less fiercely, for the sake of appeasement. While the dissonance between the questions posed and the answers received demonstrate that the intent of the University in hosting this event and that of Mr. Ahmadinejad in agreeing to it were very different, much was absorbed by the latter's words.
The president of Iran entered an environment entirely hostile to him, only to silence thousands of students―and, at several occasions, gain their applause―with the poignancy and thoughtfulness of his speech, which was mostly directed towards hypocrisy in the United States government. Though this in no way excuses the innumerable atrocities he has committed against humanity (which he never directly addressed), it forced the audience members to consider their own definition of morality, and the platform from which they defend it.
The fact that herds of people who went into the affair with such strong convictions left with more questions than answers illuminates the complexity of the current matters involving the Middle East and the entire global community. It demonstrated how similar dialogue must continue to take place in order for us to better understand our adversaries, as opposed to mindlessly dismissing them as "crazy." I believe that every person who witnessed the discussion, regardless of background or partiality prior to it, left feeling satisfied and grateful that it took place.
President Bollinger, as an educator and not a politician, should be applauded for trusting Columbians to be responsible and listen to opinions quite radically different from their own, critically digest them, and react from an open-minded and responsible perspective, as opposed to a purely emotional one. The students met this challenge with grace. While isolating themselves from the criticisms, protests, politics, and outrage from the entire global community, Columbia affiliates demonstrated the maxim of free speech at its best, and I'm honored to consider myself among them.

Charlotte Chiang, CC '09

What an embarrassment the President was today. And I don't mean Iran's President―I mean Columbia's.
How was academic freedom possibly advanced, let alone evidenced, by the spectacle of Columbia as the forum for Ahmadinejad to assure us that there are no homosexuals in Iran? But maybe there aren't, at least not outside of prisons and certainly not after they've been beheaded, both well-documented occurrences. Or perhaps I'm wrong about all this, and in fact Ahmadinejad, having now invited the Columbia community to visit Iran, would be happy for some research to be done on the phenomenon of disappearing homosexuals. I suppose that would balance his call for more research into the Holocaust. Except of course we know, and we knew before he soiled the campus, that Ahmadinejad isn't a truth-seeker but a truth-hater.
So honestly, why can't President Bollinger see what a disgrace this all was? His pat answer that we are called upon to tolerate "odious" opinions in the name of academic freedom is at best a defense of Ahmadinejad's right to voice his views from a soapbox in Times Square―and let's hope that he does―not a defense of academic freedom, whose precondition, a common consensus on the value of seeking the truth, was not met today.
The University's trust was abused by permitting today's event to occur. It is therefore President Bollinger, not Ahmadinejad, who shamed Columbia today.

Michael Straus, GSAS

For the first four years of Lee Bollinger's presidency, I was one of his toughest public critics. In news articles and, later, editorials for this newspaper, I questioned his weak stance on the MEALAC controversy and lambasted his secretive dealings on the proposed campus expansion to Manhattanville. But good journalism necessitates praising someone's successes as well as calling out his failures, and I believe that today was one of the biggest successes of Bollinger's administration.
By allowing Columbia students to hear Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bollinger demonstrated an admirable commitment to the principle of free speech that he teaches in the classroom. By publicly challenging Ahmadinejad's record, he made clear that he would not provide a soapbox or treat the leader as an honored guest. Instead, he provided 600 students with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to personally question an important world leader while embracing his own opportunity to condemn Ahmadinejad's actions on behalf of the University―handling himself with grace and intellectual honesty in a tremendously challenging situation. I have never been so proud to associate myself with Columbia and with the University's leader.

Megan Greenwell, BC '06
The author was the editor-in-chief of the 129th Managing Board of the
Columbia Daily Spectator.
You can see videos of Ahmadinejad's speech and Colombia University President Lee Bollinger's opening remarks. Without any apparent sense of irony, Bollinger calls on the Iranian President to allow an American who is being held without trial in Iran to be allowed to leave, just to cite one example of the bizarre double standard that is, well, standard in the US right now. It's probably standard everywhere, but in any case, it's embarrassing to watch intelligent people talk like this.