Speaking Up at Columbia
Today, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered his much anticipated address at Columbia University. Though the speech received a frenzy of media coverage, a dispassionate analysis of Ahmadinejad’s reasons for speaking in the first place was lost in a swirl of questions regarding free speech, denial of the Holocaust, Iranian involvement in Iraq, and the role of speakers at college campuses. Putting these issues aside, it becomes easier to see the event (and its reception) as an excellent opportunity for Ahmadinejad to build up his arsenal of rhetoric and propaganda.
The Iranian president managed to capture America in a catch-22, made possible only by our county’s commitment to free speech and free press. Had Ahmadinejad been denied the opportunity to speak on his trip (or had his event been cancelled), he would have returned to Iran with (at least in his eyes) a concrete instance of American hypocrisy. Once in front of a more friendly audience, he could have alleged that American values of free speech and free discussion were as empty as the US’s commitment to peace in the Middle East. This of course requires blurring the line between the policies of Columbia University and the US government, but conflating the two poses little problem when crafting a narrative of American duplicity.
But, having been allowed to speak, he also made some strategic gains. The hostilite reaction to his presence can be repackaged in Iran as indicative of general American hostility to Iranian interests. This is not a critique of those who chose to protest against his views. Rather, the point is that the images of the protest–(justifiably) angry groups of American citizens, signs with X’s through Ahmadinejad’s face–can be retransmitted as American bigotry and antipathy towards Iran and the rest of the Muslim world. Even the remarks of Columbia’s president Lee Bollinger, labeling Ahmadinejad a “petty and cruel dictator” can be touted as unfair insults levelled at a visiting head of state.
But both of the above points obscure the fact that on some level, Ahmadinejad is trying to play on the West’s terms. Anne Applebaum at Slate.com explains: “Ahmadinejad’s agenda is different, though, from that of the traditional autocrat…Thus, the speech at Columbia: Here he is, the allegedly undemocratic Ahmadinejad, taking questions from students! At an American university! Look who’s the real democrat now!”
The content of his speech was not terribly surprising or substantive–he danced around most questions with broad and cryptic responses. More important than the content, however, was the act itself. He has put the ball in America’s court. He has, at least on face, come to the US with good intentions–asking to pay respect at Ground Zero, and engaging in discussion. In the face of often brutal criticism, he was generally calm and polite. He made sure to share his views in an academic forum, adding an air of scholarly rigor and integrity to his views on topics ranging from the Holocaust to treatment of homosexuals. He made an explicit request for American students to come to Iran for a similar exchange. He was firm, but not bombastic or apocalyptic. In short, he used the forum and the media coverage surrounding it to subvert the image–created by those very same media sources–of himself as a dangerous and irrational despot.