Columbia Students Fight Back with some South African Assistance

Iran’s genocidal president has once against grabbed international headlines over his controversial visit to Columbia University this week (Ahmadinejad is currently in New York to address the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly). Daniel Greenberg, a South African Jewish student studying politics and economics at Columbia, has been actively involved in the demonstrations against the visit. I spoke to him last night about the experience.

Last Wednesday (19th September), Columbia University President Lee Bollinger dropped a bombshell by announcing that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had accepted an invitation to speak at the University’s “World Leader’s Conference” on 23rd September. This left students with a mere 4 days to organise a response to arguably the most dangerous enemy the Jewish people face today. Furthermore, many Jewish students were conflicted over the issue.

As Daniel explained ‘Although Ahmadinejad is reviled as an enemy of the Jewish people and a skillful propagandist, President Bollinger, a respected champion of free speech, upheld Ahmadinejad’s right to address the Columbia community. Over the last few months, Bollinger has condemned the Union of British Universities for their campaign to boycott Israeli academics, citing the need to create an open “marketplace of ideas”. Over 500 University presidents signed Bollinger’s statement condemning the boycott. Could Jewish organisations really oppose the invitation of Ahmadinejad in light of the fact that it was upheld on the same grounds as the condemnation of the boycott of Israeli academics?’

Nevertheless despite disagreements, the Jewish student body came together in a massive show of force to protest more against Ahmadinejad’s policies than his invitation. A major concern in organizing the response was that the campaign would not become an exclusively Jewish affair. As Daniel put it to me ‘we did not want to create the perception that this was just another Jews verse Muslims clash, but rather make it clear that it should be an issue for everyone who respects human rights’. So Jewish organizations reached out to all campus groups who were interested in taking part in the protest. Organisations that joined the Columbia Coalition included the College Democrats, the College Republicans, Amnesty International as well as many human rights, women’s rights and gay right’s groups. Most posters and banners deliberately focused more on Ahmadinejad’s subjugation of his own people including the execution of teenagers for homosexuality, of women for defending themselves against rapists and a list of 80 children currently on death row in Iran (see poster below) than his incitement to genocide against Israel or his Holocaust denial.

While this strategy was effective in achieving broad-based support for the anti-Ahmadinejad lobby on campus, it is also symptomatic of the growing climate of fear among American Jews when it comes to speaking out on Israel issues alone. Lately American Jewry (‘the lobby’ as they are known) has been under fire for shutting down debate and manipulating US foreign policy in support of Israel. The irony of course is that by President Cater and co getting nationwide attention for these accusations, they actually serve to disprove themselves. If the lobby was in fact so powerful surely they would not allow debate on this issue? But this criticism has nevertheless taken its toll.

What the Columbia affair demonstrates is that while the anti-Semitic rantings of Ahmadinejad are an obvious threat to the Jewish people, there is a subtle and perhaps more sinister variant of anti-Semitism at work that severely limits our ability to defend ourselves. This time its effects were minimal given the broader human rights issues. But what about next time? If Ahmadinejad manages to place Israel and the Jewish people solely in his sights (as he is attempting to do), how will we rally others to our cause? The ‘new anti-Semitism’ serves to ensure that once again the Jewish people will have to face evil alone and vulnerable.

Daniel has written an article on the Ahmadinejad visit for the upcoming edition of the Jewish report. When it is published we will post it here. But we have put up some of his pictures from the protests below.

Of course the anti-Bush crowd were also in attendance...

Comments

[Joel Pollak]

It's easy to oppose Bollinger on Ahmedinejad and support him on Israel. The problem is that most groups have accepted the definition of both as "free speech" issues. Freedom of speech is a protection individuals enjoy against the interference of government. No one's speech would have been restricted if Columbia, a private university, had refused to give Ahmedinejad, a head of state, a platform. Not even the passive free speech right of Columbia students to hear Ahmedinejad's views would have been abridged; these are widely available already. In contrast, calling on a university to boycott academics from Israel is a clear example of unfair and arbitrary discrimination. On the basis of the argument that academic freedom must be mutually reciprocal, one could easily say that Bollinger was wrong on Iran and right on Israel.

[Daniel Greenberg]

I disagree with Joel's point. Iran's mission to the UN submitted a request to Bollinger that Ahmadinejad be allowed to speak at Columbia, and consequently, Bollinger extended the invitation. If he denied it, he WOULD BE preventing students from hearing what the President of Iran had to say.

On the other issue, the British Boycott, as I understand it, is not a government sponsored initiative. They, like Columbia, are a private institution with the right to chose and to restrict who they deal with.

There are much stronger arguments to be made against Bollinger, but this one does not stand.

[Joel Pollak]

I see. So if I asked Columbia if I could give a speech on their campus, and they said no, they'd be denying my freedom of speech? Or that of Columbia students?

And the British boycott (thankfully, now defeated), would have been a violation of Britain's anti-discrimination laws, as the British union concluded after consulting with its lawyers.

[Mediocrates-x]

It's patently silly to assert there's no right or wrong in the realm of so called free speech. Why not have a neo confederate give us a speech about all the good things to come from slavery. Or perhaps a child molester extoling the virtues of child rape. Any why not a wife beater discussing the divine right of that too? The academic theoretical unlimited 'free speech' advocates are fools. No the simple fact is that racists and fools don't drop from the sky. They've already found a receptive audience and fertile ground which already gave them free license to prattle and screech.