September 21, 2007
The Weekly Standard
William Kristol
Let the Iranian president (and the Columbia president) speak to a sea of empty seats.
A Columbia student asked how he could effectively protest his university's invitation to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak Monday. My first response was to suggest petitions, e-mails to President Bollinger and the university trustees, letters to the student paper, peaceful protest, and the like. All these are fine. But then I had a second thought. There might be one form of protest that would be effective both in showing appropriate disgust for the Iranian regime, and in shaming the Columbia administration: A total student boycott of Ahmadinejad's speech. Let the Iranian president (and the Columbia president) look out on, and speak to, a sea of empty seats on Monday.
The rationale for a student boycott is simple: The Iranian government is directly involved in killing and wounding American soldiers in Iraq. As a gesture of elementary solidarity with those serving our nation in the military--young men and women, many of them their exact contemporaries--Columbia students should refuse to dignify Ahmadinejad's talk by attending it. Needless to say, Columbia faculty and administrators shouldn't attend either. Some of them will. But this is a chance for the 9/11 generation to show a decency and a sense of honor that some of their elders lack. After all, this is not primarily about Ahmadinejad. Dealing with his regime is mostly a task for our government. This is about us. Columbia students have a chance to shame their elders, redeem the good name of their institution, and make many Americans proud. I urge them to take it.
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4 comments:
If the Univesity will not stop the visit by Ahmadinejad, why don't the students, residents, and opposers of the visit form in large groups in front of the entrances to the venue to prevent him from even getting to a platform from which to spew his hatred and jealousy. If we can't act as a group, then I hope a brave individual succeeds in assasinating him.
Good evenning to all of you friends ahmadinejad the terrorist islamic president of iran should be arrested and place on trial i have written and taken this matter in a high level. please friends i would like to thank all of you who would participate in a big rally from new york where i am to all over ahmadinejad and the mollahs are terrorist like osama bin ladin, trully yours tirdad gharib.no unoversity should allow a terrroist like ahmadinejad from iran speak,.
Shameful....
Amedinejad didn't do much except to demonstrate that he doesn't have the guts to answer the HARD questions when they're put to him. The first part of his rambling discourse was unintellegable to Americans....just so much pseudo-mystic noise.....the rest was pure BS. Everybody knew it too.
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