Follow up to Ahmedinejad at Columbia

For the millionth time, thanks and love to Loose. This is from the Fars news agency in Iran:

Iranian University Chancellors Ask Bollinger 10 Questions

The following is the full text of the letter.

Mr. Lee Bollinger
Columbia University President

We, the professors and heads of universities and research institutions in Tehran , hereby announce our displeasure and protest at your impolite remarks prior to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent speech at Columbia University.

We would like to inform you that President Ahmadinejad was elected directly by the Iranian people through an enthusiastic two-round poll in which almost all of the country's political parties and groups participated. To assess the quality and nature of these elections you may refer to US news reports on the poll dated June 2005.

Your insult, in a scholarly atmosphere, to the president of a country with a population of 72 million and a recorded history of 7,000 years of civilization and culture is deeply shameful.

Your comments, filled with hate and disgust, may well have been influenced by extreme pressure from the media, but it is regrettable that media policy-makers can determine the stance a university president adopts in his speech.

Your remarks about our country included unsubstantiated accusations that were the product of guesswork as well as media propaganda. Some of your claims result from misunderstandings that can be clarified through dialogue and further research.

During his speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad answered a number of your questions and those of students. We are prepared to answer any remaining questions in a scientific, open and direct debate.

You asked the president approximately ten questions. Allow us to ask you ten of our own questions in the hope that your response will help clear the atmosphere of misunderstanding and distrust between our two countries and reveal the truth.

1- Why did the US media put you under so much pressure to prevent Mr. Ahmadinejad from delivering his speech at Columbia University? And why have American TV networks been broadcasting hours of news reports insulting our president while refusing to allow him the opportunity to respond? Is this not against the principle of freedom of speech?

2- Why, in 1953, did the US administration overthrow the Iran's national government under Dr Mohammad Mosaddegh and go on to support the Shah's dictatorship?

3- Why did the US support the blood-thirsty dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iraqi-imposed war on Iran, considering his reckless use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers defending their land and even against his own people?

4- Why is the US putting pressure on the government elected by the majority of Palestinians in Gaza instead of officially recognizing it? And why does it oppose Iran 's proposal to resolve the 60-year-old Palestinian issue through a general referendum?

5- Why has the US military failed to find Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden even with all its advanced equipment? How do you justify the old friendship between the Bush and Bin Laden families and their cooperation on oil deals? How can you justify the Bush administration's efforts to disrupt investigations concerning the September 11 attacks?

6- Why does the US administration support the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) despite the fact that the group has officially and openly accepted the responsibility for numerous deadly bombings and massacres in Iran and Iraq? Why does the US refuse to allow Iran 's current government to act against the MKO's main base in Iraq?

7- Was the US invasion of Iraq based on international consensus and did international institutions support it? What was the real purpose behind the invasion which has claimed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives? Where are the weapons of mass destruction that the US claimed were being stockpiled in Iraq?

8- Why do America's closest allies in the Middle East come from extremely undemocratic governments with absolutist monarchical regimes?

9- Why did the US oppose the plan for a Middle East free of unconventional weapons in the recent session of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors despite the fact the move won the support of all members other than Israel?

10- Why is the US displeased with Iran's agreement with the IAEA and why does it openly oppose any progress in talks between Iran and the agency to resolve the nuclear issue under international law?

Finally, we would like to express our readiness to invite you and other scientific delegations to our country. A trip to Iran would allow you and your colleagues to speak directly with Iranians from all walks of life including intellectuals and university scholars. You could then assess the realities of Iranian society without media censorship before making judgments about the Iranian nation and government.

You can be assured that Iranians are very polite and hospitable toward their guests.

Mahmoud Ahmedinejad at Columbia

Much has already been made of Ahmedinejad's visit to Columbia, which passed yesterday. After cancelling his invitation by Lisa Anderson last year, it's been obvious that Lee Fucking Bollinger couldn't have kept his well-worn, if inconsistent--we're reminded of the row over Jim Gilchrist and his proto-fascist "Minutemen" last year--First Amendment cred by bailing on Ahmedinejad two years in a row. Sure enough, L.F.B. was quick to pat himself on the back for going out on such a limb in upholding Ahmedinejad's right to speak--though he also, of course, found time to mouth the Bush administration's line about Ahmedinejad being the leader of a "state sponsor of terror," how Iran's helping fight a "proxy war" against the US in Iraq, blah blah blah. For his performance, Bollinger even managed to win the approval of AIPAC.

We'd like to direct your attention to the Washington Post's Global Power Barometer, which summed up national and global reaction to Bollinger's "introduction" and Ahmedinejad's speech this way:

• Conservative and heartland America papers by and large praised the very tough introduction of Columbia University President Lee Bollinger and strongly criticized the performance of the Iranian President.
• Analysts with an understanding of the global stage were fairly uniform in their view that while President Bollinger played well to those who criticized his decision to invite President Ahmadinejad in the first place, his introduction played perfectly into the hands of the Iranina President and Iranian hard liners. The take of these analysts was that while a Tim Russert (NBC Meet the Press host) style inquisition could have taken the Iranian President apart, Dr. Bollinger's approach turned him into a sympathetic figure and violated just about every Middle East tradition, thereby enhancing President Ahmadinejad's stature in Iran and the region. Consensus: Thanks to Bollinger, Ahmadinejad won on the global stage.
• GPB take: While the GPB understands the pressure President Bollinger was under, his response was symptomatic of the ignorance even educated Americans have about playing to the myriad of cultures spanning the Middle East and the world. To date that extraordinary cultural ignorance has cost the US thousands of US lives, trillions of taxpayer dollars and the presitge of the US throughout the world. It is the primary reason the US is at the bottom of the GPB scale in terms of its ability to move the global agenda. Hopefully, at some time in the future, American politicians (and university presidents) will learn that being truly tough and winning on the global stage requires the discipline to realize you need to move those who are your adversaries not those who compose your base. The Iranians learned that a very long time ago, which is why they came out ahead today with the audiences that will determine US success or failure in the Middle East.

Let's be clear--we have very little sympathy for Ahmedinejad's abrasive, one-liner style, which only seems to increase in intensity the more he comes under fire in his own country; and Holocaust denial holds for us about the same water as those who claim, as Benny Morris bizarrely now does (but for many years did not), that Palestinians in 1948 left their homes and land entirely of their own will, or at the urging of neighboring Arab states, rather than under the threat of forced expulsion or death from Haganah forces.

It's enough to say that Iran's president is a provocateur without equal on the world stage, and that his wide popularity in the Arab and so-called "developing" world is a result of his unflinching willingness to decry question America's untrammeled power. That said, we are of the mind, with Juan Cole, that Ahmedinejad is a "bantam cock of a populist", whose real (and only) authority lies in the regional strength that Iran has been flaunting ever since the American misadventure in Iraq went awry, irrespective of what date one wishes to put on the beginning of the present nightmare. Iran is a real political force to be reckoned with in today's Middle-Far East, as much as Hezbollah and Hamas, independent of lazy and unfounded US claims of patronage between the former and the latter two. In fact, the US is directly responsible for this unprecedented shift in the balance of power. Yet Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, are continually deemed unfit as partners in dialogue, let alone as important political actors.

All this being said, a balance sheet deserves being drawn, at least to flesh out our own feelings on Ahmedinejad. Let's ignore the crowds of (partly bussed-in) protesters crowding College Walk and the paths to Butler Library and Lerner Hall; pictures in the New York Times of some of them holding up the painfully predictable "Iran funds Hamas"placards--the same we've seen at "Salute to Israel" parades on Fifth Avenue--is enough to pass their presence off as demagoguery and plain political infantilism.

The rub is, when Ahmedinejad says rightly that "We need to still question whether the Palestinian people should be paying for" the Holocaust--referring to Israel's repeated, often implicit assertions that the crimes of Nazi Germany ought to justify its 40-year old illegal occupation and brutally violent denial of the right of Palestinian self-determination--he still fucks this up by saying that the undeniable fact of the Holocaust ought to be called into question. Looking to make a plainly historical point, Ahmedinejad lapses into asinine ideology.

He finds himself on solid ground once again that Iran cannot formally recognize the state of Israel "because [the Israeli state] is based on ethnic discrimination, occupation and usurpation and it consistently threatens its neighbors." Again, this helps account for his oft-wavering popularity at home and abroad. Ahmedinejad's on the money as well when he points out the brazen hypocrisy of Europe and America's desire to control or curtail Iran's nuclear programs.

Just as there is no excusing treating the Holocaust as "theory" rather than historical fact, there is no excusing his ludicrous assertion that "[Iran doesn't] have homosexuals like in your country"--though this doesn't at all give free license to gay and lesbian rights activists to join in the war-mongering chorus in Morningside Heights. (An aside: please see Joseph Massad's Desiring Arabs, referred to elsewhere on this site, for more on how the "Gay International" ends up universalizing repressive norms of what behavior is and is not "gay" in the name of its own normative ontology.)

No Empires: Summer 2007 Demo

As we've alluded to, we wrote and recorded a few songs this summer, and we'd like to share them with you. The first two tracks below are NE originals, and the third is a cover of a song by late-70s Boston band The Rentals (no, not the shittier-than-shit Weezer breakaway). This third song in particular is recommended if you like songs about, uh, child molestation. Pervert.

Extra-special thanks to TJ DeSola and Colin Hagendorf.

"Hard" copies of this demo, in cassette form, expected to be available Winter-Spring 2008.

1. "Girlfriend Island"


2. "Excavation"


3. "I Got A Crush on You"

Well-Made World 21 (a Transatlantic strike)

Late (or early?) edition UPDATE:

The sky gets darker the longer the Giuliani campaign increases its viability. Why this endlessly greedy, self-aggrandizing, par-for-the-course asshole would want to abandon his uber-cushy private sector job for the paltry paycheck of President is a bit unclear--though it's been obvious for some time that he's ready, finally, to leave old buddy Bernie Kerik (who has been, more recently, and in order: failed candidate for Homeland Security; head American cop in Iraq [for 4 months]; and potential tax-fraud indictee) by the wayside. It seems people, and their convictions/affiliations, really can change. Giuliani, who, as mayor, was a fierce gun control advocate--one rare point of agreement between us and him--is now doing his all to woo the N.R.A., even going so far as to say that 9/11 has put "a whole different emphasis on what America has to do to protect itself.” (Though it's arguable that one of Rudy's spokesmen went even further in his clarification of this remark; see the end of the article.)

Ahmed Yousef, political advisor to (unconstitutionally) sacked Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh, has written an editorial for Ha'aretz in which he puts forth a position which should be plainly obvious, yet given American coverage of the subject, is woefully anything but: that the political stalemate, at the "official" level in Israel/Palestine, as well as final status issues pertaining to the Israeli occupation, can only be solved with an inclusion of Hamas in multilateral dialogue. Yousef points out that the purportedly-total animosity between Hamas and Fatah, deployed to great effect in the Western press by Mahmoud Abbas and fellow coup-makers, is nowhere near as all-encompassing as it would seem. He concludes rightly that, far from being spokesmen for the radical Islamist avant-garde in the Arab world, Hamas is working to curtail extremist trends by offering a widely popular--among occupied Palestinians, if not the Arab world more broadly--and secular platform for peace between Israel and occupied/displaced Palestinians. Something tells us that the sound logic of Yousef's proposition will find scant audience in the circles of Bush, Olmert, and Abbas; in particular with Bush, as it flies in the face of the deeply deluded neocon logic he's done so much to propogate.

Speaking of which delusion...
In his latest piece for commentisfree, William Dalrymple argues (quite even-handedly, NE might add) for a strain of American/British foreign policy less resistant to political Islam, pointing out the neo-conservative response has done nothing but guarantee the rise of what they hysterically call "Islamofascism." Like many commentators before him, Dalrymple contrasts neo-con foreign policy (considered by frightening numbers of people in the countries NE call home a legitimate reaction to the threat of "Islamofascism" and the rise of "jihadism") with what anyone NE can respect would consider a self-fulfilling prophecy. As neo-cons consider the growing numbers of Muslim representatives in democratic governments proof of a problem in need of a solution, NE is reminded of pre-emptive warfare, a neo-con trope that is, apparently, no longer necessary.

Works Consulted #5

• Sarah Grand, The Beth Book (Thoemmes)
• Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (Signet Classics)
  
• Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (Penguin Classics)
  
• Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas and A Room of One's Own (Harcourt)
• Fredric Jameson, The Modernist Papers (Verso)
• David Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism: Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development (Verso)
• Franco Solinas, State of Siege (script of Costa-Gavras film)
  

Well-Made World 20

View from a room in Chicago, where this past weekend NE neglected to venture to the Empty Bottle to take in a Silver Apples show, yet managed to consume margaritas from a tap, hot fudge out of a microwaveable pouch, and direct sunlight, all at U.S. Cellular Field. There was a Sarah Grand novel somewhere in there, as well, courtesy of Myopic in Chicago. We're only human--and we were celebrating a birthday. Love and thanks to Lauren Leigh for some local knowledge and advice, and for helping us find delicious and cheap burritos. (La Pasadita!)

Now, back to business.

Columbia University has reclaimed (from DePaul University) its rightful place as the epicenter of highly dubious and ideologically-motivated tenure fights. Barnard College has already approved for tenure anthropologist Nadia Abu El-Haj, author of the excellent and rigorous Facts on the Ground, an examination of the use of archeology in Israeli society and politics, and an account--dating back to the Mandate period--of the ways in which Israel, through a mix of archaeology, politics, and violence has tried to nullify any Palestinian claim to the land which now forms the Israeli state. Despite Barnard's approval, Nadia's fate now ultimately lies with Lee Fucking Bollinger, as Columbia has final jurisdiction regarding tenure at Barnard. We apologize for not being the slightest bit optimistic for Nadia, as Bollinger has gone to great lengths recently (most notably through a couple full-page ads in the New York Times) to defend Israel against Britain's Association of University Teachers, who are suggesting a boycott of Israeli academics for their tacit support of Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories and the south of Lebanon. As was the case with Norman Finkelstein, Nadia's qualifications for tenure are unquestionable, and her work is vital.

More on Finkelstein: following a settlement with DePaul, he has formally resigned from his teaching post. Link is to an interview with Finkelstein and his attorney, conducted by the venerable Amy Goodman.