"DO WE LISTEN to those that we disagree with, and vigorously challenge them, or do we close our ears completely?" asked David Ellwood of Harvard University when defending his decision to invite former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami to speak. There is no question that Khatami's invite a few weeks ago preserved this University's role as an example of an open forum for free speech and intellectual debate and underscored the critical ability of institutions of learning in the United States to influence foreign policy changes in positive ways. Ironically, it is Khatami's critics who pose the gravest threat to free speech and reasoned argument at the University.
First, let us straighten out the political structure of Iran as well as Khatami's résume, since they have been laughably manipulated. Iran's president has minimal power compared to the Islamic Council of Guardians, a group of ultraconservative individuals who can veto any decision deemed un-Islamic or unconstitutional. Despite Khatami's attempts to override their power -- by submitting bills to limit their power, overturning their decisions to disallow hundreds of reformists from elections or supporting anti-Council student demonstrations -- he (not surprisingly) failed. Really, there isn't much you can do when the arm of government you are fighting vetoes a bill targeted at limiting its own power. To blame Khatami, who actively tried to overturn and reform repressive measures undertaken by the Council, for the very repression he actively tried to combat, is unacceptable. In his letter to the editor last week ("Standing up to Khatami," Sept. 11), the chief organizer of anti-Khatami student protests at the University, Michael Wain, tacitly acknowledges this himself. He cites a list of repressive acts that occurred in the regime that "Khatami presided over" -- notice he does not say Khatami actively was involved in these policies but merely was there when they happened. Next time, maybe we should blame a robbery on the brave individual who tried to stop it from happening. Skewed and comic logic is certainly no deterrent for keeping out a key Iranian reformer from this University.
A very prominent Jeffersonian cliché -- and the masthead quote of The Cavalier Daily itself -- says "for here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as a reason is left free to combat it." Reason was disappointingly missing from the anti-Khatami protests at this University -- characterized by chalking the premises with statements like "UVA: Supporting Tyrants" and handing out flyers using crackdowns on student demonstrations in Tehran to justify crackdowns on free speech at the University. Wain and his compatriots should have emulated the group "Harvard Students for Israel," who handed out detailed fact sheets informing students of Khatami's political record and even went so far as to e-mail individuals attending the speech to submit and pose difficult questions. This is what Jefferson himself would have wanted the University to be -- an environment of dissenting opinions with intellectual debate and activist lobbying, not a replica of government-controlled Tehran University spewing rhetoric and cracking down on speakers that do not agree with us. Influential educational institutions cement differences between the values we are fighting for and the flawed systems of those terrorists and rogue regimes we are fighting against. In this regard, a policy of dialogue and engagement works better than a hypocritical one of repression, which we ourselves resent and hope to change in our enemies.
Lastly, a word or two on dissenting views advanced by those anti-Khatami protesters at the University that reek of hypocrisy and irrationality: First there's the neoconservative argument that inviting Khatami emboldens the mullahs. The record speaks for itself; years of sanctions and military threats have produced nothing, and maybe it's time to try engagement and dialogue like Khatami suggested. The 9/11 argument is a disgrace -- there is no link between Khatami, Iran and 9/11, and manipulating this event to erode one of America's prized assets of free speech would make the thousands of casualties of that tragedy turn over in their graves. What about the link with Hezbollah and gross human rights records? Supporting Hezbollah is no more radical than U.S. support for an Israeli state founded on the basis of terrorism whose head of state was himself a terrorist leader in Menachem Begin. I don't see President Bush's travels as geographically limited. As for human rights, suffice to say, one man's repression at Tehran University is another man's Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib or CIA secret prison. Take your pick.
Prashanth Parameswaran's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at pparameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
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