2007年9月28日星期五
2007年9月27日星期四
Being at home in this world
From friend's blog:
http://commonidiosyncracy.spaces.live.com/default.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0
上周四，我加州的兄弟来我这儿开OYCF的会。我们是大学同学，因为各休各的学，都蹲到95级去了。他爹是北大哲学系教授，他自己研究文化，主要是通过电 影电视。我们都是北京人。这周二，下午6点送他上飞机。他在的一个星期，我度过了这几年来美好愉快持续最长的一段时间。他走了，我才感觉到自己多么孤单。
我们象抽水马桶一样说话，争着说话，评论我们见到的人、建筑、电影、美术、饮食、学术。我们之间毫无障碍地沉浸在对一切共同经历、或分别经历的事物的审美 体验中。我们的兴趣如此相近，相投，我们评论的方式彼此都觉得很舒服，选词也会不约而同。我们谁也不觉得谁imposing, opinionate or rude。
我们一起去Necto的gay night跳舞，去底特律冒险，由着他点他精通的泰国菜。我让他通过我的眼睛看世界，我也渴望着通过他的眼睛看洛杉矶的世界。这次会议还算成功，我对晚上 的侃谈总是抱着兴趣，现在想想其实也是因为他在，不然我还是会很胆怯。我对他抱着彻底的信赖，周六的聊天会，我很晚才去，让他给我记着所有人的话，讲给我 听，一点不是开玩笑，我不是说他记性好，但是相信他讲给我会跟我自己感受一样真切。
会议周日就结束了，我在周三才感到又沉浸回自己一个人的世界里了。最近 一直在想Arendt讲到的feeling at home in this world的感觉。我兄弟带给我的自在和畅快交流的感觉象是找到了同一种species。
Po's comments: This is the brother I once wrote a piece for. 式微，式微，胡不归？Remember that?
夏天下午两三点钟
From friend's blog. Love her writing. 干净，清爽。 http://commonidiosyncracy.spaces.live.com/default.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0
昨天下了一场大雨，今天，北京一改铅灰蒸笼的模样，突然之间鲜亮起来。高蓝的天空，纤卷的薄云，透明的空气，让金色的阳光舒畅地倾泻在大地上。早上8点20送欣雨上暑期英语课，骑车在树荫下跳跃着明朗灿烂的胡同里，好像回到中学时代。10点 钟，接欣雨回来，把她的钢琴凳摆在檐下台阶上做桌子，今天我决定把她的作业改在屋外做。我小时候最喜欢在屋檐下坐在一个小圆桌边上看书做作业，或者坐在台 阶上发呆看书看月季花。后来台阶的青石风化，爸爸全涂上了水泥，日光的反射变了，台阶离地的高度也变了，再也没有亲近自然舒适的感觉，所以很难得再有兴致 坐在屋外了。只是今天天气实在太好，我们坐在屋外，风吹过葡萄架，灰喜鹊贼溜溜一声不响地偷半红的葡萄吃，15岁的咪咪走出来，四处闻闻，在阳光下找了个地儿蹭痒痒。11点半好容易做完作业，跟欣雨在院子里批剑，追杀，直到把我的武器—一 个剑鞘打断。睡完午觉，送欣雨上拉丁舞课，回来之后想再睡会儿，院子里灰喜鹊因为午间无人，不仅来吃葡萄，而且边吃边大声叫，呼朋唤友，于是我搬了藤椅在 架下坐着，翻译文章。三重院子仍然能隔绝外面的世界，葡萄叶子在金色的阳光下，嫩绿、深绿，斑驳地交迭着，随风开合的缝隙中透出高蓝的天。静谧、缓缓流转 的空气、午后、灰砖、青苔、红柱子、苍蝇、蜻蜓、藤椅、翘在凳子上的腿，突然间就回到了14岁时候的夏天。
When I was young
When I was young,
I think less and happier.
when I get older,
I tend to over-prepare everything,
Research, work, live, love, eat and diet.
When I was young,
I was wearing my favorite jacket,
Now I lost it. 
When I get older
I tend to love each jacket I have,
As if they will leave me soon,
To Beijing, To Cali, to the place I have not named.
when I get older,
I tend to over-prepare everything,
Research, work, live, love, eat and diet.
When I was young,
I was wearing my favorite jacket,
Now I lost it. 
When I get older
I tend to love each jacket I have,
As if they will leave me soon,
To Beijing, To Cali, to the place I have not named.
人可真是禁不住化妆！
看看刘大师和师母化妆和不化妆的对比吧！
人可真是禁不住化妆，一化妆都是天仙儿了。天上可是挤不下啊！
===============================================================
今天发明牛油果沙拉，味道好极了！
材料：牛油果一个(avocado)，生菜一头，蘑菇如干，Pepperoni香肠如干，彩色柿子椒（可有可无），Kraft's Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing.
做法：蔬菜们要切一下啦，Avacado打开后用勺子哙出来（最好都用完，否则很快就会变质），把
Pepperoni香肠在锅里用小火煎一下，等油都出来了，变脆了，取出来凉以下。把Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing倒到蔬菜沙拉上，稍微加点盐，然后把煎好的Pepperoni倒进去，完成了！
优点：在搅拌的过程中，avocado就慢慢地烂了，变得非常creamy，加上 Vinaigrette dressing清爽微酸的味道，口感好极了。
2007年9月26日星期三
Myanmar
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/world/asia/26cnd-myanmar.html?hp
From New York Times
An injured monk was led away from the clashes with the police that left at least four people, including three monks, dead.
A group of monks squat in protest after riot police stopped their progress toward Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar.
The government of Myanmar began a crackdown after tolerating ever-larger protests in recent days, using clubs and tear-gas to beat back protesters, and arresting hundreds of monks who have been at the center of the protest marches.
梦
昨天晚上，梦到我和一个朋友开飞机到不知名的海边度假。住在海边的平房里，宽敞通风。夜里，走到屋外，一抬头看见了银河。星光璀璨，真的像是一条波光粼粼的大河。我看得目瞪口呆。
临睡前看亦舒的《黑色笑话》。一个人得了癌症，三个月后要死。因此，他改变了对人生的态度，决定在最后90天内认真写作。朋友们突然都来了，家里热闹非凡。他的书和专栏也突然蹿红，稿酬大增，电视采访邀请不断。眼看这个人就要死了，他的大夫试了一种新药，就了他的命。但是，一下子朋友都散了，出版社对他的书也失去了兴趣，这个人感到好像死了一样。故事的结尾，他终于放开胸怀，决定过踏实的写作生活，到街上寻找新的女朋友，新的生活，新的感受。嘿，又是一个都市的神话。
开始读Paul Bowles的自传Without Stopping。文笔真好，有时间要把它翻译成中文。一个小孩子5岁的时候就看透了人生，难怪他妈妈的朋友说，这个孩子好怪，他有一颗很老的灵魂。Paul Bowles日前在摩洛哥逝世，终年94岁。不知道他去世的时候，是不是重新拥有了一颗孩童的灵魂。
2007年9月25日星期二
President Ahmadinejad Delivers Remarks at Columbia University
SPEAKER: IRANIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
[*]
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful...
TRANSLATOR: The president is reciting verses from the holy Koran in Arabic.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Oh, God, hasten the arrival of Imam al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those to attest to his rightfulness.
Distinguished Dean, dear professors and students, ladies and gentlemen, at the outset I would like to extend my greetings to all of you. I am grateful to the almighty God for providing me with the opportunity to be in an academic environment, those seeking truth and striving for the promotion of science and knowledge.
At the outset I want to complain a bit from the person who read this political statement against me. In Iran tradition requires that when we demand a person to invite to be a speaker we actually respect our students and the professors by allowing them to make their own judgment and we don't think it's necessary before this speech is even given to come in with a series of claims...
(APPLAUSE)
... and to attempt in a so-called manner to provide vaccination of some sort to our students and our faculty.
I think the text read by the dear gentleman here, more than addressing me, was an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience here, present here. In a university environment we must allow people to speak their mind, to allow everyone to talk so that the truth is eventually revealed by all.
Certainly he took more than all the time I was allocated to speak, and that's fine with me. We'll just leave that to add up with the claims of respect for freedom and the freedom of speech that's given to us in this country.
Many parts of his speech, there were many insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Of course, I think that he was affected by the press, the media, and the political, sort of, mainstream line that you read here that goes against the very grain of the need for peace and stability in the world around us.
Nonetheless, I should not begin by being affected by this unfriendly treatment. I will tell you what I have to say, and then the questions he can raise and I'll be happy to provide answers. But as for one of the issues that he did raise, I most certainly would need to elaborate further so that we, for ourselves, can see how things fundamentally work.
It was my decision in this valuable forum and meeting to speak with you about the importance of knowledge, of information, of education. Academics and religious scholars are shining torches who shed light in order to remove darkness. And the ambiguities around us in guiding humanity out of ignorance and perplexity.
The key to the understanding of the realities around us rests in the hands of the researchers, those who seek to discover areas that are hidden, the unknown sciences, the windows of realities that they can open is done only through efforts of the scholars and the learned people in this world.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): With every effort there is a window that is opened, and one reality is discovered. Whenever the high stature of science and wisdom is preserved and the dignity of scholars and researchers are respected, humans have taken great strides toward their material and spiritual promotion.
In contrast, whenever learned people and knowledge have been neglected, humans have become stranded in the darkness of ignorance and negligence.
If it were not for human instinct, which tends toward continual discovery of truth, humans would have always remained stranded in ignorance and no way would not have discovered how to improve the life that we are given.
The nature of man is, in fact, a gift granted by the Almighty to all. The Almighty led mankind into this world and granted him wisdom and knowledge as his prime gift enabling him to know his God.
In the story of Adam, a conversation occurs between the Almighty and his angels. The angels call human beings an ambitious and merciless creature and protested against his creation.
But the Almighty responded, quote, "I have knowledge of what you are ignorant of," unquote. Then the Almighty told Adam the truth. And on the order of the Almighty, Adam revealed it to the angels.
The angels could not understand the truth as revealed by the human being.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): The Almighty said to them, quote, "Did not I say that I am aware of what is hidden in heaven and in the universe?" unquote.
In this way the angels prostrated themselves before Adam.
In the mission of all divine prophets, the first sermons were of the words of God, and those words -- piety, faith and wisdom -- have been spread to all mankind.
Regarding the holy prophet Moses, may peace be upon him, God says, quote, "And he was taught wisdom, the divine book, the Old Testament and the New Testament. He is the prophet appointed for the sake of the children of Israel, and I rightfully brought a sign from the Almighty, holy Koran (SPEAKING IN PERSIAN)," unquote.
The first words, which were revealed to the holy prophet of Islam, call the prophet to read, quote, "Read, read in the name of your God, who supersedes everything," unquote, the Almighty, quote again, "who taught the human being with the pen," unquote. Quote, "The Almighty taught human beings what they were ignorant of," unquote.
You see, in the first verses revealed to the holy prophet of Islam, words of reading, teaching and the pen are mentioned. These verses in fact introduced the Almighty as the teacher of human beings, the teacher who taught humans what they were ignorant of.
In another part of the Koran, on the mission of the holy prophet of Islam, it is mentioned that the Almighty appointed someone from amongst the common people as their prophet in order to, quote, "read for them the divine verses," unquote, and quote again, "and purify them from ideological and ethical contamination" unquote, and quote again, "to teach them the divine book and wisdom," unquote.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): My dear friends, all the words and messages of the divine prophets from Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, to David and Solomon and Moses, to Jesus and Mohammad delivered humans from ignorance, negligence, superstitions, unethical behavior, and corrupted ways of thinking, with respect to knowledge, on the path to knowledge, light and rightful ethics.
In our culture, the word science has been defined as illumination. In fact, the science means brightness and the real science is a science which rescues the human being from ignorance, to his own benefit. In one of the widely accepted definitions of science, it is stated that it is the light which sheds to the hearts of those who have been selected by the almighty.
Therefore, according to this definition, science is a divine gift and the heart is where it resides. If we accept that science means illumination, then its scope supersedes the experimental sciences and it includes every hidden and disclosed reality.
One of the main harms inflicted against science is to limit it to experimental and physical sciences. This harm occurs even though it extends far beyond this scope. Realities of the world are not limited to physical realities and the materials, just a shadow of supreme reality. And physical creation is just one of the stories of the creation of the world.
Human being is just an example of the creation that is a combination of a material and the spirit. And another important point is the relationship of science and purity of spirit, life, behavior and ethics of the human being. In the teachings of the divine prophets, one reality shall always be attached to science; the reality of purity of spirit and good behavior. Knowledge and wisdom is pure and clear reality.
It is -- science is a light. It is a discovery of reality. And only a pure scholar and researcher, free from wrong ideologies, superstitions, selfishness and material trappings can discover -- discover the reality.
AHMADINEJAD: My dear friends and scholars, distinguished participants, science and wisdom can also be misused, a misuse caused by selfishness, corruption, material desires and material interests, as well as individual and group interests.
Material desires place humans against the realities of the world. Corrupted and dependent human beings resist acceptance of reality. And even if they do accept it, they do not obey it.
There are many scholars who are aware of the realities but do not accept them. Their selfishness does not allow them to accept those realities.
Do those who, in the course of human history, wage wars, not understand the reality that lives, properties, dignity, territories, and the rights of all human beings should be respected, or did they understand it but neither have faith in nor abide by it?
My dear friends, as long as the human heart is not free from hatred, envy, and selfishness, it does not abide by the truth, by the illumination of science and science itself.
Science is the light, and scientists must be pure and pious. If humanity achieves the highest level of physical and spiritual knowledge but its scholars and scientists are not pure, then this knowledge cannot serve the interests of humanity, and several events can ensue.
First, the wrongdoers reveal only a part of the reality, which is to their own benefit, and conceal the rest. As we have witnessed with respect to the scholars of the divine religions in the past, too, unfortunately, today, we see that certain researchers and scientists are still hiding the truth from the people.
Second, science, scientists, and scholars are misused for personal, group, or party interests. So, in today's world, bullying powers are misusing many scholars and scientists in different fields with the purpose of stripping nations of their wealth.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): And they use all opportunities only for their own benefit.
For example, they deceive people by using scientific methods and tools. They, in fact, wish to justify their own wrongdoings, though. By creating nonexistent enemies, for example, and an insecure atmosphere, they try to control all in the name of combating insecurity and terrorism.
They even violate individual and social freedoms in their own nations under that pretext. They do not respect the privacy of their own people. They tap telephone calls and try to control their people. They create an insecure psychological atmosphere in order to justify their warmongering acts in different parts of the world.
As another example, by using precise scientific methods and planning, they begin their onslaught on the domestic cultures of nations, the cultures which are the result of thousands of years of interaction, creativity and artistic activities.
They try to eliminate these cultures in order to separate the people from their identity and cut their bonds with their own history and values. They prepare the ground for stripping people from their spiritual and material wealth by instilling in them feelings of intimidation, desire for imitation and (inaudible) submission to oppressive powers and disability.
Making nuclear, chemical and biological bombs and weapons of mass destruction is yet another result of the misuse of science and research by the big powers.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Without cooperation of certain scientists and scholars, we would not have witnessed production of different nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Are these weapons to protect global security?
What can a perpetual nuclear umbrella threat achieve for the sake of humanity?
If nuclear war wages between nuclear powers, what human catastrophe will take place?
Today we can see the nuclear effects in even new generations of Nagasaki and Hiroshima residents, which might be witnessed in even the next generations to come.
Presently, the effects of the depleted uranium used in weapons since the beginning of the war in Iraq can be examined and investigated accordingly.
These catastrophes take place only when scientists and scholars are misused by oppressors.
Another point of sorrow: Some big powers create a monopoly over science and prevent other nations in achieving scientific development as well.
This, too, is one of the surprises of our time. Some big powers do not want to see the progress of other societies and nations. They turn to thousands of reasons, make allegations, place economic sanctions to prevent other nations from developing and advancing, all resulting from their distance from human values and the teachings of the divine prophets.
Regretfully, they have not been trained to serve mankind.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Dear academics, dear faculty and scholars, students, I believe that the biggest God-given gift to man is science and knowledge. Man's search for knowledge and the truth through science is what it guarantees to do in getting close to God. But science has to combine with the purity of the spirit and of the purity of man's spirit so that scholars can unveil the truth and then use that truth for advancing humanity's cause.
These scholars would be not only people who would guide humanity, but also guide humanity towards a better future.
And it is necessary that big powers should not allow mankind to engage in monopolistic activities and to prevent other nations from achieving that science. Science is a divine gift by God to everyone, and therefore, it must remain pure.
God is aware of all reality. All researchers and scholars are loved by God. So I hope there will be a day where these scholars and scientists will rule the world and God himself will arrive with Moses and Christ and Mohammed to rule the world and to take us toward justice.
I'd like to thank you now but refer to two points made in the introduction given about me, and then I will be open for any questions.
Last year -- I would say two years ago -- I raised two questions. You know that my main job is a university instructor.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Right now, as president of Iran, I still continue teaching graduate and Ph.D.-level courses on a weekly basis. My students are working with me in scientific fields. I believe that I am an academic, myself. So I speak with you from an academic point of view, and I raised two questions.
But, instead of a response, I got a wave of insults and allegations against me. And regretfully, they came mostly from groups who claimed most to believe in the freedom of speech and the freedom of information. You know quite well that Palestine is an old wound, as old as 60 years. For 60 years, these people are displaced.
For 60 years, these people are being killed. For 60 years, on a daily basis, there's conflict and terror. For 60 years, innocent women and children are destroyed and killed by helicopters and airplanes that break the house over their heads. For 60 years, children and kindergartens, in schools, in high schools, are in prison being tortured. For 60 years, security in the Middle East has been endangered. For 60 years, the slogan of expansionism from the Nile to the Euphrates is being chanted by certain groups in that part of the world.
And as an academic, I asked two questions; the same two questions that I will ask here again. And you judge, for yourselves, whether the response to these questions should be the insults, the allegations, and all the words and the negative propaganda or should we really try and face these two questions and respond to them?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Like you, like any academic, I, too, will keep -- not yet become silent until I get the answer. So I'm awaiting logical answers instead of insults.
My first question was if -- given that the Holocaust is a present reality of our time, a history that occurred, why is there not sufficient research that can approach the topic from different perspectives?
Our friend referred to 1930 as the point of departure for this development. However, I believe the Holocaust from what we've read happened during World War II, after 1930, in the 1940s. So, you know, we have to really be able to trace the event.
My question was simple: There are researchers who want to approach the topic from a different perspective. Why are they put into prison? Right now, there are a number of European academics who have been sent to prison because they attempted to write about the Holocaust or research it from a different perspective, questioning certain aspects of it.
My question is: Why isn't it open to all forms of research?
I have been told that there's been enough research on the topic. And I ask, well, when it comes to topics such as freedom, topics such as democracy, concepts and norms such as God, religion, physics even, or chemistry, there's been a lot of research, but we still continue more research on those topics. We encourage it.
But, then, why don't we encourage more research on a historical event that has become the root, the cause of many heavy catastrophes in the region in this time and age?
AHMADINEJAD: Why shouldn't there be more research about the root causes? That was my first question.
And my second question, well, given this historical event, if it is a reality, we need to still question whether the Palestinian people should be paying for it or not. After all, it happened in Europe. The Palestinian people had no role to play in it. So why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price of an event they had nothing to do with?
The Palestinian people didn't commit any crime. They had no role to play in World War II. They were living with the Jewish communities and the Christian communities in peace at the time. They didn't have any problems.
And today, too, Jews, Christians and Muslims live in brotherhood all over the world in many parts of the world. They don't have any serious problems.
But why is it that the Palestinians should pay a price, innocent Palestinians, for 5 million people to remain displaced or refugees abroad for 60 years. Is this not a crime? Is asking about these crimes a crime by itself?
Why should an academic myself face insults when asking questions like this? Is this what you call freedom and upholding the freedom of thought?
And as for the second topic, Iran's nuclear issue, I know there is time limits, but I need time. I mean, a lot of time was taken from me.
We are a country, we are a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency. For over 33 years we are a member state of the agency. The bylaw of the agency explicitly states that all member states have the right to the peaceful nuclear fuel technology. This is an explicit statement made in the bylaw, and the bylaw says that there is no pretext or excuse, even the inspections carried by the IAEA itself that can prevent member states' right to have that right.
Of course, the IAEA is responsible to carry out inspections. We are one of the countries that's carried out the most amount of level of cooperation with the IAEA. They have had hours and weeks and days of inspections in our country, and over and over again the agency's reports indicate that Iran's activities are peaceful, that they have not detected a deviation, and that Iran -- they have received positive cooperation from Iran.
But regretfully, two or three monopolistic powers, selfish powers want to force their word on the Iranian people and deny them their right.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): They keep saying...
(CROSSTALK)
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): They tell us you don't let them -- they won't let them inspect. Why not? Of course we do. How come is it, anyway, that you have that right and we can't have it? We want to have the right to peaceful nuclear energy. They tell us, don't make it yourself, we'll give it to you.
Well, in the past, I tell you, we had contracts with the U.S. government, with the British government, the French government, the German government, and the Canadian government on nuclear development for peaceful purposes. But unilaterally, each and every one of them canceled their contracts with us, as a result of which the Iranian people had to pay a heavy cost in billions of dollars.
Why do we need the fuel from you? You've not even given us spare aircraft parts that we need for civilian aircraft for 28 years under the name of embargo and sanctions because we're against, for example, human rights or freedom? Under that pretext, you are deny us that technology? We want to have the right to self-determination toward our future. We want to be independent. Don't interfere in us.
If you don't give us spare parts for civilian aircraft, what is the expectation that you'd give us fuel for nuclear development for peaceful purposes?
For 30 years, we've faced these problems for over $5 billion to the Germans and then to the Russians, but we haven't gotten anything. And the words have not been completed.
It is our right. We want our right. And we don't want anything beyond the law, nothing less than international law.
We are a peaceful, loving nation. We love all nations.
(APPLAUSE)
MODERATOR: Mr. President, your statements here today and in the past have provoked many questions which I would like to pose to you on behalf of the students and faculty who have submitted them to me.
Let me begin with the question to which you just alluded...
AHMADINEJAD: Just one by one, one by one -- could you just...
MODERATOR: Yes.
(APPLAUSE)
MODERATOR: The first question is: Do you or your government seek the destruction of the state of Israel as a Jewish state?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): We love all nations. We are friends with the Jewish people. There are many Jews in Iran, leaving peacefully, with security.
You must understand that in our constitution and our laws and in the parliamentary elections for every 150,000 people, we get one representative in the parliament. For the Jewish community, for one- fifth of this number, they still get one independent representative in the parliament.
So our proposal to the Palestinian plight is a humanitarian and democratic proposal. What we say is that to solve this 60-year problem, we must allow the Palestinian people to decide about its future for itself.
This is compatible with the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations and the fundamental principles enshrined in it. We must allow Jewish Palestinians, Muslim Palestinians and Christian Palestinians to determine their own fate themselves through a free referendum.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Whatever they choose as a nation, everybody should accept and respect. Nobody should interfere in the affairs of the Palestinian nation. Nobody should sow the seeds of discord. Nobody should spend tens of billions of dollars equipping and arming one group there.
We say allow the Palestinian nation to decide its own future, to have the right to self-determination for itself. This is what we are saying as the Iranian nation.
(APPLAUSE)
QUESTION: Mr. President, I think many members of our audience would like to hear a clearer answer to that question. That is...
(APPLAUSE)
The question is: Do you or your government seek the destruction of the state of Israel as a Jewish state? And I think you could answer that question with a single word, either yes or no.
(APPLAUSE)
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): You asked the question, and then you want the answer the way you want to hear it. Well, this isn't really a free flow of information.
(APPLAUSE)
I'm just telling you what my position is. I'm asking you: Is the Palestinian issue not an international issue of prominence or not? Please tell me, yes or no?
(APPLAUSE)
There's the plight of a people.
QUESTION: The answer to your question is yes.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Well, thank you for your cooperation. We recognize there's a problem there that's been going on for 60 years. Everybody provides a solution. And our solution is a free referendum.
Let this referendum happen, and then you'll see what the results are.
AHMADINEJAD: Let the people of Palestine freely choose what they want for their future. And then what you want in your mind to happen there will happen and will be realized.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) second question, which was posed by President Bollinger earlier and comes from a number of other students: Why is your government providing aid to terrorists?
Will you stop doing so and permit international monitoring to certify that you have stopped?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Well, I want to pose a question here to you. If someone comes and explodes bombs around you, threatens your president, members of the administration, kills the members of the Senate or Congress, how would you treat them?
Would you reward them, or would you name them a terrorist group?
Well, it's clear. You would call them a terrorist.
My dear friends, the Iranian nation is a victim of terrorism. For --26 years ago, where I worked, close to where I worked, in a terrorist operation, the elected president of the Iranian nation and the elected prime minister of Iran lost their lives in a bomb explosion. They turned into ashes.
A month later, in another terrorist operation, 72 members of our parliament and highest-ranking officials, including four ministers and eight deputy ministers' bodies were shattered into pieces as a result of terrorist attacks.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Within six months, over 4,000 Iranians lost their lives, assassinated by terrorist groups. All this carried out by the hand of one single terrorist group. Regretfully, that same terrorist group now, today, in your country, is being -- operating under the support of the U.S. administration, working freely, distributing declarations freely, and their camps in Iraq are supported by the U.S. government.
They're secured by the U.S. government. Our nation has been harmed by terrorist activities. We were the first nation that objected to terrorism and the first to uphold the need to fight terrorism.
(APPLAUSE)
QUESTION: Mr. President, a number of questioners -- sorry -- a number of people have asked...
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): We need to address the root causes of terrorism and eradicate those root causes. We live in the Middle East. For us, it's quite clear which powers, sort of, incite terrorists, support them, fund them. We know that. Our nation, the Iranian nation, through history has always extended a hand of friendship to other nations. We're a cultured nation.
We don't need to resort to terrorism. We've been victims of terrorism, ourselves. And it's regrettable that people who argue they're fighting terrorism, instead of supporting the Iranian people and nation, instead of fighting the terrorists that are attacking them, they're supporting the terrorists and then turn the fingers to us.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): This is most regrettable.
QUESTION: Mr. President, a further set of questions challenged your view of the Holocaust. Since the evidence that this occurred in Europe in the 1940s, as a result of the actions of the German Nazi government, since that -- those facts -- are well documented, why are you calling for additional research? There seems to be no purpose in doing so, other than to question whether the Holocaust actually occurred as a historical fact.
Can you explain why you believe more research is needed into the facts of what are -- what is -- what are incontrovertible?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Thank you very much for your question. I am an academic, and you are as well.
Can you argue that researching a phenomenon is finished, forever done? Can we close the books for good on a historical event?
There are different perspectives that come to light after every research is done. Why should we stop research at all? Why should we stop the progress of science and knowledge?
You shouldn't ask me why I'm asking questions. You should ask yourselves why you think that that's questionable? Why do you want to stop the progress of science and research?
Do you ever take what's known as absolute in physics? We had principles in mathematics that were granted to be absolute in mathematics for over 800 years. But new science has gotten rid of those absolutisms, come forward other different logics of looking at mathematics and sort of turned the way we look at it as a science altogether after 800 years.
So, we must allow researchers, scholars, they investigate into everything, every phenomenon -- God, universe, human beings, history and civilization. Why should we stop that?
I am not saying that it didn't happen at all. This is not that judgment that I am passing here.
I said, in my second question, granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): This is a serious question. There are two dimensions. In the first question...
QUESTION: Let me just -- let me pursue this a bit further.
It is difficult to have a scientific discussion if there isn't at least some basis, some empirical basis, some agreement about what the facts are. So calling for research into the facts when the facts are so well established represents for many a challenging of the facts themselves and a denial that something terrible occurred in Europe in those years.
(APPLAUSE)
Let me move on to...
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Allow me. After all, you are free to interpret what you want from what I say. But what I am saying I'm saying with full clarity.
In the first question I'm trying to actually uphold the rights of European scholars. In the field of science and research I'm asking, there is nothing known as absolute. There is nothing sufficiently done. Not in physics for certain. There has been more research on physics than it has on the Holocaust, but we still continue to do research on physics. There is nothing wrong with doing it.
This is what man wants. They want to approach a topic from different points of view. Scientists want to do that. Especially an issue that has become the foundation of so many other political developments that have unfolded in the Middle East in the past 60 years.
Why do we stop it altogether? You have to have a justified reason for it. The fact that it was researched sufficiently in the past is not a sufficient justification in my mind.
QUESTION: Mr. President, another student asks -- Iranian women are now denied basic human rights and your government has imposed draconian punishments, including execution on Iranian citizens who are homosexuals. Why are you doing those things?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Freedoms in Iran are genuine, true freedoms. Iranian people are free. Women in Iran enjoy the highest levels of freedom.
We have two deputy -- two vice presidents that are female, at the highest levels of specialty, specialized fields. In our parliament and our government and our universities, they're present. In our biotechnological fields, our technological fields, there are hundreds of women scientists that are active -- in the political realm as well.
It's not -- it's wrong for some governments, when they disagree with another government, to, sort of, try to spread lies that distort the full truth.
Our nation is free. It has the highest level of participation in elections, in Iran. Eighty percent, ninety percent of the people turn out for votes during the elections, half of which, over half of which are women. So how can we say that women are not free? Is that the entire truth?
But as for the executions, I'd like to raise two questions. If someone comes and establishes a network for illicit drug trafficking that affects the youth in Iran, Turkey, Europe, the United States, by introducing these illicit drugs and destroys them, would you ever reward them?
People who lead the lives -- cause the deterioration of the lives of hundreds of millions of youth around the world, including in Iran, can we have any sympathy to them? Don't you have capital punishment in the United States? You do, too.
(APPLAUSE)
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In Iran, too, there's capital punishment for illicit drug traffickers, for people who violated the rights of people. If somebody takes up a gun, goes into a house, kills a group of people there, and then tries to take ransom, how would you confront them in Iran -- or in the United States? Would you reward them? Can a physician allow microbes symbolically speaking to spread across a nation?
We have laws. People who violate the public rights of the people by using guns, killing people, creating insecurity, sells drugs, distribute drugs at a high level are sentenced to execution in Iran.
And some of these punishments, very few, are carried in the public eye, before the public eye. It's a law, based on democratic principles. You use injections and microbes to kill these people, and they, they're executed or they're hung. But the end result is killing.
QUESTION: Mr. President, the question isn't about criminal and drug smugglers. The question was about sexual preference and women.
(APPLAUSE)
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country.
(LAUGHTER)
We don't have that in our country.
(AUDIENCE BOOING)
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it.
(LAUGHTER)
But, as for women, maybe you think that being a woman is a crime. It's not a crime to be a woman.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Women are the best creatures created by God. They represent the kindness, the beauty that God instills in them. Women are respected in Iran. In Iran, every family who is given a girl -- is given -- in every Iranian family who has a girl, they are 10 times happier than having a son. Women are respected more than men are.
They are exempt from many responsibilities. Many of the legal responsibilities rest on the shoulders of men in our society because of the respect, culturally given, to women, to the future mothers. In Iranian culture, men and sons and girls constantly kiss the hands of their mothers as a sign of respect, respect for women. And we are proud of this culture.
QUESTION: Mr. President, I have two questions which I'll put together.
One is, what did you hope to accomplish by speaking at Columbia today? And the second is, what would you have said if you were permitted to visit the site of the September 11th tragedy?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Well, here, I'm your guest. I've been invited by Columbia, an official invitation given for me to come here. But I do want to say something here.
In Iran, when you invite a guest, you respect them. This is our tradition, required by our culture. And I know that American people have that culture, as well. Last year, I wanted to go to the site of the September 11th tragedy to show respect to the victims of the tragedy, to show my sympathy with their families.
But our plans got overextended. We were involved in negotiations and meetings until midnight. And they said it would be very difficult to go visit the site at that late hour of the night. So, I told my friends then that they need to plan this for the following year so that I can go and visit the site and to show my respects.
Regretfully, some groups had very strong reactions, very bad reactions. It's bad for someone to prevent someone to show sympathy to the families of the victims of the September 11 event -- tragic event. This is a respect from my side. Somebody told me this is an insult. I said, "What are you saying? This is my way of showing my respect. Why would you think that?"
Thinking like that, how do you expect to manage the world and world affairs?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Don't you think that a lot of problems in the world come from the way you look at issues because of this kind of way of thinking, because of this sort of pessimistic approach toward a lot of people, because of a certain level of selfishness, self-absorption that needs to be put aside so that we can show respect to everyone, to allow an environment for friendship to grow, to allow all nations to talk with one another and move toward peace?
What was the second question?
I wanted to speak with the press. The September 11th tragic event was a huge event. It led to a lot of many other events afterwards. After 9/11 Afghanistan was occupied, and then Iraq was occupied. And for six years in our region there is insecurity, terror and fear.
If the root causes of 9/11 are examined properly -- why it was happened, what caused it, what were the conditions that led to it, who truly was involved, who was really involved -- and put it all together to understand how to prevent the crisis in Iraq, fix the problem in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
QUESTION: Mr. President, a number of questions have asked about your nuclear program. Why is your government seeking to acquire enriched uranium suitable for nuclear weapons? Will you stop doing so?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Our nuclear program, first and foremost, operates within the framework of law.
And, second, under the inspections of the IAEA.
And, thirdly, they are completely peaceful.
The technology we have is for enrichment below the level of 5 percent level.
AHMADINEJAD: And any level below 5 percent is solely for providing fuel to power plants. Repeated reports by the IAEA explicitly say that there is no indication that Iran has deviated from the peaceful path of its nuclear program.
We are all well aware that Iran's nuclear issue is a political issue. It's not a legal issue. The international atomic energy organization -- agency has verified that our activities are for peaceful purposes.
But there are two or three powers that think that they have the right to monopolize all science and knowledge. And they expect the Iranian people, the Iranian nation, to turn to others to get fuel, to get science, to get knowledge that's indigenous to itself, to humble itself. And then they would, of course, refrain from giving it to us, too.
So we're quite clear what we need.
If you have created the fifth generation of atomic bombs and are testing them already, what position are you in to question the peaceful purposes of other people who want nuclear power?
We do not believe in nuclear weapons, period. It goes against the whole grain of humanity.
(APPLAUSE)
So let me just joke -- try to tell a joke here. I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs or are testing them, making them, politically, they are backward, retarded.
(APPLAUSE)
QUESTION: Mr. President, a final question. I know your time is short and that you need to move on. Is Iran prepared to open broad discussions with the government of the United States?
What would Iran hope to achieve in such discussions?
How do you see, in the future, a resolution of the points of conflict between the government of the United States and the government of Iran?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): From the start, we announced that we are ready to negotiate with all countries.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Since 28 years ago, when our revolution succeeded and we established, we took freedom and democracy that was held at bay by a pro-Western dictatorship. We announced our readiness that besides two countries, we are ready to have friendly relations and talks with all countries of the world.
One of those two was the apartheid regime of South Africa, which has been eliminated. And the second was the Zionist regime. For everybody else around the world, we announced that we want to have friendly, brotherly ties. The Iranian nation is a cultured nation. It is a civilized nation. It seeks -- it wants talks and negotiations. It's for it.
We believe that in negotiations and talks, everything can be resolved very easily. We don't need threats. We don't need to point bombs or guns. We don't need to get into conflicts if we talk. We have a clear logic about that.
We question the way the world is being run and managed today. We believe that it will not lead to viable peace and security for the world, the way it's run today. We have solutions based on humane values and for relations among states. With the U.S. government, too, we will negotiate -- we don't have any issues about that -- under fair, just circumstances with mutual respect on both sides.
You saw that in order to help the security of Iraq, we had three rounds of talks with the United States, and last year, before coming to New York, I announced that I am ready in the United Nations to engage in a debate with Mr. Bush, the president of the United States, about critical international issues.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): So that shows that we want to talk. Having a debate before the all the audience, so the truth is revealed, so that misunderstandings and misperceptions are removed, so that we can find a clear path for brotherly and friendly relations.
I think that if the U.S. administration, if the U.S. government puts aside some of its old behaviors, it can actually be a good friend for the Iranian people, for the Iranian nation.
For 28 years, they've consistently threatened us, insulted us, prevented our scientific development, every day, under one pretext or another.
You all know Saddam, the dictator, was supported by the government of the United States and some European countries in attacking Iran. And he carried out an eight-year war, a criminal war. Over 200,000 Iranians lost their lives. Over 600,000 Iranians were hurt as a result of the war.
He used chemical weapons. Thousands of Iranians were victims of chemical weapons that he used against us.
Today, Mr. Noble Vinn (ph), who is a reporter, an official reporter, international reporter, who was covering U.N. reports in the U.N. for many years, he is one of the victims of the chemical weapons used by Iraq against us.
And since then, we've been under different propaganda, sort of embargoes, economic sanctions, political sanctions. Why? Because we got rid of a dictator? Because we wanted the freedom and democracy that we got for ourselves? That, we can't understand.
We think that if the U.S. government recognizes the rights of the Iranian people, respects all nations and extends a hand of friendship with all Iranians, they, too, will see that Iranians will be one of its best friends.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Would you allow me to thank the audience a moment?
Well, there are many things that I would have liked to cover, but I don't want to take your time any further. I was asked: Would I allow the faculty at Columbia and students here to come to Iran? From this platform, I invite Columbia faculty members and students to come and visit Iran, to speak with our university students. You're officially invited.
(APPLAUSE)
University faculty and students that the university decides, or the student associations choose and select are welcome to come. You're welcome to visit any university that you choose inside Iran. We'll provide you with the list of the universities. There are over 400 universities in our country. And you can choose whichever you want to go and visit. We'll give you the platform. We'll respect you 100 percent. We will have our students sit there and listen to you, speak with you, hear what you have to say.
Right now in our universities on a daily basis there are hundreds of meetings like this. They hear, they talk, they ask questions. They welcome it.
In the end I'd like to thank Columbia University. I had heard that many politicians in the United States are trained in Columbia University. And there are many people here who believe in the freedom of speech, in clear, frank conversations.
I do like to extend my gratitude to the managers here in the United States -- at Columbia University, I apologize -- the people who so well organized this meeting today.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I'd like to extend my deepest gratitude to the faculty members and the students here. I ask Almighty God to assist all of us to move hand in hand to establish peace and future filled with friendship and justice and brotherhood.
Best of luck to all of you.
(APPLAUSE)
MODERATOR: I'm sorry that President Ahmadinejad's schedule makes it necessary for him to leave before he's been able to answer many of the questions that we have, or even answer some of the ones that we posed to him.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
But I think we can all be pleased that his appearance here demonstrates Columbia's deep commitment to free expression and debate. I want to thank you all for coming to participate.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you.
END
Special Message from Columbia President Bollinger: Thoughts on Today's Forum (Sep 24, 2007)
Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:
I would like to share a few thoughts about today's appearance ofPresident Ahmadinejad at our World Leaders Forum. I know this is amatter of deep concern for many in our University community andbeyond. I want to say first and foremost how proud I am ofColumbia, especially our students, as we discuss, debate and planfor this highly visible event.
I ask that each of us make special efforts to respect the differentviews people have about the event and to recognize the differentways it affects members of our community. For many reasons, thiswill demand the best of each of us to live up to the best ofColumbia's traditions.
For the School of International and Public Affairs, which developedthe idea for this forum as the commencement to a year-longexamination of 30 years of the Islamic Republic in Iran, this is animportant educational experience for training future leaders toconfront the world as it is -- a world that includes far too manybrutal, anti-democratic and repressive regimes. For the rest of us,this occasion is not only about the speaker but quite centrallyabout us -- about who we are as a nation and what universities canbe in our society.
I would like just to repeat what I have said earlier: It is vitallyimportant for a university to protect the right of our schools, ourdeans and our faculty to create programming for academic purposes.Necessarily, on occasion this will bring us into contact withbeliefs many, most, or even all of us will find offensive and evenodious.
But it should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas wedeplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or theweakness of our resolve to resist those ideas, or our naiveté aboutthe very real dangers inherent in such ideas. It is a criticalpremise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorablewhen we open the public forum to their voices.
The great majority of student leaders with whom I met last week affirmed their belief that this event, however controversial, isconsistent with the values of academic freedom we share at thecenter of university life. I fully support, indeed I celebrate, theright to peacefully demonstrate and engage in a dialogue about thisevent and this speaker, as I understand a wide coalition of ourstudent groups are planning for today.
That such a forum and suchpublic criticism of President Ahmadinejad's statements and policiescould not safely take place on a university campus in Iran today sharpens the point of what we do here. The kind of freedom thatwill be on display at Columbia has always been and remains todayour nation's most potent weapon against repressive regimeseverywhere in the world. This is the power and example of Americaat its best.
Sincerely,
Lee C. Bollinger
President Lee C. Bollinger's Introductory Remarks at SIPA-World Leaders Forum with President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Sept. 24, 2007
I would like to begin by thanking Dean John Coatsworth and Professor Richard Bulliet for their work in organizing this event and for their commitment to the role of the School of International and Public Affairs and its role in training future leaders in world affairs. If today proves anything it will be that there is an enormous amount of work ahead for all of us. This is just one of many events on Iran that will run throughout this academic year, all to help us better understand this critical and complex nation in today’s geopolitics.
Before speaking directly to the current President of Iran, I have a few critically important points to emphasize.
First, since 2003, the World Leaders Forum has advanced Columbia’s longstanding tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate, especially on global issues. It should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas or our naiveté about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas. It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices. To hold otherwise would make vigorous debate impossible.
Second, to those who believe that this event never should have happened, that it is inappropriate for the University to conduct such an event, I want to say that I understand your perspective and respect it as reasonable. The scope of free speech and academic freedom should itself always be open to further debate. As one of the more famous quotations about free speech goes, it is “an experiment, as all life is an experiment.” I want to say, however, as forcefully as I can, that this is the right thing to do and, indeed, it is required by existing norms of free speech, the American university, and Columbia itself.
Third, to those among us who experience hurt and pain as a result of this day, I say on behalf of all of us we are sorry and wish to do what we can to alleviate it.
Fourth, to be clear on another matter - this event has nothing whatsoever to do with any “rights” of the speaker but only with our rights to listen and speak. We do it for ourselves. We do it in the great tradition of openness that has defined this nation for many decades now. We need to understand the world we live in, neither neglecting its glories nor shrinking from its threats and dangers. It is consistent with the idea that one should know thine enemies, to have the intellectual and emotional courage to confront the mind of evil and to prepare ourselves to act with the right temperament. In the moment, the arguments for free speech will never seem to match the power of the arguments against, but what we must remember is that this is precisely because free speech asks us to exercise extraordinary self- restraint against the very natural but often counter-productive impulses that lead us to retreat from engagement with ideas we dislike and fear. In this lies the genius of the American idea of free speech. Lastly, in universities, we have a deep and almost single-minded commitment to pursue the truth. We do not have access to the levers of power. We cannot make war or peace. We can only make minds. And to do this we must have the most full freedom of inquiry. Let me now turn to Mr. Ahmadinejad.
THE BRUTAL CRACKDOWN ON SCHOLARS, JOURNALISTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES
Over the last two weeks, your government has released Dr. Haleh Esfandiari and Parnaz Axima; and just two days ago Kian Tajbakhsh, a graduate of Columbia with a PhD in urban planning. While our community is relieved to learn of his release on bail, Dr. Tajbakhsh remains in Teheran, under house arrest, and he still does not know whether he will be charged with a crime or allowed to leave the country. Let me say this for the record, I call on the President today to ensure that Kian Tajbaksh will be free to travel out of Iran as he wishes. Let me also report today that we are extending an offer to Dr. Tajbaksh to join our faculty as a visiting professor in urban planning here at his Alma Mater, in our Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. And we hope he will be able to join us next semester.
The arrest and imprisonment of these Iranian Americans for no good reason is not only unjustified, it runs completely counter to the very values that allow today’s speaker to even appear on this campus.
But at least they are alive.
According to Amnesty International, 210 people have been executed in Iran so far this year – 21 of them on the morning of September 5th alone. This annual total includes at least two children – further proof, as Human Rights Watch puts it, that Iran leads the world in executing minors.
There is more.
Iran hanged up to 30 people this past July and August during a widely reported suppression of efforts to establish a more open, democratic society in Iran. Many of these executions were carried out in public view, a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party.
These executions and others have coincided with a wider crackdown on student activists and academics accused of trying to foment a so-called “soft revolution”. This has included jailing and forced retirements of scholars. As Dr. Esfandiari said in a broadcast interview since her release, she was held in solitary confinement for 105 days because the government “believes that the United States . . . is planning a Velvet Revolution” in Iran.
In this very room last year we learned something about Velvet Revolutions from Vaclav Havel. And we will likely hear the same from our World Leaders Forum speaker this evening – President Michelle Bachelet Jeria of Chile. Both of their extraordinary stories remind us that there are not enough prisons to prevent an entire society that wants its freedom from achieving it.
We at this university have not been shy to protest and challenge the failures of our own government to live by these values; and we won’t be shy in criticizing yours. Let’s, then, be clear at the beginning, Mr. President you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.
And so I ask you:
Why have women, members of the Baha’i faith, homosexuals and so many of our academic colleagues become targets of persecution in your country?
Why in a letter last week to the Secretary General of the UN did Akbar Gangi, Iran’s leading political dissident, and over 300 public intellectuals, writers and Nobel Laureates express such grave concern that your inflamed dispute with the West is distracting the world’s attention from the intolerable conditions your regime has created within Iran? In particular, the use of the Press Law to ban writers for criticizing the ruling system.
Why are you so afraid of Iranian citizens expressing their opinions for change?
In our country, you are interviewed by our press and asked that you to speak here today. And while my colleague at the Law School Michael Dorf spoke to Radio Free Europe [sic, Voice of America] viewers in Iran a short while ago on the tenets of freedom of speech in this country, I propose going further than that. Let me lead a delegation of students and faculty from Columbia to address your university about free speech, with the same freedom we afford you today? Will you do that?
THE DENIAL OF THE HOLOCAUST
In a December 2005 state television broadcast, you described the Holocaust as a “fabricated” “legend.” One year later, you held a two-day conference of Holocaust deniers.
For the illiterate and ignorant, this is dangerous propaganda. When you come to a place like this, this makes you, quite simply, ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.
You should know that Columbia is a world center of Jewish studies and now, in partnership with the YIVO Institute, of Holocaust studies. Since the 1930s, we’ve provided an intellectual home for countless Holocaust refugees and survivors and their children and grandchildren. The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history. Because of this, and for many other reasons, your absurd comments about the “debate” over the Holocaust both defy historical truth and make all of us who continue to fear humanity’s capacity for evil shudder at this closure of memory, which is always virtue’s first line of defense.
Will you cease this outrage?
THE DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL
Twelve days ago, you said that the state of Israel “cannot continue its life.” This echoed a number of inflammatory statements you have delivered in the last two years, including in October 2005 when you said that Israel should be “wiped off the map.”
Columbia has over 800 alumni currently living in Israel. As an institution we have deep ties with our colleagues there. I personally have spoken out in the most forceful terms against proposals to boycott Israeli scholars and universities, saying that such boycotts might as well include Columbia. More than 400 college and university presidents in this country have joined in that statement. My question, then, is: Do you plan on wiping us off the map, too?
FUNDING TERRORISM
According to reports by the Council on Foreign Relations, it’s well documented that Iran is a state sponsor of terror that funds such violent group as the Lebanese Hezbollah, which Iran helped organize in the 1980s, the Palestinian Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. While your predecessor government was instrumental in providing the US with intelligence and base support in its 2001 campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, your government is now undermining American troops in Iraq by funding, arming, and providing safe transit to insurgent leaders like Muqtada al-Sadr and his forces.
There are a number of reports that also link your government with Syria’s efforts to destabalize the fledgling Lebanese government through violence and political assassination. My question is this: Why do you support well-documented terrorist organizations that continue to strike at peace and democracy in the Middle East, destroying lives and civil society in the region?
PROXY WAR AGAINST U.S. TROOPS IN IRAQ
In a briefing before the National Press Club earlier this month, General David Petraeus reported that arms supplies from Iran, including 240mm rockets and explosively formed projectiles, are contributing to “a sophistication of attacks that would by no means be possible without Iranian support.”
A number of Columbia graduates and current students are among the brave members of our military who are serving or have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They, like other Americans with sons, daughters, fathers, husbands and wives serving in combat, rightly see your government as the enemy.
Can you tell them and us why Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq by arming Shi’a militia targeting and killing U.S. troops?
FINALLY, IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM AND INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS
This week the United Nations Security Council is contemplating expanding sanctions for a third time because of your government’s refusal to suspend its uranium-enrichment program. You continue to defy this world body by claiming a right to develop peaceful nuclear power, but this hardly withstands scrutiny when you continue to issue military threats to neighbors. Last week, French President Sarkozy made clear his lost patience with your stall tactics; and even Russia and China have shown concern.
Why does your country continue to refuse to adhere to international standards for nuclear weapons verification in defiance of agreements that you have made with the UN nuclear agency? And why have you chosen to make the people of your country vulnerable to the effects of international economic sanctions and threaten to engulf the world with nuclear annihilation? Let me close with this comment. Frankly, and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do. Fortunately, I am told by experts on your country, that this only further undermines your position in Iran with all the many good-hearted, intelligent citizens there.
A year ago, I am reliably told, your preposterous and belligerent statements in this country (as in your meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations) so embarrassed sensible Iranian citizens that this led to your party’s defeat in the December mayoral elections. May this do that and more.
I am only a professor, who is also a university president, and today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for. I only wish I could do better.
2007年9月24日星期一
秉哲小友生日快乐
秉哲小朋友，
祝贺你一岁生日快乐！看到你冒着泡泡的小红鼻子，怎么摔跤也不哭的好性格，我知道你长大以后一定是一个温柔体贴的少女杀手，会使用粘粘呼呼的手段来泡妞。
你抓周的时候选择了书本，爸爸妈妈嘴上没说，心里一定很受用。可不是，两个博士的儿子肯定是未来的双料博士！其实，我更希望你选择羽毛球拍，成为有六块腹肌的运动健将！
我们这一伙老阿姨们没有什么可以送你的东西，在这里送给你一首张悬的歌吧！希望你健康成长，中间不用经历成长的烦恼！
加油啊，本！
Degree of Freedom
寶貝
演唱：張懸
我的寶貝寶貝
給你一點甜甜
讓你今夜都好眠
我的小鬼小鬼
逗逗你的眉眼
讓你喜歡這世界
哇啦啦啦啦啦我的寶貝
倦的時候有個人陪
哎呀呀呀呀呀我的寶貝
要你知道你最美
讓你今夜很好眠
逗逗你的小臉
讓你喜歡整個明天
孤單時有人把你想念
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