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> *Sent:* Thursday, September 27, 2007 8:24 AM
> **
> *Subject:* An Open Letter to Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia
> University
>
>
> **An Open Letter to Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University --
> A Barbarous and Ignorant Speech**
>
>
> **By CLIFTON ROSS**
>
> Clifton Ross is the co-editor of Voice of Fire: Communiques and Interviews
> of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (1994, New Earth Publications).
> His book, Fables for an Open Field (1994, Trombone Press, New Earth
> Publications), has just been released in Spanish by La Casa Tomada of
> Venezuela. His forthcoming book of poems in translation, Traducir el
> Silencio, will be published later this year by Venezuela´s Ministry of
> Culture editorial, Perro y Rana. Ross teaches English at Berkeley City
> College, Berkeley, California. He can be reached at: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
> **CounterPunch September 25, 2007**
>
>
> To Mr. Lee Bollinger,
>
>
> I'm writing you to express my outrage over your vulgar treatment of
> President Ahmadinejad yesterday when you invited him to speak at your
> university. Simple human etiquette of the most primitive and elemental
> sort, was required in the situation, but you failed to deliver even that.
> You were obnoxious, insulting and displayed an appalling ignorance of
> President Ahmadinejad, Iran and politics, not to mention the rules that
> govern "civilized" human conduct (arguably "primitive" conduct is even
> more governed by politeness and elevated rules of conduct).
>
>
> Moreover, in a context that calls for objectivity, investigation, open
> mindedness and a willingness to learn and exchange ideas, you displayed a
> remarkable absence of any of those qualities. Instead, you showed yourself
> to be one with the bullying, abusive, ignorant and arrogant people who
> unfortunately govern our country at the moment and who are attempting to
> induce a phobic and neurotic xenophobia comparable only to what Hitler and
> Mussolini and Stalin inculcated in their countries during those moments of
> greatest darkness in human history. The irony of the situation is that you
> displayed all those qualities of which you accused President Ahmadinejad.
> Where was that display of that "great tradition of openness" in your
> callous, close minded speech? Your speech shows you to "exhibit all the
> signs of a petty and cruel dictator" and worse: a bully, a man who invites
> a guest into his house, then abuses him before a cheering crowd.
>
>
> You accuse President Ahmadinejad of "a brutal crackdown on scholars,
> journalists and human rights advocates" but you fail to mention the scores
> of scholars, journalists and human rights advocates, imprisoned, tortured
> and murdered by U.S. forces in Iraq. Is that cowardice or a double
> standard or merely "oversight" on your part? And when you accuse President
> Ahmadinejad of denying the Holocaust and calling for the destruction of
> the state of Israel, that is, when you pander to your Zionist supporters,
> you merely display an ignorance of the actual words of Ahmadinejad (words
> that were twisted in the translation to English, predictably; see this
> piece by Virginia Tilley,), which he corrected yesterday in his comments
> and clarifications.
>
>
> However, when you say "your [Iran's] 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" you show yourself
> to be as biased, and blinded by nationalism and an imperial arrogance as
> the architects of the genocide we're currently seeing in Iraq. You don't
> ask what "American troops in Iraq" are doing there as invaders, occupiers,
> who are, de facto, now made war criminals by being the willing instruments
> of the "war of aggression," considered the supreme international crime,
> one committed by Mr. George Bush through fabrications of evidence, lies,
> and manipulation; you don't ask what role those resistance fighters like
> Muqtada Al Sadr are playing, but those less blinded by nationalism than
> you would compare him to our own patriotic forefathers who fought the
> British for our own nationhood; and now you don't bother to ask what your
> ignorant, uninformed criticisms of President Ahmadinejad will do to help
> the same war criminals who destroyed Iraq to now go on and destroy Iran.
>
>
> If you knew anything of history, the history of your own lifetime, you
> might understand the situation that currently confronts Iran. You probably
> know that the U.S. overthrew Iran's democracy in 1953 and set up a brutal,
> decadent Shah who was our man in the Middle East for the following two and
> a half decades. You may even know that the CIA helped organize the
> imprisonment, torture and killings of dissidents under that Shah, which is
> why the students took over the U.S. embassy when they finally got rid of
> the filth the U.S. had imposed upon them for all those dark years.
>
>
> We don't need to agree with the elected President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, to
> show him the simple respect due an elected head of state. But you seem
> incapable of that simple act required of someone in your position. To call
> an elected president a "dictator," however, is not only insulting but
> inaccurate. Such epithets are reserved for those who impose themselves by
> force and by fraud, such as Mr. Bush, who has stolen two elections. But
> I'm sure you wouldn't use terms to describe your own head of state so, now
> would you?
>
>
> The Chinese have a saying, roughly translated, that goes, "the one
> pointing his finger at another, has three fingers pointing at himself."
> But you are so blind to who you are, up there in your position of power as
> President of the prestigious Columbia University of New York in the great
> empire of the United States of America, that you don't see the man being
> accused by his three fingers. So, to close, I invite you to take a look at
> yourself, and our people, as another sees us. Her name is Layla Anwar and
> she writes a blog called Arab Woman Blues which you can find here.
>
>
> I warn you. A man of your highly sensitive sensibilities may find some of
> her language harsh, painful, distasteful. But I assure you, she has far
> more justification for saying what she does than you did in your
> pronouncements against the President of Iran yesterday. And it is long,
> but I plead for you to have patience because you are a man in need of an
> education, and sometimes education is a very painful process.
>
>
> She writes:
>
>
> **Is there anything in Iraq that the Americans have not destroyed?**
>
>
> **Anything at all? ... The past - you have looted and destroyed. Trying to
> erase our collective historical memory ... Our roots, where we came from,
> what our ancestors did, their achievements, their trials, their statues,
> their writings ... **
>
>
> **You do not know history, you are rejects of history. You have no
> history. You have no past, you have nothing ... you are nothing.**
>
>
> **You are nothing but ogres of consumerism. Not just material stuff, but
> anything you can swallow whole you will. You even swallow other people's
> history whole.**
>
>
> **You are a greedy, covetous, gluttonous, voracious, jealous, envious
> people ... **
>
>
> **Since you are nothing, your nihilism contaminates everything else ... **
>
>
> **You destroy and self destruct ... **
>
>
> **No Future - You have no future, because inside of yourselves, your
> future is limited to your own little egos. Little egos have no future.
> Little egos are amoebas, parasites, feeding off others ... You think you
> have a vision but your vision is only about your stomach, your pockets and
> what you have in between your legs ... That is it.**
>
>
> **This is where it stops. Surely this does not make you seers ... **
>
>
> **What have you contributed to the world ? Anything of real substance?
> Nothing. Apart from brutal might and power ... and your sickening culture
> that is as hollow and as empty as you are.**
>
>
> **And just as you have no real future, you robbed us of our own. You are
> collectively a bunch of criminals, thieves, thugs and perverts of the
> worst kind.**
>
>
> **Since your f*cking 9/11, you have totally destroyed two countries.
> Afghanistan and Iraq. And you have not stopped. Not one day, not one hour
> ... **
>
>
> **You wanted regime change in Iraq - you got it. You also changed us, me,
> beyond anything I can recognize ... I never hated you before. Today I do.
> I really hate you.**
>
>
> **You collectively disgust me. Even our ancient Mesopotamian deities and
> spirits are disgusted with you. Every single letter of the Alphabet is
> disgusted with you.**
>
>
> **The earth, the rivers, the sky, the mountains, the trees, the birds of
> Iraq are disgusted with you ... The cosmos is disgusted with you ... **
>
>
> **Everytime I spot one of you anywhere in close proximity and hear that
> ugly accent of yours I run away ... I avoid you like the plague. I can't
> bear to hear you or see you.**
>
>
> **You represent nothing but Death and Destruction to me. Your ugliness is
> all pervading ... **
>
>
> **Everytime I switch on the TV or the Radio and see or hear one of you, I
> zap. I wish I can zap you out of my life once and for all ... **
>
>
> **I know, I keep repeating myself, but then you keep repeating the same
> acts.**
>
>
> **Iraq is going down, with its past and its future ... **
>
>
> **I can only promise you one thing, however long it may take, we are going
> to take you down with us."**
>
>
> As a North American I can add nothing more except to apologize to Iraq for
> what my government has done and continues to do to them and to Iran for
> what you, and your government have done, and are preparing to do, to them.
> And to President Ahmadinejad, I apologize for Mr. Bollinger's barbarous
> and inexcusable words. Not all U.S. citizens are as ignorant and lacking
> in basic manners as the presidents of our universities.
>
>
> Clifton Ross
>
>
> _http://www.counterpunch.org/ross09252007.html_
>
>
**__________________________________________________________________________
_____________________**
>
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