Joanna Bove

or a portion of the student body, the first half of this fall semester has been a rollercoaster of emotional distress. The comings of different political figures to Columbia campus have created great debate. One guest speaker in particular, was the subject of greatest contention, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His coming revealed disparate opinions among students, and his speech on the international relationship between the United States and the Middle East drew great controversy.

Many students became emotional over the coming of President Ahmadinejad, a decidedly controversial figure, who some characterized as downright evil. On the streets that day, epithets such as “anti-Semite!” and “Hitler supporter!” were thrown out, even while some Hasidic Jews screaming “We don’t believe in a Jewish State!” could be heard. No one was giving any consideration to what really might be the point of view of this president, and for that matter what was the actual sentiment of the people in Iran in relation to the United States, nuclear power, Israel, gender roles, international relations, and just life in general. Many did not truly understand the depths of what was being argued and yet were taking up sides in the uproar about the Middle East and Israel, myself included. As the debate became more and more abstract, it came to depend on just a few slogan words meant to rile and that were blinded by bias: Hitler, hate, Islam, Arab, Jew, occupation, holocaust, violence, democracy, terrorism. These terms serve to cover up any truth that could be lurking behind the public story. Unfortunately, debate in this country has changed its meaning from educational and informative to denunciating, repetitive, and silencing.

My response to the overwhelming amount of often uninformed political views being hurled all around campus, was a desire to bring out some other sides of the story, to listen to voices that have not been given much consideration. I began to consider questions such as, why is the dominant image of Iran in my mind a picture of uncivilized barbarians who hang and stone innocents, and force women to cover themselves? Why am I judgmental of Islam? I decided to talk with a few Iranians to investigate their thoughts about their country and how they felt about the way they were represented during President Ahmadinejad visit to campus. The two young Iranian women interviewed are both students at Barnard College and have both spent time in Iran, either having grown up there as a child or visiting family during summer vacations, and they both continue to visit Iran. Both women wish to remain anonymous, a decision I support in light of today”s hostile climate and I hope readers can understand and respect their decisions. I will be calling my interviewees Kate and Allie.

I began with questions pertaining to the event on campus and how leaders and the media in the United States (and us here at Columbia University) have depicted Iran and the President. Kate told me that while she and her Iranian friends were watching President Ahmadinejad speak, they felt as if they were being squeezed into a corner: they did not support President Ahmadinejad, but they were completely alienated from the overwhelming political view on campus that equated Islam with hatred and Ahmadinejad with Hitler. That day served to unite Iranian Muslims, Jews, and Christians together in support of their country, Kate said.

In terms of the pictures that were placed all over campus depicting the atrocities that occur in Iran, Allie ruminated, how could five thousand years of history and culture of a country be illustrated in pictures of people being hanged in the middle of the desert? These two women described an Iranian state of which I had never heard. They talked about the younger generation supporting the United States and western ideas, but abhorring the idea of being attacked. As Allie described, Iranians want change in their country, but they want to do it themselves and in their own way. Lasting change cannot be made from the top down, or from international pressure, but instead must be encouraged and supported by the people from within the country. Allie noted that the United States underestimates the identity and strength of the people of Middle Eastern Countries, as it had with Iraq. They invaded but are unable to maintain power over the people. In effect, the populations in these countries do not want to be controlled by a foreign country.

In terms of Bush and Bollinger”s rhetoric of promoting democracy and eliminating errorism and ate in relation to the Iranian government, the history of the relationship between the United States and Iran tells a completely different story. Many people don know that before the 1979 revolution in Iran, the Iranian government was controlled by the shah, the hereditary ruler. There was no democracy, no voting, and absolutely no protests like the ones we have seen recently. And miraculously (though not so miraculously if you are critical of United States foreign policy) the United States government supported this ruler and even suppressed democracy in Iran (especially noted in the CIA ploy to remove the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq in its Operation Ajax in 1953), and after the Iranian revolution, the United States supported Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran war that began 1980 and ended eight years later. Saddam used chemical weapons (from the U.S.) to murder tens of thousands of Iranians. The United States has played a large role in suppressing democracy in the Middle East in order to control the region, especially the oil resources and the ideological climate surrounding Israel. Before we accuse Iran or any other country in the Middle East of not being democratic, we should look at our own little black book of repression and warmongering.

After the Iraq-Iran war, Iran was devastated, but began to develop, even under economic embargos from eveloped countries. Allie described to me the amazing process of development that has occurred in Iran: in terms of democracy, westernization, and women rights, Iran is much further ahead than most other countries in the Middle East, and even further ahead of many of the countries that the United States currently supports, such as Saudi Arabia, where women have absolutely no freedoms and must be completely covered in public, and people can get their hands cut off for minor infractions.

In Iran, there are universities, modern transportation systems, and most people, Kate told me, have satellite TV, even though it is illegal. Both women were concerned about the passion within the United States to liberate women in Iran. Not that they don’t believe that changes should be made (they don like the dress code, and don’t like the separation between the sexes, nor the power of family members within their romantic relationships), but they don feel as if they are specifically oppressed by Iranian culture and society. As Allie mentioned, over 50 percent of college students in Iran are women, and more women are professors or administrators in universities in Iran than in the United States.

In regards to other gender relations and ideology within Iran, we were all very shocked about what President Ahmadinejad said about there being no homosexuals in Iran. What Kate described to me was the problem in the translation when he answered the question. She said, “In Farsi, he said that there was no homosexual identity in Iranian society.” This is an important point, because she and Allie further described that everyone in Iran knows that homosexual acts happen in the military, in the school dorms (boys and girls go to separate schools), but the society is very family-oriented, and therefore marriage and children are very important. There is execution for sodomy, but Allie described, “In Islamic law there is a process of four admittances, four court trials on four different days, before such a decision can be made. Yes, the government does sometimes bypass these rules, but there are ways in which people have been able to avoid persecution.”

Both Kate and Allie feel that changes need to be made in terms of the persecution of homosexuals, but they were able to draw the connections between the fact that both Iran and the US support capital punishment and many states in the US have anti-sodomy laws. As Allie stated, “Iran has anti-sodomy laws, just like in Texas.”

What right have we to point fingers at the hypocrisy of another nation when just last voting season the United States government denied homosexuals the right to marry? And the US government continues to deny them the right to adopt, and there are still heinous hate crimes committed against members of the gay community. The United States government does not have the right to criticize other countries about how homosexuals are treated without reflecting on its country’s own despicable history and practices.

What many Americans (or at least some very powerful interest groups) worry about is Iran’s political stance on Israel. Allie mentioned, “President Ahmadinejad has refused to recognize Israel as a state, and has constantly demanded that lands be given to the Palestinians. But when he was here speaking at Columbia University, and was asked whether he wanted the ‘destruction’ of Israel, he said that he wanted to call a ‘referendum’ to find out what the people wanted.”

This was an astonishing change from what Allie and Kate were more familiar with in terms of his political flare on this subject when he has spoken in Iran. She felt that this response was an important deviation from his regular responses, in which he has systematically denied the existence of Israel. She believes that since the Israeli state is truly there, Iran and other Middle Eastern communities must accept its existence and must find a solution to the Israel-Palestinian problem in a way that recognizes both communities’ existence and independence.

But in terms of animosity towards Jews or towards the state of Israel, Allie described, “Iranians are not against Judaism or against Jews in general, but are instead critical of the political ideology of Zionism.” Confusing anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism seems to be an oft-occurring misconception in this country.

The Iranian government understands Israel’s expansion and occupation of Palestinian lands as a colonial project. Though President Ahmadinejad’s statements on the Holocaust are not widely supported by Iranians, Kate and Allie told me that most people question the connection between the Holocaust and the reasoning for the occupation and murder of Palestinians. While many people on Columbia’s campus have equated Islam with hatred (of Israel), Allie stated, “Iranians have viewed the political strife between Israel and Palestine as a political issue of colonialism and political oppression, not a religious issue derived from Islam.” This was also posed as a question by Ahmadinejad in his speech, a question neglected by Columbia’s own leaders. In our country, the dominant view of the impacts of WWII neglects such considerations as the questions that Iranians are asking: why is it that this “World” War which took place among European countries and a few from the far east, with absolutely no relation to the Middle East, has resulted in the current strife in Palestine-Israel? If this is not a question of Western colonialism, then what is?

Many people in the United States would be surprised to find out that there are over 25 thousand Jews living in Iran, which is the second largest population of Jews in the Middle East after Israel. These Jewish Iranians have remained in Iran and have a representative in the government even though a group only receives a representative when it has a population larger than 150 thousand people.

The United States government has alleged that Iran could have the capacity to develop and use nuclear weapons, which is a major threat to Israel. But in terms of nuclear power and development, Allie first told me, “Iran has not attacked another country in 150 years. Iran is not a threat to society.” She believes that the United States is afraid of the development of Iran in general because it would serve as a model for other countries in the Middle East. She believes that the United States wants to maintain control over that area of the world and sees Iran as a political and ideological threat to this control.

“Nuclear power means independence in this day in age when fossil fuels are running out,” Allie stated.

She finds that if Iran does not develop nuclear power, it will remain dependent on other “developed” nations in the world, such as the United States.

“Even if Iran was to develop and nuclear weapon, they would not be able to use it on any near-by countries because they would be killing themselves,” she said. Iran is a part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has complied with inspections, some of which were conducted in February of 2007 which found no illegal activity in its nuclear program. But the country is not a saint. According to the BBC, Iran has refused to allow more intrusive inspections under the signed “Additional Protocol,” which is a voluntary agreement. The BBC reports that Iran initiated the implementation of the protocol, but the parliament did not sign it. While Iran as not voluntarily subjected itself to more intrusive inspections Israel on the other hand, has a nuclear bomb, and is not a part of the NPT, and neither is India or Pakistan, which both have nuclear bombs. These countries do not have to report to the NPT about their nuclear programs nor do they have to comply with inspections. The question I must ask is who presents the bigger threat in terms of violent use of nuclear power? The biggest culprit isn’t even listed.

Development in Iran has been incredible, both Kate and Allie confess to me. After the 1979 revolution and the subsequent war with Iraq, Iran has developed so much in terms of industry and energy use, and all without the help of any eveloped nation. Things are changing in Iran, they both tell me, and there cannot be one monolithic picture of what Iran is like today, just like we can say that conservative white communities in Texas represent the views of this entire country.

Before we take sides, we need to consider an issue objectively and strive to understand if fully he world is a complex place influenced by layers of history and cultural context. Therefore, trying to paint everything in black or white, good or evil, and demanding yes-or-no answers to questions of world politics, is foolish. Before we agree to any political position or take on any point of view, we should take a moment to think about what we are not exposed to in terms of information about the Iranian population and their society as a whole. Information is filtered in our country as well aybe not by direct censorship, but by subtle biases under the pretenses of neutrality. We don’t hear the Iranian people in the news, we don know about their aspirations, their admiration of many western ideas, and their ideals of tradition and peace. It is important to remember that when one country government attacks another, the people of that country are under attack, whether or not they agree with their government. Before we turn to strong language and the labeling of people and political views as anti-Semitic or fascist, we should take the time to think about the history of these situations and the structures of power have allowed for some voices to be heard over others.