Iranian University Chancellors Ask Bollinger 10 Questions
September 26, 2007
Fars News Agency: Seven chancellors and presidents of Iranian universities and research centers, in a letter addressed to their counterpart in the US Colombia University, denounced Lee Bollinger’s insulting words against the Iranian nation and president and invited him to provide responses for 10 questions of the Iranian academicians and intellectuals.
The following is the full text of the letter.
* * * *
Mr. Lee Bollinger
Columbia University PresidentWe, the professors and heads of universities and research institutions in Tehran , hereby announce our displeasure and protest at your impolite remarks prior to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent speech at Columbia University.
We would like to inform you that President Ahmadinejad was elected directly by the Iranian people through an enthusiastic two-round poll in which almost all of the country’s political parties and groups participated. To assess the quality and nature of these elections you may refer to US news reports on the poll dated June 2005.
Your insult, in a scholarly atmosphere, to the president of a country with a population of 72 million and a recorded history of 7,000 years of civilization and culture is deeply shameful.
Your comments, filled with hate and disgust, may well have been influenced by extreme pressure from the media, but it is regrettable that media policy-makers can determine the stance a university president adopts in his speech.
Your remarks about our country included unsubstantiated accusations that were the product of guesswork as well as media propaganda. Some of your claims result from misunderstandings that can be clarified through dialogue and further research.
During his speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad answered a number of your questions and those of students. We are prepared to answer any remaining questions in a scientific, open and direct debate.
You asked the president approximately ten questions. Allow us to ask you ten of our own questions in the hope that your response will help clear the atmosphere of misunderstanding and distrust between our two countries and reveal the truth.
- Why did the US media put you under so much pressure to prevent Mr. Ahmadinejad from delivering his speech at Columbia University? And why have American TV networks been broadcasting hours of news reports insulting our president while refusing to allow him the opportunity to respond? Is this not against the principle of freedom of speech?
- Why, in 1953, did the US administration overthrow the Iran’s national government under Dr Mohammad Mosaddegh and go on to support the Shah’s dictatorship?
- Why did the US support the blood-thirsty dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iraqi-imposed war on Iran, considering his reckless use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers defending their land and even against his own people?
- Why is the US putting pressure on the government elected by the majority of Palestinians in Gaza instead of officially recognizing it? And why does it oppose Iran ’s proposal to resolve the 60-year-old Palestinian issue through a general referendum?
- Why has the US military failed to find Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden even with all its advanced equipment? How do you justify the old friendship between the Bush and Bin Laden families and their cooperation on oil deals? How can you justify the Bush administration’s efforts to disrupt investigations concerning the September 11 attacks?
- Why does the US administration support the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) despite the fact that the group has officially and openly accepted the responsibility for numerous deadly bombings and massacres in Iran and Iraq? Why does the US refuse to allow Iran ’s current government to act against the MKO’s main base in Iraq?
- Was the US invasion of Iraq based on international consensus and did international institutions support it? What was the real purpose behind the invasion which has claimed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives? Where are the weapons of mass destruction that the US claimed were being stockpiled in Iraq?
- Why do America’s closest allies in the Middle East come from extremely undemocratic governments with absolutist monarchical regimes?
- Why did the US oppose the plan for a Middle East free of unconventional weapons in the recent session of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors despite the fact the move won the support of all members other than Israel?
- Why is the US displeased with Iran’s agreement with the IAEA and why does it openly oppose any progress in talks between Iran and the agency to resolve the nuclear issue under international law?
Finally, we would like to express our readiness to invite you and other scientific delegations to our country. A trip to Iran would allow you and your colleagues to speak directly with Iranians from all walks of life including intellectuals and university scholars. You could then assess the realities of Iranian society without media censorship before making judgments about the Iranian nation and government.
You can be assured that Iranians are very polite and hospitable toward their guests.
September 26, 2007 at 11:47 pm
[...] University Chancellors Ask Bollinger 10 Questions Sources: The Fanonite, [...]
September 26, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Awesome article. I think the Iranians are no worse people than most Americans. Perhaps better because they are not caught in false flag terrorism. I linked to this article on the Martial Law Network at http://martiallaw.wordpress.com/2007/09/26/iranian-university-chancellors-ask-bollinger-10-questions/
For more information, go to http://prisonplanet.com
Or listen to Alex Jones at http://infowars.com/listen
September 27, 2007 at 7:44 am
Hi, I am osai chella from India. Great Questions Chancellors! These uncivilised barabarians of the last millennium wont have the stuff to know the legacy of Eastern Civilisations… like Indian’s or Persian’s. We friend from India are always in support with you ppl. Our governments may lick the US for atomic Energy. but the ppl of India thinks the otherway and our support to iranian freedom is unlimited!
September 27, 2007 at 9:42 pm
I feel that it’s worth mentioning, and it hasn’t been said enough, that while busy whipping the public into an anti-Iranian frenzy by honing in on Ahmadinejad’s comments about homosexuals in Iran, and focusing on the execution of the two teenagers some time ago, the Western media is completely ignoring the equally bad if not worse persecution of homosexuals in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. I wonder why?
September 28, 2007 at 6:21 pm
anyway here’s the thing. I don’t want an islamic holocaust because we didn’t do the right thing whatever that may be. I’ve seen Seinfeld and the lady from shanghai and I’ve had a jarhead experience in a mental hospital similar to the one that orson welles had when everything looked dizzy and sideways and your head seems two sizes two-small. My doctor looked like neuman on Seinfeld. Then I ran into two twins from San francisco that looked like the blonde Rita hayworth in the lady from shanghai. Are they arabic-latin american ladies that got sold into slavery and had new bodies done with plastic surgery? Anyway…..the taliban. I think what the taliban means I may be off base here is that Afghanistan and Iraq are big giant casinos and you go from one movie to another like in a chinese box…have a pogoda like in that premiere’s song “Farmer John.” Anyway if I know the taste of Iraq and Afghanistan right…they’re big on the movie Talladega nights, Anchorman….probably Clueless, the good thief, blow, trainspotting, From Hell, and Mel Gibson movies. Probably L.A confidential as well. The broadcasters from Al-Jazeera get they’re knowledge out of Denver, with knowledge of Denver’s 2 technology and they listen to Sheryl Crow…basing all their stereo equipment around Sheryl Crow’s sound perhaps Madonna too…and they probably watch a lot of Dallas and Ricky Schroeder. Talladega nights, the adventures of Ricky Bobby…And they might like the Allen edmonds company “Hi, I’m Ron Burgundy” and are into American Buffalo….Denver style. The arabic version of Clueless probably centers on the Paul Rudd character able to design a car engine that doesn’t run on oil…and they probably get married in the end, cher and the paul rudd character. I think the current arguments for the war all fail and in the past I’m the devil because I helped justify it…if we don’t do something about afghanistan or where this new trend in ideas are coming from….america is slowly going to descend into lycanthropy and everybody will be like Lord of the flies. I’m a piggy and I’m on medication and I know if I get off my medication…I get so wild I can’t even speak. America has to deal with this, and if it doesn’t, Israel will, and while there are just men in Israel, more just men than not, they have a history of a losing streak towards relationships with arabs, and this breeds anger, hate, and an insensitivity towards arabic issues. I’m probably a jew, but my parents however unjust it may seem to jews, have taught me that zionism is wrong. I know….”not another holocaust” and I know there still is a prevalent attitude among many people in america to blame the jews for everything wrong in the world. And there may be for instance the existence of universes inside computers, like the matrix, that Israel guards for safe-keeping. The Marvel universe for one….with characters like the vulture and doctor Octupus who in spider-man who have these brothels of young women who work as clerks in stores…and these old men see a ring of power (a beautiful face perhaps) and they tell these young women to use they’re invisibility and dispersal gadgets and go into the young man’s houses and be like Octopussy….Should people in a Nabokovian universe such as this one I just described be allowed to exist, even if Israel doesn’t bother to police wmds from universes such as these and allow them to be used on Palestinian territory. Israel should treat the palestinian better, the green lantern computer matrices (computers that house all the nabokovian or other types of foreign universes (the birds in James Bond) I think should be allowed to exist, but Arthur C. Clarke says Hal blows up in 2001, so is the universe set in stone. There are arabic computers that house a distinctly arabic version of Jack the Ripper which blue and red neon “Open signs” one that is used for Sweeney Todd with a blue curved line with “Open” in red, another sign is used for Jack the Ripper with flashing stippled blue las vegas lights with red “Open sign and you can get kitchen carving knives that you can do a good whittling job if you have the blacksmith inclination….and then you can buy a select form of post office stamps and do an MTV video project shooting electric current from a post-office stamp, some celebrity photos from people magazine, some PETA article, and National geographic. I’m going to die because I bear the mark of a thief. Neither side, Israeli or Arab wants to resolve the conflict or even, live with the tension of an unresolved process so I don’t know….the media simplifies things it puts us on edge as if the mid-east peace process could be solved in a stand-alone one night only british soccer game manned by hooligans. You can’t solve these things that fast….and the only way to handle it is to have americans absorb iraqi and afghanistan culture which for my part I like a new interpretation of Victorian London like in the last sherlock holmes story.
September 29, 2007 at 5:24 pm
[...] The following is the full text of the letter. go to The Fanonite [...]
September 29, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Great article and thanks for posting it, i had to link it to my site. I followed many of the interviews with The President of Iran and was appalled by American high-handed hypocrisy/arrogance.
October 19, 2007 at 8:56 am
[...] michaelgreenwell @ 8:56 am When the Columbia University president embarassed himself during the Ahmadinejad business I kept wondering why I had heard his name [...]
October 29, 2007 at 4:43 am
[...] University Chancellors Ask Bollinger 10 Questions Sources: The Fanonite, [...]