By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO, Calif. —The other evening I channel-surfed to CSPAN and found
former Iranian President Mohommad Khatami answering student questions at
Harvard University. I have read that various Jewish groups had protested his
invitation there, so I was was interested to see what would happen.
The students had numerous question which I doubt he had ever been confronted
with in such a bold manner during his presidency. How can he speak of
world tolerance when his country's current president sponsors cartoon exhibits
to deny the Holocaust. Or when there is violence against gays or when
Iran is supporting organizations like the Hezbollah. Further, the
students wanted to know, why is Iran resisting nuclear inspections? And,
what is the fate of Israeli air force officer Ron Arad, who was shot down over
Lebanon in 1986?
Clearly, Jewish organizations not only had protested Khatami's visit, they
inspired many of the questions that the students asked. Khatami's
answers were interesting to say the least. He conceded that there indeed
had been a Holocuast, but he added, the suffering of one people should not be
justification to cause others suffering. He drew a distinction between
"violence" against gays and "punishment" of gays.
Under Islamic law, he said unapologetically, homosexuality is a crime, just as
adultery is a crime In some circumstances the death penalty even can be
exacted, but this is rarely done.
Hezbollah, in his opinion, is not a terrorist organization, but rather a
"resistance movement" which should be distinguished from
organizations such as Al Qaeda that engage in actions aimed against civilian
populations. He apparently didn't see any irony in his words regarding
against Israeli civilians. On the nuclear issue, he said that Iran has
signed and abides by standard international nuclear agreements; the
disagreement is over whether Iran should be required to implement an even
higher level of nuclear cooperation. Finally, he said that he does not
know the fate of Arad, but suggested that while people are looking for him,
perhaps they might also assist in learning the fate of two Iranian diplomats
who also disappeared from Lebanon.
Obviously in this forum there was no opportunity for debate, and so one might
argue that it was a propaganda triumph for Khatami, who by the very
nature of the Q&A format had the last word. But, of course,
"last" is a relative term. As words of his comment have been carried
over the news media, they have been dissected and criticized. No doubt
his dismissal of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's holocaust denial is
still reverberating in Teheran.
**
I note that San Diego State University has an interesting speaker's
series coming up, although the line-up is not nearly so interesting nor
controversial as having the former president of a country with which the
United States doesn't even have diplomatic relations. The SDSU Speaker's
Series will include former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani later this month,
Democratic strategist James Carville and conservative columnist Ann Coulter in
October, and former U.S. presidential candidates Wesley Clark, a Democrat, and
Bob Dole, a Republican, in December.
In 1984, the students at San Diego State University invited a speaker who was
perhaps even more controversial than Khatami—the Nation of Islam leader
Louis Farrakhan, who was notoriously anti-Semitic. Jewish groups at that
time protested vehemently and the protests helped to spur community support
for the creation of SDSU's Lipinsky Institute for Judaic Studies. One of
the appeals made to the Jewish community at the time was that by supporting
the Lipinsky Institute, contributors would help assure a strong and permanent
Jewish intellectual presence on the campus as a counter to any kind of
anti-Semitism that might be generated by the likes of Farrakhan.
Ironically, Farrakhan's own security concerns—rather than those of the
Jewish community—led to the cancellation of the speech. Farrakhan
wanted to have his own armed body guards search students who attended his
lecture. The university said not only would searches not be permitted,
no weapons would be allowed on campus either. The lecture thereafter was
cancelled, apparently by mutual agreement.
Assuming that students came as well prepared with questions for Farrakhan back
then as the Harvard student were for Khatami, perhaps Farrakhan's appearance
on campus (minus the armed body guards) would not have been so awful as
everyone feared. In an open exchange of ideas, with an unfettered
question and answer session an absolute requirement, the cause of truth might
have been better served.
All this leads me to a tentative conclusion: The Jewish community does itself
a disservice when it tries to foreclose public forums for anti-Semites.
Attempting to deny someone the opportunity to speak may create for that person
a sympathy far greater than that person's appearance, unimpeded, might have
generated on its own.
This may be true not only of speakers, but of movies and other productions in
the arts which our community deems to be anti-Semitic. I think it is
fair to say that Jewish protests in advance of Mel Gibson's movie The
Passion of the Christ helped guarantee it became a blockbuster at the box
office. Certainly some religious Christians would have gone to see the movie
in any event, but how many other people would have desired to watch a
subtitled film in which the characters spoke Latin and Aramaic?
As a worldwide community, we Jews have experienced so much persecution it is
to be expected that we would try to act forcefully to prevent its
reoccurrence. However, it is possible our reflex actions are
counterproductive.
I also have made the mistake of unfairly prejudging a piece of performance
art. With great sincerity I inveighed in 2002 against the San Diego Repertory
Theatre's decision to produce The Merchant of Venice.
Convinced that Shakespeare's text required any staging of The Merchant
of Venice to smear us Jews, I had the hubris to suggest that the San
Diego Repertory Theatre was, in essence, betraying its supporters in the
Jewish community. I boycotted the performances and urged others to do
likewise. My comments had two effect. The most prevalent was to
cause people to yawn—how many people really cared, after all, about what I
had to say? But, among the relatively few who did, I perhaps confirmed
their prejudices, so, like me, they also stayed away.
As I reflect on all this, in light of Khatami's visit to Harvard, I now think
that I should have attended the production with an open mind. I should
have been willing to see whether a new interpretation of The Merchant of
Venice could somehow cast Shylock—as the personification of the Jew—in
a better light. I regret now that I didn't go to find out for
myself. Accordingly, though it's late in coming, I'd like to apologize
to Sam Woodhouse and Todd Salovey of the San Diego Repertory Theatre, to whom
I should have given the benefit of the doubt.
This is my al heit for the High Holy Days. Probably it should be
one of many.