Must they be (..... add your choice of an epithet)?
By speaking at Columbia University and at the United Nation, the president of Iran (M. Ahmadinejad) garnered a surprisingly large and diverse amount of epithets which was heaped on him generously. Some of it was by Columbia's president Lee Bollinger. What Bollinger contributed was described by some as "eloquent". Some of what was said about Ahmadinejad and Iran's government had been said about many other countries, world figures, organizations and groups who all share one common denominator i.e. being the enemy of the USA.
It is understandable that we don’t like and in fact fight and attack our enemies. However, must our enemies always be low-life-uncivilized-ignorant dictators?
I am just wondering, why is it that our enemies always are of that kind of people? Can’t we, for once, have a decent enemy?
An enemy, by definition, is some one, some country, some group or something that is opposing or threatening you, your interests or you objectives. The enemy doesn’t have to be of the type we always project our enemies to be.
Are our enemies really that way or we just feel better describing them that way?
We described the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire" because they were Communists. However, China is more communist than they ever were but we don’t describe them as "Evil Empire". In fact we are, sort of, friends with them.
Is Ahmadinejad more of a dictator or corrupt than Abdullah of Saudi Arabia or Mubarak of Egypt or many others who we consider our friends?
Why can’t we have decent people as enemies? Is being decent excludes anyone or any country or any group from being our enemy?
If we always describe our enemies that way, what does that say about us?
Someone partially answered that by saying, in a letter to the NY Times yesterday, "doing so" is a demonstration again of " the temptation of Orientalism: for us to humiliate and caricature a feared Other, put it on open display, and then pat ourselves on the back for being enlightened enough to make the display case"
One example of hypocrisy on our part is the question that was posed to Ahmadinejad: why are you imprisoning homosexuals? His answer was ridiculous when he said that they have none. "Not one", he said. If that was true, Iran would be the only nation in the Human history that didn’t have this type of sexual behavior. However, his lying does not excuse the hypocrisy of the questioner. It is ironical that on the same day a man was convicted of being accomplice to the "rape" of a 14-year old girl who is a member of a Mormon sect which believes in polygamy. The man performed that marriage in his church and according to the news, 14 is the legal marriage for girls in Utah. But polygamy is a crime and that is why the man was convicted.
So, according to the laws in Utah the man is guilty of a crime and according to Iran’s laws homosexuality is also a crime and people get convicted of it. So on what basis did the questioner asked that question? Ahmadinejad was not smart enough, or may be not informed enough about USA's laws and culture, to answer the question properly. He just lied. What a shame. But does his lying allow us to be hypocrites?
Each culture or country has its own laws and morals, that is why they are called "Others". Being our enemy does not justify our double-standard or our uncivilized treatment of them especially when we invite them to our institutions or when they come to us as a member of the international community.