Satire: Professor Ahmadinejad

As president of our university, I am proud to announce that we have extended a formal invitation to Iran’s President, the Honorable Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to occupy the newly endowed Jimmy Carter Chair in Appeasement Studies as a Visiting Professor in Diplomacy. 


We believe that President Ahmadinejad will feel quite at home at our school. Most of our liberal arts professors share Professor Ahmadinejad’s views of America, and very few, if any, support America’s racist, imperialist, hegemonic, capitalist, non-U.N.-sanctioned attack on his country. 

Moreover, initial inquiries have ensured widespread support for a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad professorship. CNN, for example, has agreed in principle to offer Professor Ahmadinejad his own cable show. While such a show will be similar in tone and outlook to CNN’s reporting on Iran, CNN told us that they feel that it is always helpful to have another voice with particular appeal to their European viewers. 

Progressive labor unions have likewise assured us of their support. Upon first hearing that a Middle Eastern leader would be teaching here, some progressive national union leaders immediately called my office to warn of labor unrest if that leader were Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. We immediately assured them that we have little interest in providing opportunities for allies of America to speak, let aletanyahu was democratically elected is of no import to any progressive university in America. 

I am also pleased to note that our women’s studies professors and the many others concerned with women’s equality are particularly pleased to welcome President Ahmadinejad. Though we are aware of reports of widespread rape and torture of women by the officials of the Iranian government, our university affirms, as do all other great American universities, multi-culturalism. And as multi-culturalists, we believe that judging other cultures is a reactionary anachronism, again emanating from America’s outdated Judeo-Christian perspective. Our feminist scholars have reminded me that what matters is that Professor Ahmadinejad is pro-choice, and the university can surely use another pro-choice voice at a time when a woman’s unfettered right to a third-trimester abortion is under attack by a sexist American government.   Of course, his country's treatment of homosexuals is of no consequence based on the same perspective.

I wish to applaud the student council for this idea. As the college’s president, I am well aware that students, not administrators, should make university policy. The notion that a university president knows better than a student two years out of high school what should be taught, or who should teach, at a university is a function of ageism and classism, two vestiges of the American Judeo-Christian and capitalist value systems that we university professors and administrators reject. 

Indeed, the only obstacle is that President Ahmadinejad may smoke cigarettes although we have not seen any evidence of this. Needless to say, our university cannot offer its students a professorial model who publicly smokes. While our professors and students have long defended Communist, Arab, and other anti-American dictators, the university community draws a firm line at smokers. Negotiations with President Ahmadinejad’s staff concerning this matter are taking place at this very moment. 

Finally, I call on our many alumni to continue to generously support the college. As you can see, your money is going to support a great American institution.

 

Adopted from something composed almost a decade ago.

^