A Tale of Two Presidents

And two lectures, actually. It all went off without anything major happening, partly because of the massive presence of the NYPD (helicopters, paddy wagons, the works) and the sensible decision to keep non-students off the campus (they still protested outside anyway, though I don't think anyone was arrested).

The most problematic part of the whole thing was that I was talking at exactly the same time Ahmadinejad was, and as a consequence, only a little over one-third of our students actually showed up. Which was, in all honesty, a little galling - I had spent my entire weekend over the lecture, and, though I say so myself, it was actually pretty damn good. Oh well. I suppose I can't blame the students - it's not every day you get to listen to a nutcase via digital relay. And I have a suspicion that it won't be the last time I lecture to a half-empty auditorium...

With around 3,000 students gathering to watch the live relay, I could hear the cheers ringing across the main quad throughout the lecture, certainly for President Bollinger's opening remarks, in which, to be perfectly blunt, he tore Ahmadinejad a new one. Describing Ahmadinejad as having "all the signs of a cruel and petty dictator", remarking that his Holocaust denial was the mark of someone "astonishingly uneducated", he really laid into him. I'm kind of in two minds about this...on the one hand, I agree completely with what Bollinger said - Ahmadinejad's regime is a vile one, and he should be called to account for it. On the other, I do wonder how it reflects on Columbia to have the Prez laying into him in such brutal fashion.

I suppose on a third hand, Ahmadinejad's response did rather highlight that maxim that "free speech makes it easier to tell who the idiots are". For some reason this wasn't reported in the UK media, or so I heard, but Ahmadinejad asserted in response to a question on Iran's persecution of homosexuals that there simply weren't any in Iran, to a good deal of derisive laughter from the crowd. To choose a thoroughly inappropriate metaphor, I suppose if you give someone enough rope, they'll hang themselves.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

This Monday, at Columbia, a man will be giving a lecture. A man of some renown, one widely disliked, even detested in the circles in which he moves. Many believe he's a dangerous lunatic and not to be trusted; some even say that he could represent the greatest threat to Western civilisation in our times.

Oh, and the President of Iran will be talking, too.

Yes, somehow, in one of those bizarre twists of fate that make me think the universe really does have a sense of humour, I will be lecturing on campus on 9th and 10th century Japanese court politics at roughly the same time as Mahmoud Ahmadenijad gives his lecture elsewhere on the campus on, probably, something along the lines of how he'd like to kill all the Jews. Yes folks, what didn't manage to happen last year will come to pass, your friend and mine the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran is coming to speak at Columbia. I imagine that the scheduling conflict will affect attendance; but hey, Ahmadinejad can just wait until I'm good and finished.

I really did give this some serious thought, but, given the heavily Jewish demographics of the Upper West Side, I was genuinely unable to think of anyone alive on the face of the planet at the moment who could possibly elicit quite the reaction that ol' crazy Mahmound will no doubt get. I thought John Ashcroft was an explosive choice...let's see what happens tomorrow. We'll have Campus Security, the NYPD, and the US Secret Service swarming all over the place tomorrow, there's a massive anti-Ahmadinejad demonstration scheduled for 11:30 a.m., the whole campus will be locked down except for two gates, and only then to CUID holders. Even allowing for all this, it would not surprise me greatly if somebody still decides to do something stupid. Watch this space.