A CHANCE MISSED

The Columbia event was televised in full on Monday evening and it did indeed prove to be an “educational experience” though perhaps not quite in the way that Mr Bush meant. The invitation to Mr Ahmadinejad was in itself a valuable demonstration of the belief of American academia in freedom of speech and openness to objectionable ideas but the performance by Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, was calculated to devalue any benefit deriving from that demonstration. His introduction to his guest was a ten minute rant against him and his country, in a style perfectly captured by two phrases he used: “You exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated” and “I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions”.

No doubt Mr Lee felt under pressure from his critics for issuing the invitation in the first place and thought it necessary to prove his credentials as a demoniser of Iran. Earlier in the day the speaker of New York's Assembly, Sheldon Silver, had said in a newspaper interview that after the invitation to Iran's president local legislators “might now take a different view of capital support provided to Columbia University”. Nonetheless Lee Bollinger was guilty both of gross discourtesy to Columbia's guest and of displaying something less than academic objectivity in presenting his views.

W HEN his turn came to speak President Ahmadinejad wisely kept his cool and observed that “In Iran, tradition requires that when you invite a person to be a speaker, we actually respect our students enough to allow them to make their own judgement, and don't think it necessary before the speech is even given to come in with a series of complaints to provide vaccination to the students and faculty.” It was a good opening but it cannot be said that he thereafter built on it. His main message seemed to be about the relationship between science and religion and the shared origins of all religions but, despite an excellent simultaneous interpretation on TV, it was difficult to follow. When it came to the questions Mr Ahmadinejad showed that he was neither “astonishingly uneducated” nor “lacking in intellectual courage”. He was clear–minded in his defence of Iran's nuclear programme and his rhetorical touch, “Why should the Palestinians have to pay for the Holocaust” showed why he is so admired in the developing world for his articulate defence of its view of the world. On the other hand his claim that the Holocaust needed “more research” sounded like a feeble attempt to escape from a corner into which he had painted himself. Mocking laughter from the audience followed his assertion that there were no homosexuals in Iran.

Both sides had supporters in the audience. But the possibility of a constructive debate disappeared as soon as the university president chose to speak like a closedminded politician.