He was preceded by remarks from the president of the educational establishment doing his bit to promote understanding and good will. NOT
The politically embattled chap ended with the following kind touch,
"I am only a professor, who is also a university president, and today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for. I only wish I could do better."
The President of Iran's contribution can be read here.
He covers islamic philosophy of science! From the words on the page you can tell he has a tough mind, undiverted by naff and distrating international vocabulary of righteous virtue that us in the west have been fed on, and that us in the east tend to parrot with zeal. He has his own moral vernacular of the manners of treating ones guest, the respect accorded to women etc. I think this migh have something to do with not being colonised in the way that the other Asiatic hordes were. Its like listening to a confident Turk!
For me this event is not about same-sex attraction or human rights bitching or further research into the despicable treatment and mass murder of the Jews in europe. Unfortunately these are the lenses (UN propelled.. bless) through which more and more people see the world. Each to his own lens so long as it doesnt become an axe, besides I wouldn't know where to start wrt to consoling a Holocaust survivor who has enemized Iran and views its leader as todays Hitler.
It's about the politics of knowledge and some countrys preventing others from certain pools of knowledge, from building stocks of autonomous expertise and political gumption. Iraq was not frozen then destroyed not because of baathist philosophy, the kurds, the shias, it was because they had some resolution behind their own alignment of brains, money and national interest.
Another telling part to this event is that the president has not been allowed to pay his respects at the Ground Zero site in New York. So many people have already made up their minds it is sad.
The Chief Advisor of Bangladesh is due to speak at Colombia this friday. I hope he has some good chops, though to be honest he wont be up against nearly as much hostility, even if embittered Awami League workers attend.
2 comments:
So they're letting a petty and cruel dictator AND a petty and cruel dictator's puppet speak at Columbia?
It's a bummer I won't be able to go to the Dr. Fakhruddin event in my own backyard... I don't expect there to be too many tough questions...
It's interesting that the President of Turkmenistan was at Columbia the same day as Ahmedinejad. Very little noise about that.
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