Ahmednizad visit to Columbia

Its five thirty eight in the morning . I just came from work and thought before i go home , let me spend few hours at Lerners hall. I am having green tea which I got from my store .
Its difficult to see people at this hour in campus. I say campus in such a way that it sounds like i am still engaged as a student at Columbia University. Actaully I am since I spend quite a lot of my time in this campus.

I always thought i needed to spend more time in this beautiful place and due to lack of stable job .....I am here most of the time these days . There is sense of serenity prevails in this intellectual zone of Manhatten. What a luxury to be in school ! I find campuses are snobish and naive place in this world. Real world is far more interesting and total in content however camnpuses are here to give sense of nostalogia . I miss my JNU and TISS in way but i would never go back beacause in a way I have outgrown those place. And what a use if there are not same friends ,afterall places have complex relationship with people. Our sense of belonging and beautiful memory get shaped by people and places.

I felt bored and stranger in JNU campus when I didnt have old friends walking with me amidst all those stony pathways . Let me not get into my campus memory lane.

Going back to Topic of this post ..........

Yesterday ,President of Iran was inivited to Columbia campus.It was controversial decision to invite such a person whose reputation is shattered by western media and western human rights organization . President Bollinger has already created enormous controversy by extending invitation.

When he spoke and put some pertinent questions in front of President Ahmednizad, He sounded more like a activist and less like a president of a University . It was certainly not a humble and graceful way to welcome guest. for the name of academic freedom , Columbia President has lost the humility and at the same time sense of query which every body of knowledge must stand for. He was probably compensating the damage done by invitation. We understand that Columbia has upheld the great tradition of freedon of speech by inviting him however one has to remember that Iranian president doesnt lack platform to express his views.
Ahmednizad was bit annoyed but he kept his composed appearence. I appreciate many of his responses though his speech was clever portrayal of diplomat . He came to campus with expectation of such kind of reception in his mind .

I wont go into views expressed by him at this point since all those issues requires separate columns. I think west must go beyond the current narrow understanding of contemporary politics. Thank god to the rise to china,who is going challenge many contemporary notions of religion,democracy and market .