Rules of Inhospitality

These are the bare facts. President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of Iran received an unsolicited invitation to speak at Columbia University in New York. He showed up. In his 'welcome' address, Columbia University president, Lee Bollinger, said of Ahmedinejad - to his face - that "you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator. You are either brazenly provocative, or astonishingly uneducated." This was followed by even more insults heaped on the guest speaker. At one point during Ahmedinejad's speech, he naively declared that there were no homosexuals in Iran. The assembled audience responded to this with jeering laughter.

I think this was a mistake. Don't get me wrong. I am no admirer of the Iranian President - although I do believe he is seriously underestimated by the West. The man may act like a country buffoon, but he knows exactly what he is doing - and what will sell to his own people. Back home, his popularity rating is triple that of George Bush. Whether his speech was a public relations exercise, or a genuine/hypocritical attempt to explain his political stand to ordinary Americans, will remain debatable. However, that is not the main issue here.

The main issue is that the treatment meted out to a head of state flouted even the basic laws of hospitality. Polite - even heated - disagreements are one thing; heaping insults and jibes on an invited guest only succeeds in belittling the host. Even the President of a banana republic did not deserve such treatment - and Iran is no banana republic. It can point to 5000 years of history and civilization; a concept that a neophyte nation like the United States perhaps cannot even comprehend. All the Dean accomplished is to confirm the widely held belief in many parts of the world - and especially the Islamic countries, that hardly need any further reason to despise America - that the United States is an arrogant, mannerless bully.