The Dictator Who Came to Campus

The dictator whose name has 73 different spellings - and who has managed to maintain his chokehold for 36 years (making him the longest serving dictator in the Middle East) - just got invited to  lecture at Columbia University. And lecture Qaddafi did!

Since making the trip in person would have been a little dicey, the Q-man (or the G-man, if you prefer) popped into the lecture hall via closed-circuit TV. The whole event - dubbed "Prospects for Democracy" - appears to have been a farce masquerading as a serious academic dialogue between Libyan and US academics. And who better to perform at a farce than good ol' Muammar. Take it away, buddy:

[Gaddafi] touted Libya's political system as superior to "farcical" and "fake" parliamentary and representative democracies in the West."

"There is no state with a democracy except Libya on the whole planet," Gaddafi said to the conference at Columbia University in New York. Libya's Jamahiriyah system, under which Libyans can air their views at "people's congresses," is genuine democracy, said Gaddafi, who spoke through a translator and was dressed in purple robes and seated at a desk in front of a map of Africa.

Gaddafi said Libya's new openness would not lead Libyans to covet what they do not have -- on the contrary, he said, the rest of the world would soon be emulating Libya. "Countries like the United States, India, China, the Russian Federation, are in bad need of this Jamahiriyah system," he said. "This is a savior to them." Challenged by the U.S. moderator about freedom of speech, Gaddafi said every Libyan was free to express his opinions at the congresses and that was a better forum than a newspaper.

There are myriad outrages here, not the least of which is Columbia's School for International Public Affairs (SIPA) co-sponsoring the event with the "Green Book Center." (For background on Qaddafi's Green Book, see here and here.) This joke of an institution is one big propaganda arm for the incoherent ramblings of a late 1960s revolutionary who has somehow managed to hang on to power into the 21st century.

One of America's elite universities has just legitimized the paranoid fantasies of one of the region's most notorious dictators. It's an insult to Columbia students, but more importantly, to the people of Libya. So how does the Q-man manage to keep pulling off these stunts? Are we that stupid?

Comments

[ted swedenburg]

Of course it's outrageous, but not that surprising. What Columbia's SIPA is doing is exactly in line with US policy toward Libya right now, and so one expects elite universities--in particular--to organize this sort of event. All of the elite universities have been taking money from Saudi Arabia for years to set up or expand Middle East programs. That includes, of course, the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at my own institution, the University of Arkansas. Be outraged, but not surprised.

[Nouri]

Columbia also is home to the racist/anti-Semitic professor Rashid Khalidi and was the place where Edward Said was employed. Of course they do this. It is a very odd institution in that of the universities I have visited, it is the only one that seems to be actively supporting/promoting dictatorship in the ME through publications and events like this.

Nouri

[ted swedenburg]

Rashid Khalidi is racist and anti-Semitic, Nouri? What planet are you from? I've known Rashid for about 35 years, and I can say with full confidence that what you say is pure slander and unreconstructed McCarthyism.