Boston
TWO HOURS BEFORE the former Iranian president, Mohammad Khatami, arrived at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to deliver a lecture on ethics, the scene outside was relatively calm. There were only a handful of protestors, some of whom were holding signs. One exclaimed that “Inviting Mohammad Khatami to Lecture on Ethics is Like Inviting Jeffery Dahmer to Lecture on Cooking.” Another read, “Hey Harvard, this is what freedom of speech looks like,” above the Muhammad caricature which had set off the cartoon riots earlier this year (you can see some excellent photos of the protestors, courtesy of Publius Pundit, here).
Susan Johnson had driven to Cambridge from Londonderry, New Hampshire, with her husband and two small children for the protest. She told me that this was only the second time in her life she’d joined in a protest. Her husband explained their road trip was evidence that “there are still some Americans willing to get off their ass on a Sunday to protest this moron.” Still, the Johnsons’ seemed most offended by the fact that the lecture was on the eve of the fifth anniversary of September 11. They didn’t believe Khatami shouldn’t have been speaking at Harvard, they just thought the timing was “disrespectful.”
Eric Lesser, president of the Harvard College Democrats, was protesting too, though he didn’t object either to the university’s invitation or the timing of the event. As Lesser explained the group’s nuanced position, they wanted to make sure Khatami was “not given a free pass.” He said that Governor Mitt Romney’s decision to withhold state police protection from the Khatami convoy was “ridiculous and irrelevant,” but, according to the group’s handout, Khatami ought to “apologize” for his participation in “the vicious crackdown on student protestors at Tehran University in July 1999,” as well as “the 2004 execution of 16 year old Atefeh Rajabi for ‘crimes against chastity.'”
Seth Flaxman and Michael Gould-Wartofsky of Harvard’s Progressive Jewish Alliance saw the protest as a “good opportunity to express freedom of speech”–a right they would no sooner deny Khatami simply because he had “given millions to Hezbollah.” Their protest was about “holding leaders to account”–not stifling free speech.
Professor Graham Allison introduced Khatami after first asking the audience to join him in observing a moment’s silence for the victims of September 11. Allison mentioned Khatami’s tenure as president of Iran, chairman of the Islamic Center in Hamburg, and head of the Islamic Republic’s National Library. (He graciously omitted Khatami’s tenure as chairman of War Propaganda.)
DURING HIS TALK Khatami was more Hugo Chávez than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He said nothing provocative; the tenor of his anti-Americanism would have been familiar to regular attendees of the university lecture circuit. Still, the crowd seemed delighted by Khatami’s mastery of American history. So thorough was his grasp of our nation’s history, he was able to provide a synopsis, from 1492 to the present, in less than 5 minutes.
First Khatami addressed the genocide of the American Indian: “This vast continent, with its native inhabitants, played host to the Europeans who came in search of wealth, but it is fair to say that the courtesies normally due to a host were not extended to it [the Indians].”
Then Khatami, with a nod to his Bay Colony audience, lauded the children of our pilgrim forbearers, who “fomented freedom struggles against imperialism and slavery.” Quickly skipping ahead to the Second World War, Khatami explained that the prominent role America played in the Allied victory had led to “the revival of arcane European imperialistic models in America.” It’s unclear whether this was meant as a jibe at the forum’s namesake, John F. Kennedy; nevertheless, the audience remained enthusiastic. Then Khatami began the Bush-bashing:
Khatami went on to discuss the dangerous ideologies which drive these two antagonists:
At the end of the half-hour speech, the floor was opened to questions from the students in attendance, who were surprisingly hostile to the university’s guest. Students brought up old quotes in which Khatami praised Hezbollah, questioned his government’s campaign against secular university professors, and, in one case, made an emotional plea for justice on behalf of a friend whose journalist mother had died at the hands of Iranian police.
Perhaps the best exchange began with a question from a Harvard sophomore, who noted that Khatami had “characterized Zionists as having a violent nature.” Saffron, explaining that he was both a Jew and a supporter of Israel, and thus a Zionist, asked if Khatami thought that he “was more aggressive and violent than the average audience member.” In reply Khatami affirmed his commitment to nonviolence, and proclaimed that he “has very good friends among the Jews.” You see, some of his best friends are Jewish.
Michael Goldfarb is deputy online editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
