Liveblogging with Ahmadinejad at Columbia U. Part 2.

Update1:

He started reciting verses from the Koran. Then said that we must allow everyone to speak there mind. He said there are many claims that are incorrect in Bollinger’s speech. Bollinger, he suggested, is misinformed by the media.

He said he will not be offended by the “unfriendly treatment.”

Update2:

“It was my decision to speak with you about the importance of knowledge, of education. Academics and religion scholars are shedding light to remove darkness,” Ahmadinejad said. He said the key to understanding reality lies in the hands of the researchers. And that academics and scholars are essential to improving the human condition.

Update3:

Ahmadinejad continues to defend the importance of knowledge and intellect, citing religious verse s where God tells man how much he doesn’t know.

Update4:

Science is a divine gift, Ahmadinajad said. But then he goes on to explain what he means by science: tit includes every hidden and disclosed reality, he said. We should not limit ourselves to physical or experimental sciences. Instead, Amadinejad seems to suggest that science is about spirituality.

“Science and wisodom an also be misused,” he said. He didn’t come right out an say it, but he means by the West.

Update5:

Ahmadinejad is now suggesting that the misuse of science and scientific information by some scientific scholars can lead to war-mongering and the stealing of resources from some countries for the benefit of other countries.

Sometimes, these nameless countries try to control all by not respecting the privacy of their people, creating an unsafe psychological state, and using the idea of terrorism and security as a way to do what they want.

He also talked about the Nuclear problem - the problem, he said, is that the West made a bomb in the first place. This was a misuse of scientists.

Update 6:

Ahmadinejad is talking about his role as a University professor. He said he came here because he is an academic. He wanted to engage in debate, but instead he faced a “wave of insults.”

Update 7:

He is “awaiting logical answers instead of insults.”

The first:

Given that the Holocaust is a present reality of our time, why can’t scholars question certain aspects and question the event from different perspectives? Why don’t we encourage research on a historical event that has become the root of many heavy catastrophes?

Update8:

Second:

If this is a reality, we have to still question whether the Palestinian people should still pay for it? Why are the Palestinians paying the price for an event they had nothing to do with?

Update9:

Ahmadinejad argues that he should have the chance to ask these questions about the Holocaust without being attacked. “Why should an academic face insults,” he asked. “Is this what you call freedom?”

Update 10:

And Ahmadinejad is cut off. But Coatsworth gives him an extra minute, a decision that is greated by applause.

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