Turns out there was no need for such a fuss. On September 19th, two days before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was scheduled to have dinner with 15 members of the Columbia International Relations Council and Association (CIRCA), the Iranian mission to the United Nations revoked the invitation due to the “media firestorm” surrounding the event, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator.
Various students had scheduled a protest, “Just Say No to Ahma(dinner)jad,” for September 21. After the dinner was cancelled, they decided to hold it anyway, renaming it “Just Say No to Ahmadinejad.” A number of Columbia students attended, as did Shirin Nariman, a former Iranian political prisoner. Topics of discussion included the oppressive nature of Ahmadinejad’s government and why students would even attend the dinner.
Despite protests and revoked invitations, some 100 undergraduate and graduate students did get a chance to meet Ahmadinejad, reported CNN. Although he didn’t actually eat dinner with them, he did participate in a Q&A session moderated by an Iranian official from the United Nations. Attendees even received party favors of “hand-painted plates from Iran and books about theology.”
