Shat'i Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza

During the speech by the President of Iran, Dr. Ahmedinajad at Columbia University this afternoon, the New York Times on line set put an innovative blog right at the site of the speech. The NYT City desk reported on what he was saying and there was a space at the end to make ones comments.

When Ahmedinajad was talking about the role of "Science" or 'ilm, from which word we get the word alumnus and alumna, I made a comment about the foundation of the European universities by the Arab scholars in the 11th century:

Updated, 2:18 p.m. | Mr. Ahmadinejad has been making an argument about science, but not one grounded in the Western empirical tradition. “In the teachings of the prophets, one reality shall always be attached to science: the reality of purity of spirit and good behavior,” he said. “Knowledge and wisdom are pure and clear reality. Science is a light.” He added that “only a pure researcher” free from “superstition, selfishness, material trappings” can discover that reality.
The protests outside, on the Columbia campus, have been largely quiet during the duration of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s speech inside Lerner Hall. Hundreds of students are sitting quietly, watching a live television simulcast on the southeast lawn of the campus, in front of Butler Library.

Updated, 2:23 p.m. | In his most pointed arguments yet, Mr. Ahmadinejad said that science and research had been used in the West as tools of oppression.
“They even violate individual and social freedoms in their own nations under that pretext,” he said. “They do not respect the privacy of their own people. They tap telephone calls … They create an insecure psychological atmosphere, in order to justify their war-mongering acts in different parts of the world.”
He added: “By using precise scientific methods and planning, they begin their onslaught on the domestic cultures of nations, which are the result of thousands of years of interaction, creativity and artistic activity. They try to eliminate these cultures in order to strip people of their identity.”
He said that Western science was often used to instill “intimidation” and values of “mere consumption” and “submission to oppressive powers.”
He also added, “Making nuclear, chemical and biological bombs and weapons of mass destruction is yet another result of the misuse of science and research by the big powers.” (Pointedly, Mr. Ahmadinejad did not speak to his own country’s uranium enrichment program.)
“Without the cooperation of certain scientists and scholars, we would not have witnessed production of different nuclear, chemical and biological weapons,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. “Are these weapons to protect global security? What can a perpetual nuclear umbrella achieve for the sake of humanity? If nuclear war is waged between nuclear powers, what human catastrophe will take place?

13.
September 24th,
2007
2:28 pm
In an oblique way he’s trying to remind “the West” that the science of the Greeks and Indians, with the additional commentary of the Arabs and Iranians, was the cornerstone of the foundation of university education in Europe, at U. of Bologna, the Sorbonne, and Oxford. Remember that Avicenna (Arabic Ibn Sina) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and Algebra and Euclidian Geometry were transmitted free of charge to Europe and led eventually to the Italian and Shakespearean Rennaissance era. Not like Microsoft which charges for everything.
— Posted by Denis