My Dinner With Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

 “Eventually I thought to myself that the only way to make this evening bearable would be to find out as much as I could about the person I happened to be with. I always enjoy finding out about people. It relaxes me.” – Wallace Shawn in My Dinner with André (screenplay 1981).

This past Tuesday, I was invited to an unusual dinner. I joined a group of U.S progressives at a dinner and private meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran. He was in New York for the meeting of United Nations General Assembly. This year, he also wanted to hear from social movement activists in the United States.

When the invitation to attend first arrived by e-mail, like many electronic messages I receive, I was unsure as to its authenticity. But a more formal paper invitation followed in the mail from the permanent mission of Iran at the United Nations. So I booked a flight to New York and prepared to see what would happen.

We gathered in a midtown Manhattan hotel, passed through the obligatory screening by New York City police officers, and went upstairs to a large dining room with a generous buffet supper. The meal included several salads, two varieties of rice, a breaded fish, two types of flavored chicken, a beef dish and several braised vegetables. Beverages included juices, soft drinks, coffee and tea. An additional table was covered with a variety of cut fruits and cheeses and a smaller platter of sweet pastries.

By this time, the crowd of invited guests had swelled well past the initially promised “couple dozen” to over four times that many – making it difficult to get close to the center of things – but everyone was friendly and accommodated to the tight quarters.

The guest list ranged from political figures like former Georgia Congressmember and 2008 independent presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark; to poet Amiri Baraka; the International Action Center’s Sarah Flounders; and Romana Africa of the MOVE organization.

After dinner, we moved into a room with a series of round tables, a large TV monitor and several TV cameras on tripods. Each round table had pens and notepads, bottled water, a dish of nuts, and a small plate of assorted delicious dried fruits. There was also a sheet of paper at each place stating the goals for the gathering, but no one seemed to read them. A long table was set-up at the front of the room for the President, several staffers and the Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations. As they entered the room there was warm applause from the invited guests.

The audience was welcomed and the plan for the evening explained – first a series of representatives of various U.S. organizations would speak, then President Ahmadinejad would address the audience.

The first to address the Iranian President was Cynthia McKinney who spoke of the history of U.S. activists that had died for their commitment to peace, justice and civil rights (including Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and both John and Robert Kennedy). Ramsey Clark followed with reflections on the history of U.S. interventions in Iran from the overthrow of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 to our government’s support of the brutal Shah until his ouster in January of 1979. Sarah Flounders of the International Action Center spoke of the work of the peace movement in the United States and called for respectful dialogue in the US and international bodies rather than military actions. Phil Wilayto of the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran called for the issue of sanctions to be one of the central demands in the upcoming October 2nd “One Nation Working Together” march on Washington.