TALKING WITH THE ENEMY
The Christian Century
Oct 22 2007
When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran visited Columbia University,
he was introduced as a "a petty and cruel dictator" by his host,
the school’s president, Lee Bollinger. When he addressed the General
Assembly at the United Nations, the U.S. delegation walked out. He was
treated with considerably more respect when he met for two hours with
over 100 religious leaders at a chapel across from the UN. The third
in a series of meetings with Ahmadinejad arranged by the Mennonite
Central Committee, this dialogue was opened to other church leaders
and endorsed by the World Council of Churches’ Commission of the
Churches on International Affairs.
At this meeting, Ahmadinejad focused on religion. He recited the roster
of biblical prophets, culminating, according to Islam, in Muhammad,
and talked about his expectation of the coming of the Mahdi, who along
with Jesus will establish a reign of peace and justice on earth. When
their turn came, the Christian panelists, representing mainline,
Quaker, Catholic and evangelical churches, asked the president largely
political questions-about his statements denying the Holocaust and
calling for the destruction of Israel, about Iran’s nuclear plans,
and about the treatment of religious minorities in Iran.
In his responses, Ahmadinejad generally deflected the questions or
turned them back at the interrogators. Religious minorities are treated
even better than the Muslim majority in Iran, he insisted, because
each group-the Assyrian Christians, the Armenian Christians and the
Jews-has one or two representatives in Parliament even though their
numbers are minuscule. While there was little substantive engagement
between these religious leaders and Ahmadinejad, participants got a
sense of how he sees the world and of his deep Muslim faith.
Should Christians even be talking with a figure like this? The answer
to that question is that we should not allow the government to dictate
to us who our enemies are or how we are to relate to them.
Christians are called to love and pray for enemies. At a time when
there are rumors of war with Iran, the meeting in New York was at
least a symbolic gesture which pointed to the need to seek other than
military means for resolving conflicts. When we’re talking with each
other, we’re not shooting at each other.
Some claim that the religious leaders who met with Ahmadinejad were
naive and that they were being used to bolster his status on the
international stage and back in Iran. But that’s a risk that people
of faith must be willing to take in the search for peace. And it’s
just as likely that the inhospitable reception Ahmadinejad received
in New York fed anti-American sentiments in Iran and bolstered his
status there and in other parts of the Muslim world.
A year ago it seemed unlikely that the U.S. would be able to persuade
North Korea to cease production of nuclear weapons, but an agreement
was reached through tough negotiations and diplomacy. We need to
continue to pray and work for a similar outcome with Iran.