A tiny debacle @ LSE

A little story for you:

I felt like in the middle of a Shakespeare play: the setting was the Old Theater of the London School of Economics (LSE), the time was about 7pm and it is the year 2006. The great director was this evening’s chair Howard Davies.

South Africa’s foreign minister, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, had been asked to lecture on the role of the UN in the 21st century, giving a perspective of a developing country that has just been elected for a rotating seat in the Security Council starting in January 2007.

Dr. Zuma, though, was interrupted before she even could delve into the complexities of UN reform. Like a bolt from the sky there appeared this one young, obviously Zimbabwean fellow crying out his despair about the miserable situation of his compatriots. Another young mate at the other corner of the balcony joined him, accusing Dr. Zuma and with her the official South African “silent diplomacy” towards Mugabe’s regime. All of a sudden, people began to stand up just about everywhere. Could that have been a quite cleverly planned attempt of sabotage?!
Right in front of the stage, where in the meantime Dr. Zuma had retreated from the podium, a mid-aged Briton enthusiastically tried to jump onto the stage. He was pulled back by security personnel, that suddenly was all over the place. TBH, I presumed that he would get rid of his clothes - I thought that’s the way British protests attract the utmost of attention. Prematurely - it didn’t happen!

Confirming that there would be time to ask questions after the lecture, Chair Howard Davies, calmly sitting -while there were people yelling and shouting across the room-, was certainly the man of the entire evening. He handled the situation with an incredible amount of ease and aplomb - in a truly British manner.

At this point, I would like to thank everybody for the extremely critical questions. Admittedly, Dr. Zuma was not in the most pleasant situation last night; it just wasn't about political correctness, which made the entire evening so worthwhile.

Alas, I didn’t have my camera, so no pictures of that little debacle we had at LSE tonight.

Farewell,
Özlem