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More than 1, 200 students, faculty, staff and local media representatives crowded into Roone Arledge Auditorium on November 15 to hear President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and U.S. President Bill Clinton discuss the challenges facing today's emerging democracies, part of an event series being sponsored by the Kraft Family Fund for Interfaith and Intercultural Awareness.
Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger, who moderated the conversation between the two former heads of state, pointed out that over the last hundred years, there have been 30 new democracies, many of which are still struggling to become viable. He said that Clinton and Havel, both of whom have made the transition from the "poetry of political change" to the "prose of governing," were ideally situated to provide these fledging democracies with advice on how to sustain their efforts.
Havel said that the new democratic leaders should "think in terms of decades and act accordingly." Clinton said that such leaders could find no better source of inspiration than Havel himself, who, along with Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, managed to change the course of history through nonviolence.
The conversation, which was informal in tone, ranged over quite a few topics, from how to correct America's mistakes in Iraq to how to morph from state leader into a private citizen that can do public good.
"I made up my mind that I would not be someone who spent the rest of his life wishing I were still president," Clinton said. "That seemed to be a stupid way to waste a day and also an arrogant thing."
Havel joked that in addition to being a pioneer for democracy, he is also the "pioneer of the Czech ex-president" as most of the country's presidents have been chased out of office, left in disgrace or died in office. He went on to say that people weren't sure whether to address him as "Mr. President," "Mr. Former President," or "Mr. Havel"—and that everyday he expects someone to call him "Mr. Former Havel."
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