Whitney Pennington Rodgers: There is so much happening in the world right now. Our guest today spends her days and, in fact, her entire illustrious career tracking and reporting on the moment's biggest stories. She is CNN's chief international anchor and host of the network's award-winning flagship global affairs program, Amanpour on CNN International in London and Amanpour and Co. on PBS in the United States. I'm so thrilled to have her here with us to offer context on some of the news stories that are impacting our world and our lives. And you can see her there right now, please welcome Christiane Amanpour. Hello, Christiane, how are you doing?
Christiane Amanpour: Whitney, thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be with you for a few minutes and your TED community on these really important issues. And yes, I am the chief international anchor, but before that, I was, you know, the main international correspondent. So the way I work is always informed by me being on the ground, in the field and having essentially walk the walk and talk the talk with the people who are at the coalface.
WPR: I love that, and I feel like that's going to give us so much perspective during this conversation. Let’s just dive right in. I think one place we'd like to start with is in Iran. For those of you who are on the call who haven't been tracking, back in September, an Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, died in the custody of Iranian morality police after being arrested for not wearing hijab. Amini's death sparked protests and a revolution around women's rights in Iran and beyond that is continuing into this very moment. And, Christiane, I know that you've reported on Iran throughout your career and have spent a lot of time covering this story very closely. So how historically significant would you say this moment is in Iran? And could you just give us some context on that?
CA: Look, I think it is very significant. Exactly how and what will develop towards the end, I'm not sure. A little bit of my own history: I am half Iranian, and I grew up in Iran. And I spent essentially the first 20 years of my life in Iran, with a little bit of going back and forth to the UK for boarding school. But that's where my home was and that's where my parents lived, and my sisters, essentially, you know, I was there during the build up to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. And so I saw all that happening, and that's what made me want to be a journalist, in fact, to tell those kinds of history-making stories to the world. And that's what really focused me on the kind of career that I then pursued. Fast forward now some 43-odd years, and you can see that the women who actually were pretty upset at the beginning of the revolution, when they had demonstrated for Khomeini, believing that he would bring democracy as he promised back then to a country that was a monarchy. And then to quickly find out that actually that wasn't his plan and to quickly find out that he was putting women under the veil, which he had not said earlier. So for the first year or so of the revolution, women did not have to wear the veil. And when they did, many, many women came out and demonstrated against it. And then for the decades since, there's been a sort of a tug of war between how strictly to put on the veil and not. And clearly differences between conservative and religious women who want to wear the whole tight covering that covers their head very tightly, covers their body very loosely, known as a chador in Iran. And then those who just didn't, the younger generation who felt, well, they better, you know, follow the law, but they were kind of treading their own path towards how they would wear the hijab. And you could see coats and body coverings were getting tighter and shorter, head scarves were getting more colorful and pushed further back. Women and girls were going to great lengths to make themselves look beautiful and stand out as women. They would do their hair, particularly the front of their hair, which stuck out of the scarf. They would, you know, bangs were not forbidden, you know, beautifully made up their eyes, you know, their skin, their lips were all just beautifully done. And Iranian women are incredibly beautiful women in spirit and in body. And that seemed to be kind of OK.
But what happened towards the last sort of, ten years or so, you've had a slightly less draconian regime when it comes to enforcing hijab. You know, in the late '90s, early 2000s, and then a much more draconian, which is the latest one. So these very hard liners, this mullah, you know, Ebrahim Raisi, who is the very hardline conservative president, actually came to the presidency by using as his political platform, among other things, a much tougher interpretation of what they believe, you know, the Islamic laws should be. And, of course, who paid the ultimate price? Women. Because it's always, whether it's in Iran, whether it's in Afghanistan, whether it's in the UAE or in Saudi Arabia, or whether it’s in parts of Africa, whether it’s in the United States, etc., women's bodies, women's personal space seem to be used, you know, for people's political aims.
And so the same happened in Iran. And this poor, poor woman, Mahsa Amini, at the age of 22, came with her family from the Kurdish region of Iran to visit relatives and was wearing a scarf and was wearing a body covering. But the police on the corner at that time didn't think it was conservative enough. And that's why there's a backlash.
WPR: Well, you know, in recent days, a story was circulating that some 15,000 protesters were to be executed, and the veracity of the story has been challenged and disproven. As I understand it, it's actually more like 15,000 protesters have been detained and the parliament voted in support of the death penalty for protesters. But it's not ultimately up to them. So I'm curious how real you think the possibility is that something like a mass execution might actually happen in the near future? How real a threat is that?
CA: Well, you're right that this story was chased down, including by us, and it turned out not to be as it was being broadcast. On the other hand, there are many, many, I mean, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of people who've been rounded up and put into prison, whether they are women, men, young girls, other young people. I recall hearing one of the top government officials saying several weeks ago that the average age of those who are being arrested, this is an actual government official there, the average age was 15 and 16. And I mean, just think about it for a moment. I mean, that's just unheard of anywhere, that children, young girls, people so young are in the front lines of this protest, this uprising, this movement, and are being punished.
And then the latest stories, particularly by my colleague Farnaz Fassihi of The New York Times, who’s an incredibly good reporter, has brought out, I mean, some of the most terrible stories of how young people are being dealt with in a very harsh way. And, you know, there was, over the weekend, there was the burial of a young boy, 10 or nine years old, who was, you know, a victim of all of this. And he was killed. And his funeral happened. There was another big protest there. And, you know, these things defy normal behavior. And even for, you know, an Islamic republic that's been pretty draconian for the last 43 years. And this goes way beyond, you know, riot control or whatever you might want to call it.
So the question again is, because I know those outside of Iran want to know, is this the beginning of the end, or is this the end of the beginning, or is this the end of the Islamic republic? And I'm just not ready to say one way or another, because you just don't know to what lengths they will finally go to crush it. And so I'm waiting, as a journalist should, I'm watching, I'm waiting, I'm interviewing, I'm getting as much information as I possibly can. And I'm going to be doing it on my show today, which will air, as you said, on CNNi and on PBS. And I've done it many times with many Iranian interlocutors. And ... This is a very brutal regime when it comes to staying in power.
But the only thing that I think is interesting, well, there are many things that are interesting, but what's somewhat different to before is that within the Islamic establishment, you have voices, actually male voices, who are questioning why they need to react this hard against girls just for the hijab and the headscarf. So we'll wait to see where that conversation gets to, if at all.
WPR: And as someone with such a close personal connection to Iran, that part of your heritage and then also just your close reporting of this story, what do you feel are the things that most of the world is missing or not seeing about what's happening there?
CA: Well, look, I think in general, foreign policy and stories from around the world are hard to get past the American public because they're hard to get past our own editors. So if there was more reporting on a more regular basis of these kinds of stories, we would have a much better -- and you all would have a much better idea of trends, of what's actually happening. You know, don't forget, Iran is a very important country to the United States and to the rest of the world, partly because of the sort of upheaval that the Islamic Republic and including backing terrorism etc., have caused to the world -- and holding hostages as they continue to do. Iranian Americans, British Iranians, and a whole load of others who are in jail, used as political pawns. And this is, you know, a very, very unfortunate and tragic situation where human beings are being used as political weapons. So they're weaponizing people who just happen to be half Iranian or they've left and they have become you know, they've taken on the nationality of the countries that have given them refuge. And when they go back to visit family or on personal visits, they have been dragged into this political turmoil. So that's really bad. And many governments are having to deal with that.
The other issue of why it's important is because of the Iran nuclear deal. Now, I think that's off the table for the moment. It was always going to be off the table pending the midterms, but now pending, you know, this crushing of this movement, the US has imposed more sanctions, Europe has imposed more sanctions on individuals who are deemed responsible for the harshest crackdown.
So it's very important. Iran remains a very, very important country to the world. And don't forget, you know, it has a huge population, and such a huge majority of the Iranian population are under the age of 30 or, you know, they're in that young generation, which means they're incredibly well-educated, they are well-connected to the world. Even now, even though the regime is trying to cut them off from the West and cut the world off from them. They manage, you know, to play a very sophisticated technical game of cat and mouse to get their stories out and to get information from the world in. So you can never cut the Iranian people off. And they would benefit and I hope they are benefiting from the support that they know, the moral support that the world is giving them.
On the other hand, I know there are others who call for more support to overthrow the regime. That’s not my space because I’m a reporter, and I report on what's going on there. And I personally don't believe that anybody, any foreign government is going to do that. And I also believe that the women and men, the male allies inside Iran ... This is their movement. This is their movement. They don't want it to be sullied by any interference from abroad that could get them even more tarnished than the regime is trying to do at the moment.
WPR: Christiane, we're getting a lot of questions from our members, and I'm going start to bring some into our conversation. We have one from TED member, Don, which speaks to what you're suggesting around this idea of global support. They want to know how can we help from afar. "I feel helpless, but would like to do what I can without putting more women in harm's way," is what Don shares.
CA: Well, it's very hard. I mean, definitely moral support, definitely spreading the word, spreading the word and supporting the Iranian women in whatever way you can. Some people ask, how can we send them material support, whether it's money or whatever it might be. But that's very, very difficult, and I do not have an answer for that. It's difficult because Iran is so heavily sanctioned. So it's quite often illegal, actually, you know, by American law or European law or others, to actually send money via various ways, as far as I know. Maybe there are ways that it’s possible, but I don't know those ways. But it is quite difficult to provide, at the moment, more than material support. I would say, I do believe the world should be a lot more generous to those who are trying to flee this and any other kind of repressive regime. Right now I'm in London, and as you know, over the last several, certainly months, there’s been a crisis in the English Channel. And a huge number of Iranians are trying to get away from the danger zones and into the UK. A huge number of Afghans and potentially others fleeing wars and devastation. But they get turned back. And I think the world's asylum and refugee policies have become so draconian and have gone so far from being what they were envisaged as, to welcome those who are fleeing you know, terrible oppression and, of course, often starvation and disease you know, and natural disasters and the like. And I think that's a real shame that we're seeing in this time of maximum upheaval in these parts of the world, the rest of the world actually closing their doors.
And I'm about to do some interviews around a new film that's coming out called "The Swimmers." And just to say, it's about two Syrian girls who had to leave Syria at the height of the Arab Spring and during the Iran-supported crackdown by the Syrian regime on those who were demanding freedom. Anyway, they managed to get out, but they had to take a rickety boat to get to Europe, they had to walk for miles, then they had to wait for months, you know, for asylum. You know, people like you and me were dying in the Mediterranean. They're dying in the English Channel. They're dying, you know, coming across from Africa. This is 2022. It's a scandal. And I do believe that that lack of asylum, that lack of refuge is a terrible shame and a blot on all of us who believe in human rights and democracy and the value of life.
WPR: Well, I want to move to another part of the world, also experiencing a huge crisis, where you've been spending a lot of time, both reporting and actually physically being there. You just returned from Ukraine. And we're now more than nine months into the war there. So could you tell us a little bit about your trip and what you saw as the people there are heading into the winter. What would you like for us to know about what you saw?
CA: Because you just said winter, I think it's really important to know that what Putin is doing now, because he's been thwarted on the battlefield, is he is literally taking this war to civilians in a much more targeted and devastating way than he has been already, which has already been attacking civilians. But this relentless attack by cruise missiles and other really, really powerful -- including Iranian-supplied kamikaze drones -- this is attacking civilian energy infrastructure on a regular basis, it's sometimes attacking civilian residential buildings and ordinary people are being killed and wounded. At the same time, what turned out to be a phenomenally resourceful Ukrainian population, whether civilians or experts, let's just take now the engineers in the energy sector are working around the clock, day and night to try to put this, you know, back. And they’ve done managed, rolling blackouts and the like to try to make sure that they can save some of the energy infrastructure. And particularly, let's not forget how tightly intertwined is electricity and water. Those two are yin and yang. You can't really have water without electricity to pump it. And so if you lack water, fresh water just to drink, you're in real big trouble. And so the Ukrainian engineers are working around the clock to try to make sure that people have at least, at least, even if it's rationed, access. So that's a big issue. I would say I've been completely and utterly overwhelmed and surprised -- not surprised, delighted by the spirit of the Ukrainian people. You know, I've covered a lot of wars in which much more powerful, heavily-armed aggressors try to subjugate and force a less heavily-armed civilian population into surrender. And the Ukrainians are nowhere near that. They have so much heart, they have so much love for their country. They have so much respect, as the Iranians do, for the idea of independence, sovereignty and personal freedom and political freedom and democracy. That's what they're fighting for. And frankly, they are our frontline troops. The Ukrainian people right now, and to an extent, the Iranian people, are our frontline troops. In Ukraine, people are standing between freedom and totalitarianism. And if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, then he's ... I mean, not only do the brave Ukrainian people lose, but then he comes a country closer to the West and continues to threaten the ideas and the values and principles of democracy and freedom. And this idea that it was NATO's fault and NATO expansion, I promise you that is fake news. It's too difficult right now to go into it because we only have limited time. But it's not that. It's that Putin does not want to see a free and independent and democratic country, in this case Ukraine, on his borders, and then be asked why he can't have that, why his people can't have that. He doesn't want that. He wants to create his own sort of greater Russia. I witnessed that covering Bosnia, where the Serbs, backed by Russia, wanted to create a greater Serbia on the backs of the Bosnian people. And in Iran, too. And you've seen the Afghan women and girls now saying, "If Iranians can stand up and demand their rights, it's our turn next." So these have huge roll-on effects and inspiration to people who believe in basic freedom, dignity and the right to live their lives.
WPR: Well, I know while you were there, you sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and first lady Olena Zelenska. And I'm just curious what your thoughts were about their mindset at this point in the war and how you think that will impact their leadership?
CA: Well, I think their leadership has been extraordinary. I mean, really, who would have thought it. This man Volodymyr Zelensky came from the entertainment space. He ran based on a program that he had been starring in, a TV series based on corruption at the highest level. And so he ran as a clean candidate. And then when he came into office, that's what he tried to bring in, to increase infrastructure and to improve it and crack down on corruption, because Ukraine did have, and may still, after the war, have a corruption problem. But believe me, now, that is right on the back burner. And US senators of both parties have told me that everything that the Americans are sending and NATO is sending is accounted for, and they are not worried about it going into somebody’s pocket. Unlike in Russia, where it’s gone into, obviously, people’s pockets because they have barely a military machine that can operate in Ukraine, much less against NATO. Their leadership has been inspirational. The fact that the president did not leave when he could have done, he did not take his wife and children out when he could have done. And the fact that they keep "poking the bear," and I asked him that. I said, "You know, a lot of people in the West are worried and elsewhere are worried that if you push Putin too much, you "put him in a corner" and he might do the unthinkable."
And he said, "You know what? We've lived in this neighborhood forever. If we're not scared, you shouldn't be scared."
And I was saying this because not only are they pushing him militarily back, but also if you look at the Ukrainian Defense ministry or any of the online space, they're constantly trolling Putin. Constantly. And it’s done with incredible humor, and it’s very, very effective. And so they know something that we don't know. And as Olena Zelensky told me, "This is our last stand. This is it. If we don't stand up now, there is no other time when we can stand up. If we don't do it now, when are we ever going to be able to do it?" So they're very, very clear about that.
As you know, there's been some talk around the world, some talk in the US and Europe, elsewhere that maybe, you know, particularly after the liberation of Kherson by the Ukrainians, shouldn't the Ukrainians sit down at the negotiating table? So I asked President Zelensky that, and he said, "Look, we're happy to negotiate, but based on international principles, based on the Russians removing their troops from their illegally invaded, annexed and claimed territory. You know, and sham referendums and sham annexation. And by the way, we're pushing them back." So they don't want to be pushed to a negotiation while they have the upper hand and one that would reward Russia for its aggression. And to be honest with you, we don't want that either. We do not want Russia to get away with today what they did get away with in their first invasion of 2014, when the world did not stand up and did not challenge him. And this is the result. He thought the world was weak. And that's his big surprise. He was very surprised that the Ukrainians would stand up, the West and NATO would stand up, and that this unity would last this long.
And, you know, I come to it from, you know, having covered something similar in Bosnia for four years. I mean, this was an ethnic cleansing, which they're trying to do in Ukraine, the Russians, along the east, and it was a genocide, which I believe that ... maybe not genocide, but crimes against humanity will be placed legitimately at the feet of Russia after this war.
WPR: Well in both Iran and Russia, and thinking about Ukraine, we see a suppression of free speech and access to information. How can we know that we're receiving accurate updates on what's happening in both of these places?
CA: Well, I do think you and everybody have to take on a certain sense of responsibility because that is the challenge of our time. You know, people ask me: Where do we find the truth? And I'm like, well, you can watch CNN, you can watch PBS, you can watch BBC. You can read The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times The LA Times or any number, Financial Times, whatever. There are many, many organizations who are committed to the truth and who have reporters on the ground, including in Russia. The BBC, for instance, has a very, very accomplished and good reporter called Steve Rosenberg. I highly recommend you all to access his reports, because under the constraints that Russia has put on journalists, he is managing to tell the story in a very, very clever way. And also, I would, you know, just look at the Russian state media, Russian blogs and this and that, including the military bloggers who are traveling with Russian troops in Ukraine. There's a huge amount of information coming out that actually paints the accurate picture. And right now, they're very -- which is not to say they want the war to end, but they're actually painting the story that the Russians are doing badly in Ukraine.
So there are places and avenues to go. But I believe that it's really up to the consumer now. We can do as much as we can to bring you the truth, fact-checked, evidence-based news information. But you must not go to the fake news sites and believe that that's the truth. You must go to what I would call the news organizations that have earned the Good Housekeeping seal of authenticity and truth and, you know, approval. It's really on you all now to search for those. And it's not hard, they exist.
WPR: As we get close to the end of our time, I just want to turn things to you, Christiane, and your thinking as a reporter, a journalist. How would you say reporting on conflict and crisis has changed the way you think about the world, your perspective on life?
CA: I think it's changed my perspective in that I'm very clear that I can't be a both-siderism, or “on the one hand/on the otherism.” In other words, in certain instances, such as gross violations of international humanitarian law, which we're witnessing, in other words, you know, human rights atrocities, crimes against humanity, genocide and the like, you absolutely have to know where the truth is and what you're looking at so that you know that there are aggressors and there are victims. There's no two ways about that. So my mantra is and has been, and I've developed that from Bosnia, which was one of my earliest experiences in the field, my mantra is "truthful, not neutral," which doesn't mean to say I'm not being objective. I am being objective because objective is our golden rule. And by that I mean you have to look at all sides of the story and report all sides of the story. But what you mustn't do is create any false equivalence, either factually or morally. And when you do do that, you are actually being untruthful and in some cases you're being an accessory to terrible atrocities. And I would say the same about climate. I mean, you can talk about any of these crises, these moral and existential crises that we find. You know, climate has been too long, for decades been treated as a both-siderism, that the deniers had equal factual or moral weight as the science. And it’s just, as we know, not true, and so much time has been wasted to the point that we are on the brink of a global catastrophe. And that is something that I've learned. That in order to be a trustworthy, credible journalist, I must, must call out the truth.
WPR: Well, I want to end with a question from a member, which is basically, "If you were to interview yourself, what would be the last question you would ask?" So here's your last question, what is your last question for Christiane?
CA: Oh, Lordy. My last question, I don't know, but I do know one thing. That I wish that I would be able to -- I guess it would be, how can you get more access to the other side, you know? I want to say the bad actors, because they are. How do you get more access to them? You know, I would like to sit down with a Putin or a Kim Jong-un or whoever, Viktor Orban in Hungary or whoever is denying democracy in the United States and the like. I would like to sit and talk to them to try to understand. Not because I think that I would be, you know, I would suddenly become a neutral observer, but because I want them to spell it out so the people can see and I would question them rigorously, that they would see the bankruptcy of their positions. And I would like to keep doing that with fossil fuel executives and the like. I've done a few and with governments, you know, who have allowed politics, politics to endanger us all. I do believe those people need to be held accountable. So I would like to be able to ask those people more questions.
WPR: Well, Christiane, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today, I think I speak for everyone, just appreciating everything that you’ve shared. and good luck with the rest of your day.
CA: Thank you very much, I appreciate it. It was good to talk to you all, thanks Whitney. [Want to support TED?] [Become a TED Member!] [Learn more at ted.com/membership]
