Speaker 1: Oh, hang on your frozen Hello. Hello, Hello, how there
Speaker 1: we go? You're back? Sorry, Minnie. I just don't worry.
Speaker 1: It's live stuff. We've got a tape off clearance clearance
Speaker 1: on the internet. That's great. Yeah, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for doing this. I really really appreciate it. And you're welcome. Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm Mini Driver. Welcome to Many Questions, Season two. I've
Speaker 1: always loved Cruz's questionnaire. It was originally a nineteenth century
Speaker 1: parlor game where players would ask each other thirty five
Speaker 1: questions aimed at revealing the other player's true nature. It's
Speaker 1: just the scientific method, really. In asking different people the
Speaker 1: same set of questions, you can make observations about which
Speaker 1: truths appeared to be universal. I love this discipline, and
Speaker 1: it made me wonder, what if these questions were just
Speaker 1: the jumping off point, what greater depths would be revealed
Speaker 1: if I ask these questions as conversations daters with thought leaders,
Speaker 1: and trailblazers across all these different disciplines. So I adapted
Speaker 1: prus questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that
Speaker 1: I personally think a pertinent to a person's story. They
Speaker 1: are when and where were you happiest? What is the
Speaker 1: quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized,
Speaker 1: defines love for you? What question would you most like answered,
Speaker 1: What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most?
Speaker 1: What would be your last meal? And can you tell
Speaker 1: me something in your life that's grown out of a
Speaker 1: personal disaster? And I've gathered a group of really remarkable people,
Speaker 1: ones that I am honored and humbled to have had
Speaker 1: the chance to engage with. You may not hear their
Speaker 1: answers to all seven of these questions. We've whittled it
Speaker 1: down to which questions felt closest to their experience, or
Speaker 1: the most surprising, or created the most fertile ground to connect.
Speaker 1: My guest today on many questions is journalist Christiane AmAm Poor.
Speaker 1: I try not to be intimidated by the ideas I
Speaker 1: might have about the extraordinary people I interview on the show,
Speaker 1: but knowing I was going to be speaking to one
Speaker 1: of the great interviewers of the twenty one century definitely
Speaker 1: gave me pause. I mean, Yessa Arafat hung up on
Speaker 1: her and Bill Clinton, well, he snapped like a corner teenager.
Speaker 1: Christianne has won every major television journalism award interviewed every
Speaker 1: single geopolitical player of the last twenty five years, and
Speaker 1: her journalism made such an impact during the war in
Speaker 1: the former Yugoslavia that she was made an honorary citizen
Speaker 1: of Sara Jevo. It's really important to say that this
Speaker 1: conversation was recorded before Russia started a war by invading Ukraine.
Speaker 1: The world looks very different today than it did three
Speaker 1: weeks ago. But I think the observations Christiane makes about
Speaker 1: conflict are eerily poignant. I really hope you enjoy this one.
Speaker 1: My first question is can you tell me where and
Speaker 1: when you were happiest? So I've thought about it a lot,
Speaker 1: and I don't think there's ever for anybody one particular
Speaker 1: place or space or time. I remember it in three steps,
Speaker 1: really I had, I would say indisputably one of the
Speaker 1: happiest childhoods that I can even imagine, and that you know,
Speaker 1: I've spoken to a lot of friends and asked them
Speaker 1: and just you know, the osmosis and conversation as you're going,
Speaker 1: you know, you understand how people have lived their lives
Speaker 1: and what has made a difference and has shaped them.
Speaker 1: And I don't think I've ever heard anybody say what
Speaker 1: I feel, which is that I am the luckiest person
Speaker 1: in the world. You know, I grew up in Iran
Speaker 1: of an English father and adversion father. My mom Catholic,
Speaker 1: my father Muslim. You know, it was a patriarchal and
Speaker 1: a non democratic. It was a monarchy when I grew
Speaker 1: up there. So it had all those things that could
Speaker 1: have made it very stressful and difficult and hard and
Speaker 1: et cetera. And instead of it was just for such
Speaker 1: I don't even mean freedom to roam and to range
Speaker 1: and to do all sorts of just freedom in my mind,
Speaker 1: in my heart, in my friendships. And with that freedom
Speaker 1: came this most incredible amount of happiness. And of course
Speaker 1: when you're young, you don't really realize that that's what
Speaker 1: it is. You know, afterwards you get asked these questions.
Speaker 1: But when you're young, and when you're a kid, I
Speaker 1: just remember everything being fun. Whether it was playing with
Speaker 1: my friends, you know, in their houses or our house is,
Speaker 1: whether it was playing sardines. You know what that is,
Speaker 1: hide and seek sardines everybody crams into one. That was
Speaker 1: really fun, whether it was you know, in somebody's garden
Speaker 1: and running around playing hide and seek, and especially riding horses.
Speaker 1: That was my sport. I was five years old when
Speaker 1: my mom and my dad literally put me on the
Speaker 1: back of a very large horse, not a pony, not
Speaker 1: a kid's game, and me and my best friend and
Speaker 1: my sister, that's what we did. That was our sport,
Speaker 1: not hockey or lacrosse or whatever. And that was really
Speaker 1: a source of happiness because you were sharing that finness
Speaker 1: with each other. Your mother's were sitting in the corner
Speaker 1: chit chatting and not being helicopter parents, but he knew
Speaker 1: that they were there, so that was nice. The writing
Speaker 1: instructor was this phenomenal Iranian guy who had been in
Speaker 1: the Iranian military, in the cavalry. So he was a
Speaker 1: brilliant old military man from the cavalry, and he was
Speaker 1: really compassionate and fantastic. He loved us kids, and we
Speaker 1: were girls, by the way, I remember, this is a
Speaker 1: really girl's being taught how to be happy, how to
Speaker 1: be brave, and he just you know, didn't let us
Speaker 1: wimp out if we fell, if we had an accident
Speaker 1: or whatever, you know, make sure he dusted us off.
Speaker 1: But almost by the scruff of your neck, you'd be
Speaker 1: picked up and put back on the horse, and that
Speaker 1: developed a bond of love, a bond of courage, a
Speaker 1: bond of connection with another living thing from a very
Speaker 1: early age, and an understanding of how you have to,
Speaker 1: you know, react and treat other living things, whether they're
Speaker 1: animals or whether it's nature, whether it's people. And it
Speaker 1: was just happiness. It was just a phenomenally happy childhood.
Speaker 1: First of all, I'm so glad that you had a
Speaker 1: wonderful childhood. Do you think that that wonderful beginning good
Speaker 1: to you or gave you something that you were going
Speaker 1: to be able to use in all of the places
Speaker 1: of conflict that you would wind up that all of
Speaker 1: the bloodshed and all of the disparity that you would
Speaker 1: live in for so many years of your life. Do
Speaker 1: you think that it gave you a base to be
Speaker 1: able to do that. I really do think so. I
Speaker 1: never really thought about it or dissected it, but I
Speaker 1: do believe in retrospect that that is actually what happened.
Speaker 1: That I grew up with phenomenal parents who gave me
Speaker 1: unconditional love and support, never overly demanding in terms of
Speaker 1: I want you to be a doctor or a banker,
Speaker 1: or this or that we had to be moral, we
Speaker 1: had to tell the truth, we had to be kind,
Speaker 1: we had to have all those values. But we were
Speaker 1: good enough as we were. So that was very very important.
Speaker 1: And that and the lessons I took from my writing
Speaker 1: instructor and from that period of my childhood, yes, gave
Speaker 1: me that backbone and that structure to carry on without
Speaker 1: really being conscious of it in the rest of my life,
Speaker 1: which has been you know, I mean, it's an extreme
Speaker 1: job that I've done, going to war zones, going to famines,
Speaker 1: going to natural disasters, you know, doing all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Most people think you should run away, what
Speaker 1: we journalists like to say, we run towards. But it
Speaker 1: takes a really important lessons and gifts from your childhood,
Speaker 1: because I can tell you that so many of the
Speaker 1: colleagues that I've come across have not been able to
Speaker 1: stand it. The extreme nature, the horror, having to put
Speaker 1: yourself out there all the time, has really crippled a
Speaker 1: lot of people emotionally and has sent them somewhat off
Speaker 1: the deep end. And I was just very fortunate that
Speaker 1: I was able to come back to my family after
Speaker 1: these terrible things, into a happy environment, into a connected
Speaker 1: environment into an environment where I was able to talk,
Speaker 1: I was able to think of something other than being
Speaker 1: on the road and being in the field. I could
Speaker 1: swap that darkness for the light of being away in
Speaker 1: this very happy and I keep using that word because
Speaker 1: we're talking about happiness, happy personal environment, and that was
Speaker 1: very important for me. The other thing that was really
Speaker 1: important was growing up as the product of different ethnic groups,
Speaker 1: different nationalities, different religions. Given that my parents came from
Speaker 1: two different parts of the world, allowed me to accept
Speaker 1: everybody and everything. Everything was normal, nothing was other. So
Speaker 1: I went to all these different places and I just
Speaker 1: felt that they were just like me. You know, I
Speaker 1: never felt that I was in any way different or
Speaker 1: superior or inferior or anything like that. And that really
Speaker 1: really helped me throughout my career because you know, with
Speaker 1: this we live now in the extreme version of partisanship
Speaker 1: and divisiveness, and you know, the other is such a
Speaker 1: not just a scary concept because it isn't, but it's
Speaker 1: used to scare people and to drum up fear and
Speaker 1: hatred and loathing. And I had the opposite. I grew
Speaker 1: up with the opposite lessons, and that really did see
Speaker 1: me through my career because I obviously covered all these
Speaker 1: ethnic conflicts and religious conflicts and battles. Yeah, the opposite
Speaker 1: of happiness. Yeah, I mean really the apotheosis of happiness.
Speaker 1: And so I was really happy doing my job. And
Speaker 1: I give you a little anecdote. I was so happy
Speaker 1: being a foreign correspondent. I really thought I'd died and
Speaker 1: gone to heaven when I was made a foreign correspondent.
Speaker 1: And one day one of the key anchors at the time, presenters,
Speaker 1: who was at CNN in Atlanta, she quit to go
Speaker 1: somewhere else. And the president of the network, the most
Speaker 1: phenomenal man, Tom Johnson. At the time, it was two
Speaker 1: and I had just managed to get myself out of
Speaker 1: headquarters and into the field and doing the job that
Speaker 1: I really wanted to do. He called me up and
Speaker 1: he thought he was being incredibly whatever rewarding and kind
Speaker 1: to me and empowering, and he asked me if I
Speaker 1: would come back to Atlanta and take the job of
Speaker 1: this anchor presenter who had just left. Her name was
Speaker 1: Catherine Cryer. Honestly, I burst into tears. I was so upset.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do. And I know this
Speaker 1: is meant to be a great promotion. But I'm so
Speaker 1: happy here and this is what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to come back to be an
Speaker 1: anchor in Atlanta. I don't want to do it. But
Speaker 1: what if I say that, then are you going to
Speaker 1: fire me? Am I going to lose my you know,
Speaker 1: my dream job? And he couldn't have been nicer. It
Speaker 1: did take me a couple of days to get back
Speaker 1: to him and tell him that I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: A lot of crying went on and soul searching, and
Speaker 1: I really expect him to say, well, thanks, Christianne. Well
Speaker 1: if you can't do it and have to get somebody else,
Speaker 1: and you might as well pack your bag to leave.
Speaker 1: Absolutely the contrary, he just embraced me and he said
Speaker 1: that's great. So I would say, after my childhood, my
Speaker 1: time in the field was the place of maximum happiness,
Speaker 1: and then right now, my son, my child is my
Speaker 1: depository and repository of maximum happiness. What relationship, real or fictionalized,
Speaker 1: defines love? You? You know, I see love and I
Speaker 1: feel love very frequently. It's not just something that's compartmentalized
Speaker 1: or that I look at one or two people and think, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a great example, or that I have a friendship
Speaker 1: or a relationship with whoever, and think that that's the paradigm.
Speaker 1: I get so much love that I hope I give
Speaker 1: as good as I get. And so it is obvious
Speaker 1: and it's a cliche, but it is absolutely true that
Speaker 1: my son is the human being that I love the most,
Speaker 1: to who I love the most in the world. I
Speaker 1: didn't know whether I wanted to have children when I
Speaker 1: was in the field. I was late to motherhood. I
Speaker 1: was forty two when he was born. I had done
Speaker 1: everything I loved up until then, my job, my friends,
Speaker 1: the danger, the racing around the world, the doing I
Speaker 1: hoped a little bit of good for the world by
Speaker 1: the stories I told. The love that I felt came
Speaker 1: to me from many of the people who I reported on,
Speaker 1: who just were happy to be, you know, invited to
Speaker 1: talk and tell their stories to the world. I felt
Speaker 1: real love from people when they were in front of
Speaker 1: my camp. I'm not talking about leaders now, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about people who I would go and engage with on
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, which I did for most of
Speaker 1: my career. That that was what I did. I talked
Speaker 1: to people about what was going on in whatever crazy
Speaker 1: state of affairs in their particular part of the world.
Speaker 1: And I got a huge amount of love from that,
Speaker 1: and I was very happy and satisfied. And I know
Speaker 1: that I could not have done my work and loved
Speaker 1: it as much and put so much into it had
Speaker 1: I been married or had a kid at that time.
Speaker 1: And I consciously delayed that part of my life and
Speaker 1: I didn't know whether I would ever have it, And
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up wanting to be a mother. That
Speaker 1: was not what was in my worldview or my list
Speaker 1: of goals to take off. I didn't think i'd be
Speaker 1: a terribly good mother. I don't know why. I don't
Speaker 1: think I analyzed it much. But then when I had
Speaker 1: my son now nearly twenty two years ago, on a dime,
Speaker 1: it all flipped on a dime. I mean, it changed
Speaker 1: everything in my life, and I am so grateful that
Speaker 1: I have that opportunity to give and to experience that
Speaker 1: kind of luck. But then, you know, you see the
Speaker 1: humbling kind of love that people I don't know, whether
Speaker 1: they're nuns, whether they're angels, whether their doctors, whether their
Speaker 1: neighbors helping neighbors in the middle of a terrible ethnic
Speaker 1: cleansing in a war. The kind of love that strangers
Speaker 1: give to each other, the kind of is just humbling
Speaker 1: to behold. The kind of total devotion, the complete strangers
Speaker 1: can give to somebody in need is just an amazing
Speaker 1: thing to behold. And the kind of love that enables
Speaker 1: you to be so brave as to risk your own
Speaker 1: life to, let's say, shelter somebody who's being persecuted and
Speaker 1: has come to you for some kind of help and
Speaker 1: to try to save their lives. That's an amazing thing
Speaker 1: to witness. That must be such an extraordinary thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think of it reflected in the world that we're
Speaker 1: living in right now, where so much, particularly in the US,
Speaker 1: neighbor is against neighbor, or whether it's literally or the
Speaker 1: next state or the south of the north, of the east,
Speaker 1: of the west. The idea of being able to recognize
Speaker 1: there's a leveling that humanity will do if you let
Speaker 1: it of kindness, and how love comes out of that.
Speaker 1: So seeing it firsthand, it must have been extraordinary in
Speaker 1: Sara Jeva, in Iraq, wherever you were observing that, because
Speaker 1: I've seen the opposite as well, you know, and I
Speaker 1: mean Sarajevo, Iraq, but Rwanda and places like that where
Speaker 1: neighbors were turned against each other. And the thing that
Speaker 1: infuriates me many is that it is not the natural
Speaker 1: state of affairs, even in the United States right now,
Speaker 1: even in our country here in the UK, you know,
Speaker 1: where there's so much division along mostly political lines. This
Speaker 1: has all been drummed up by leaders or people who
Speaker 1: call themselves leaders. It's the politics of fear and hate
Speaker 1: and division that have turned people against each other. If
Speaker 1: you can come together in places like Northern Ireland, which
Speaker 1: they did in order to have a peace process, it
Speaker 1: is not perfect, but they were able to do it.
Speaker 1: If you can do it in South Africa when you've had,
Speaker 1: you know, the majority of the population of South Africa,
Speaker 1: you know, oppressed by a minority white supremacy organization under apartheid.
Speaker 1: And if you can come together like they did and
Speaker 1: like they have done, even though it's not perfect and
Speaker 1: it's not resolved, and it's not over and history hasn't
Speaker 1: stopped just because apartheid felt, it means that we can
Speaker 1: all do it, because all do it. In Sarajevo, I
Speaker 1: watched Serb citizens of the city of Sarajevo, who refused
Speaker 1: to flee, refused to listen to Slovna Velosovitch and Radovan
Speaker 1: Carritage and all those fearmongering, hate mongering, you know, ethnic cleansing,
Speaker 1: genocidal maniacs, refused to listen. A very few of them,
Speaker 1: the majority unfortunately did listen. But a few of them
Speaker 1: stayed and sheltered their Muslim neighbors and helped them. And
Speaker 1: it's remarkable. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that
Speaker 1: brings me to tears because it's such a deep love,
Speaker 1: so morals, so ethical and so brave. Do you think
Speaker 1: that that humanity, that that level of humanity. Do you
Speaker 1: think that that because you've you've seen it up close
Speaker 1: a lot can ultimately triumph if that's the right word
Speaker 1: over the lack of morality in in quotes leadership from
Speaker 1: governments who would stoke that division to serve their own desires. Well, look,
Speaker 1: I hope so. I'm an eternal optimist, and I like
Speaker 1: to think that if I have, you know, thirty odd
Speaker 1: years witnessed the worst of the worst of humanity and
Speaker 1: of bad leadership, ship and malign leadership, if I can
Speaker 1: believe that there is light at the end of the
Speaker 1: tunnel and people and people, and left to their own devices,
Speaker 1: they will, you know, show their humanity and their love.
Speaker 1: I mean sitting in Rwanda when they had there, it's
Speaker 1: called courts. They were sort of unofficial I mean courtrooms,
Speaker 1: but not really. They were in the outdoors, and you
Speaker 1: basically had kind of a version of truth and reconciliation
Speaker 1: where the murderers would come and meet with the victims
Speaker 1: and the families of the victims, and they would talk
Speaker 1: about what they did and they would hopefully apologize, and
Speaker 1: then the victims would accept the And I watched that
Speaker 1: when I realized that these are people who started each
Speaker 1: other with their bare hands and with clubs and machetes.
Speaker 1: You know, eight hundred thousand to a million people dead
Speaker 1: in three months, and here they are sitting in this
Speaker 1: you know, local court situation, truth and reconciliation of a
Speaker 1: kind and hugging each other and crying. So that gives
Speaker 1: me hope. Obviously it's possible, It's absolutely possible. But then
Speaker 1: you look at these leaders, even in the democratic world,
Speaker 1: who we elect, who are elected because of the hatred
Speaker 1: and the division and the other thing that they do
Speaker 1: and that they inculcate, and the fear that they inculcated people,
Speaker 1: and then I get very down and depressed, and I
Speaker 1: wonder how that's going to stop, if they can other
Speaker 1: than we can also unify, I mean, people can and
Speaker 1: will be unified. I do think the pensionum is swinging
Speaker 1: incredibly hard at the moment. I've got to believe that
Speaker 1: balance will be addressed. I feel like historically it does.
Speaker 1: It takes a minute there. I agree that you you
Speaker 1: must have seen that over and over again, which I mean,
Speaker 1: it's part of why it's so fascinating hearing you talk
Speaker 1: about this, because you've made a career of witnessing and
Speaker 1: reporting literally you know, and disseminating the situations. So it
Speaker 1: makes me hopeful even though were all properly in it
Speaker 1: at the moment in both the UK and the US,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously and elsewhere and elsewhere that I agree
Speaker 1: with you on that, and I would say that witnessing,
Speaker 1: even witnessing, is becoming hard her and harder. Bernard R. Levy,
Speaker 1: the French public philosopher, he has just written a book
Speaker 1: and he's done a documentary and he's entitled it The
Speaker 1: Will to See, The Will to See we have to
Speaker 1: sum up now, summon up the energy and the courage
Speaker 1: and the will to go out and see and witness
Speaker 1: and report and make sure these things don't go unnoticed.
Speaker 1: And the lack of will is quite profound right now
Speaker 1: in great swaths of society, not just in political leadership,
Speaker 1: but the lack of will to go out there and
Speaker 1: put yourself on the line and do the old fashioned,
Speaker 1: you know, job of being the eyes and ears and
Speaker 1: the feet on the ground so that you can bring
Speaker 1: back these stories. It's very difficult because everybody is now
Speaker 1: sitting in their armchairs siloing in social media, thinking that
Speaker 1: they're living in a real world where they're not there,
Speaker 1: in something that doesn't exist. Twitter is not a place,
Speaker 1: as Dave Chappelle said, you know, it's not a place
Speaker 1: that's exactly it. Well, and it's also interesting that we
Speaker 1: are clever monkey brains have created these constructs that we
Speaker 1: then assign reality too and meaning too, but they are constructs.
Speaker 1: They don't exist. I mean, if ever, the Matrix and
Speaker 1: the Wakis look more prophetic in what they created in
Speaker 1: those films that then what we're living in now. You know,
Speaker 1: I can't I can't think of it because it's true.
Speaker 1: We have to be willing to see, and it's very
Speaker 1: easy to not see and to just curate what you
Speaker 1: want to see on Instagram, for example, and then an
Speaker 1: algorithm that is also augmenting that exactly. It's fucking terrifying
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, because then you go to
Speaker 1: the great, fantastic, phenomenal David Attenborough and you see what
Speaker 1: he's had the will to see. Yes, and he's still
Speaker 1: out there at ninety five years old. I don't know
Speaker 1: whether you've seen the Green Planet, all your listeners. I
Speaker 1: hope we'll go and see, because that is joy, that
Speaker 1: is love, that is hope, That is phenomenal. He enjoys
Speaker 1: this world, he really does. What is the quality you
Speaker 1: like least about yourself? The inability to recognize my great
Speaker 1: good fortune sometimes not always because I usually always recognize it,
Speaker 1: but sometimes not taking enough time to take a few
Speaker 1: deep breaths when things are not going well, and to
Speaker 1: sort of semi I mean panic is not quite the
Speaker 1: right word, but to go into that stage of fight
Speaker 1: or flight without really just taking a breath and resetting
Speaker 1: and understanding, you know what I have on my plate,
Speaker 1: which is so much good fortune and the other thing
Speaker 1: I don't like is that I can be a bit righteous, Minnie,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid to say I can be a little bit righteous.
Speaker 1: What do you get righteous? Bread by everything? But mostly,
Speaker 1: mostly I like to think about the big things, you know,
Speaker 1: about genocide or not genocide, you know, the victim versus
Speaker 1: the aggressor the human rights and all of those kinds
Speaker 1: of things, the things that we should get righteous and
Speaker 1: morally angry and there or motivated to do something about.
Speaker 1: But sometimes I can bring all that righteousness into my
Speaker 1: you know, everyday life and opine as if you know,
Speaker 1: I was always right. In fact, I had a great
Speaker 1: friend and colleague from the Washington Post, and he once
Speaker 1: told me when we were in Sarah, but he said,
Speaker 1: you know, Christianity, you ever write a book, it can
Speaker 1: be titled I was right. And of course, you know,
Speaker 1: he was obviously being funny and sarcasty. I thought this
Speaker 1: was a brilliant title. He was, you know, quietly mocking me.
Speaker 1: But it is a funny anecdote. I do think you
Speaker 1: should write I was right. You know, I'm not going to,
Speaker 1: although I'm very often right. You see, you've already got
Speaker 1: your forward to the book. Now can I tell you,
Speaker 1: there's quite a famous story about the producer of Dirty Dancing.
Speaker 1: This writer came up with the title Dirty Dancing, and
Speaker 1: then the producer basically bankrolled the whole movie just based
Speaker 1: on the title alone, because they were like, this is
Speaker 1: the greatest movie ever. That's great. They work backwards from
Speaker 1: the title. So I was right, can begin right here? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Dirty Dancing is a little better than I
Speaker 1: was right, But I get it. I understand. Thanks for
Speaker 1: the permission, You're so welcome. Can I just ask you
Speaker 1: really quickly when you said not being able to see
Speaker 1: what's good or sort of panicking when something bad happens,
Speaker 1: do you ever rather like a centrifuge when something is
Speaker 1: going wrong, suck all these other bad things that might
Speaker 1: be happening into that centrifuge, and so it kind of
Speaker 1: becomes exponentially bigger, and so the thing is never really
Speaker 1: the thing. It's about everything. Yea. So in therapy speak
Speaker 1: they call it catastrophizing. Is that what they call it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: They do. You know, you see something and instead of
Speaker 1: immediately figuring out, you know this, we can fix this,
Speaker 1: We've got this, it's like, oh my god, and then
Speaker 1: that's going to happen, and then that's going to happen,
Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna fall under a taxi and die
Speaker 1: or something like that. Ship That's what I do, Okay,
Speaker 1: So what do you do to not do that? Because
Speaker 1: this is free therapy for me, because you have clearly
Speaker 1: done heard this word. Now, will you please tell me
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to do in those situations? It was time,
Speaker 1: it was a lot of time, and I have to say,
Speaker 1: going out into the real catastrophes, that taught me how
Speaker 1: to differentiate between a catastrophe and catastrophe light. So I
Speaker 1: don't operate like this in the field. I am very calm,
Speaker 1: very intense, and very together. I do not panic. I
Speaker 1: don't lose my cool and I don't even know where
Speaker 1: that came from, maybe from the horse riding. But I'm very, very,
Speaker 1: very super focused. When I'm in the field and danger
Speaker 1: is happening all around me, or when I have to
Speaker 1: do an interview with the world leader and I just
Speaker 1: gotta get it right, I've focused and I'm laser focused.
Speaker 1: It's mostly in my personal life, well everything, that's mostly.
Speaker 1: That's the way I remember when you was there are
Speaker 1: fat who hung up on you? Oh, yes, he did. Yes, Yes,
Speaker 1: that was an extraordinarily poised conversation. There was no fluster
Speaker 1: at the end of it when he hung up. It
Speaker 1: was kind of fantastic and it was almost the greatest
Speaker 1: third act that heat that he sort of could have
Speaker 1: come up with. It was pretty amazing. It was right.
Speaker 1: I remember exactly where it was. It was two thousand
Speaker 1: and two. We were at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem,
Speaker 1: and I had a satellite cell phone linked to him
Speaker 1: as I was broadcasting live. And it was at a
Speaker 1: time when the then government of Ario Sharon decided to
Speaker 1: go back into the West Bank. They tore down his
Speaker 1: headquarters and it was in response to some Palestinian suicide
Speaker 1: bombings inside Israel. And it was after nine eleven, so
Speaker 1: remember the state of affairs then was very very tense,
Speaker 1: and Arafat he was really being pushed into a corner
Speaker 1: and I asked him something like do you take responsibility
Speaker 1: for and I named the suicide bombing location and he
Speaker 1: just went ballistic. But I mean ballistic. I'm here in
Speaker 1: a prison, They've got me surrounded. I am General Arafat.
Speaker 1: Do you know who got up? He said to me.
Speaker 1: He literally shut up. He was so angry, and meantime,
Speaker 1: I know the cameras on me, right, so I'm live
Speaker 1: with the camera on me, and I am going read
Speaker 1: from the bottom of my feet to the top of
Speaker 1: my head, and I'm thinking the whole world is watching
Speaker 1: me being torn to treads by yasa Arafat on live television.
Speaker 1: And then he hung up, and I'm like, okay, well
Speaker 1: I said, I comment what I said, but something's you know,
Speaker 1: that's live television, folks. And then of course all the
Speaker 1: producers lovely. Oh that's great TV. It's great. Just and
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, but that was me being humiliated. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I got over it. That was yasa afred me. The
Speaker 1: thing is like, I remember how calm he remained in
Speaker 1: the face of that rage, and you do it so acutely.
Speaker 1: In your professional life. You have done that, but it's
Speaker 1: really interesting to hear that in your personal life, it's
Speaker 1: like more challenging. It's slightly more challenging. I'm a bit
Speaker 1: better than I was, but yeah, I just forced myself
Speaker 1: to stay cool and to not change my expression too.
Speaker 1: My Clinton did it to me as well. In a
Speaker 1: live two way from Sarajevo, I asked him a question
Speaker 1: that got under his skin, and he went he said,
Speaker 1: there have been no constant flipblocks, Madam. He maddamed me
Speaker 1: in front of the world, and then my face just
Speaker 1: went beat red. But I'm not sure that you could
Speaker 1: actually recognize that over the satellite. So I had an advantage, right,
Speaker 1: I was thousands of miles away blushing and freaking out,
Speaker 1: but staying cool and not changing my expression. And then
Speaker 1: the funny thing was actually every time I went anywhere
Speaker 1: after that, all these people who would go and interview
Speaker 1: you know, prime ministers and I don't know, army chiefs
Speaker 1: and this and that, madam, they would grieve me with
Speaker 1: every time I went in. So it was a bit
Speaker 1: of a joke for a while. I think it's really
Speaker 1: interesting to like to get to experience the best version
Speaker 1: of our response to stress and conflict, and you can
Speaker 1: quite literally see you on television or on YouTube or
Speaker 1: whatever doing that thing, but taking it out of that
Speaker 1: place and applying it into our lives. I'm fascinated by
Speaker 1: why we can do it in some areas of our lives,
Speaker 1: but it's more challenging in others. And you do it
Speaker 1: in the place that you would think would be more challenging.
Speaker 1: It's a really interesting practice, but it just kind of
Speaker 1: seems to reiterate to me that life is all practice.
Speaker 1: It is. And then you've got to, as one of
Speaker 1: my producers is to say, you've got to know when
Speaker 1: to hold them and when to fold them. In other words,
Speaker 1: know who you're dealing with and when you're dealing with.
Speaker 1: So you reacted a certain way at a certain time
Speaker 1: and different ways at different times. You don't want to
Speaker 1: bring all that mega SAINTFROI, you know, that cool under
Speaker 1: fire into your private life. You want to be more vulnerable,
Speaker 1: more open, more reactive, more and more you know more.
Speaker 1: But it's quite a paradigm to existing to be able
Speaker 1: to move from an extraordinary place of conflict in the
Speaker 1: world back into home life and children and husband. And yeah,
Speaker 1: there's are amazing poles to navigate. And again I agree
Speaker 1: with you, and so many of my colleagues have not
Speaker 1: been able to navigate that and have suffered very, very
Speaker 1: deeply from not being able to navigate. And you know,
Speaker 1: so many people in many different professions obviously find that difficult,
Speaker 1: and it is challenging, and it does take lots of work.
Speaker 1: I would simply say again that I do believe the
Speaker 1: foundation that I was given as a child has helped
Speaker 1: me in every which way, every which way I come
Speaker 1: back from these terrible times in the field or great
Speaker 1: times as well, I mean, and and I reunite with
Speaker 1: my family, you know, family, lunches, family dinners, friends, or
Speaker 1: that's what keeps me human and keeps me alive, and
Speaker 1: keeps me loving, keeps me happy, keeps me friendly. Because
Speaker 1: I stay alive, I don't close myself off. You know
Speaker 1: the classic stories, right of I don't know your grandfather's,
Speaker 1: your grandparents or whoever. In World War two. Let's say
Speaker 1: my father, my father flew in World War two, and
Speaker 1: he probably never told you, right, he probably didn't talk never,
Speaker 1: They never talked. And I understand it to an extent.
Speaker 1: And I don't talk war stories much, but I do talk.
Speaker 1: And I do. If somebody, one on one, somebody wants
Speaker 1: to know about this, wants to know about that, I'll talk.
Speaker 1: But I do otherwise talk and open myself. And you
Speaker 1: can try to bury it, carry on, make a new life,
Speaker 1: support their families and and try to to forget it.
Speaker 1: But truth is, you can never forget. And there's always
Speaker 1: is PTSD. Did you know in the Second World War
Speaker 1: they called and it was in the First World War
Speaker 1: two they called PTSD l O m F, which was
Speaker 1: lack of moral fiber. That makes me want to cry.
Speaker 1: It's awful. That was the acronym, which is why I
Speaker 1: think men didn't talk about it. Women didn't talk about it.
Speaker 1: That's really tragic. And how about the shell shock and
Speaker 1: all of that, And how about they treated the World
Speaker 1: War One conscientious objectors as cowards and mentally deranged. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just tragic, tragic. What person, place, or experience most
Speaker 1: altered your life, I would say I have to say
Speaker 1: the Iranian Revolution of nine because that completely was the
Speaker 1: division between my childhood and my adolescence and my adulthood.
Speaker 1: And in a way, overnight, I grew up, and I
Speaker 1: grew a conscience, and I grew a political awareness, and
Speaker 1: I grew an ambition, and I grew maturity, and I
Speaker 1: just went from a very happy, go lucky childhood not
Speaker 1: knowing a huge amount about democracy and dictatorship and and
Speaker 1: all of those kinds of things and freedom and not
Speaker 1: really understanding what they meant in the big picture, to
Speaker 1: only wanting to go and talk about that stuff and
Speaker 1: bear witness and report and tell those kinds of stories
Speaker 1: around the world to people who may not be able
Speaker 1: to go and see for themselves. And that for me
Speaker 1: was the most fundamental turning point in my life. Were
Speaker 1: you living in Iran at the time and did you move? Yes?
Speaker 1: So my education spandy around the UK, and after the
Speaker 1: revolution I went to the US for my university and
Speaker 1: I started CNN in the United States. But I had
Speaker 1: sort of got a an involuntary gap here Mini. I
Speaker 1: had failed to get good enough grades in my what
Speaker 1: you would call high school here a levels to go
Speaker 1: to medical school. Yeah, I feel myself right now or whatever.
Speaker 1: But you know what, I am so pleased because in
Speaker 1: the end, it's one of those failing to accomplish what
Speaker 1: you think you should have done that led me to
Speaker 1: this profession, into this life because it's not just a
Speaker 1: professional it's my life. And so I'm very grateful for that.
Speaker 1: But I spent the whole year of the revolution, so
Speaker 1: from January nine seventy eight to January nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: watching this happen in my homeland and in my neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and suddenly everything I was right was wrong. The people
Speaker 1: who had grown up believing in were now the people
Speaker 1: who I should be condemning. I couldn't leave my house
Speaker 1: without their being soldiers and guns aimed at. During martial law,
Speaker 1: you heard the Atoller harmonies imported smuggled in cassette tapes
Speaker 1: put on the loudspeakers from the mosques nearby. I mean
Speaker 1: chilling stuff. It was chilling, and you just didn't know
Speaker 1: where it was going to end up. Well, now we know, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, the Iranian Revolution shaped and changed the whole world.
Speaker 1: Would you say that was the first time that you
Speaker 1: were really aware of the division of ideology, Like there
Speaker 1: is another way of thinking that is being applied in
Speaker 1: this place that is so familiar that I thought thought
Speaker 1: one way, that's such an interesting way of putting it.
Speaker 1: And I would say yes. But I had known obviously,
Speaker 1: because we were living through the Cold War and Iran
Speaker 1: was right in that place where you know, the United
Speaker 1: States liked Iran as an ally because it was, you know,
Speaker 1: faced off against the Communists and this and that. So
Speaker 1: in other words, everything that was happening politically at that time,
Speaker 1: particularly where I was living, was East versus West, Communist
Speaker 1: versus the United States. Communism was everybody grew up in
Speaker 1: my generation anyway, knowing that as the first big ideological issue.
Speaker 1: And then it was the Iranian Revolution, I will say interestingly,
Speaker 1: and I cannot exactly remember. I probably could go back
Speaker 1: and figure it out. I can't remember where there was
Speaker 1: just before the Iranian Revolution or just after. But my parents,
Speaker 1: my mother particularly had Palestinian friends in Iran. They were
Speaker 1: Catholic and she was Catholic, and she met them at
Speaker 1: church and they had been refugees, they had been turfed
Speaker 1: out after the forty eight war, and they had found
Speaker 1: the way, their way to various places and ended up
Speaker 1: in Iran. He was a pharmacist, and I can't remember
Speaker 1: what she was for rminal people, phenominal people. And from him,
Speaker 1: I remember him taking me on a visit to a
Speaker 1: museum and telling me the story of Palestine, and that
Speaker 1: was possibly my first real conversation about history divides and
Speaker 1: what happens when one side wins one side loses, and
Speaker 1: when there's never justice and when this wound continues to
Speaker 1: be open, and so that was also a very early lesson.
Speaker 1: But then, of course, then I go to Bosnia and
Speaker 1: I witnessed genocide in Europe for the first time since
Speaker 1: the Second World War, So that was right in my face.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could have read about Anne Frank and
Speaker 1: I read the book, but I didn't see it and
Speaker 1: understand it until I saw it and understood it and
Speaker 1: reported on it and was called to make a judgment.
Speaker 1: And my judgment was that I would not be neutral
Speaker 1: in the face of outrageous violations of humanitarian law. I
Speaker 1: would not be neutral. I would not be an accessory
Speaker 1: to genocide as a journalist. By being neutral, I sisted
Speaker 1: on telling the truth and it made me very unpopular
Speaker 1: in a lot of quarters. I remember it being apparently
Speaker 1: so controversial to take a position, but I didn't have
Speaker 1: enough political acuity to really think about that. But I
Speaker 1: do now, and it's astonishing to me that taking a
Speaker 1: position on genocide that you would have been called partisan
Speaker 1: for that it was. It's absurd now, it is, absolutely
Speaker 1: But remember the victims were Muslims, they were European Muslims,
Speaker 1: and the aggressors were European Christians. It was very, very tough.
Speaker 1: It's a very particular context that you then go out
Speaker 1: into the world to do what you do, and I
Speaker 1: think it's astonishing that you survived that, not just physically
Speaker 1: but mentally. And I know you've said that so many
Speaker 1: people didn't. Well, to bring it back to what you've
Speaker 1: been asking me, I survived because of love and happiness
Speaker 1: and joy and knowing how to see it and how
Speaker 1: to recognize it and wanting it. What question would you
Speaker 1: most like answered? Oh? Many, I'm glad you didn't say.
Speaker 1: What question would you look most like to ask? Right now?
Speaker 1: I'd like to ask Vladimir Buotin? Why what is your problem? Mate?
Speaker 1: Why are you trying to bully a country that's done
Speaker 1: nothing to you in any of it? So? What question
Speaker 1: would I most like answered? Look, you know, I think
Speaker 1: most people would like to know what happens on the
Speaker 1: other side. You know, isn't worth it being good and
Speaker 1: moral and loving and happy and doing all those things?
Speaker 1: You know? Here? Ah, that's interesting. Is there a payoff?
Speaker 1: I don't really care because I like my life anyway,
Speaker 1: so I don't really care if there's a payoff or not.
Speaker 1: I like how you framed that. It's not what happens
Speaker 1: when we die. It's listen, did I really have to
Speaker 1: be good in order to get access to heaven? This
Speaker 1: is the Catholic in me. That's the Catholic in me.
Speaker 1: But you know what, I would love to know, honestly,
Speaker 1: because I have this image that everybody who's gone before me,
Speaker 1: all my friends, my family, my lovely dog, everybody who's before,
Speaker 1: they're up there having a nice time. You know, they're
Speaker 1: they're also enjoying. And I'd like to go up and
Speaker 1: have a really nice time. And I hope that exists.
Speaker 1: I hope that exists. You know, do you think that
Speaker 1: if you knew that was what was going to happen,
Speaker 1: do you think you would live your life differently? No?
Speaker 1: I wouldn't live it differently. No. No, There's certain things
Speaker 1: I wish I had done, you know, more boldly, and
Speaker 1: maybe taken a few more risks here and there on
Speaker 1: more personal issues. But overall, I'm good. I'm good. I've
Speaker 1: got I've got two more questions before you send me
Speaker 1: on my way packing. I would like to know where
Speaker 1: the democracy and truth will survive. And I'd like to
Speaker 1: know whether we will ever live on another planet, you know,
Speaker 1: in another atmosphere, in another environment. Wow. I wonder if
Speaker 1: democracy will exist on another planet or we can create it.
Speaker 1: I wonder if we did get to another planet. Would
Speaker 1: we take all the same constructs of law and society
Speaker 1: with us, or would we make amendments that could continue
Speaker 1: to be amended? So shouldly, I wonder, Well, I hope
Speaker 1: we would perfect something that we started here on Earth,
Speaker 1: because we are in that moment. By the way, we're
Speaker 1: not just fantasizing you and I write now democracy is
Speaker 1: on the threat by the very nations which perfected it
Speaker 1: or tried to well. That just we were being reminded
Speaker 1: that it is an experiment. It is this experiment. And
Speaker 1: how about truth? What if there's no truth? That's the worst,
Speaker 1: That is literally the most terrifying thing. So I would
Speaker 1: like to know will truth survive? And on that happy note, Mini,
Speaker 1: and on that bombshell, thank you so so so much, well,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. I'm not sure an answer
Speaker 1: to one of my questions has ever cut quite so
Speaker 1: close to the bone as Christiane's answer of what questions
Speaker 1: she would most like answered being whether truth and democracy
Speaker 1: will survive. It's been a hard two weeks to watch
Speaker 1: what's happening in our world. And I would like to say,
Speaker 1: and I wish I could say it to Christian right
Speaker 1: here and right now, that the strange byproduct of what
Speaker 1: Putin has done is to actually unite the world, which
Speaker 1: I know he didn't intend, but nonetheless, bar quite literally
Speaker 1: a couple of countries, that is what he has done,
Speaker 1: and perhaps that's how truth and democracy will survive, because
Speaker 1: we will unite. You can watch Christianne's one hour late
Speaker 1: night public affairs series Amm and Paul on CNN International
Speaker 1: and Aman Paul and Co. On your local PBS station.
Speaker 1: Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
Speaker 1: supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
Speaker 1: Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Speaker 1: Aaron Kaufman, Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella
Speaker 1: and Annicke Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescadore, Kate
Speaker 1: Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support,
Speaker 1: Henry Driver