Iran’s former first lady has given her first interview since Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash
Late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi managed to achieve exceptional things through honesty and empathy, his widow Jamileh Alamolhoda told RT in an exclusive interview.
Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May on his way back from a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The official investigation found no signs of sabotage or human error, thinking it was an accident caused by bad weather and helicopter overload.
Alamolhoda spoke to RT on Wednesday in her first and only interview since Raisi’s death. She said she has turned down many requests from Western media because they have created a “terrible and frightening image” of Iran by misinterpreting its people’s virtues as vices.
“I believe that the position that Iran has achieved in the region and especially among the different countries of the world is one of its legacies,” she said about Raisi, attributing it to his efforts to “combining politics with empathy and love.”
“He managed to gain the trust of his neighbors in the shortest possible time, and we can say that this was unprecedented,” Alamolhoda said, noting that Iran did not have such a reputation even under the monarchy, which was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution in 1979. “We never had that. We were never trusted. In my opinion, it was British policies that made the countries in our region fight among themselves. But he managed to gain the trust of [our] neighbors.”
Raisi has not always been successful, but he has managed to win over both the Iranian public and the conservative establishment, she said.
According to Alamolhoda, Iran is “more bold and serious” about resisting colonialism and exploitation than many other countries, which is why the West has been so hostile to Tehran.
“If you go somewhere, people who dress in local fashions signal that they don’t want to be like [Americans]they don’t want to accept their customs”, she told RT. “They, especially the Americans, intend to standardize everyone under their rules and put them in this framework. They harass anyone who does not accept this, including us, and I think they bother us the most and we must resist.”
Alamolhoda married Raisi when she was 18, and they had two daughters. In 2001, she received a doctorate in philosophy of education from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran and is now an associate professor at Shahid Beheshti University. One of her daughters has a doctorate in sociology, while the other is a physicist.
Alamolhoda insisted that she never wanted a role in politics, though political work has occasionally amplified her voice. As Iran’s first lady, she has cultivated ties with female leaders around the world and has also engaged in a kind of women’s diplomacy.
“They may be powerful, politicians, leaders of political parties or in some other position of power, but ultimately they are women,” she told RT. “Women everywhere, in all walks of life, have in common the desire to show sympathy for the pain of others, to show empathy.”
If women want something done, “they can convince their husband, family members or colleagues that it is the right thing to do”, she added. “And we can spread love more than enmity.”
You can share this story on social media:
