UPDATE: This story was diaried here but did not get much attention. Apparently quite a few people in the comments are pissed off at me because they either hate Code Pink, hate Ahmadinejad, or hate both. Here's my point of view - which you can disagree with all you like. We need to form relationships between individuals and organizations in the U.S. & Iran if we have any hope for peace in the future. That does not excuse anything bad their government does, just as it doesn't excuse our government for bad things we've done. And if a bunch of ladies in silly pink outfits and a nutty Muslim fundamentalist are willing to start this kind of discourse, then great. So long as we enter into this with our eyes open, knowing what Ahmadinejad is all about, then I'm for it.
Here's the short version: Ahmadinejad came to America recently and met for TWO HOURS with a bunch of American peace groups. Code Pink asked to be allowed to go to Iran and meet with people there and Ahmadinejad said YES (and mentioned he'd like for Iranian peace groups to be allowed into the US for the same reason). So Code Pink folks are there RIGHT NOW working for peace. Why isn't this BIG NEWS???
I highly recommend checking out the November 19 edition of Clout to hear an interview with Jodie Evans of Code Pink on the day before she left for Iran. This story is just toooo amazing.
First of all - Imagine our ability here in the U.S. to meet with our top political leaders. You want to talk to Bush? Cindy Sheehan was not able to do that. Code Pink has not been able to do that. I'm sure if you've got $100,000 to donate to the RNC you'd be able to meet with him.
We got to meet with Nancy Pelosi at Netroots Nation last year. We got to ask her questions. Her answers were political though. Why did the Dems pass the FISA thing? She didn't sound happy that Dems let it pass but she didn't denounce them for doing so either. And my real question is - why did the Dems even let that shit come up for a vote? You don't need to have the votes to block something if you've got the ability to just keep a vote from taking place altogether. She certainly didn't address that.
So Code Pink complained to the Iranian embassy that they couldn't go to Iran for peace missions. Jodie Evans had gone in the past and she felt things began to clamp down once Ahmadinejad came into power. So they asked for a meeting with him AND THEY GOT IT.
He agreed to meet with 60 activists from multiple peace groups and took questions from them - all kinds of questions, and he didn't know what the questions would be ahead of time. It was a two hour meeting at a hotel in New York and an hour was devoted to questions. Imagine getting that with an American leader!!!! Or any world leader!!
Code Pink's question to Ahmadinejad was: You say you're for peace but you won't let us visit Iran. So he gave them permission to go - as peace activists, not just as tourists. Code Pink wants to build diplomacy by meeting with people in the government and NGOs in Iran, and that's what they are doing right now.
Ahmadinejad also mentioned he wanted Iranian peace groups to be granted visas to visit the U.S. as well. He said he hoped for that - he did not insist on it as a condition in order for Code Pink to visit Iran.
Jodie Evans said that Ahmadinejad was remarkable for his use of humor, as well as his ability to look people in the eye and truly answer their questions. (For example, when the Americans asked about women's rights in Iran, he mentioned that most of his treasury was made up of women and perhaps the U.S. would not have such financial troubles if we put women in charge of our treasury... that was a joke)
Here's my own transcript (with flaws, I'm sure) of the interview from Clout on Air America:
Many people asked questions and he wrote them down and he answered them by specifically saying your name and looking at you and I have to say that he really looked at you - it wasn't a glance... you could feel the look. There was a person there and he was connecting to you, which, you know, it was very different from politicians we're used to in the United States. He wasn't trying to sell us something, he was trying to share something. It was a very different form of communicating.
We gave him the thing about our visas... he said "I'm gonna get you visas and we just hope it will be reciprocal," - not "we demand it would be," "we hope it would be."
Imagine every question you would want to ask him about why do you want to have nuclear energy? Why don't you take this opportunity and your money and just be cutting edge and do wind and solar...
RICHARD GREENE: What did he say?
JODIE: "Because we have the right to." It was very "You get to do it, we feel that we have the right to do it." He also used the opportunity to tell us that - I believe - 60% of the energy used in Iran is sustainable - the majority is water and they have solar and wind. They are developing that more and he has a commitment to that but he also wanted the freedom to develop nuclear power. A large trading partner from them is France and you know, France has nuclear power and I think - he brought up that.
To answer Richard Greene's question "Do you trust him?" here was her response:
I look at trust in an interesting way. I trust people to be who they are. So, in witnessing who he is, I trust him to be a fundamentalist Muslim leader of a country that's quite wary of another country - an Imperialist country that has definitely violated the trust of that country in the past. I think he's got anger from being left out. I trust him to behave from that place.
I watched him and I saw someone who was very intelligent, that was able to use humor, that was able to connect on a human level, but also when he spoke about his commitment to peace I saw that he doesn't think much about freedom, that he's very committed to his religion and the ideals of that religion, not in the sense of freedom but in the sense of control. Very "it knows what's right" - not in ways that me feel good - I felt he couldn't see his own shadow.
He talked a lot about his commitment to peace but I didn't see any of the tenets of peace in that conversation, so I'd love to be able to have a deeper conversation with him about exposing to him the places that I find that don't coincide with what he says, but I didn't get to do that.
One of the other questions we asked him - mostly, when peace organizations go, we're only allowed to go as tourists and what we wanted were these meetings, so he's setting up meetings...
One of the questions we asked him was about women, you know - how badly treated they are and that we have a deep concern about the women in Iran, and his answer to us was "wait a sec, probably the next president of Iran will be a woman because my two vice presidents are women, that women do every job in Iran, including our taxi drivers "and I worry about them, that's a very dangerous job."
He said that 70% of the people enrolled in universities in Iran are women - and he always had something funny to say - he said "You know my entire treasury department is women. I would suggest the same to the United States, it might help solve their economic problems." So he's gonna let us meet the women in his treasury so we can come home and talk about that as a solution that was offered by the president of Iran for America's economic problems. We thought that was fun.
So he definitely does have a great sense of humor, he was able to speak to us from the questions we asked and really respond honestly - and you could see a little bit, he wanted to be... what was interesting is that we really felt like he wanted to be our friend.
He was really like "I'm for peace too" and described it and talked about war and talked about what was wrong with it and how it shouldn't happen and let us know that much of it had been from the soil of America - he kind of gave us our own history back. It seemed like he wanted to be seen as someone who was for peace.
At the same time, it was very clear in what he said that he's very committed to the tenets of his relig - of his way of seeing his religion - as with all religions it can be seen through different eyes - and wasn't really aware of the shadow that he cast that was different from what was coming out of his mouth.
Wow. Ahmadinejad might truly be any name you want to call him - no doubt some horrific things go on in Iran, like executions of homosexuals... the very thought of that makes me want to either cry or be sick, or maybe both. But I'm glad this meeting took place, and I'm glad he's letting Code Pink into Iran. It's better for him to say "I'm for peace" than "I'm not for peace" even if his view of religion makes his ability to understand peace limited.
Please stay tuned - listen to Clout over the next few weeks on Air America - so we can find out what Code Pink sees and hears in Iran.