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Mani Farhadi

With Hillary Clinton: Bridging understanding

I had the opportunity to meet and speak with Hillary Clinton on Oct 22, 2007 at a private fundraiser in Hillsborough. I was lucky enough to get in as VIP and have a photo with her (above). She is actually very warm and friendly up close, with twinkly blue eyes and a beautiful smile that lights up her face. She looks you right in the eye and gives you her complete attention, no matter what is going on around her, with bodyguards, photographers, aides, queue of people waiting.... When it was my turn, I shook her hand, introduced myself and told her that I had met her once when she was First Lady at Wellesley College. At the time I said she should be President herself! She laughed! I told her I was glad she was following my advice! Then I said that just like her, I was a Wellesley grad, a wife, and a mother but I was Iranian and that our countries should have a better relationship. I said Iranians love America. Don't judge us by the politicians. She said she remembered me (yeah right!). Anyway, I told her that in order to create a bridge of understanding, I had 2 gifts for her. One, my sister Davar Ardalan's book My Name is Iran (she's a producer at NPR) and the other my mother Laleh Bakhtiar's translation into English, The Sublime Quran. This is the first time it has been translated by an Iranian-American woman, and the words have been translated to be more sensitive to women. Hillary was thrilled! Her eyes quadrupled! These were given to her to improve our cultural understanding, in order to bring dialogue, not war. Hillary agreed that we need to understand each other better. She introduced me to her assitant Huma (part Saudi, part Indian) who was Muslim and said to be sure to include by business card so they could get in touch with me. Again, Hillary said she appreciated it very much that I brought those books to her attention. I just got a letter today from Hillary acknowledging the books and thanking me for it. As part of her speech that day, she talked about sending in experts to deal with foreign countries, people who know the language, the culture and the religion, people who have connections, not just politicians. Whether that had something to do with what I said, I don't know, but it was good to hear her say she wants to understand others. In the future, I hope to do more non-profit work and to help improve our awareness of other cultures. In a way, Hillary was my first client! Although I'm busy with work, the kids, the house, I will someday follow my dream to be a bridge of understanding.
Love, Mani

from Mani Farhadi
14-Nov-2007
Iranians of the Day | Photos
Balatarin
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Hillary is one of the most

by Anon (not verified) on Wed Nov 14, 2007 12:41 PM PST

Hillary is one of the most reactionary, pro Israeli, anti-Iranian candidates amongst the Democrats. I will not vote for her, even if my vote for a progressive results in a Republicans victory. Democrats need to nominate an anti-war, pro-people candidate, not a reactionary and racist politician like Hillary.
and don't vote for Hillay just because she is a woman; Condi Rice is a woman too. Condi and Hillary have proved that women could be as ruthless and as criminal as any man.


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Congratulate you for doing what you believe—dialogue and underst

by Namnamak (not verified) on Wed Nov 14, 2007 12:15 PM PST

Though Hilary has become more rightist/conservative than moderate republicans these days (please see the views of republican presidential candidates about Iran), I like your approach. I congratulate you for doing what you believe—dialogue and understanding.


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این چیزها بی فایده است!

farrad02
Wed Nov 14, 2007 12:20 PM PST

خانم عزیز،

اولآ - هیلاری با لبخندش برای شما تخم دو زرده نکرده!  من هم چند هزار دلار پول برای یک بشقاب غذا اگربگیرم به شما با این چشمهای قهوه ای رنگ قشنگم یک لبخند وارم بیوتیفول میدم که هیچی واست رقص عربی هم میکنم!

دومآ - در مورد سیاست خارجی با ایران هیلاری و بیلاری و اینها همه اشون از یک قماش هستند! اگر برای بیزینس و کار و کاسبی تون تو این مملکت (آمریکا) دنبال منافع هستید، پول بدهید و دسترسی (access) بخرید، والا این کارها و حرفهاتون یک قرون ارزش نداره و یک ذره هم سیاست آمریکا در قبال ایران رو تحت تاثیر نمیذاره! عامل اصلی برای سیاست رییس جمهور آینده (هر کسی که باشه) منافع اسراییل و تصمیم لابی اسراییل هست. مخصوصآ اگر هیلاری رییس جمهور بشه که دو لا پهنا تحت تاثیر و کنترل یهودیهای قدرتمند نیویورک هست!  

وقت ما رو با این عکس و تعریفات نگیر!

 

 

 


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To some Iranian women: Enough is Enough

by Irandokht (not verified) on Wed Nov 14, 2007 12:09 PM PST

I can not believe some of our "educated" Iranian women seeing, sensing, and suffering this Islamic gender Apartheid in Iran and still try to shove this backward cult to others not just Iranians ruthlessly or sublimely!!!

There are verses in Quran justifying Mohammad’s dirty sex life. A religion that its prophet at age 50 plus having sex with a 9-years girl child. Islam being filled with verses of violence, religious apartheid, inequality of women with men, brutal punishments, and a bunch of other satanic verses has gravely harmed us.

I say to these Iranian women: Enough is Enough


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what ze khell!

by bored iranian dude (not verified) on Wed Nov 14, 2007 12:02 PM PST

She would'nt lose a single tear if Iran got nuked tomorrow.

Vote Ron Paul!

www.ronpaul2008(dot)com


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You did good

by Alborzi (not verified) on Wed Nov 14, 2007 11:53 AM PST

I do not like her, but she is likely to win, her yes vote
on declaring guards terrorist essentially gives permission to Bush to bomb Iran. I think she is too in debt to IAPAC and
she is going to pull Liberman (she will win more conservatives and give up some liberals), however I do not think she is the type to actually read those books (I would),
but still I think you did good to an evil.


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take pride in Iranian tradition: Religion is private

by Pleaze (not verified) on Wed Nov 14, 2007 11:46 AM PST

by Face it (not verified) on Sun Nov 11, 2007 01:10 PM PST

"We need to understand, discuss, and dissect our history on a continuous basis. Don't you see that the name of Thomas Jefferson, really a slave owner, is brought up in media on a daily basis with pride for his contribution to american constitution; why? Remember the saying that those who do not learn from their past mistakes are doomed to repeat it. It is said that even Thomas Jefferson had two copies of Xenophon's "Education of Cyrus", one in English and another in Latin or Greek (I don't recall which one), and based some of the progressive ideas of the american constitution on what he learned from Cyrus. Our 2500-year history teaches us so many lessons. Had the previous regime allowed a much more objective review of our history, maybe we would not be in this mess. One reason for shah's prohibition may have been to not provoke the wolves in the sheep's clothes -- the mullas. But we should have known them better before the revolution, based on historical evidence. Without making this too long and too boring, let me list a few things that we should take to the heart from our history: (1) Iran has always been a multi-ethnic country from day one and it has always been natural for iranians to cherish parallel cultures, so persian-ness will not cause us any problem if we take the historical context into account. (2) despite the short-comings of iranian kings, no iranian king has been as brutal to iranians as Emam was. (3) we should have known what Omar and other Caliphs did to iranians under the name of islam; we should have known why Khayyam despised mullas in so many of his poems; we should have known why Hafez longed for the good old days because of the atrocities of religious rulers of his time; had we known all of that more clearly, maybe we would have thought twice before 98% of us voted for islamic republic and handed over our country to a bunch of mullas from Qom, Karbala, and Najaf. (4) If we remember that Cyrus was half Kurd (Mede), that Cyrus freed jews, that Cyrus refused to take the very beautiful Panthea, the wife of a defeated king, as his lover or wife, that Xerxes had a jewish wife, that Khosrow had an armenian lover and wife (shirin); that so many iranian kings of Turkic origin fought for independence of iran; that farsi was the official language of Ottoman empire as well as Mongol India; we would value the multi-cultural nature of iran and would embrace it rather than trying to either defeat it or rip it apart into pieces. (5) Iran has been sustainably stronger when it treated its citizens fairly and when it was best at science and technology of its time. This is not well understood, but there are so much evidence, some as old as 2000 years to support this. And there are so many other lessons that if we knew by heart maybe we would not be in this mess now. So, you should not be offended by persian nationalism, as an integral part of that nationalism is embracing of all iranians, and even other cultures, unlike IR. Some of these historical figures were wiser and far more moral some 2500 years ago than any mulla of today, or even most of the democratically-elected leaders of today. Don't you think we should know about them, take pride in them, and follow their tradition rather than ideologies, religious or otherwise, with no proven record of success, at least as a consideration for our future endeavor."


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