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