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Amanpour
Interview with Released After Eight Years in Iranian Captivity Siamak Namazi; Interview with Ireland Prime Minister Simon Harris; Interview with "On Freedom" Author Timothy Snyder. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired September 23, 2024 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SIAMAK NAMAZI, RELEASED AFTER EIGHT YEARS IN IRANIAN CAPTIVITY: When you get out of a dungeon after eight years, you don't just return to a normal
life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: The longest held American prisoner in Iran, Siamak Namazi, tells me about his traumatic eight-year ordeal. In an exclusive interview, His
first since being released this time last year.
Then, with the U.N. General Assembly starting in New York, I speak to one of America's closest allies, the Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris.
Also, ahead, Walter Isaacson interviews historian Timothy Snyder about his new book, "On Freedom."
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour outside the U.N. in New York, as world leaders are meeting at the annual General Assembly
against a grim backdrop of global conflict and deepening geopolitical divisions.
In the Middle East, war is escalating. Lebanon says at least 274 people have been killed in the deadliest day since 2006, that war after Israel
conducted extensive airstrikes on Hezbollah targets across the country. Talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza are at a standstill.
But sometimes diplomacy can yield important results. This time last year, Siamak Namazi was released from Iran's notorious Evin Prison in a hostage
prisoner swap with the United States. He was the longest held American in Iran, a horrifying eight-year ordeal.
Now, six months before his release, Namazi had bravely called into this program from inside Evin to make an emotional plea to President Biden. Take
a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SIAMAK NAMAZI, RELEASED AFTER EIGHT YEARS IN IRANIAN CAPTIVITY: The other hostages and I desperately need President Biden to finally hear us out, to
finally hear our cry for help and bring us home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Eventually, he and four other Iranian Americans were released. And a year later, he is ready to talk for the first time in this exclusive
interview right here in New York City.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Siamak, welcome back to the program.
NAMAZI: Thank you very much.
AMANPOUR: The last time you talked to us was from Evin jail in March of 2023. And it took another several months for you to be free.
A year ago, you came back to the United States, almost exactly a year ago. What's this year been like? How -- do you feel free?
NAMAZI: Well, Christiane, first of all, it is such a joy to be talking to you and not worrying about someone dragging me to a solitary cell somewhere
because of it. So, thank you for that.
Do I feel free? I think the first -- the most dominant feeling that I have is gratitude. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to many people, particularly
President Biden, who made a very difficult choice and struck the deal.
I'm sure it was a very difficult deal for him to strike that brought us home. It took many more years than I hoped that it would. I was there eight
years.
AMANPOUR: The longest held.
NAMAZI: The longest held.
But the truth is, when you get out of a dungeon after eight years, you don't just return to a normal life. It's overly optimistic. You don't just
kind of shake it off. It's an eight-year earthquake that hits your life, and it leaves a lot of destruction.
But I would say I do feel very free in the U.S., and I tried to live the freest life I could even when I was in Evin.
AMANPOUR: What were the basics? I mean, you had to learn to live outside those confines again.
NAMAZI: Right.
Human beings are very interesting. We adapt to where we are. So I would say it takes a long time to learn to adapt to prison, and then it takes a long
time to learn to adapt to come out. It's a very difficult process.
I remember having to set an alarm to remind myself to leave the apartment. I remember, once, I hadn't left for three days, and I realized why. I just
wasn't used to doing that, you know?
[13:05:00]
So, yes, there's a lot to learn again, carrying keys, carrying a wallet, cars.
Eight years is a long, long, long time. Society changes. I felt -- I felt for my octogenarian parents, and I didn't know how to do simple things. A
friend would say, grab an Uber and come over. And I would have to explain, I absolutely no idea how to do that.
So you come out with no I.D.s, accounts frozen. And, yes, it takes a while.
AMANPOUR: Did the U.S. government, did they give you the sort of building blocks, the stepping-stones to come out, or what?
NAMAZI: No.
I think that's something that needs to be worked on, because you could imagine that, even when hardened criminals get out of prison here, there'd
be a dozen church programs and state programs and federal programs to reintegrate.
For us, it's a goodbye, good luck. There are some wonderful NGOs that former hostages and their families usually volunteer in. And there's some
wonderful, wonderful people who reach out to you. And I think it's their goodness that helps us maneuver through it.
But, no, there really isn't.
AMANPOUR: And what about debriefing? You had spent all these years in captivity by one of America's biggest adversaries. They want to know,
surely, about the Revolutionary Guard, about how you were treated, about what things might have been said or done.
Did you --
NAMAZI: There has been no debriefing.
AMANPOUR: But, just to be clear, the U.S. government did not come and plumb you for your experience, your information, your knowledge about this
regime?
NAMAZI: No. And oddly, because eight years, I would say, probably in this country, I have the most -- I have clocked the most hours negotiating with
the Revolutionary Guards.
But, no, there has been no debriefings. I asked the other hostages. The ones that I have asked have all said there are no debriefings. So, yes, I
was pretty surprised by that as well.
AMANPOUR: Can we go back to the beginning a little bit? You were a businessman. You had family in Iran. You were visiting regularly.
And then, once, you went, you tried to come out, and they grabbed you at the airport as you were leaving.
NAMAZI: Correct.
AMANPOUR: 2015.
NAMAZI: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Around the time of the negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal.
NAMAZI: Correct.
I went to Iran for a funeral. And, as you said, at that point, it was the peak of Iran-U.S. relations, when we had former Secretary Kerry and Iranian
Foreign Minister Zarif walking around Vienna. And on the way back, they first barred me from leaving the country.
I was approached by a man in a plain suit who said: "Come with me."
After that, I was interrogated off site illegally for three months, and then I was finally arrested. I was charged formally with cooperating with a
hostile state, referring to the United States of America.
AMANPOUR: And you are American.
NAMAZI: I am a dual citizen of the -- I'm born in Iran and I'm American.
But the key thing they said, the key statement was that, when we arrested him, for three decades, he had been building a network within Iran to
infiltrate and topple the Islamic Republic with the cooperation of the hostile U.S. state.
Now, I was arrested at 44. So these guys are pretty much claiming that when I was learning to skateboard with my buddy Dave in White Plains, New York,
I was actually subverting the Islamic Republic.
AMANPOUR: When you were like 12 years old?
NAMAZI: Fourteen, yes.
AMANPOUR: Fourteen.
NAMAZI: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And there's no doubt in your mind that they took you purely, as you told me when you called out of prison, for your blue passport, because
you're an American, because you're a valuable pawn?
NAMAZI: They made it extremely clear repeatedly to me that you will not be released without a deal with the U.S.
AMANPOUR: You said that for, the first couple of years, you were in solitary confinement for the most part. You were in the Revolutionary
Guards' portion of the prison, which was --
NAMAZI: Twenty-seven months.
AMANPOUR: Twenty-seven months -- which was really hard.
NAMAZI: Yes.
AMANPOUR: You said they basically fed you like a dog under the door, that you were beaten up.
Can you tell us more now that you couldn't tell us back then of how they treated you for those two years?
NAMAZI: I referred to it, I think, as unutterable indignities.
Look, when I was first taken in and thrown in a solitary cell -- and anyone who has not experienced that won't understand what I'm saying. I'm talking
about something the size of a closet, three paces -- and I'm not a big guy -- three of my paces isn't that great -- and walled off.
It's a very difficult thing. By Iranian law, that alone, by Iranian law, that is defined as torture to throw someone in there.
[13:10:00]
I was thrown in. My interrogators told me that day that, look, unless you cooperate -- the word cooperate, I'm definitely, in Farsi, allergic to that
-- which means unless you do whatever we ask you to, you are going to be here until your teeth and your hair are the same color, and our methodology
of how we're talking is going to change.
They were clear about that. I didn't believe that.
AMANPOUR: There was a threat of violence.
NAMAZI: Yes. In the solitary cell, I started assessing my situation, and I started developing a strategy. And I developed some idea of where I am.
I looked at the scratches that the prisoners leave on the wall. The least that I saw was about three. The most that I saw was 32. The cluster, the
mode kind of -- that's a geeky MBA side of me -- was around two weeks.
So, I figured, OK, I'm probably going to be in this situation for two weeks, most a month, and then they're going to take me to a less horrible
room. I was in that room for two months and then, overall, about eight months of solitary confinement.
AMANPOUR: So you thought two weeks, but you were eight months all in all?
NAMAZI: Of solitary confinement, yes.
I assumed that, because I'm a hostage and I have value, they will not harm me. Unfortunately, that assumption was proven wrong. And --
AMANPOUR: What did they do?
NAMAZI: I got to tell you that the physical part of what they do isn't -- it's not like they're pulling your nail, but they -- you're blindfolded.
And, unfortunately, the thugs are as bad at their job as everyone else in that rotten system. I believe they don't mean to harm you as much as they
do, but they don't understand simple things like, when you toss a person who is blindfolded, I won't -- I don't know that's a wall in front of me,
and I'm going to go face first into it, or I don't know there's a staircase, and I'm going to go rolling down.
So I was --
AMANPOUR: Did that happen?
NAMAZI: I did, yes. Both of those things happened.
There were -- that part still, you could endure, but not day after day after day nonstop. There was a lot of humiliation. That, I'm not
comfortable talking about. And I mean unutterable, because it had a profound effect on me.
It's just -- I still haven't even gotten to talking about it fully in therapy. It's just -- they humiliate you. And they always do this while
you're blindfolded. They -- it's that -- they're that cowardly.
AMANPOUR: So you saw your mom at a visit after --
NAMAZI: Yes.
AMANPOUR: It's after a period of solitary, when you first or second got to see her. And they told you what to tell her or not to tell her?
NAMAZI: I saw my mom the first time after six weeks of solitary. This was right before they started beating me.
And the poor woman, the first time she saw me, she didn't recognize me. I looked like Saddam when they pulled him out of the hole. I had a long
beard, and, I mean, at the distance we're standing.
I remember her eyes wandering, looking for me, and then she realized it's me, and I remember her sobbing. And I remember trying to make her laugh by
telling her, "Oh, I look like Saddam."
They had actually given her a visit, just told her that they're about to execute me. This is going to be the last meeting unless she gets me to
agree to do a confession. Right.
The second time -- then they started a period of several weeks of -- that the beatings started. And, again, I want to emphasize it. The beatings are
nothing you can't handle if it's a one-off thing. If they do it repeatedly and with a humiliating factor, in those circumstances, I -- it's just --
it's much scarier than I could tell you, especially when I know people like Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi died that way.
Eventually -- I think it was a few months down the road -- they called me out and said, OK, you have a visit. It's seven minutes. They spent about 15
minutes threatening me about what would happen if I say anything but "Mom, I'm OK, the food is great, everything's fantastic, people should holiday
here."
They -- so, flanked by my interrogators, I enter the room. Even before sitting, I say: "Hi, mom. These guys have been torturing me. I need you to
go public on this. I need you to."
I'm sorry. OK. I put her through a lot. It was -- it was a very difficult decision, because I was telling her that they're going to start threatening
you. And they started yelling at me: "You can't say that. It's actually -- you can't do that."
[13:15:00]
And I told her: "Look at me. I'm not in an insane asylum. I know what I'm doing. Print a letter to the supreme leader, open letter, say: 'I saw my
son and repeat my son claimed, my son claimed. Never say anything, but my son claimed.'"
AMANPOUR: That you were being tortured. My son claimed that he's being tortured.
You informed your mother. Clearly, she informed others. People knew that you were being wrongfully treated --
NAMAZI: Yes.
AMANPOUR: -- including, I assume, in the United States.
NAMAZI: Yes.
AMANPOUR: I assume the government and the others, they knew.
NAMAZI: Yes. They did.
AMANPOUR: You were left behind by the Obama administration --
NAMAZI: Correct.
AMANPOUR: -- after the negotiations that got the nuclear deal, Jason Rezaian.
NAMAZI: Everyone else, every confirmed -- I use the word confirmed because we didn't know the status of Bob Levinson at that time.
Everyone else except me.
AMANPOUR: And that happened again under the Trump administration?
NAMAZI: Correct. Trump left me behind twice.
AMANPOUR: Trump had two negotiations with Iran to get others out.
NAMAZI: Yes. Correct.
AMANPOUR: And you were left behind?
NAMAZI: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Why?
NAMAZI: I think this is a question really that we should be asking American officials.
I personally think it was -- well, I would -- I more than think. What I understand is that this is a tactic that the Iranians use. I have seen the
same tactic used by the Russians when it came to Paul Whelan. When they have what I would refer to as a star hostage, which is a hostage that has a
lot of support by a big lobby in the U.S., whether it's a media or it's a famous player.
Iran understood that the U.S. wanted Jason out.
AMANPOUR: Jason Rezaian of "The Washington Post."
NAMAZI: Yes, correct.
And so they said, if you want to talk about Siamak, this is going to take weeks more. I think the U.S. wanted the hostages released at the same time
that the JCPOA was being implemented. And Secretary Kerry believed then Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, allegedly -- Zarif had said that, I will get
Siamak out within a few weeks.
And Secretary Kerry chose to take Mrs. Zarif's word. So they left me behind. As far as Iran is concerned, they want to create a perpetuity in
their hostage-taking, right?
AMANPOUR: And, to be clear, they knew you were being tortured?
NAMAZI: Yes, I have a letter after I was left behind my parents wrote the secretary of state, basically saying, what the hell? Much nicer than that.
And he reiterated that he has been trying for my release, trying hard, working hard for my release, and he will continue to do so, and that there
was an expression of upset and sympathy for -- I don't remember the words, but saying, I feel bad or I'm sorry to hear that your son is being
mistreated.
My understanding is that the Trump administration was faced with a different choice, that the Iranians said, I want that guy and I'm willing
to give this guy for him. And that happened twice. And they chose to make that decision.
AMANPOUR: Can I ask you? At this point, Trump himself, after you were released, and the deal involved unfreezing Iranian money that South Korea
had given them for a reason.
It was Iranian money, not American dollars. Anyway, he's like, oh, this is appeasement. Others were saying this is appeasement, that, as you know,
people have said, oh, you should never deal with the regime in any way, form or fashion. What is your answer to that?
NAMAZI: Christiane, I will answer that as a former hostage and tell you we have a duty to get out our people from foreign dungeons, when they have
done nothing, and the only reason they're in there is because they carry a blue passport, and their only way out is through a deal.
Unfortunately, we have to make distasteful deals to get out our people. But I will tell you something. No one is as angry, no one is as disgusted as
the fact -- at the fact that the Islamic Republic, that these -- this horrible regime profited from blighting my life and me and the other
hostages and our families.
They took my father. They have done things that I'm not able to tell my therapist yet. And I still -- I can't even speak about it. I am upset that
they profited from this.
But what other choice is there? Are you just going to let an American rot? But we have two obligations, get our people out, even if it means holding
our nose and doing these distasteful deals.
The second part is, we have to deter hostage-taking to begin with.
[13:20:00]
And I think, as grateful as I am -- and I can't -- I would really love to shake President Biden's hand one day. I really would.
As grateful as I am for this, I have a polarity of emotions going on. We have to do something to stop this. And we don't. There is zero. There is
absolutely zero deterrence for hostage-taking. If you and I were advisers to one of these rogue states, we would say, this is a great business.
AMANPOUR: What is the deterrent? Because they're going to say, don't pay them, it will stop.
NAMAZI: No.
As I said, you can do two things at once. This is a business. What do they want? They want one of two things. Either their money's locked up somewhere
that they want released, or they want one of their thugs out, someone who was tried in a proper court because of the wrongdoing. They want one of the
-- they want to exchange it.
This is a mafia business. This is -- hostage diplomacy is a game of rugby. We should stop treating it like chess.
AMANPOUR: You were getting more and more desperate because nothing seemed to work to get you out. But you were displaying quite a lot of what we
might call chutzpah.
You had written to "The New York Times" an open letter, right? You had done a hunger strike. And then you decided to do an interview with us. That was
very, very risky. And you were basically trying to beg the Biden administration --
NAMAZI: That's right.
AMANPOUR: -- through a big media platform to take the case seriously, you and the others who were in there. Where did you get that risk-taking? Where
did you get that chutzpah from?
NAMAZI: Desperation. Eight years.
I thought -- when I spoke to you, it was 7.5 years. As you pointed out, I was left behind three times at that point. I had a program. I'd get up. It
was organized. Think about how to be a pain in the ass. Literally, it was built in.
AMANPOUR: You were resisting?
NAMAZI: I was resisting. I thought that that's -- you have two choices as a hostage. And both of them make immense sense.
One is to turn around and say, I have to survive this and my people outside will -- will eventually free me. It makes sense. It's me. They're an army.
Literally, the Revolutionary Guards have taken me. It's not just an army. It's an army with a full power of a state. You have a judiciary, a prison
system. The media, the television is blaring, all sorts of false documentaries about you.
So it makes no sense to fight them. And I can understand that. Your fight in that decision is with the day-to-day boredom and to keep sane and to
keep healthy for when you get out. Choice two is, you turn around and say, what can I do that, if everyone acted the way I did, I would raise the cost
where they couldn't do this so easily?
And I think that you will understand how you are cut if you spend enough time in there. And I think part of my reaction to the unutterable
indignities was that I have to gain my own respect back for myself. I had to fight them.
AMANPOUR: And you got to us at CNN.
NAMAZI: I got through you by -- I mean, as you know very well, this was -- I wish I could take credit for this. It was a brainchild of one of my
superheroes.
I have several, but he's definitely up there on the list, Jared Genser, my pro bono human rights lawyer here. I understood that hostage deals, if they
don't happen quickly, are likely to get derailed. And if they wanted to, by now, it would have finished.
It sent me a message. The message was that I didn't think President Biden is committed to making the deal. That was my assessment. So I called Jared.
I told him that I think -- I don't think there's that commitment. I had done a hunger strike already. I basically got no love back.
And so I said, I need to be heard. I need President Biden to hear my voice.
And Jared, a couple of years before that had suggested, maybe I do an interview from prison. I thought we're talking about something much
smaller. I told him I need to kick under the table, so that if this deal doesn't happen, I need to know that I have done everything in my power,
everything I could have done.
If I'm here two years from now past my 10 years, I don't look back and think, maybe there was something.
[13:25:05]
And he said, OK, give me 24 hours and call me back.
And he said: "OK, give me 24 hours and call me back."
And then, to my horror, he had escalated my idea to something which was to talk to you. And I started hyperventilating, I think. He said: "Take a deep
breath. I heard you. You're right. But if you want to kick under the table, if you want to be heard the way you want to be heard, it's only through
talking to -- on CNN to Amanpour."
It was a difficult decision, but, as I said, risks are -- when you say chutzpah, how would I have the guts not to do it at that point? What -- I
looked at what happens. Two scenarios. And I'd learned to look at two worst-case scenarios. I do this interview, I don't get freed, and these
guys come and essentially give me another beating -- that had happened -- and throw me back in solitary for a few months.
I knew I could live that. Scenario two, I don't do this, there is no deal, and I'm wondering in three years, what if I'd done this interview and I'd
be out? That's how I made the decision to do the interview.
My family made the mistake that most of the families do. When a hostage is first taken, a lot of people come around, tell them, be quiet. Do not pull
this into a Gordian knot. Let's sort this quietly. The State Department will tell you that, as would any other Foreign Ministry, whether you're
Australian or Swedish or whoever, as would the analysts around it.
It is a mistake. It -- I can't emphasize that enough. If you are taken as a hostage, you need to make noise. It is politically costly for a president
to make the decision to bring you out. It is a terrible political decision to make unless they have a superstar hostage, where they gain something,
because there's political value.
AMANPOUR: You took one more really brave and principled decision when you were then being freed, finally, because you were heard, and you told the
Revolutionary Guards that you have red lines.
If they start playing around and demanding you do something extra for your freedom or say something for your freedom, you weren't going to do it.
NAMAZI: Christiane, we were -- when the deal finally happened -- and, again, I can't express enough gratitude that that decision was made and
everyone involved to do it -- I knew that I'd seen hostages who went to the brink of freedom all the way to the plane and came back.
There is no -- no hostage deal is complete until you leave the airspace of that country. It is just not done. So I started telling them, no, I'm the
loose cannon here. And I started making demands. And I told them that, if you want, if you want to blow up this deal, do what -- to me what you did
to Nazanin Zaghari and ask for a sign confession by the plane.
I won't do it. I won't get on. I'm teaching you, if you want to blow up this deal, do that. I would tell them, I'm on the brink, don't push me. I
only have two years left of my sentence. Maybe in the last minute, I will decide, you know what, I don't want to be sold.
I knew I didn't have another way out, but I also knew that these guys -- I felt that they should feel not to push me. It's a bad idea.
AMANPOUR: And they didn't. They didn't make you a sign of confession.
NAMAZI: They did not.
AMANPOUR: And, finally, about two weeks after you were finally on American soil and back home here, October 7 happened.
Hamas waged war on Israel. Israel then countered. We're still going through a massive war in the Middle East. Do you have any doubt in your mind that,
had this not been done before October 7, you would be sitting here today?
NAMAZI: I don't. But I think that this -- the interview that I did with you was a straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.
There are so many people, including in the Obama administration, including in the Trump administration and the Biden administration, and so many
wonderful, wonderful people who pushed for this over years and years and years for this to finally happen.
So -- but I look at it and I think, with your help, we managed to expedite the decision-making. As you correctly pointed out, if that deal that
brought me and the other hostages home was delayed by three weeks, I could not see any way for a U.S. president to agree to it.
So, I guess, thank you.
AMANPOUR: Thank God it happened when it happened.
Thank you for being with us.
NAMAZI: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[13:30:00]
AMANPOUR: And Siamak tells me that he endured not only the worst of humanity, but he encountered the best too, and that's also how he survived.
Now, among world leaders here at the U.N., one of America's closest allies, Ireland, has taken a different approach to ending the war in Gaza by
officially recognizing a Palestinian State and criticizing Israel's conduct of the war.
Ireland's Prime Minister, the Taoiseach, Simon Harris, is joining me live right now. Welcome to the program.
SIMON HARRIS, IRELAND PRIME MINISTER: Thank you so much.
AMANPOUR: Can I just ask you, because today the story is really bad about Israel and Hezbollah. We've already seen that more than 270 have been
killed in today alone, and more than a thousand injured. You have hundreds of peacekeepers in that very, very tense area along the border between
Israel and Lebanon. Is there anything that you're hearing that can de- escalate this, or is this now all-out war?
HARRIS: I think what we've seen today is an extraordinarily dangerous situation. We have seen, effectively, the opening of a potentially
catastrophic second front in terms of the war in the Middle East. We're also seeing civilians being targeted again. You know, we're not seeing a
targeted response to terrorism here, what we're actually seeing is amongst those dead so far, at least 21 children now confirmed dead as well, at
least a thousand people injured.
So, the pattern, unfortunately, of flouting international law and disregard for rules of engagement in terms of protecting civilians is yet again being
completely and utterly disregarded. It's a really, really dangerous situation.
I'm pleased to say that our peacekeepers are safe and are secure, but it's the civilians who don't have the ability to defend themselves, don't have
the ability to protect themselves that I'm really, really concerned of. We should be here at the United Nations this week talking about de-escalation,
and instead, we're going to be meeting at a U.N. General Assembly against the backdrop of escalation.
AMANPOUR: And do you think -- some have suggested, including American officials, that actually this General Assembly could inflame the situation
there, rather than de-escalate, depending on various, I guess, leaders' speeches?
HARRIS: Well, I certainly hope not. I think we have to remind ourselves of the very purpose of the United Nations. I mean, the United Nations was
founded to resolve conflicts peacefully and politically. And I do think the world now, and world leaders as we gather here, needs to ask ourselves
about the consistent application of the rule of law and of international law. And we cannot have a situation where international law must be applied
to some but can be disregarded by others.
Israel, of course, has a right to live in security and safety, of course Israel has a right to defend itself, of course Israel has a right to
address any terrorist attack that it experiences, but that is not what we're seeing now. What we're actually seeing is a blatant disregard for
international law, no consideration in terms of protection of civilians, and yet again, children finding themselves caught up in the midst of
conflict.
AMANPOUR: This is the Lebanon front that you're talking about. Now, let's talk about the Gaza front, which almost has fallen off the front pages now,
and people in Gaza are actually very worried about that.
HARRIS: Yes.
AMANPOUR: You, Ireland, took a very different approach months ago. You specifically recognized, along with Norway and Spain, a Palestinian State.
You had a huge amount of pushback from Israel. You have -- what? How would you describe it, cold relations? Do you have any influence anymore, let's
say around trying to get a ceasefire in Gaza or at least humanitarian intervention into Gaza?
HARRIS: So, I think it's really important that when you have a foreign policy that you're consistent in terms of its application. Ireland doesn't
define itself as pro or anti any one country. Ireland defines itself as pro-international law, pro-human rights and pro-peace, and that is the
approach we took.
You've got to remember in our history, we know what it's like to want the world to see you. We know what it's like to struggle for statehood. And
therefore, we felt it was very important at a time when others were trying to quash any glimmer of a two-state solution to actually say to the people
of Palestine, we see you, we see you, we hear you, we will not forget you.
And we can differentiate very clearly between Hamas, a brutal, horrific terrorist organization that offers no hope of a future to the people of
Palestine, and the people of Palestine who aspire for the basic things we all aspire for statehood, for freedom, for democracy. And we want to see
two states, Israel and Palestine, living peacefully side by side. That's why we did it.
We're not a military power. But we do have an ability, I believe, on the international stage to actually say, no, hang on a second, if you believe
in a two-state solution, the recognition of the existence of two states is an important place to start.
AMANPOUR: Before there -- before that obviously has to be an end to the war between Israel and Palestine. Is there any hint that you're getting
that this stalled ceasefire negotiations over Gaza with Hamas can in any way be unlocked? And will that kind of fall off the agenda as a whole new
front is being massively opened?
HARRIS: Being very honest, the world is not doing enough. We've got to be really truthful about this. I don't in any way doubt the bona fides, the
effort, the tireless work of many to help bring about a ceasefire, I really believe that. I know so many people are working so hard to bring about a
ceasefire. But we've got to be honest, you can try your best and it can still be ineffective.
[13:35:00]
The reality of the situation at the moment is, Netanyahu, for whatever reason, has calculated that he can continue in terms of the violence, in
terms of the brutality, in terms of the loss of civilian life. We as a world have to do something to change that calculation. And that's why I've
consistently said at an E.U. level, it involves the E.U. reviewing the association agreement between the E.U. and Israel, because that has human
rights clauses in it.
In my mind, human rights clauses aren't put in international agreements to pad them out or to read nicely. They have to mean something. So, I do think
as we gather here at the U.N., we do need to dig deep to say what levers are at the disposal of the world to change that calculation so that
Benjamin Netanyahu realizes, and Hamas, that a ceasefire must actually be brought about. And I don't think we've done enough in that space, being
very honest.
AMANPOUR: Ukraine. We ran into each other early September in Ukraine. You were on an official mission there. And I wonder what you've come back with?
Because now, the president of Ukraine is here. He will be unveiling his so- called victory plan to President Biden, Congress, other leaders. They're both presidential candidates.
One of the things he wants is for not just more weapons, but for restrictions on those weapons to be released. What do you think is going to
unfold from your visit there in Ukraine?
HARRIS: So, I'm very conscious of Ireland being militarily neutral, but not politically neutral. We know the difference between right and wrong,
and we stand fully behind Ukraine, and I wanted to be there to pledge more humanitarian assistance, more humanitarian aid, and also to see firsthand,
you know, you've got to actually see what's happening here, because I think the longer this goes on, I think the risk is the world begins to normalize
it.
I found a people that were resilient. I found a country that was managing to somewhat keep the show on the road despite the horrific bombardment. But
I also saw people who'd lost their homes in the bombings. I also saw children who had to flee temporarily occupied territories and the trauma of
that. I also saw energy and power plants that had been knocked out. So, from my perspective, I want us to continue in the here and now to see what
we can do on the humanitarian side.
More broadly, I think we've got to get back to a further peace summit. We have to get more people around the table. I do believe, not to link our
previous conversation, but the failure to consistently apply international law is making it harder to get some other players to the table, in terms of
the Global South, I think that is a real issue.
But I think now it is for President Zelenskyy to outline to the world how he believes we can next take the Peace Summit forward. And we need to grow
the number of people around that table. But the situation in Ukraine cannot be forgotten just because it's going on for a long time. It is a horrific,
brutal situation being experienced by people there.
AMANPOUR: And in our last, you know, few seconds here, you have, I think, an election that's going to be called in the spring. Yes? Immigration is a
big issue all over. You also have a far-right manifestation of the issues in Ireland. We saw what happened in the U.K. over a false idea about what
happened to a group of children. They thought it was an immigrant. It was not.
You can see what's going on all over the world with immigration. Is there a solution to this weaponization of refugees and immigrants?
HARRIS: Yes, there is, and it's for politicians of the center and leaders of the center to step up and involve themselves in the debate. I think the
biggest risk to the far-right is allowing a vacuum to be created, and that's why since I've become the Taoiseach of our country, I've been making
sure that we do listen to people, we listen to their concerns. Immigration is a good thing. My country has benefited from it, other countries have
benefited from our people going abroad. Immigration is a good thing.
But also, you've got to show the people that there are rules, that they're applied fairly, and I think you've also got to cooperate and collaborate at
a European level in the case of Ireland.
AMANPOUR: Taoiseach Simon Harris, thank you so much indeed for being with us.
And, next, in his new book, "On Freedom," historian Timothy Snyder explores what it is, how it's been misunderstood, and why it's our only chance for
survival. He now joins Walter Isaacson.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And, Timothy Snyder, welcome back to the show.
TIMOTHY SNYDER, AUTHOR, "ON FREEDOM": I'm very glad I can talk to you.
ISAACSON: Your new book, "On Freedom," is sort of a follow to your 2017 bestseller "On Tyranny." And back in the book, "On Tyranny," you talked
about America's turn to authoritarianism and the need we have to defend our institutions. Tell me how has that evolved since you first wrote that?
SNYDER: Well, on the national level, obviously, there's been an attempted coup d'etat, an attempted changing regime in the United States, which is
something that I predicted in "On Tyranny." The point about institutions, of course, is that we can admire them, but if we admire them from afar,
they're going to fail us. They're only as good as we are.
From my point of view, in those years, since I wrote "On Tyranny," I've had to answer the question of, if we're defending something, which is what "On
Tyranny" is about, what exactly is that? What would a good United States look like? And what does freedom mean? And so, that's what moved me
personally onto the next book.
[13:40:00]
ISAACSON: And when you talk about "On Freedom," you go back yourself to, I think, 1976 Bicentennial. I loved reading about you ringing of the bells.
But since then, you start thinking about what does that word freedom mean? And based on your career, your understandings, and your misunderstandings,
how have you come to a sense of what we should really mean when we say freedom?
SNYDER: Thanks for that question and thanks for the word misunderstanding, because I worry both, like in the genre of memoir and in the study of
freedom, we start from the position that, hey, the author is right about everything. I'm right about everything. Whereas, I think freedom involves
recognizing that you're wrong. I think a person who can't recognize that he is wrong can't be a free person because he's inside somebody else's story.
So, what I'm trying to show with that image is how I believe that the time, when I was a kid, that the bell I was ringing on that farm, which is part
of where I grew up, was connected to other bells, the Liberty Bell, that bicentennial thought made me think of 1776.
But what I didn't know at the time was how to ask what it meant to be free, and I didn't know other people in the U.S. who'd had other kinds of
experiences. So, the book is a kind of attempt to consider the U.S. story, not because it's all wrong, but because if we take history seriously, we
learn where we can do things better.
My sense of freedom is that it has to be positive. It can't be about worshiping the past. It can't be about believing somebody else to take care
of freedom for you. It has to be about combining the things that you believe are good. And what happens is that, as individuals, we realize to
do that, we need help from others.
And so, freedom is an individual thing. I believe it's the value of values, but we can only get there if we together create the condition so that we
can grow up to be free people, like I was lucky enough to do.
ISAACSON: You talk about freedom has to be positive. And in your book, you make this distinction between positive and negative freedom. Explain that
to us.
SNYDER: So, negative freedom, I think, is something which is pretty close to American common sense. Negative freedom is the idea that we're free if
we just push everything away. If the government is pushed away, if oppression is pushed away, if government is small, if we eliminate
government. And I think that is at best half the story or just the beginning of the answer.
And this was brought home to me actually in parts of Ukraine that were de- occupied, where it was clear that, sure, removing the torture facilities was really important, stopping the deportation of children was really
important, but it was only the beginning of something else.
People who arrived at concentration camps after the second war had a similar experience. People said liberated, but then once they contemplated
the concentration camps, they realized, wait a minute, these people aren't free just because the Germans are gone. They need health care. They need
medical attention.
And those extreme cases bring us back to a basic reality. We need other things besides the absence of government to be free. We need cooperation so
that our kids can have education, so that we're not afraid when we need medical attention, so that we can look forward to old age and retirement
pensions. These basic things that create security around us actually make us more free because they make us less anxious, less fearful, and more
capable of thinking about what we individually think is good and more capable of realizing in the world. And that's the positive vision, that
freedom is about believing things are good, combining those good things in our own way and leading a life of moral character.
ISAACSON: I think one of the positive versions of freedom you mentioned in the book that's core to what America is about is social mobility and the
ability to get into the middle class.
SNYDER: Yes.
ISAACSON: Tell me how that has eroded a bit and endangered this concept of freedom.
SNYDER: The guts of the book are the five forms of freedom, the five chapters. It's an introduction where I define freedom, conclusion where I
make proposals for government. What links them are these five ideas, which I call forms of freedom, and mobility is right in the middle.
Because of course, if we're going to be free, we have to have -- we have to be able to rebel. But the ironic thing is, we need institutions in order to
rebel against institutions. If you want to leave Ohio, like I did, somebody has to build the road. If you want to get an education, somebody has to
fund the university.
In order for us to rebel, in order for us to do new things, to go places, both literally and metaphorically, other people have to do the work for us.
So, the American Dream was possible in a certain way in the 20th century, thanks to a combination of the market and the welfare state since 1945,
social mobility has slowed down, and this has meant that both in reality and in people's minds access middle class has become much, much harder.
So, part of being free or part of creating a land of the free is creating the conditions, whatever that might mean from the ground up, so that young
people can move, so that they can be free, so that they can rebel, so they can realize their own ideas that are different than ours or against ours.
[13:45:00]
ISAACSON: In both "On Tyranny "and now, in "On Freedom" you talk about the populist backlash, the authoritarian sort of sentiments, the ability to
tolerate authoritarian type leaders. Is part of that because we failed in the sense of giving people these positive freedoms like social mobility
into the middle class. Is this an understandable backlash?
SNYDER: I think part of it is that part of the failure is that we pushed freedom away from ourselves. Freedom always has to be about an individual
pushing against the world on the basis of things that individual really believes in. And for the last 30, 35 years, there's been too much talk, at
least in the U.S., about how freedom is brought inevitably by capitalism, which it isn't, or inevitably by the founding fathers, which it isn't.
One has to take hold of the economy or take hold of history. One has to take hold of things to be free. And when we preach that, we're better or
the capitalism will save us. We're actually making ourselves unfree because we're habituating ourselves to the idea that somebody or something from
outside is going to save us. So, I think that's part of it.
But then the other part of it is, I completely agree. If we talk about freedom, but make it impossible, we're creating this condition which is
psychologically very demanding. If we say this is the land of the free, there's an American dream, and then, we don't make that American dream
accessible, then people are going to look for easy answers. They're going to look for people to blame. So, the connection you're making, I think, is
absolutely valid.
ISAACSON: You set up the book by talking about a trip you take -- you took to Ukraine. And what you learned about the word freedom just by being in
Ukraine?
SNYDER: So, I wrote this book and then I tested it. I took it into prison and taught it there as a test, and I took it to Ukraine three times and
talked about it with colleagues and revised it as I moved around Ukraine. And that was really, really helpful, partly because, as you know very well,
Ukrainians are the people right now who talk about freedom the most. And so, I wanted to listen.
And in what they were saying, there were a couple of important lessons. One was that freedom is about the future, which is really, really important.
Very often the authoritarians, who you mentioned earlier, or the people you call a populist, are trying to bring us into some kind of nostalgic past.
But you can't go back to the past. You can go to various kinds of futures, but they're only there if you can imagine them and if you can realize them.
And the way the Ukrainians talk about freedom is not negative. It's not, we just have to get the Russians out, it's something like, the Russians got in
the way of these futures, which we really believed we had. And the second thing, as I mentioned before, was the positive negative distinction that
when you're in the rubble, you realize, well, it's good that the Russians are gone, but someone's going to have to clear this rubble, someone's going
to have to restore this sidewalk, someone's got to rebuild this road, someone's got to restore the bus line.
And then, the third thing is character, right? So, if freedom is just negative, it's just the absence of barriers. That means it means doing
whatever I feel like at a given moment. But is that really freedom? I mean, what I think is that freedom is about having positive values and asserting
them and realizing them and trying to live consistently with them. And as you do that over time, you become a personality or you build something like
character.
And when that happens, there are moments that you can only do one thing precisely because you are free. And it was Zelenskyy staying in Kyiv and
millions of other Ukrainians staying at a time when we thought that they would flee, or maybe we would have fled, that got me thinking about that,
that an unfree person can always try to run, but sometimes a free person has to be the right thing precisely because he or she is a free person.
ISAACSON: One of the less free places I can think of is a maximum-security prison. And you taught your seminar on freedom in a prison like that. Tell
me what you learned from them about the concept of freedom.
SNYDER: Well, I'm going to just say about something really simple first, which is that we have a -- there are a lot of talented people in our
prisons and these were some pretty smart students and they really did the work. And I took the book manuscript to prison to test my own American
experience. Because in many -- my American experience has been -- I mean, there's been some bumps along the way, but it's been a good one and it's
one that you could generally make line up with the story of an American dream.
But that's not the only story. There are other people's stories. There are African American stories. And most of the men I was teaching were African
Americans. And those stories must do and must involve the history of slavery, the history of Jim Crow, the history of voter suppression, and
now, the history of mass incarceration.
And so, since I was basing my book around my own life, my own experiences, I needed to get a sense of their experiences and how they were different. I
needed to know -- I needed to have more of an intuitive personal sense of other American stories because you can't base a story about freedom on your
own life if you can't listen to other people, if you don't have a sense of their experiences, their bodily experiences, their human experiences.
The other thing about these guys was that they were very deep readers of philosophy. And this is basically a philosophy book. And we were -- what we
were doing was we were reading philosophers together, and they helped me see how I could use the philosophers that I liked and apply them to America
and to questions of race. I did that much better thanks to them.
[13:50:00]
ISAACSON: Kamala Harris has really grabbed onto this banner of freedom, just as you were coming out with the book. And in her first advertisement,
I'll read something she says, we choose freedom. The freedom not just to get by, but to get ahead. The freedom to be safe from gun violence. Freedom
to make decisions about your own body, a future when no child lives in poverty, and we can all afford health care, and no one's above the law.
How does that definition of freedom and the grabbing of the banner of freedom by Kamala Harris, how do you assess that?
SNYDER: Philosophically, I think the vice president is correct in that freedom, I think, comes before democracy. If you believe in democracy, you
have to believe in a people that can rule. And a people that can rule has to be a free people, which raises the question of how do you create a free
people? It takes work. It takes institutions. It takes cooperation. It takes -- as she says, you have to choose freedom, but on the other hand,
you actually have to -- you also have to build the institutions, which allowed children to grow up free.
So, I mean, I'm watching this from afar, right? Like, it's -- from my point of view, it's a coincidence. But it is interesting to watch her move from a
language trying -- first, she's trying to take the language of negative freedom from the Republicans. She's talking about -- she's saying, we're
the party that's going to keep government off your back. But then there's a kind of glide towards positive freedom, as she and others in the campaign
starts talking about freedom not just from government oppression, but the freedom to do things, which I think is the right move, philosophically
anyway, and hopefully, politically as well.
Because as we were saying, like, freedom from is important, but only because it's necessary for freedom too. We want to have a country where we
can all grow up to be diverse, beautiful, different, flourishing individuals, that's what positive freedom is about. But to do that, we
can't -- we have to decide to create institutions together that make it possible.
ISAACSON: One of the things I enjoyed about the book were the tales of your childhood in Ohio. I didn't quite realize you grew up in such a sort
of idyllic in ways childhood there. What are you thinking when you see what's happening to the Haitian immigrants in Springfield and the type of
rhetoric now being used?
SNYDER: Man, that just -- it makes me -- it just makes me so upset, right? Springfield has about 20 miles from where I grew up. And, you know, the
idea that like people who are just trying to live their normal lives. People who are just trying to live their normal lives have to be pulled
into this spectacle of hatred. I think it's infuriating, right?
Like this whole rhetoric of us and them, it makes freedom impossible. Like freedom has to be about we're all individuals, we're going to kind of
create some conditions together, whether we agree with each other's ideas or not, we're going to create some conditions together, call them rights,
call it a welfare state, a reasonable way that we can all live decent, dignified lives.
As soon as it goes to us and them, we don't like the Haitians, we're going to make up stories about them. As soon as it does that, and people's minds
change, we flip over to fear and anxiety, and who we are suddenly depends upon who somebody else is not. And that's just completely inconsistent with
freedom.
So, it upsets me, right? Because Springfield is a normal place where like the Haitian immigrants are making a significant contribution to normal
life, like they do in other medium sized cities and towns in Ohio, by the way, it's completely normal. And they're not being allowed to live this
normal life because of this us and them stuff. This us and them stuff which leads to threats of violence and disruption, it brings this unreality into
their lives. It really upsets me.
ISAACSON: I found "On Tyranny" to be a very cautionary book. And now, this book, "On Freedom," is actually seems a pretty hopeful book. It's forward-
looking. Tell me what is it about this book that you feel is optimistic and hopeful about what we should be rather than what we should just guard
against?
SNYDER: I'm glad you think so because that was certainly the intention. And it goes back to your first -- very first question. I mean if there's
something to defend, what is it, right? It's not just enough to be against tyranny. What is freedom? It's not just enough to be against bad
government. What is good government? And how can we link freedom to good government?
And the reason I'm optimistic is that I think we can. I think that we do have the right word at the center of our national conversation, that word
is freedom. I think it's possible, and this is the intellectual work I try to do in the book, I think it's possible to get freedom right. I think if
we think it through, we come to an idea, which is positive in the sense that we're talking about.
And then, we think about positive freedom, not negative freedom, not just pushing things away, but positive freedom. It gives us prescriptions for
good policy, which we don't have to think about in terms of being, you know, it's controversial in any way because they -- it's government helping
freedom, right?
The thing that justifies government, in my view, is freedom itself. Freedom itself is the thing that justifies government.
[13:55:00]
So, I think if we can come to that conclusion, you can bring together conservative folks and left-wing folks and people with various kinds of
ideas, people who think that the world is about values and are more conservative. Yes, you're right, people who think that the world is more
about institutions, about creating conditions for people. Yes, you're right. And the reason that everyone is right is because of freedom itself.
So, I'm hopeful because I think the right ideas can lead to the right kind of politics. And I'm also hopeful because, although, the history of these -
- of our kind of institution is beset with tragedy and failure, there are also moments where things unexpectedly go better than we think.
And also, because, you know, when I'm insisting on thinking about the future here, we have a problem in our politics, which is we're having
trouble thinking about futures, I think that in the range of futures that we have as a country, there are more good ones than we realize. We're
caught up in the bad ones and it's completely understandable, but there are also many, many good things down the road which we don't yet see and which
we could get to.
ISAACSON: Timothy Snyder, thank you for joining us.
SNYDER: I really appreciate the conversation. Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And that's where we end tonight. Thank you for watching. Goodbye from New York and the United Nations.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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