In 2000, Ricardo Karam (see site) gathered
the best of his T.V. interviews conducted during the last decade in a book entitled
"Rencontres Privilégiées" ( Privileged Encounters). This book was launched in
Beirut, Geneva and Paris, here is the one on H.I.M. Farah Pahlavi:
Farah DIBA
| The are places where one endlessly returns to. -
If there are personalities who mark history or sometimes even write it, there are also for
them times of tragedies, of magic, of fate which affect them forever. Fairy tales do
exist and they live with us for life. This evening, we will narrate one of them. Farah Diba, the only daughter of colonel Sohrab and Farideh Ghotbi, did
not know, at the time of her stay in Paris, that she was predestined to become the Empress
of Iran. According to his own words, the Shah of Iran specified: " I got married not
only for dynastic reasons, but for human reasons ". True I have had an exceptional life, replete with glory and tragedies, a life filled with love, happiness, popularity, and the affection of my compatriots. I had the chance to arrive at a time of Iran's when I could carry out these dreams, and see them accomplished. I had an opportunity to know and see my country fully, to meet my compatriots, and also to travel all over the world and meet many extraordinary people who brought me much. I have had all that one can wish for in life. Unfortunately, I have also known much pain, trials, treason, treachery, cowardice, pettiness and meanness. It is up to me to draw from this mixture of the two aspects of my life, a rich and positive human experiment, and to have a philosophical glance at life and history, to take distances with myself and to see myself in a historical context. I think that the assessment is positive, because I perceive that the seeds that I planted with the help of many of my compatriots, men and women, germinated. There were trees which gave fruits, and still remain. There were perhaps cut branches and certain uprooted trees but I think that they will grow back. I say a positive assessment, because thanks to God, I still receive, twenty years afterwards the affection and sympathy of many of my compatriots whom I meet throughout my voyages in the world, and on the part of many ordinary people who come upon me in the street and are of different nationalities. You are always united to the Shah, you bear his name, the weight of the past and your inheritance. You are the mother of his children, the carrier of his dreams and ambitions. How do you perpetuate this union? to be continued.... |
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