{"id":11959,"date":"2012-12-19T13:14:12","date_gmt":"2012-12-19T18:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=11959"},"modified":"2012-12-19T18:33:17","modified_gmt":"2012-12-19T23:33:17","slug":"abc-news-christiane-amanpour-not-your-ordinary-christmases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/12\/abc-news-christiane-amanpour-not-your-ordinary-christmases","title":{"rendered":"ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour: Not your ordinary Christmases"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christmas has unique memories for international journalist Christiane Amanpour, the ABC News Global Affairs Anchor. As a small child, she remembers\u00a0wonderful times,\u00a0\u201cmy family with a Christmas tree and presents and a family gathering.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Christiane Amanpour in Egypt. Photo by Shawn Baldwin, ABC News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But her father was Muslim. Her mother was Catholic. They lived in Iran. Little Christiane grew up in a clash of worlds \u2013 yet it was quieter than today. \u201cWe had Christmas off from school, but,\u201d she notes, \u201cremember, Iran was not yet an Islamic republic.\u201d<\/p>\n

During her childhood, the\u00a0former Persian Empire was one of the most diverse, modern and secular Islamic nations of the Cold War era, led by an iron-fisted dictator whose family had been put in power by the CIA and was one of America\u2019s top allies \u2013 the controversial Shah of Iran.<\/p>\n

Amanpour \u2013 now a regular on the ABC nightly news as well as Chief International Correspondent for CNN and the nightly host of her own interview program on CNN International \u2013 remembers an Iran vastly different in the 1960s and 1970s from today\u2019s terror-exporting, nuke-developing Islamic republic whose president annually vows before the United Nations to destroy both Israel and the United States as he ushers in Armageddon and welcomes the return of the Hidden Imam \u2013 Shi\u2019ite Islam\u2019s child Messiah.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a Christmas tree, we decorated, we had Christmas celebration,\u201d she recalls.\u00a0Is observance of the holiday tolerated in today\u2019s rigid Iranian Islamic society? \u201cIt may not be open and allowed,\u201d she admits, \u201cbut in the privacy of your own home, you do what you will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did her very Christian-sounding first name cause problems as a child? After all, “Christiane” is not at all Iranian nor Islamic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really didn\u2019t,\u201d she says. \u201cMy mother is Catholic, my father Muslim and so I\u2019ve grown up with both faiths \u2013 and I happen to be married to a man who\u2019s Jewish. So, I have all three faiths running right through my immediate family. It taught me tolerance. It taught me that all three faiths can exist together because we have so much in common.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today as\u00a0Iranian-built rockets pound Israeli neighborhoods, as Israeli helicopter gunships\u00a0rain death and destruction on Gaza,\u00a0as civil war rages just miles away\u00a0in Syria and Iran’s leaders are blamed for Continued on page 2<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christmas has unique memories for international journalist Christiane Amanpour, the ABC News Global Affairs Anchor. As a small child, she remembers\u00a0wonderful times,\u00a0\u201cmy family with a Christmas tree and presents and a family gathering.\u201d But her father was Muslim. Her mother was Catholic. They lived in Iran. Little Christiane grew up in a clash of worlds…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[157,48,32,1691,100,601,4,984,1006,55,516,41,54,966,5],"tags":[1226,2206,2156,159,1228,2231,2252,2208,2228,2205],"class_list":["post-11959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-catholic","category-christian","category-christmas","category-commentary","category-egypt","category-faith","category-inspiration","category-iran","category-islam","category-israel","category-judaism","category-muslim","category-persecution","category-politics","tag-abc-news","tag-catholic","tag-christiane-amanpour","tag-christianity","tag-cnn","tag-egypt","tag-inspiration","tag-islam","tag-israel","tag-judaism"],"yoast_head":"\nABC News' Christiane Amanpour: Not your ordinary Christmases<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/12\/abc-news-christiane-amanpour-not-your-ordinary-christmases\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ABC News' Christiane Amanpour: Not your ordinary Christmases\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Christmas has unique memories for international journalist Christiane Amanpour, the ABC News Global Affairs Anchor. As a small child, she remembers\u00a0wonderful times,\u00a0\u201cmy family with a Christmas tree and presents and a family gathering.\u201d But her father was Muslim. Her mother was Catholic. They lived in Iran. 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