Speech [The enemy striking a blow against the two poles: the clergy and the university; the danger posed by the West and West-worship]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

The university in every country ... has the role of molding human character; its mission is to build man. It is possible for a person to emerge from a university who can save a country. It is also possible for one to emerge who will take the country to ruination. The university has this important role. The destiny of every country lies with the university and those who graduate from it. Hence, the university is the most influential institution in the country and has the greatest responsibility. The reason why the alien powers kept our universities backwards by means of their lackeys, and made them" colonial" so to speak- the curricula were all colonial- was that they feared the university because of this very fact of it having a role to play. This is also true in the case of the clergy which also has a role. There may be a clergyman that can save a country, and there may be one who can ruin it. These two poles consisting of the university in every sense of the world- all the universities- and the clergy hold the destiny of the nation in their hands. Therefore, their task is more important and more honorable than all the other tasks because it is that very same mission of the prophets. All the prophets came for the purpose of building a man. Everything turns out right by producing the right people. The task of these two points which concerns the building of man- with the university being responsible for turning out properly-trained and righteous people, and so is the clergy- is among the noblest of tasks as it is the same as that of the prophets. Their responsibility is also greater than all other responsibilities because everything is developed here (the two poles). The entire attention of the foreigners had been riveted to these two poles. However, they crushed these places in similar way.

When Rida Khan came- none of you remember but I do- he came, at the outset, as a Muslim and, for example, as a nationalist and such things. When his government became firmly entrenched after sometime, he at first, assisted the clergy and crushed them from every quarter. Things were such that when I used to hold a class in the Faydiyyah Madrasah, I, one day, saw that only one person had turned up! When I asked him the reason, he replied that all the students had fled! They would run away from their rooms and from the Madrasah before sunrise and would return at night. They had to do this as the police would come to arrest them and take them away. They would defrock them or got an undertaking from them or imprison them. They would put the clergy throughout the country in difficulties and subject them to pressure.

As regards the university, since they thought that they could not close down the universities because of the global repercussions, they allowed these to remain open. But these were not universities that could be of use to the nation and solve the people's problems. They adapted the university to turning out people who would be of use to themselves. By means of their extensive propaganda about the West and its advancement, they tried to bring up our youth in that university in a Western way. In that same university, it so happened from the propaganda of some of the professors allied to them (West) that our youth became useful only to the West and not to our country. They brainwashed our youth and made them West-minded instead of Iranian. This made our children and our youth believe- and perhaps, it is the same even now- that everything of ours should be from the West. The propaganda was such that the situation is the same even at present.

Though we have our own doctors, when someone falls ill they say that he has to be taken to Europe! The reason for this is that we have lost our self-confidence; we do not have the freedom of thought anymore. All our attention is focused on the West. Even now that we want an Islamic republic- God willing, it will be set up- and want to go our own way different from that of the West; now that we want to be independent in every aspect, there is still a Westernized group that does not want this republic to be Islamic. They want it to be just a" Republic", a democratic republic. This is because of the mistake of these people who are traitors and are not with the nation. This was because it had been taught to them, and instilled so much into them, in these schools that wherever they went, there was the talk of the West; of the freedom in the West; of human rights, human rights groups and supporters of human rights in the West. Those among them who are not traitors are not bad people, but they have come to believe all this. Because they have heard so much of this, they believe it, notwithstanding the progress of the West being of a materialistic nature.

The West is making the world warlike and savage. Western training dehumanizes people and turns them into savage murderers. Now that you can assume that there is some peace in the world and no big wars, you can find people being killed in various countries because of American and Soviet interference. People are now being killed in Afghanistan because of Soviet interference. It is the same in many places. There is killing going in Lebanon because of American interference. The West brings up people as animals. And, that too, not a tame animal, but a savage one! A killer! A cannibal! The progress of the West is not human in nature; it is animal. Western training is not humane; it is savage. I am referring to the governments, not the people. The governments and the training they import are not human. The West has progressed in that it has brought animals! It has developed deadly weapons. Just last night or the night before, it was mentioned in the newspaper that they have developed a bomb five times more powerful than the one they dropped on Japan in that war. «1» Five times more deadly. This is what the West does! Make something to kill people. And for them it is an honor to have developed a bomb fivefold deadlier than the single bomb that killed 200,000 people in one city. They call this" progress"! We have come to believe that everything is in the West. No; what there is in the West is to bring up people as rapacious animals. They are turning out fierce animals. The weapons that they are developing are the claws and fangs of the fierce animals, but only hundreds of thousands times deadlier.

The West does not mold man. What do build people are the schools of divinity. It was the school of monotheism by which the prophets made all efforts to build people. If a country has the proper people, it will have freedom that is not harmful to others; intellectual freedom, spiritual freedom and human freedom. The prophets wanted to train proper human beings. The Qur'an is a book that molds man. Its aim is to build people. If the people are properly brought up, their country will have tranquility. If the people are brought up by monotheistic humane-Islamic teachings, they will then be brought up in such a way as to be- in the words of the Qur'an- kind unto one another and friends unto one another. They will be like this. It would be hard for anybody to attack or oppress them. «2» The university- whether the clergy's or yours- is in a country that entrusted with the task of training people, should be responsible for molding them so that when these youth leave the university, they will do so as( proper )human beings; not Westernized ones but Islamic. Being Westernized is related to these points.

The West wants an unbridled kind of freedom: anybody can do whatever he wants to do. Such freedom is against ethics and human customs; not a regulated kind of freedom based on rules and regulations. They want such a kind of (unbridled) freedom. The democratic republic that these gentlemen want is of the kind obtaining in the West. Did our country give so many victims as to now become a Western-type of country?! Our people have offered sacrifices for the sake of Islam. They have undergone much hardship for Islam. They struggled for ten, fifteen years for an Islamic country to be realized; for Islamic laws to take effect. We do not want Western laws, or Western training. We want humane training so that all the people be friendly with one another; not that I fear you or you fear me. The atmosphere should be one of compassion and not of dread and fear. This service to humanity and to Islam is our responsibility. We are responsible from the clerical side and you from that of your university.

The responsibility of the Police Academy is more than the other responsibilities, because their job is more critical. If those who graduate from the Police Academy, do so as human beings, as people who are kind to others, they will be able to reform a country, people come out who impose themselves on others and harass them; if their training has been such as to make them intimidate and terrorize the people, it would lead to sedition. In such an event, they would also become seditious. Therefore, this profession is among the noblest of professions and the responsibility it carries, among the gravest. We of the clergy and you of the university, who have these professions, are responsible for these youth. We are responsible to God, theBlessed and Exalted, to bring them up properly so that they are of use to the country, of service to Islam, trustworthy and loyal to their country. All this is (possible) under the banner of monotheism and Islam. Give your children an Islamic upbringing, and become Islamic, all of you. May God protect you and make you prosperous. May He make you useful for your country.