speech [The danger of forming groups and creating dissension; the need to bring up future generations in a revolutionary manner]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Essential to every revolution, which is perhaps inevitable, is that after the people have gained victory, these personal problems come up. Personal and factional issues are not important to nation- whatever the nation- which is in the throes of a revolution. All the people are together in the pursuit of their goal, just as you saw in the Iranian Revolution when all the strata of the people had put aside their trivial, personal and factional matters and were headed toward the same goal. Even the groups that did not agree with the movement kept silent. They would not mention their opposition to it as they saw that they could not make their presence felt vis-a-vis the nation. But after victory was gained to this very extent and the people realized that they had driven the antagonist out and, that too, such a powerful and deeply-rooted antagonist as the 2,500- year old regime- and after they felt that they had triumphed, it was as if a population of 35 million had been released from jail. They suddenly came out from the repression, the pressure and the plunder they had experienced, and turned their attention to their own demands, something that is integral to a revolution and which also happened in Iran. There was absolutely no talk of housing, or who has a house and who does not, during the revolution. Even those slum-dwellers did not mention it as they showed when one of them said in an interview that every morning all of them would go together to take part in the demonstrations. There was no talk at all about having a house or not having one; or about somebody needing something, or whether one's salary was low or high. Such things, in themselves, are not important while a revolution is in progress, and as you saw, such was also the case in Iran.

But, unfortunately, before we could attain final victory, this partial victory caused the people and groups to think about their personal problems.

Their attention turned away from the disorder left behind by the previous regime and from all the difficulties for the people that were its legacy, and became focused in one direction which made them abandon their unity of expression and that particular consideration they had.

The other aspect, which is perhaps peculiar to our revolution, is that the groups that were not well disposed to Islam and the Islamic Republic, or were opposed to them in accordance with their deviant doctrine, or were afraid of Islam and had false notions about it, began to make their presence felt. There are very many of them, one hundred more or less, as reported in the newspapers. There are many of them that, under various names, have arisen in Iran up to now. It seems that besides some of these groups, that have emerged and are against Islam and some even afraid of it- though their doctrine is not antagonistic to it, but they are, nonetheless, afraid of it and without any reason- there are certain hidden hands at work that are setting up the various groups- and are also creating differences- the factors of which are present now in Iran. One of these is that after experiencing victory, they revert to the matter of wanting to enjoy the fruits of victory, thinking that everything will be put right as soon as victory is gained. Can a country, in which everything has been destroyed, be put right all at once?! This was one factor.

Another factor is the groupings that have been formed, and the hands that are at work. Those who want to profit from our country and are afraid that there would be no place for them if Islam were to take effect and a proper Islamic republic set up, have started creating such groups in order to sow discord. Diverse groups, whether the remnants and the scum of the former regime, or the big powers that covet Iran and do not leave it alone even now or whether these groups- each one of which has been formed for its own particular purpose or out of fear of or opposition to Islam- have all been the cause of the differences prevailing in the country. Various groups are also engaged, as they themselves say, in political activity, while there are others that are busy in carrying out sabotage. Because of this, such a problem inevitably follows every revolution. And these differences have cropped up in Iran, where a revolution took place, because of these different reasons and, perhaps, certain other ones.

Now that we are at this juncture in history where we are at the crossroads, one leading to final victory and the other, God forbid, to defeat and a return to the former situation, it is incumbent upon all of us, whether you the esteemed ladies or whether the rest of the nation- all the women, the brothers, the sisters, and all- to safeguard the movement at present as well, just as you had done with your unity of expression and unity of purpose when everybody's goal was Islam and all the people clamored together for Islam. Safeguard your congregations; fill the mosques with them. The people should congregate in the places where people should congregate in the places where people gather and in the public places and the issues kept in mind; the issues that constitute their purpose and those that call for Islamic commands to be put into effect in Iran. By having these gatherings and by keeping the movement going in this manner, they should keep it alive until the subsequent stages are gone through: This interim government must be changed to an established one; an independent one; the consultative assembly must be formed and the president made known so that the set-ups of the factions and of those that are against the Islamic government are done away with. And, God willing, you yourselves should manage your country on your own without any repression and, safeguarding its independence, make progress. These are certain things that we will need in future, of course. We should not be content with just having an Islamic republic. It should be set right in all respects, God willing.

We should not be content with having had an Islamic republic realized in our own time. We now have to think of future times. That is, just as we have aims for which we carried out this movement, the following generations will also have the same aims. They will also need to have congregations and perspicacity so that they are able to retain this thing that you have achieved. And that concerns training and education, the path of which should be the same as that of this movement and should follow the same principles that you have established.

The training and education that you and all the Muslim women impart is a matter of great pleasure. Training (the child) begins in the mother's lap. The child retains its childhood training- the training it received when small- until the very end unless some strong factors reverse the process. This (training) takes place if the mother's lap, in which the child's training begins, is the lap that trains (properly). That is, apart from bringing up the child, the training given to it must be humane and Islamic from the outset and should be made to make the family environment a good one as the child's real training begins in the family environment, the mother's lap and the home environment. And a child that turns out to be good in the home environment and the mother's lap which is the highest seat of training, will always be so. For this reason, the family environment is one of the most important for training children. The mother's lap is also one of the greatest places of training them. The child is able to accept things in the mother's lap, and from the mother, more than from anyone else: more than it accepts from the teacher, the friends that it will find later on, or from society. The child or the baby does not have so much attachment to anybody as it has for its mother. The mother's words are accepted by it and get imprinted in its mind. And from here onward if some thing, some matter, is taught to it in childish way and it is trained, such teaching and training must be done with the purpose of bring up the child properly. The child should not be left to grow up like a weed. Children grow up to be good if their mothers provide the foundation for their proper upbringing. They should so bring about a family environment that the child is automatically brought up properly in such an environment. That is the family environment ought to be one of kindness; one that is Islamic. When the child sees that its parents are following Islamic principles in the things they do, that they are good-nurtured, and are compatible and behave good-naturedly with one another, they grow up properly. On the contrary, if they see that there are fights and quarrels, and the house turns into a battlefield because of the daily quarrels between husband and wife, and that differences arise everyday, or God forbid, the environment is sinful, is the instrument of sin and has the aspects of sin, they will naturally grow up like this. Therefore, the well-being of children begins from the mother's lap.

The prosperity of a country increases when it has good children. It may happen that a good child can make a country nice, and a good human being is able to deliver a country, just as a bad one can take it to destruction. These are issues that are of great importance to mothers. After this comes the matter of training given in schools. Because of the presence of unclean hands, our schools were not able to allow the children to develop. The environment had become such as to cause our children to be brought up badly. There was no training and teaching in the way it ought to have been. The teaching was not right. In this respect, one of the important things is that our educational system, from primary school to university, ought to be educative. It should be such as to bring up an independent human being- one who is not affiliated to others and to the foreigners ought to be brought up; and one that is independent, self-confident and self-reliant; one who has faith in moral and Islamic principles. If these things are fulfilled, we can, in future, say that we have triumphed, God willing, and that our country will be independent to the end; a country that is no longer under the pressure of others and is our own and that we, ourselves, should manage.

The ladies who have come here have a great part and a great share in these matters. They have a share and a part in this movement. In fact, it should be said that they are the vanguard, and that the men have received their inspiration from them in this movement. I hope that God will assist all of you. May you be successful, may you be prosperous and manage your country yourselves, God willing, and train your children well.