Speech [The grave duty of the media, the cinema and the theater]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

The country's magazines, newspapers and the other media can serve their country by changing their contents. During the previous regime, the condition of these publications, with respect to their topics, pictures and such features, was not sound. If you wish to serve your country and Islam, you must not publish those things that lead people astray. Do not think that the lewd, vulgar pictures and the corrupting articles used to be published just like that. This was also a way that had been thought out to corrupt our youth.

They, through various ways, wanted to change our youth from what they essentially were to something else. One way was by means of drugs; well, this was also one of the ways. Drugs are commonly used even now. Another way was by means of the centers of corruption- to which they pulled our youth. The youths could not be used in the way that a young man ought to be for Islam and his country. They brought them up just like that. Those who visit the centers of corruption cannot have proper thoughts or do good deeds. This is just what they (enemies) wanted: to lure our youth into activities by which they could rob them of their essence and instill something else into them instead. The important things they used for this purpose were the publications, the cinema, theater, radio, and such things. All of these were well-calculated plans to deprive the country of worthy people; the type who would be able to stand up to somebody who intended to betray and commit aggression against his country and Islam. These things that they have brought about and have been intensifying- more than anything else during this period close to our own time; during these fifty years and still more in recent times- was for the purpose of driving away our youth from the scene. Why? One of the long branches of this matter is drugs which you think is the work of smugglers who are nothing but dealers. The problem is a complex one! It is likely that this is also a part of their schemes; of the people who want to plunder you and do not want Iran to stand on its own feet. Every country stands on its own feet because of its youth. By means of one of their approaches (to the matter of our youth) they made them addicted to these narcotics, because (they knew) once a person becomes addicted to heroin, he cannot be called a human being any longer! He is just a creative who breathes; he can never become anything (useful), he cannot manage an organization, he cannot reflect on matters vital to the country; and similarly in case of the centers of prostitution that they had set up. Wherever you went, you would find such a center. These people who had become accustomed to this practice used to gather (in such places). They are young. When a youth becomes accustomed to (frequenting) these centers of prostitution, he becomes totally obsessed by it. He can no longer think about the state of his country; he is not able to think about who is running the country and how. He is not concerned with it. He only wants to see whether this center pleases him more, or that one! This is just what he is interested in. They dragged a large number of our youth to these places. And it was the same in the case of the cinemas of that time. I am not aware of their present condition. The cinemas of that time were also like this in that the people who had become addicted to them used to frequent them. They were no longer able to think; to sit down and think about their country's needs and about the people cheating them. Such thoughts never occurred to them; they never reflected on these matters. Whatever they had to say concerned that cinema screen and those films. They had so made the cinema- that ought to teach, train and correct the young people- as to drag the youth into corruption. If those wise ones who invented these things did it to control us according to their own reasoning, it was done for the purpose of taking our youth from us. But if they invented them for themselves, it is possible that they had the right motives for doing so.

But the press, cinema, television, radio, magazines- all of these- exist for the sake of serving the country. They must be of service (to the country). It is not that anybody starts publishing a magazine and post whatever he likes in it, and any picture that attracts more buyers; post provocative pictures, nauseating pictures in it so that the number of buyers increase! And it is called a" periodical"; and I should say, the person is a writer and also wants freedom (of the press)! It has to be seen what he is doing, what service he is doing for this country, what he is doing with his pen, whether he is destroying our children by means of his pen or training them. In the days of this father and his son, the print media were based on calculated plans; not haphazardly but calculated! They were in the service of the foreigners; they were serving the foreigners though they themselves did not realize it. But they had very calculatedly arranged that the magazine definitely contain faces of such-and-such type, to have things that generate crookedness so that when our children and youngsters become accustomed to them (watching films) they should, then, not think of anything else; they should be stopped from thinking about other things. It has, hitherto, been so. Should it, henceforth, be the same? If it is to be so, we will have obtained only the word" republic" from the" Islamic Republic"; the rest will be that same taghout, that same situation that existed.

If our youth, our writers, our preachers, and our thinkers have woken up, everything should now change in form. The magazines ought to serve the country. Serving the country lies in giving training: training the young; building human beings, worthy human beings and thinkers so that they would be useful to the country. A magazine should be such that when someone reads it and sees a picture in it, the picture should be one that rouses him to confront others (enemies). If it contains a topic, it should be a topic that prepares him to safeguard his independence, his freedom and his country. If the magazine is this kind of a magazine, it is then an Islamic magazine; an Islamic Republic magazine. If a magazine has the same features as before, and though toned down a bit, is still the same; it must not be called a magazine of the Islamic Republic if it is like that. It ought to be named a taghout magazine that is being published in a place which is said to be the Islamic Republic! And the same applies to all other things.

The nation of Iran, the Muslim people of Iran did not want the name to be changed with the content remaining the same as it was or worse than that. They wanted the country, in which everything had been destroyed and which had been devastated and ruined, to change; to return to what it was, the most important aspect of it being the people. A country is a country if its people, its inhabitants are upright.

If they are not upright, the country cannot be a good one. All these treacheries done to this country occurred because we did not have proper people. They would not have occurred if we had proper people. They made our country devoid of proper people. Mr. Bazargan «2» told me last night that no matter how much they search, they cannot find them (suitable people)! He is right. Efforts were made for fifty years to prevent proper people from emerging; efforts for fifty years, fifty-odd years! Such efforts were also made before, but most of them were in these fifty-odd years when this treacherous father and son were in this country, and all the powers made efforts and kept them in power. And they (father and son) with all the power they had emptied out this country! And the important part of it is that they deprived it of its manpower. They destroyed our youth, our youthful force under various pretexts; by means of misleading names and in various ways." We (the ex-regime) want `free men', `free women'!"" The whole country is now free!" "These farmers are farmers now; they are no longer peasants!" These poor farmers came into these slums, the slums around Tehran and the provinces because they had been stopped from farming. They also had nothing. And they became" farmers"! The poor people became slum-dwellers! Wherever you see, they have wrought destruction.

What is worse than all the acts of treachery at a certain time is to keep our workforce backward and not allow it to develop. The greatest service is to help our workforce develop. The onus of this lies on the newspapers, the magazines, radio-television, the cinema, and the theater. They can strengthen our workforce and train it properly, and their service could be valuable. It could also be like what was during the time of the past regime when everything was a mess; everything was in the service of the imperialists. They, themselves, were not aware of what they were doing. Many people did not know. They did not know that a picture of a naked woman (in a periodical) works up many a youth; destroys them. A magazine appearing weekly, for example, with ten such pictures in it deprives us of several youth. They were either not aware of this, or they belonged to them (the ex-regime); we do not know. You can save your country by changing yourselves. But if you remain as you were and just change the name, you will not be able to manage it. A country cannot be managed just because of its name. A country cannot become Islamic because of the name" Islamic Republic", or by voting for an Islamic republic. An Islamic country must be Islamic in essence. You who publish magazines could be of service. By means of your articles, your wholesome articles, you can turn our youth into stalwarts. You should aim to derive strength from the committed Islamic and humane writers. Write good articles; write about the problems and their solutions. Criticize everything. And you can (on the other hand) also publish those pictures and those topics, so that you lose the youth and destroy them.

May God favor all of you and all of us so that we may be of service.