Speech [The imperialists' various ways of repression and misguidance]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

The plan was to either thwart the forces or to lead them astray. The plan was that wherever the possibility existed that a power would confront them they would either repress it or cause it to deviate. This was a plan with which Rida Khan came to power and continued with his atrocities; and Muhammad Rida arrived on the scene with this plan to complete the job and serve the foreigners. Rida Khan was instated at that time by the British, because at that time they were more powerful. They brought Rida Khan such that when the World War started, the British announced over Delhi Radio that they had brought Rida Khan to power and made him the king; but because he betrayed them they removed him. Then the Allied Forces brought Muhammad Rida to power according to his own confession that he wrote in a book- although they omitted it later- that the Allied Forces thought it to be in their interest that he should be in power; that their dynasty be in power! This was a plan. This was a plan designed by the foreigners and those who are experts at drawing plans in order to plunder this Muslim country and the countries of the East. They had a plan that wherever there is the possibility of resistance vis-a-vis the foreigners by resistance forces, they would either suppress these forces or cause them to deviate from their path. Thus, we saw- and you, most of whom do not remember, some of you remember- during the reign of Rida Khan they implemented the plan in such a way as to repress the clergy; they repressed them hard and prohibited gatherings for preaching, sermons and mourning in such a way that throughout Iran not a single gathering was open; if it was held, it was secret. In Qum I know of a religious meeting that was held secretly and would be over before morning or before dawn break and that too it seems was banned. It was such as they had judged that the clergy was a force to reckon with and these religious gatherings and sermons, eulogizing and mourning for the Doyen of the Martyrs (`a) is a force that can possibly be used at some moment and put a stop to those plunders. They had complete information of the status of the underground resources that these governments, these nations and these countries- of the East- possess; and Iran in particular was the focus of their attention. They had seen in the course of history that these same forces had resisted and this force they suppressed with the help of Rida Khan, the police and the security organizations of those days. But later on the plan changed; the plan was to use propaganda- in addition to the pressures they would bring- against those same forces that they assumed would at some time make its presence felt and expose their plan. At the time of Rida Shah also there was a lot of propaganda such that they caused the people- many of them- to turn their backs on the clergy.

During the reign of this son, who was worse than the father in some respects; in this period there was a lot of propaganda such that in the universities also the youth too- who were decent youth- were influenced by these propaganda to the extent that you could not take the name of a cleric in the university! Instead, in the university they would scribble some verses from the Qur'an on the walls and make fun of it. For, those who would lead them astray from the path of the truth their plan was not to allow Islam to become a force in society and in the process, the clergy who are at the service of Islam also become a power and pull the society toward opposition with the governments and opposition to foreigners. In all strata where they assumed the possibility of resistance in them existed, they would in some way infiltrate and would either lead them astray or repress them. The strata of you wrestlers were also not exempt; the strata of sportsmen were not exempt from this plan because they too were a religious-minded population who had affection for Islam and were powerful. These too they would keep them preoccupied by some means; they could not cause them to deviate from Islam; they would not listen to them on this matter; but they would lead them astray from the main issues; they would create some means by which they would keep them busy so that they would be negligent of the main issues of the country. These matters would surface in all strata; they would either directly suppress and if they could not then they would resort to misleading them; and if they considered suppression not to be in their interest or deviation to be the better option, they would mislead them from their path through propaganda; and if even this was not workable then they would keep them busy with other matters. Rida Shah repressed the clergy; and on various pretexts, which perhaps most of you do not remember how it was. After the university was founded, and the university in their view was a force that could challenge them, they started to indulge in misleading propaganda there. They began with extensive propaganda against the basis of religion and on to Islam- the fundamentals and the principles. Later on, they alienated the clergy from the university and sent each of them to obscurity. They even caused many of them to deviate. However, among them there were some who were not very astray, but they could not because the power was in their hands such that they created enmity between the university and the clergy. They saw that it was dangerous to let these two groups become united.

Therefore, they had various plans; one plan was suppression of that which could not be accomplished except by suppression; sending to prison, torturing, arresting on various pretexts- during the reign of Rida Shah the matter was worse, and it was also such during the reign of this one (Muhammad Rida Pahlavi) - and to lead astray those that can be led astray. Those that could not be influenced by ideological deviations were kept preoccupied with some other issues. They would keep you busy in your own field and create a situation whereby you either pay less attention or become indifferent to political issues. A large number of our youth were drawn toward prostitution so much so that most of our youth were led astray in this manner. Brothels were everywhere and generally in all the large cities and particularly in Tehran. They built a large number of centers for prostitution and those jobs that only they know of; they spread them, they made it easy to engage in lustful activities. The radio-television network that must be a guide for the youth became a source of deviation. The cinema and the theatre that must be a guide for the society instead became a source of misguidance and deviation.

Through all their strength they tried firstly to cause a division among the strata of the nation; to divide it into factions; the university group to go its separate way; the clergy to be alienated; the sportsmen to be separate; the traders of the bazaar to be separate; every one to be divided; and to lead them astray to the extent that they could; and to spend up the energy of the youth in harmful and wasteful activities.

Yet another tactic was to engage in all-out propaganda about the progress in the West in order to Westernize our youth; in order to make them lose their confidence in their own country; in order that they would not lean on their own selves. Anything that was spoken of should include talk of the West; the streets were to be named after them; the squares were to be na1med after them; the academic centers were to be with their names and so forth. They would train the nation in such a way that they would have no confidence in themselves and lose their identity; instead a Westernized individual would take its place. An Islamic and Eastern individual, who must rely on himself; who must lean on his own ideology would be given a so-called brain-washing so that instead of an Eastern individual, they would make a Westernized one who, whatever he spoke, would be in their favor. Their spokesman would say that they would remake all their things in English! If we want to become civilized then all our things must be English.

Now, you can also notice that this matter exists. As soon as a person got sick, he must go to Europe. Do not we have physicians? We do have physicians but they have been trained in such a way that even the doctors have lost their self-confidence. When they go to the physician also, he says it is too late and that he must go somewhere else. When he goes there, it is not certain that he will obtain the desired result. They separated us from our own selves. That human courage that must be present and reject everything and say that" I can take on everyone" has been taken away. Instead he says," I am nobody; they are everything!" whereas this is not the issue that they have made great material advancements. We do not see this as the issue; the issue is that we want to learn our culture from them; that we want to learn also our laws from them. Even at that time when they wrote the constitution, they incorporated articles from those of Belgium and some other places. We give them priority in everything we do, whereas they are not ahead of us in civilization; rather they are very backward. What they are ahead in is in manufacture of weapons that kill human beings. They set fire to the world! Recently they say that they have produced a bomb that is five times as powerful as the one that destroyed that [city] that killed twenty-thousand people with a single bomb. «1» Their achievement is in this! They have turned the world upside down and they want to continue doing so. A population of killers and cannibals; if this is civilization then the whole world must become disgusted with civilization. As soon as they build an aircraft, although we accept that it is proper from the material angle, from the humanitarian angle, that which draws mankind to peace, that which makes a human being civilized has no place in the West; if at all existing, it exists in the East.

That which guarantees to build a country that is civilized, liberated in the true sense of the word, and independent in the true sense of the word is the doctrine of humanity. Other than that, there is none; that is the one that can give freedom to the people. That freedom which exists in the West is to some extent debauchery where they behave as they desire in lusts and there are no restrictions to it; they are free to sink in debauchery as they wish.

It is also to some extent meant to deceive us and say that they are giving freedom! During the previous regime they would claim that they were giving a lot of freedom. Carter had claimed that too much freedom was given to this nation! This outcry that arose from the people was because of excessive freedom! These imprisonments and these tortures and these things that existed in Iran had transformed Iran into a prison with 35 million inmates! Not a single publication of ours was free- they could not write a single word against the regime- neither was the radio; they could not utter a single word against the regime; everything was dictated to them. The security organization would check them and give it to them and also from the higher ups they would check and then hand these notes to them. Not a single representative was selected by the people; now that such-and-such a group claims that they were free to elect their own representative is meant to be answerable to the courts and save their own skin and not because they had indeed appointed their own representative; there was no question of the self to appoint. Freedom that means for the people to be free in their election, to be fee to express their opinions and to say what they had in their minds did not exist at all. That which gives freedom to the people; freedom that is without debauchery and that which is not opposed to human personality is provided by monotheistic schools at the top of which is Islam. We must incline toward this school if you want to be happy; endeavor to implement this school abroad.

Now, there is a name, which apart from being a name is better than all those formal ones. Even now it is better than all of them. The reason is that various individuals who in those days could not come together at a meeting, at a gathering such that if you would come here and when it was time to go, you would be sent straight to the prison; but now you are free to sit here; even the pens are free to write. No one bothers even those that oppose the movement and they say and write as they please; they go on talking nonsense. Now, at least we have something called an Islamic republic even though its objectives have not yet been realized in the manner that we would like. Again, neither the constitution has been drafted, nor the president been elected, nor do we have the National Consultative Assembly; and it is an interim government. Nevertheless, the services rendered by this transitional government in these few months have been more valuable than what they had accomplished- although I must add that they did nothing. But it is the poisonous pens that repeatedly question what has happened. What do you want to happen, sir? This movement destroyed a big power that had wasted away all your things. If nothing else happened except this, it is quite enough; you yourself should rectify the rest. If we have nothing to show yet we can claim to have at least severed the hands of the plunderers of oil so much so that the oil now belongs to you. We severed the hands of criminals from the government treasury. Those people would give all the oil to them and also give back the oil revenues to them; they would build military bases for them in return! The amount that was due to the people, an amount equivalent to that they would pocket themselves. Investigate their statements of accounts and you will note the amount that each one of them would receive from this oil. Investigate their accounts; their accounts shall be scrutinized. Just these four or five months that this interim government has taken over- we again do not have an elected and installed government- at least in these four or five months there was a whiff of an Islamic republic; yet it has not accomplished as much as it should and we have a long way ahead of us but even this extent that has been accomplished cannot be compared even with other countries. These things that are now being done; these tasks that have now been accomplished cannot be compared with what they did. Other countries are now under the domination of these same superpowers; and here their domination was smashed by this movement and destroyed it. They are still suffering under those who kill and pillage and take them away. Just today, a gentleman came to me and said to me that they had taken his infant children, wife and all his family to prison- they had come from another country. These things are not present now; those who are afraid now are the criminals. What have the common people to fear now? This is because it is not based on oppression. It is not based on looting the people. In these five months, you will not find a single person who would say that the government has done injustice to us or has looted us; you shall not find such a thing. Yes, the writers who want to criticize will criticize but their criticisms are different; they too do not say that they were robbed; they say other things. This very fact that the hands of robbers have been severed from the treasury of a country shall result in, God willing, our economy to become a healthy economy after some time and make us self-reliant and independent from the rest of the countries- a country that is self-sufficient and able to manage its own resources. In the name of" land reforms", these destructive people totally destroyed our agriculture and our farmlands; and created a market for foreigners.

Brothers! All of you turn to Islam; focus on Islam; avoid disputes and differences; focus on the unity of expression. That which was the secret of your success was Islam and the unity of expression; safeguard these two themes firmly. May God enable you wrestlers to become more of wrestlers, and we the clerics to become more of clerics.

May God's peace, mercy and blessings be upon you.