Speech [The resolving of hardships and deprivations, the objectives of the enemies and the United States; foreign policies towards other nations]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

One of the outgrowths of this Islamic Revolution has been the free meeting of different layers of our community with us to discuss the problems and for us to share them our difficulties. You, the Ahwaz municipality personnel, have told us of your endeavors there. It caused my appreciation, God willing, you will receive your due reward. Today, your country needs your services. You are well aware that you are left with country with ruined country. You can observe the southern parts of Tehran, which is the capital. You can easily see the slum, dirty run-down housing and poverty-stricken people. This is when their reserves are plundered by a group of extravagance devoted and draw to a close for granting unreservedly. You see Ahwaz and Khouzistan in that miserable situation while they[ the Shah and his cohorts ]have great wealth and resources. The villages there are even in worse situation. Years before, while passing by train near some villages I took notice that the depressed children and adults had gathered over there and they were giving the impression of being miserable. I realized how miserable those people were! Although the natural resources were beneath their bottoms, yet they were so deprived. Can such country be supposed as ruined, which is potentially filled with unlimited natural resources. Such great civilization offered us as gift as they handed all of our wealth to others over. Iran could easily be the house of one hundred and fifty million well-off people yet now thirty-five million people are living in dire poverty. A handful of corrupt statesmen have depleted the wealth of these people, the assets have been concentrated among specific class, and our resources have been put up for sale to foreigners in recompense of a smaller amount. Even the little money received as oil revenue was not spent over the welfare of country and it was snatched away and stolen by a few. Now you see that America has given shelter to your number one enemy, «1» while he has plundered your wealth to deposit it in the American banks. Now they are singing lullabies and serving him.

This was the plight we were in. Thank God, now you have changed the situation for the better. Those who hindered the right way of doing things exist no more. Now it is in our own hands and it is up to you to reconstruct this country, which had been left ruined. It requires courage and the important thing is for us to consider ourselves responsible. Everybody should feel responsible both for himself and for others' affairs. Responsible for himself stands for the tasks and affairs being handed over to every person, for example, you who are, now, working in the Ahwaz municipality, each one of you should carry out your tasks. Do not wait for others to do them for you. If your colleague cannot perform his job properly, you are responsible to guide him. Each of you have take care of your. «2» You are responsible for looking after your subordinates; everybody is responsible; all of us are responsible. You and the nation have to run and manage the whole country.

Everybody should participate. Unfortunately, there exist different groups with different inclinations and beliefs among you and most of them were serving as servants and agents of the old regime and foreigners. Such outsiders and aliens persons exist among all strata of country and making the atmosphere poisonous by different means.

Among the conspiracies leveled against the revolution is that it has not thought of the people and nothing has been done so far. Many things have been done for the people but with no publicity. This is the mistake, which have been taken place until now. Although you have done great jobs, yet they propagate that nothing has been accomplished. They do a lot of publicity and one of the significant jobs of the old regime was publicizing. They did not do anything but you were always brainwashed by the radio propaganda about" The Great Civilization, The Great Civilization". Now, you are telling me we have performed many services for the city. Yesterday, we had another group such as you and many others consult here in regard with other places. The groups who have been engaged in performing works and providing services believe that a great works have been taken place in Jihad Ministry. They have constructed many houses for the needy. However, there is no sign of publicity. The nation must be informed that we are engaged in serving. Our governmental institutions are not like those in the old regime. They have been occupied for helping but of course; their work is not satisfactory in all aspects Purge is vital and required in the ministries, offices and everywhere. The elements who were against this nation and people recognize them well should be get rid of them. If you wish to have an independent, country specified for yourself. While the purge is essential and it has not occurred, as it is requisite yet now it has been supposed to be taken place. I have already stressed for undertaking such job but they did not have the capability for it and was not carried out; they did not announce," We did such and such"

You have to let people know what good work you have done. Some people are after disheartening the people from new system by claiming that nothing has been done; nothing was done earlier and nothing has taken place recently. You should make the nation familiar with the performed tasks by means of advertising and making it available for them. We are witnessing that the physicians, engineers, and doctors are consulting and working hard for the mobilization programs in Jihad Ministry and carry out construction works for the people. Since these works are not being presented for the people in a proper manner, subsequently, the groups of treacherous who are agents of others have got busy in asserting that the works have not been carried out, nothing has taken place, and this government is similar to previous one. While the Islamic Republic has no similarity with the previous regime as in that regime, none could have courage to utter some expression or make a criticism. Utterance of single impression could depart the life. You would write half a line of criticism, and you would lose your life. Now you are free to criticize and all make criticism. Everybody is allowed to evaluate the government and criticize everything, which is not appropriate, and give guidance. Then how the situation is the same; both now and at that time. In the previous regime, all of your assets were taken away and the United States used to take our oil and sell you weaponry in return. We could not use those weapons, and then what was their use? They sold us that weaponry which was to be used in the military bases that they had established in Iran. They made these bases with our money. Their military advisors then dominated us. We had been turned into the American Military Stronghold. Now I am told that many of these military resorts still exist in Iran in sense of that only site of bases subsist but they do not have any control over it. In those years they took our oil revenues and supplied us with a little amount of weaponry in return, which included the items functional for them, not for us. Now, despite of that we do not have complete control of everything and our government has not accomplished stability yet our oil revenues do not get waste and not being sent anywhere free of charge and it is of yours belongings. In return, none could impose further to buy iron-scrap or construct for us a military-base. Now is it fair to claim that nothing has changed for the better as compared with previously. This was a single change yet many other essential distinctions like freedom, independence and essential distinction in regard with construction is apparent. A devastated country along with such destruction cannot be restored and converted to a paradise within one months, two months, one year, or two years. It requires a great uphill struggle. They tried to annihilate this country during their fifty years by giving it name of construction and great civilization. A place in the name of the Great civilization, there are still those who indoctrinate our youth with the erroneous statements, such as" Nothing has been done". However, I want to say that miracles have taken place.

What kind of people are those who pretend to be the servants of the country but constantly create hurdles [in the way of those who wish to do services to this country]? They are in the habit of discouraging people or making them despair at all times. Do they not realize that if the people become disillusioned they have in fact failed? Alternatively, do they know and do it on purpose? I assume most of them act on careful calculations. Their main source is from abroad. Now, the den of corruption [the American Embassy] is captured by our youth. They have done so because the Americans are sheltering our enemy [the Shah] entertaining him, while keeping our assets frozen in their banks. They owe us our possessions. They should come here and pay back what they owe us. The king had robbed this country, filling the foreign banks with our assets. He had committed so many crimes; he has imprisoned our youth; this corrupt man «3» has massacred our youth. Now, the Americans are entertaining him on humanitarian bases. This is their way of considering humanity. This is the American way of loving humanity to protect a man who destroyed a country during his thirty odd years of rule, who has exiled or imprisoned the country's great man, and who has destroyed their houses. Their humanity is shown by taking a criminal under the pretext of curies him and then keeping him for further conspiracies.

Now that this den of corruption «4» is exposed, there are many things to be discovered by the Iranian nation. There used to be many espionage apparatus. However, our youth, being unaware of the secret codes, could not open the doors in time to have access to the American spy records. By the time our youth reached, the basements all the documents had been shredded. What our youth could get were only second hand espionage documents. Most of these cannot be deciphered by our youth; some experts are needed to do the job. Many boxes there cannot be easily opened up. The place had been turned into a den for spying. The embassies are not allowed to keep gunmen. However, the Americans used to keep some gunmen in the embassy. The embassies are not allowed to spy or to get involved in conspiracies. However, these two activities were prevalent in the American Embassy in Iran.

Now, Mr. Carter was kind enough to make the suggestion of dispatching two envoys to Iran to negotiate. What do we have in common? Who is supposed to talk to you? Who will be responsible for the disappearance of the husbands of so many Iranian women or for the fathers who lost their children? Who will be responsible for those who were hurt by the Americans? Whom should we talk to when the U. S. has committed so many crimes all over the world? Therefore, I rejected any possibility of negotiation. We cannot negotiate. We are driven by the determination of our nation. We are the people's servants. We should have their interests in mind. Mr. Carter does not frighten us or his likes and we are not bothered by their conspiracies. Who dares to intimidate a nation who has uprising for truth and whose motto has been" Allah is Great." It is a country whose youth were not frightened away by tanks. A friend informed me that a ten or twelve-year-old boy went under the tank. Nobody can intimidate the people of such a country. Whom are they going to frighten? I have not told you before: I have been in war since my childhood. We were subject to the assaults of the Zallaqi. «5» We were always at the mercy of the assaults of Rajab-`Ali and his like. We used to carry guns. During my adolescence, when I was young I used to supervise the entrenchments established all around us. Now, what do the Americans want to frighten us? We are neither worried nor frightened. We are the Shi`ite sons of those who sacrifice their young ones for the cause of Islam. What for we become afraid? We have Islamic country in our mind. We do not consider anything except Islam. The whole nation says," God is Great," and have voted for an Islamic Republic. We consider nothing else. We are not frightened by the American conspiracies; neither do we care about their threats. Neither are we frightened by American threatens; nor is our nation as a whole. Only those are worried who assume their stay here on the earth is ever lasting. «6» Those who do not consider this world ever lasting, look for somewhere else where they could stay forever. Our nation has been drastically transformed: young people come to me and ask me to ask God for their martyrdom. The same thing happens for some mothers who ask me to ask God for their only child's martyrdom. It is irrational to assume that such a nation could ever be frightened. What does Mr. Carter try to frighten us with? Does he try to frighten us with his gunmen or navy? Let them do whatever they wish. Could one ever defeat a vigilant nation?

Whom should we negotiate with? What group should we meet? Should we talk with those who call themselves philanthropist but use the third world population as their laboratory guinea pigs to test their medicines and drugs before applying them to their own people? Should we negotiate with those who established their den of spying here, who conspired against our national interests, who brought out the issue of Kurdistan? What do they want to talk about? We are telling them to submit a person for trial to us who ruled tyrannically for about thirty odd years. This criminal has killed our youth; he has squandered our reserves; he has betrayed his country. Let us have him. Are you coming here to convince us to forgive him? You should remove your den of spying from here, as well. Then our representatives may talk; perhaps they might talk about relations; but this I strongly doubt. Our relations with all nations are amicable. Islam is a religion for all people.

Islam is for everybody; it cares for humankind. We are dependent on Islam; we, too, care for humanity. We will be friends with those who care about us: They should count on us. They should refrain from using us as guinea pigs. Those who insist that we should maintain relations with the westerners do not realize that they consider us less than pigs. They protect animals, but they treat us worse than animals. We have no dignity in their eyes. What topics should we talk about with them? Those were the people who had established the most complicated spying apparatus in Tehran, which can only be recognized by the experts. One of these youths told me he had seen delicate receivers the size of a lentil. Tehran might have been their spy center in the east. They were secure here. Mr. Aryamehr «7» had provided them with a haven, a place of safety. The American Embassy in Tehran, they say, has been used as a center for spying over the whole region. Let them remove this center of espionage and return that traitor to us, and then we will negotiate. At the beginning of the revolution when Muhammad-Rida was still in Iran, the representatives of the U. S. A came to negotiate with me. I told them to remove `Alam «8» from the position of premiership first and then talk to us. Now the same is true. Unless he is submitted to us and this center is removed, no negotiation shall take place. Do I enter neither into[ any kind of ]discussion, nor into anybody else. If we ever talk with the U. S. A, we are eager to find out if it is a fair relationship or is it a relationship between an oppressor and the oppressed. We are eager to expand our relations with nations, however.

Some traitors now try to disrupt our movement. Now there are some people who try to defame these pure youth, whom I do not know personally, but who are pious young men. They say these young ones should present the American documents to the Iranian people; but they do not realize that these are not ordinary documents to be presented to the lay people. They are written in codes. They, for instance, would not disclose the fact that a certain political party was with them or not. The American hostages have destroyed some of the significant records within the four or five hours that they had at their disposal. The remaining records are not of high value. However, time is required to decipher them. Unfortunately, now a group of agitators is trying to disgrace these clean young men. Let us be vigilant. Let us not get involved in these rigmaroles. These agitators are the foreigners' agents. Anybody who takes in this way tries to expel these young ones from the Embassy so that they can set the stage for the return of their masters. By leveling accusations against these young ones, these agitators try to divide the Iranian nation and allow this place to remain safe for the Americans and let that man stay in the United States. Our nation should nullify these plots; they should be alert. Turbulence is now ruled out; we should stay calm. If some other agitators come to you and claim that there are other embassies in Tehran like this one, do not pay any heed to them. Now we are concentrating on the American Embassy: nothing else. The Iranian nation now is considering this Embassy. The Iranian nation is trying to take that traitor out of the United States and bring him here. If that traitor had gone to England or France, we would have done the same thing to their embassies. However, the enmity of the United States against us is clear. It is the United States, which carries out such crimes. We are not worried if they carry out any acts of terrorism against us. Only those are frightened of their lives who assume their stay on the earth is ever lasting. None of them who wish to join the martyred ones gets frightened. The other day some people informed me of some plots. I assured them our nation does not need us any more; they do not need a person like me any longer. Our nation has found the right way. They would go the right way even if I were not present. Any force will never terrify us.

Vigilantly we should nullify these plots; we should serve our people energetically. First, we should consider the oppressed and the deprived ones. We should help the slum-dwellers; those who have already helped us advance this movement. This layer of society is the deprived one. You have already informed me let me that they have to carry water in the pipes over long stretches of land. We should help them. We should cooperate with one another to construct houses for them. Why should these families live in tents? In winter it is hard to live in tents. Let the rich assist these needy ones. They should not shun their responsibilities simply by blaming the government for [poor people's] misery. Everybody is responsible now. Why did you let your fellow fellow citizens live under such gloomy conditions? They live in dire misery. Help them out. Now, the time has changed. The rich should not take their time, taking pleasure and laughing at this wretched layer of society. They should not write articles in favor of super-power and in defiance of this deprived stratum of our community. They should avoid doing this.

Let us unite. The country is ours. You are born here. Then why of division? Why should a group publicize for the left wing and a group defend the right wing? Are you not a man yourself? Work for yourselves. Assist these people; do not engage in sabotage or waste your time in seeking pleasure stop sabotage.

May God guide us in the right way. The Holy Qur'an is presented to us to make ourselves truthful ones. May God let us be familiar with the Holy Qur'an. May God make you succeed. I am satisfied with your services. The rewards are with God. I wish you success.

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