Speech [Elections of the presidency of the Republic and the Parliament, importance of cultural affairs]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

The issues and difficulties you mentioned, I know. It is not that the difficulties are to you alone. In all sides and aspects the difficulties are abound. These difficulties entail every revolution. A country we have witnessed for fifty odd years in a chaos, everything is upset and kept backward, its economics ruined, every thing of it is destroyed, its culture too corrupted and an imperialist one- such a country it is that you have attained. So, do not expect that by avoiding a breaking that Big Satanic obstacle you will reach to the promised paradise. For fifty and odd years they have tried to keep this country backward and in a chaos. We have, in fact, reached a ruin. It is ruin in need of years long toil to change its culture. The minds, the intellects which are trained and have undergone a peculiar training during these fifty and more years of the past regime need a span of a generation to get dressed or mended or changed. Culture too is one of the important things and on the top of all things. It is not such that anything is missed or omitted from the evaluations. It is also not such that difficulties are only for the province of Gilan. Wherever you go, you find the same problems. Of course, there will be little or more. You know your own difficulties. The difficulties of others you do not know because they are not in your sight. Each group that comes here mentions its own troubles. They have little knowledge of the difficulties in other spots. They presume that in other regions of the country there are no problems. This is the result of the propaganda they have done for these long years- particularly the second one. They brought home this belief to people to think that they have reached a great civilization. When they in their own district did not witness any improvement they thought that their turn would come later and that other districts should have already been developed. However, the people, wherever they come from, complain. They are even bereft of primitive things necessary in life. Now you in Gilan have the trouble of water. You should go four to five kilometers to fetch water. In the outskirts of Tehran too, there is the same trouble. I was in Najaf. They wrote to me that around thirty localities are around and in the outskirts of Tehran where the women go long distances to get water. They have neither water nor their roads are asphalted nor do they have a culture. They have nothing. These poor women, they should climb the steps, several and many, and fill their vessels with water. Around fifty steps they should ascend and again descend the same number of steps to get the water to their children who are in the helmets.

These difficulties exist everywhere. In some places in Iran conditions are such that these places should have water reservoirs so that rain water would be blocked therein to use in summer. These places are even deprived of such reservoirs. When I was in Najaf, some benevolent people used to come here and told me that they needed the reservoirs. We also rendered some help and did these things. You should not think that you are the only one suffering from these problems. This problem pervades the entire country and should be removed. This problem should be removed through the efforts of the entire nation. If a problem is found somewhere, the government had the power to correct the problem in that particular place quickly, but when this problem exists all over the country including the capital, so vast a country with 30 or so million population suffering from shortage in almost everything, this should be removed. Such a problem should be removed by the nation in he same way that victory was achieved by the nation. You respected women, men, children, young and old, city dwellers and those living in country side came together and achieved the victory. However, when you gained victory, you saw that all the propaganda in the former regime was empty words and we have nothing. The great civilization was totally empty word aimed to give hope to people, take advantage of their credulity and carry away all they had and they did it, robbed everything and misappropriated everything. Now that this primary victory that is the first step has been achieved and there are so many confusions, they still do not give any chance.

The decayed roots prevailing the country subjected to all these plots give us no chance to think out a fundamental solution. We are barred from implementing even the fundamental ideas underway. Well, you came to Qum yesterday and visited the city. Qum that is the center of learning and the hub of Islam. Once you see that there is such a plot that is not restricted to Qum alone. While Qum has been subject to such a plot, Tabriz has also been victim of conspiracy of corresponding nature. It has been a plot not exclusive to here. There is also link with foreign powers. Now we are preoccupied with the fact that we should be able to preserve the country that we have wrested from others. All the forces should pursue this concept. All the thoughts should seek to thwart these plots and provide stability of the country. You saw that any step that was to be taken for this country and for its progress- progress in the establishment of government that is of prime significance- objections were raised. Everywhere conspiracies and sabotages were worked out. Now that these new disturbances brought about in Qum and Tabriz aim to stonewall the step people want to take to elect the president. This is a calculated scheme to stonewall whatever people want to do something step by step. Thank God, however, they fail. Nevertheless, they do not give up their sabotage in the next step. Again the same problems are created. Now that people want to elect the president with open thought and free vote, again those plots come about. Similarly, when constitutional law was to be drawn up, those problems occurred. When the Experts Assembly was set up, again they worked out sabotage. When the constitutional law was approved, again they made sabotage. They pursue their machinations. They are the ones who have links with foreign powers and raise voice against the Islamic Republic step by step. Now the objection and complication you observed recently are murmurs about presidential election. They will again fail. However, they wil not give up their sabotages. Later you should wait for greater troubles when the people want to send their representatives to Majlis. Confusion will be greater there. However, you should stand powerfully and not be disheartened. These disturbances should not disappoint you the least until the day when we should treat those fundamental issues and then, God willing, embark on the second issues.

If we want to consume all our forces for these reconstruction work for culture that stands foremost and for all things, these fundamental issues might sustain a loss. Now it is time for taking resolute action to elect a president as stipulated in the constitution. Then, in its due time, we should set up the National Consultative Assembly to fix the pillars of the government. Now, we have a shaky government. The government is not yet stable. Although the nation has confirmed the constitution, we need president and consultative assembly. If you want to engage thoughts to secondry issues and ignore those matters, it is possible that they fob off a devious president who might have represented himself as nationalist as you saw in the case of Bakhtiyar, who worked for the National Front and who was supporter of Dr. Musaddiq. They had preserved him wearing a national mask for ten or twenty years. You saw how he turned out to be a criminal and he is still engaged in his criminal acts. He was a man who might have proposed the US to carry out military intervention or impose economic sanction on Iran. A man who claims to be a nationalist stresses that the US should do these. They have such people in reserve. If we are negligent, they might help their men infiltrate and occupy a post. They might interlope into the Consultative Assembly that is a highly significant venue, destroying the foundations. Now, all of you, all the sisters, all the brothers and all the forces should unify their ranks so that we get through these two stages: election of president and then, God willing, the National Consultative Assembly so that a stable government could be established and the skeleton of the government finds reality. Afterwards, we should seek what the content of the government should be. The content can be said is now almost Westernized, not a westernized western, but an import western, a western that export the goods they do not want; they export for us the culture they do not approve of. Such is the state of affairs now. We should lay the foundation of our government and then go after the content in the second place. It does not mean that we should not interfere in these works or should not be active. We should do, but we should not be negligent of the basic things. Sometimes one lags behind the original matter for the sake of attention to secondary things. We should do something that would not lag behind the original thing. The main aim is establishment of a stable government, a sound Islamic government to find reality. After the main thing found expression, we would go for the secondary aims. Similar was the case with Islam in its early stages. When other prophets brought their r eligion, they primarily sought to draw the attention of polytheists to principles. They first proposed the fundamentals and after they established the principles, they went after the subsidiaries and the branches. We are now entangled in the problem that the principle is subjected to stonewalling. This very conspiracy in Qom yesterday that has its corollary seems to be for the fact that the fundamental things cannot proceed. We look forward to greater plots in the case of National Consultative Assembly. What I argue does not mean that we should not touch culture. We should strive as is the case. People are engaged in planning and preoccupied with such issues. Do not imagine they are not concerned over these issues, but this calls for opportunity