Speech [What our people expect from the government and government offices and the necessity of fulfilling their expectations]

I will first pray to the Blessed and Exalted Lord not to deny you His benevolence, and to guide you to the path that pleases Him. I also pray that you attain your ends that are [the implementation of] Islam and the freedom of the nation. The most serious danger faced by everybody and all the authorities is selfishness. Man's greatest drawback lies in his self-centeredness. Every problem that befalls a person or the society because of [the actions of] the powerful entities stems from selfishness and egoism. This is what our Imams have mentioned according to the hadith. «1» That is, all the faults of human beings arise from this self-centeredness and neglect of God. Though we cannot completely get rid of this selfishness, we can, at least, lesson it. The matter is, of course, very difficult, requiring, as it does, one to be self-disciplined; but it is not impossible. It is difficult but not unattainable. If a person abstains from selfishness in whatever he does, if he pays attention to the larger interests and keeps God in mind, he will be successful besides keeping himself safe from the dangers arising from selfishness.

Now that you have become ministers and this Islamic country has been entrusted to you and your responsibilities demand that you perform to the best of your abilities, you should firstly, not think that management, whatever the level, is a great thing [per se] or that it is a status symbol. Nor is it for a group of people to gather together and order somebody to carry out the work [of the country]. Keep in mind the position held by Hadrat Amir (`a) who, in accordance with the understanding of the people, ruled a vast realm stretching from the Hijaz to Egypt and also including Iran and Iraq. See how he behaved with the people and what his instructions to his representatives, and the governments that ruled on his behalf, were. How valuable were the directions that he had given them! We, of course, cannot be like him; but we can be his partisans and followers. We must follow him to the extent we can. His whole aim was to earn the satisfaction of God. The fact is that the world and these worldly positions were not important to him except to enable him to establish peace on earth. Otherwise, he did not consider position and the caliphate to be of importance, except as a means of implementing justice and imposing constraints[ on society ]. We must learn as much as possible. We must thus avoid falling into Satan's trap, the biggest one being selfishness. We ought to tread the divine path of righteousness and thus reform ourselves and our society.

You have to see what [kind of] government it is that has come into your hands and how, and who has entrusted it to you. Recall the time five or ten years prior to this period and the situation that existed then. Bring to mind the government of those days, the people's attitude to it and vice-versa, and also the tortures, imprisonments and killings that used to take place under that regime; then ask yourselves how the present situation has arisen. What has happened for there to have been such atrocities and repression; those problems and misfortunes, in our country at that time? And what has happened now in that we are sitting here freely, and you are freely discussing the affairs of government with the people and with them, in turn, criticizing or praising you in all freedom? Who has given us this freedom except these barefooted people, these people who live in slums, these deprived university students and those ordinary people who had risen unitedly in the cause of God, who campaigned for Him and brought us victory and, by demolishing that big barrier, achieved the unthinkable because of which you have become ministers, president, deputies and such things? It is all because of[ the efforts of ]this nation. Whatever we have is because of this nation; of course the Islamic nation that accomplished this by its cries of" Allahu Akbar".

We have to consider what our people, who have given us these positions, want from us, and what we have to do for them. They expect all these entities: the [departmental] heads; the president; the prime minister; the ministers; the deputies and, I should say, the ministries and everything under their control, to be at the service of Islam. The nation had demanded Islam. Everybody strove for its sake and succeeded because of it. They [the people] want these [government] establishments to function in an Islamic manner as well.

The path of Islam is to support the deprived; to be more attentive to them. The governments have been supported by tyrants throughout history. If you consider any government during this 2500- year period of darkness, and even any just ruler; any [good] ruler, whose place is now in heaven, and then consider what class of ministers they consisted of, and also see what kind of people were the ones who used to derive benefits from these poor people, you will not be able to find a single government that served the deprived; these ordinary people, these barefooted ones. All of them [the governments] served the landowners, the powerful people, the capitalists, the chiefs and the" khans" [tribal chiefs]. Whatever was done was for their sake.

There was a time when some of the governments used to practise" tuyoul". «2» They would hand over Khorasan to some" tuyoul". How much would he pay for it? Suppose it was 50,000 tumans- fifty thousand tumans at that time was more than 50 million at the present time- that he would pay for Khorasan. Then, whatever happened in Khorasan and whatever oppression occurred would not be heeded by the government. Khorasan belonged to the" tuyoul"; it was his. Its people, the land and the income thereof belonged to him. The recipient had to recover the 50,000 tumans that he had paid to the prime minister or the grand vizier, and also make 50,000 tumans many times over for himself. The reason was that it was a business; they had sold the place. He had to pay the amount and also make a profit. How would he deal with the people? He would either collude with the village headman to rob the village, or if the village headman did something wrong, he would be dealt with in the way the defunct Shah used to deal with the people! Such are the doings of the despotic governments.

You who claim to be the prime minister of the Islamic government, the gentlemen who are Islamic ministers, the president and the deputies of the Islamic country should forget the past practices; you must bury them. You ought to bury dictatorships, plunder, selfishness and egoism and get involved in the affairs of a new country that has no parallel except for the early Islamic period. And the governments of that period were not there for the sake of Iran. Even when they had conquered Iran, they had entered [the affairs of] the country to those same people who had been ruling over it and who continued with their atrocities. They were not able to manage it [in an Islamic manner].

You ought to realize now that these people have saved you from a deep pit. You witnessed the imprisonments and the persecution; now you are experiencing freedom and tasting its nectar. You have to serve in order to show your gratitude for this blessing. You must all follow the same path in order to show your thanks. I have repeatedly said that if all the prophets were to collect in Tehran and work, and occupy themselves with the country's affairs, they will do so without any differences occurring among them. It is not possible for them to differ; why? Because they had killed their ego which is the source of all disputes and differences that arise. A person may think that what he is doing is for the good of the people. A person does not realize that his age is passing; he does not understand his own condition. If you who say that you are doing a certain thing for the good of the Muslims, wish to make a comparison with anybody else, you should think to yourselves whether you will be prepared to make way for that person in case he is able to serve the Muslims better than you can. Will you want him to replace you? Or will you yourselves want to do what is, as you say, to the benefit of the Muslims?" It is me who is creating this benefit." This is the same satan; the same one, that is misleading the people. Most of these acts of his are for the purpose of deceiving the people and tempting them. The temptations are many. He induces a person to think that he is powerful, that he possesses this and that, and that the others are nothing. He inveigles you into thinking that you are now a minister whom the others should obey, and obey blindly, or that you are a [Majlis] deputy whom others ought to obey, and blindly at that! This attitude stems from the fact that man has failed to build up his character. If man had developed his character, he would not have minded the criticism of even a peasant; not at all. He would not mind being criticized.

Suppose that criticism is leveled against two people, yourself and another sharing a similar [bad]characteristic. If that person is criticized because of it, you will be pleased as you consider him to be your rival. And he, on the other hand, will be displeased. But he will be pleased to see you being faulted for the same reason, but displeased if he is faulted. All these are the ruses of Satan, and the worst satan- even worse than this well-known Great Satan- is man's own ego. An Islamic country has now entrusted to us; that is, the people smashed all the barriers with their shouts and voted for all of you, for the [Majlis] deputies, and, I should say, for the president. And, subsequently, their [the people's] representatives voted you into office. The people underwent a lot of trouble and voted for you, thereby giving you [high] positions. But you who are inclined to dispute over your positions, ought to see how God would feel about it. The people made great efforts; they sacrificed their youths. You are aware of the present situation in Kurdistan. These pasdars and soldiers are being killed on a daily basis; they are giving their lives with every day that passes. The people there are being bombed, and the enemies, for their part, are intensely active. While all the currents and the powers, great and small, are against us, and while these people, having endured so much trouble, have placed the country in your hands, you are only concerned about yourselves. All these things are Satan's doings. Do not ever doubt that when one says" I", this" I" is the Satan, and that whoever says that he must be obeyed, says so because of Satan. Is it right for us to be only concerned with ourselves, for each one of us to think only about himself and to sit at the devil's table trying to outdo one another, thereby strengthening the devil's bait which is selfishness? You should consider how such things would appear to God, and to the people when they hears about such things and the existence of such problems. Well, even if the people do not say anything, what will these bereaved women who have given their children to the cause of this Republic and Islam, think? How will the grief-stricken mothers and fathers of the youths cut off in their prime, feel? Though they are saying nothing nor taking any countermeasures out of love of God, yet you ought to consider the condition of the bereaved when they see that while they have sacrificed their youths for the sake of the Islamic Republic, there is a row going on in the country over who should have a higher position. See what is written in the newspapers which I read today and yesterday, and see what the people will have to say when they read them. Those who are in positions of authority, ought to pay some attention to these matters.

The authorities should not feel that they can do anything they like just because they constitute the government and head the [country's] affairs, or because they are ministers, the prime minister and the president. No; this is an Islamic country and not a taghouti one. Do not lead this Islamic country into evil. If, God forbid, there is an aggravation of this situation, I am afraid that the people will deal with you just like they dealt with the taghout. The evilness of that regime did not lie in family ties; rather, it lay in its own misdeeds. It would be the same taghout, but in another form, if our own practices turn out to be evil; if we just think about ourselves and not the nation; if we squabble over power and position and not bother about the nation's interests. There are varieties of taghout; like Rida Khan's and our Muhammad Rida Khan's type, another like Carter's, etc. We are one kind of taghout. We will all join Satan's army [if we continue like this]. You should think about this nation, these slammers, these people who gave all they had and brought you to power. On retiring at night, think whether your actions, your utterances of the day were in your own or the people's interests.

If you reflect on these issues and pay attention to the dangers that our country now faces and the ones that lie ahead, and to the threats, internal and foreign, that are emerging, and also consider the fact that the nation has entrusted this country to you to protect, to work for its good and realize its potential, it would be ridiculous on your part to start squabbling and contending with one another; and that, too, not over what is good or not for the country. All of us are just thinking about ourselves. Suppose that I tell you to do something for the good [of the country], and then I critcize you for doing it, it would be out of the selfishness that arises. The way to test ourselves is to see whether it would bother us if the same person whom we are complaining about criticizes us. We would object to his criticism. These acts of selfishness and the satanic ploys are very subtle, and also very difficult to detect for us to understand them. But, in any case, the more evident things can be understood.

Well, is it fair that you bicker and quarrel over posts considering that it was the nation that had its blood shed in bringing you to power? Is it fair that you talk about these matters every day; that you and the newspapers criticize constantly? Is it right on your part to assail, accuse and malign one another? Is this fair? How will God feel about it? What will be the repercussions of all this among the people? What benefits will the foreigners derive? They want you to assail one another and neglect the country's affairs to enable them to strike at us and do what they want to do. They had been trying over a long period in history- especially during these last fifty years- to make our youths and our people indifferent [to the country's affairs], and to make them quarrel with one another from time to time. But it was God's will to put an end to their ruses and to get rid of them; and thus they departed. If we repeat those past mistakes because of the conditions that America had created for us and which made us neglect our main concerns and turn our attention to other things: to heroin and debauchery, we will stray from the path, which humans ought to take, and, instead, head for the houses of [sinful] pleasure.

America or the other superpowers, the ones that aimed to rob us, had been trying throughout- especially these last fifty-odd years- to make our youths grow up in an unconcerned manner. They were pursuing such a policy in those days. But now you are in control. If, at this time, you do something to divert the people's and your own attention from the country's affairs to other matters, and, instead of attending to these poor, barefooted people, who underwent a lot of trouble in bringing you up to here and who now expect nothing much from you except some bread, water, electricity and the bare necessities of life, you neglect them and be occupied with your war of nerves and your own affairs, you will then be doing the same things that America used to do at that time. At that time, it was taghout that used to do such things, but now it is you. [In such a case] you are taghout, too, and they were taghout as well. There is no difference; one is Satan and the other, a smaller one.

Instead of improving the peoples' economic condition and surveying the country to see what areas are in a state of decay and the people there deprived of everything; if, instead of [attending to] such things, you are to sit in your seats of power and indulge in talking and abusing one another and thereby neglecting these issues, it would be precisely what the big powers want so that this country remains in a ruined state and the people raise a hue and cry. It is the very thing they [the big powers] want. You will be acting as American agents without knowing it! There are agents who take orders directly from the US embassy and there are others who work for it without realizing what they are doing. The person himself does not know who he is working for. If you are not concerned about the people, and their and the country's affairs, but are only interested in yourself and your own affairs, if your solely concerned about the people supporting you or someone else, it would be just what America wants. In such a case, you would be American agents and would have taken part in the persecution of the people along with the ones who were its active agents.

You who have now entered the government should understand that this does not mean that you are ruling the people; you are serving them. There are no rulers in that sense in Islam; only servants. It, however, has disciplinary forces as well for the purpose of crushing the traitors. But it is not that they have nothing to do if there are no traitors. They do not want to rule over the people, or to overawe them and thus make the people fear them.

Do you think that Hadrat Amir would appear in the streets like Muhammad Rida used to do, though he ruled a realm ten times more extensive than Muhammad Rida's? He used to appear in the streets like an ordinary person so much so that some people did not even recognize him. Do you think that Malik Ashtar who was one of the great commanders of Islam was like one of these high-ranking officers of the taghouti period? The people did not recognize who he was when he used to appear among them. Once when somebody abused him- now observe his magnanimity- he went to the mosque and prayed for the person! Such ethical conduct and the history of Islam ought to be studied, especially the governments that existed in the Islamic period ought to be studied and guidance obtained form them.

Do not think that you are people's rulers; you must think that you are their servants. It is more meritorious in the sight of God than looking upon yourselves as rulers. Governing is the same as serving. The army, too, should be at the service of the people. How delighted the people will be if you consider yourselves as their servants, if you do not expect them to extol, eulogize and, I should say, acclaim you at the top of their voices, if you do not quarrel among yourselves, if you refrain from such things and come to an understanding and be friendly with one another! Those who have seen their children killed will be pleased to see that this government has appeared whose members are like brothers unto one another and who are all trying to their utmost to work for the people and do something for them. Instead of this, if the people see that these officials, having gained positions, are fighting among themselves as to this one or that should have higher post, you can then imagine how bitter it will be for Islam and the nation, and what God, the Blessed and Exalted, will have to say to us!

We gained this freedom and independence, and these positions by the grace of God. We ought to thank Him for His favors by striving for His sake and working for the people. We have to do our utmost to bring these deprived people out of slums in which they are still living. We must provide housing for them. We have to set right the country's water and electricity which, as you know, some parts of the country do not have; none at all. One of the gentlemen who had come here yesterday from Bakhtiyari region said that all the people are devoted [to the Islamic Republic], but have nothing. There are certain regions that lack everything. You ought to think about these deprived people. Just do not sit by and squabble among yourselves. Do not expend all your efforts on beautifying and enlarging the cities as they used to do in the days of the taghouti regime. The government should not expend its efforts and the country's budget for the cities and their affluent areas for those same taghouti people to derive the benefits. Think about these poor people in the depressed areas. Islam came to support them, and we are administering an Islamic government. Direct your efforts to these matters; do not waste your energy in quarreling with one another. When time is spent on quarrels, one is notable to attend to anything; one lacks the opportunity to do something [constructive], to make plans for this nation and these deprived people.

I request all the gentlemen who are in charge of certain affairs- whether the lower echelons of the ministries or the ministers themselves, the prime minister, the president, the others in the government, and also the ones who were in the Revolutionary Council but are now in other places- to desist from doing these things that are against the pleasure of God, the saints of Islam and the nation. A few days of this world remain for you. Use them to serve the people so that you stand honored before God. Do not spend this period in quarreling; go in peace and serve the people. If you serve the people, there will be no quarrels because there will be no time left to quarrel. But it is very regrettable that you are busy quarreling and are neglecting the people. You have not been able to reform the economy, to establish security nor do anything! You only keep quarreling with one another. All of them are sitting in Tehran squabbling among themselves. This is not right; it is against Islam and Islamic ethics.

I am telling all the gentlemen not to quarrel with one another. Do not again fill the newspapers with vilification and criticism of one another. Criticism should not be done to take revenge. It ought to be constructive. Everybody can rightly criticize another. But it is Satan's pen that is used to criticize one for the sake of seeking vengeance. If one criticizes another for the common good, and if he is removed and replaced by another person, he must not be upset if the same criticism is leveled against him. He must know whether the criticism is for the sake of Satan or for that of God, and whether it is inspired by Satan or God.

One has to realize that these few days will pass and these positions of authority will end. No matter how much authority you have, you cannot surpass Muhammad Rida. No matter how hard you try to gain that kind of authority, you will not find it and, God willing, will not want to find it. It is all over; he has gone and is now before God. God alone knows what is going to happen. That day will also come for us as well. Tomorrow, we as well; one like me, will have to go sooner or later. And even that is not known as to who will go sooner. But we are nearing the end and we have to go.

You who are young should think about reforming yourselves, you ought to think about serving this country. Do not just sit around in your ministries and indulge in the same old practices and the same bureaucracy whereby a budget wanted for some place is referred so much to this and that department as to be forgotten. Take prompt action on these matters. Work for the people.

As for the disturbances in Kurdistan, all of you should get together and come up with a plan. You must work to end these disturbances; not that you not even provide a helicopter for some youths, for instance, who are prepared to risk their lives in Kurdistan. Supervision is the need of the day; this must be done. Those who prevent the tasks from being accomplished should be prosecuted and reprimanded.

In any case, I request all of you to maintain this brotherhood that has been ordered by the Blessed and Exalted Lord. God has established the bonds of brotherhood among you; among the believers, and so you must be brothers unto one another. You must have equality; you must work together for this country. You must give top priority in your plans to giving assistance to these poor, deprived people, and to establishing security in the country.

May God give you success, health and prosperity for you to serve this nation and thus stand honored in His Blessed and Exalted Presence.

May God's peace and mercy be upon you.