Speech [Exercising restraint in journalism; the enemy's aim in causing differences; steadfastness toward commitments]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

I appreciate the decision taken by you gentlemen to base your daily, the" Mizan" [The Scales of Justice], upon the basis of justice. And I thank all of you for your determination to traverse upon the path of Islam. I would like to draw your attention toward the fact that it is important for you to stay committed to the context of the name that you have chosen for your daily. The word" Mizan" refers to the same" Criterion" or the divine scales of justice to which you shall return to, at the end of your final journey. If your daily does not succeed in remaining true to its name you will be held responsible there because of your inability or your disinclination to manifest the reality of the name that you have chosen from the noble Qur'anic verse. And if, God forbid, your daily ever happens to present anything unjust written by any of your journalists, the same will be presented to you in your meeting with the Divine Criterion. The true judgment of our actions lies with God and they are all recorded and are being recorded by Him. Each and every word that issues from us is reflected in the other world and is recorded in the balance of our actions. And if your" Mizan" happens to weigh positively upon the" mizan" or the divine scales (of actions) and if you all have stayed upon the Straight Path and if your daily has succeeded to serve the divine purpose then you will emerge victorious and bright-faced in the hereafter. Sometimes it is quite possible that we may select a certain name or title but may remain oblivious about acting according to its true context. It is also quite possible for one to be able to propagate that he is providing service. Besides, every group believes itself to be the best criterion for evaluating all action. This is the general trend everywhere in this world. Even if you would have approached someone like Stalin, you would have found that he, too, regarded himself as the best criterion, believing that whatever conformed to his personal beliefs was" right" and whatever opposed them was" wrong". And even if you approach America you will discover this same attitude. We also believe that it is our word which is the true criterion and whatever conforms to our beliefs is" correct" and the vice versa is" false". So it is the same situation here, too; and this is a basic human attitude. Man regards himself as the main pivot for everything, claiming his own wishes and beliefs to be the most valid, and those of everyone else as invalid. This attitude works against the Divine Criterion which we will all eventually encounter. There can be no pretension as far as that Criterion is concerned. Everything in that world will be vivid and transparent. The hidden aspects of all the hearts will be clearly manifested in that realm. No one in that realm will be able to make any hypocritical declarations and pretensions that are opposite to his actual actions and try to justify them.

Now that you have chosen this noble name for your daily, you should make sure that this Mizan does not act against the divine" mizan".

Always keep in mind that all human beings and all of us are inflicted by the disease of egotism and self-centeredness except the one who is safeguarded against it by God. Man continues to suffer this disease right until the end of his life unless he gets salvaged or at least minimizes his infliction through the guidance of God Almighty and His prophets (`a). You should always try your best to keep this fact in mind. Refrain from always believing your own self to be right and all the others as wrong. This disease is certainly present within all human beings and no one can claim to be free from this affliction. The degrees, however, are varied. Some people put in all their efforts to remedy themselves from this disease while there are others who remain oblivious. Now that you all have chosen this name for your daily and intend to present the criterion of truth and falsehood through it, you need to make sure that you, God forbid, do not ever act against this commitment. Keep your focus on justice and truth.

Justice, irrespective of who it stems from, remains justice while injustice and crime are unjust, no matter who commits them. A perfect man is the one who makes all efforts to confess and rectify his mistakes without any hesitation. He does not, however, need to come up and publicly announce a sin, which he has committed in private because such a thing is forbidden. But in your case, if you ever realize that an article or an editorial published by your daily has erred in some matter and has gone against the demands of the divine scales of justice, the power of the spirit of a true man would reveal itself through you only if you accepted your mistake. The point here is that anyone who has the power to accept his mistake becomes his own master whereas if he does not develop this power, then he can never become his own master because he is under the influence of the devil.

Now that you have chosen this name for your daily, you should strive to ensure that your journalists work with integrity. Of course, sometimes the journalists are young and the youth can think differently from the elderly. And among you, there are both young people as well as some older ones. If you ever find that one of your younger journalists has written an article that could have a harsh effect on a particular section of people, in spite of the pure intention of the journalist, and could thus cause disturbances among people or could have a negative effect which we sometimes see these days in society, you should hand over such an article to the older journalists for making necessary amendments. It may not be possible for one to curb his pen or tongue completely but they can surely be controlled. I am not implying that it is not possible for us to have any power over ourselves and that our actions are beyond our control. No, I am certainly not implying this. All of us are indeed responsible for our words, our actions, and our views.

We should all keep in mind not to add to the problems of this country and this nation, and particularly in these times in which our country is already facing all kinds of difficulties. Our efforts should be made toward minimizing tensions instead of adding to them. All our efforts should be directed toward fostering mutual understanding. In case you ever write against a certain group in a manner that goes against the" Mizan" or the divine scales of justice, that group which may have called itself something other than" Mizan" will begin to counter-attack you. Nowadays, the situation is not like it used to be earlier when whatever" His Royal Majesty" commanded had to be followed silently. Today, even people from what we may ignorantly consider as the" lower" rungs can freely raise objections to the actions of even those who sit in the highest offices. Nowadays, no one can curb anyone else's rights. If anyone brings up an issue that offends a certain group or section of people, that group, too, begins to retaliate and sometimes even over-retaliate. Such situations can go on endlessly converting all pens into swords and tongues into daggers! All of us- the entire nation, the newspapers, and all forms of media- should concentrate upon minimizing the heavy burden that our country is already loaded with. On the one hand, we are facing this imposed war due to which the homes and lands of many of our people are being violated by mischievous elements. On the other hand, we are faced with extensive sinister propaganda, and even if a small slip occurs somewhere, it is blown out of proportion by the foreigners and their media.

We should try our best to ensure that the foreign powers do not gain the opportunity to say that our country is not capable of taking care of its own interests. We should not give them the excuse to say that the seniors of our country are vying for each others' throats while the juniors are also busy attacking each other and that while our country is facing external danger we have started a civil war. They will end up saying that we are not mature enough to realize that when our country is being attacked by an enemy, all our pens and tongues should be employed against the enemy. If they find that such is not the case and that we are engaged in internal differences and are vying for each others' throats while the mischief-makers are busy trying to divert our energies from the war so that it can prolong endlessly and there are yet others who have entered our country in order to cause turmoil and are passing on information about us all over the world, they will interpret all this to mean that we are a nation that seriously needs someone from outside to govern it because we are not capable of doing so ourselves. They will want to appoint an alien to come and take care of our affairs and will try to gain international legitimacy for the same and will consequently enter Iran with that" legal" excuse. If some country were to attack us, humanity demands that the others should condemn the attackers. However, with the use of certain tactics such an attack can be portrayed to have" legitimate" reasons and each one of the foreign powers may enter our country under the pretext of salvaging our situation and in the name of humanity and benevolence. You can all see the situation in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union somehow managed to find some excuse to enter into that country. And before they entered Afghanistan, the Soviet ambassador had come to see me, mentioning that they had received a" request" to go to Afghanistan. My response to him was that even if they had the power to occupy that country, they would eventually regret it since the Afghan nation would never accept them and they would, thus, not succeed in achieving anything significant. And you can very clearly see now that despite all the massacres and plunders they are proving unsuccessful. Anyhow, on our part, we should make sure not to give any excuse to others to interfere into the affairs of our country.

We should all remain united in speech and writing and should endeavor toward alleviating the existing problems instead of adding to them. At least our newspapers should refrain from adding to our problems and this is something that all the newspapers should keep in mind, and especially since you have chosen the name" Mizan", your responsibility is greater than the rest. This is because those who work for this newspaper are people who are committed to Islam. Now suppose that the "Mardum" (People) daily were to write whatever it wished, it has, on the other hand never claimed to take on any special kind of commitment. In the same context, our responsibility today is greater than the rest of the world because we claim to be the" Islamic Republic" and, thus, express our intention to act according to Islamic criteria. Similarly, since the" Mizan" daily has chosen this particular name for itself and has, thus, expressed its intention to act as a" scale of justice", it needs to be more cautious about keeping its commitment to the criteria of Islam. We are certainly responsible for the claims we make.

Tomorrow, when we shall all enter into the Presence of God Almighty, those of you who are writers and managers with the" Mizan" will be questioned and if you have, God forbid, failed to act according to the demands of the divine scales of justice, you shall be called hypocrites. Besides facing the charges of your crimes you will also be charged with the sin of hypocrisy since you have claimed to have created a" criterion" for action and have expressed an intention to act with justice and have taken on the responsibility of playing the" tongue" of divine justice. If you fail to act as per your claims, in the hereafter, it will be said to you that besides your other crimes, you have also proved to be guilty of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is associating partners with God, the Revered. «1» In any case, my general advice to you and to everyone else involved in the mass media is that if we really possess even the slightest of political acumen we should join hands and should support each other so that we can make progress. Even if we are a nation of limping soldiers we should all join hands and move ahead instead of adding to our handicap. Today, we are a nation that is being attacked and oppressed from all sides. Under such circumstances, we should join hands so that we can achieve our final goals. Do not forget that every person is responsible for his own deeds and is sometimes also responsible for the actions of others. If a person finds that he can make a difference, he should not refrain from" amr bi'l-ma`rouf" (demanding propriety). You have no right to say that since a certain newspaper has written something, it is alright for us also to do the same. If someone commits a certain crime, the others do not have the right to follow suit simply because someone has done something! Certainly not! If everyone decides to raise an illegitimate hue and cry over the slightest provocation, this commotion will never end. On the other hand, if something untrue is written about a certain person, and if he exercises patience and responds in a judicious and appropriate manner, the issue will diminish and will soon fizzle out. But if every act of violation was to be responded by similar action, it would create an endless vicious circle.

All of us need to remember that many greedy hands have been cut off from our country and today, even if they may desire to, it is not possible for them to pilfer off the resources of our country. Both, the Soviet Union and America as well as other similar powers would love to gain domination over us. We should, therefore, refrain from internal conflicts so that we do not end up becoming prey to the greedy wolves of the world. At this critical time, we should cooperate with each other in thought, word, and deed and should support one another. If you find that a certain minister is proving to be weak in his duty, extend your help to him. Do not try to push him out of the scene because of his inability since he will surely try to vindicate himself and will end up blaming you instead. Everyone these days is retaliating sharply to the slightest criticism. This could end up in creating turmoil. Why should we create turmoil when the need of the hour is for peace and harmony?! We should all join hands and should ensure that this country moves toward self-reliance and our media and the radio and television should become a model for the world.

I pray to God Almighty for you to succeed in amending your acts and in acting with propriety. Always remember that all of us are in the Presence of God Almighty. Even right now we are in the Divine Presence. Whenever you pick up the pen to write something, remember that your thoughts, your heart, your pen, your hand, and your tongue are all in the Presence of God. May He grant us the success in delivering upon our responsibilities, God willing!