Speech [Freedom from cultural dependence and the impact of the press on the culture of a nation]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

All our scholars as well as our writers and orators should strive hard to compensate for all the gloom that had set into the hearts of our youth in the previous regime.

However, with God's grace, the Iranian nation took a stride that granted it transformation in all areas. Many youth were either idling away their lives or could not use their ability to speak a word of truth and, unfortunately, many of our youth had also been dragged into deviation. By the grace of God, this Revolution took place and those prisons were broken and presently a great majority of our people are on the right path. However, we still have a long way to go and in this regard, our magazines and the culture presented by them and the way in which it is presented can impact the actual culture of the people. This is because even if people do not read the magazines and just browse through them they will still be left impacted. You saw for yourselves how, even when the magazines were under the control of deviant elements, they could greatly influence the people. If a youth even browsed through them he would be influenced by them, leave alone reading them. Their magazines were full of deviant and distorted matter, in order to confine the minds of our youth to what they wanted and to prevent them from getting involved in social affairs with free minds and to be able to analyze things for themselves. Children are under the influence of their teachers, right from their primary school years until the end. They were being influenced right from their childhood and when they would get into the universities things would be still worse. If such is the case, the university cannot succeed in training graduates that could prove to be useful for their country. They insisted on bringing deviation into the universities because they did not wish the universities to train people who can think independently for themselves and who can treat the pains of society. Those days everything including the advertisements, the magazines, the newspapers, and the other printed matters, and others aimed toward causing deviation. There was not a single magazine that contained any useful matter and even if there were, they could not dare to address issues directly and had to do so in an indirect manner. Most of the newspapers and magazines were aimed at escalating lust and beastly desires among the youth. There was a case of public sex in Shiraz while somewhere else they had even got two boys married to each other. Such acts were made rampant in society in order to cause the nation to lose everything. However, God Almighty wished to save this nation. There is no doubt that they are not going to leave us alone because all the big powers, America, the Soviet Union, Britain, the East and the West have their greedy eyes fixed upon Iran. It was by the grace of God Almighty that this nation was saved otherwise you would have seen how they would have ruined this country. They are greedy for Iran's resources and our resources are greater than you imagine.

I remember when I had once traveled to Hamedan, a young man approached me with a large map of that province, in which all its various locations were charted out, including all its villages and hamlets. I could see some spots were marked at different areas and wanted to know what they were. I was told that every spot indicated that it housed a mine, either of gold or copper or oil that had been photographed by them. Do you know that even at a time when there were no automobiles, they (the imperialists) had come to Iran and had traveled all over on camel-back and had even visited all these areas and are, thus, well aware of everything that we have. No one knows what set-ups they have here and so we should prepare ourselves for confrontation. If we want to be self-reliant, we should be prepared to face everything. They want to destabilize us with all the different means that they have at their disposal. They will continue to lure you all but not with the same means they used during the monarchial regime because they know that the people will no longer respond to them. They will use a different form- an Islamic form- like the ones they have developed in the other Muslim countries. They appoint their own people to power in those countries. It all appears very normal and a lot of commitment to Islam is also expressed.

They do not bring in people who do not believe in Islam. They bring people who declare their commitment to Islam. But they dread countries that are truly Islamic. This is because if the schools and universities impart an Islamic training to the future generations, they would be thrown out of those countries. You all saw what beasts were churned out from the universities in the previous regime when things were not in our hands. In these very universities, if anyone wanted to say his obligatory prayers, he would have to do so secretly, out of embarrassment. It was evident from the beginning that it was not as if they were deeply concerned about Islam and hence insisted on the reopening of the universities. We should keep our eyes wide open while dealing with people. It often pains me to think that they had actually been trying to hold another referendum or to boycott the referendum for the constitutional law. A referendum of the likes of what Dr. Musaddiq used to hold- with one ballot box for those who oppose and one for those in favor and, in which a group of ruffians would be placed around the ballot box of those not in favor while a donkey would be brought in to put in a vote in that box! This was the kind of referendum they held and thereby managed to chart out an Americanized constitution. I scrutinized how for over twenty years, they did all they could to sidetrack the clerics so that they could bring to power some" Muslim" people but with an American ideology. And since the people were fearful of the Soviet Union they capitalized on it and attracted them toward America. We need to work hard. I have always been concerned over their conspiracies and am determined to write a will and to expose all their schemes that had been nipped in the bud. (According to them) the Majlis, the Council of Guardians, and the judges are useless. He used to tell me that they are all irreligious. Bani Sadr had repeatedly asked me to get rid of the government. His intention was to make a dictator out of me. And I would laugh and ask him to do it himself if he had the power to do so. They are ignorant. And they are irreligious. They planned to dissolve the Assembly of Experts and used to say" let's go back to Bahman 22". I must say that it is very wrong to demand to start all over again. Their proposal is to discard the Majlis and the Islamic Republic and everything else and to hold a referendum over whether we should have a democratic republic or an Islamic one or whether we should have an Islamic democratic republic. Even the religious ones wanted to include the term" democratic". When we came to realize that they wished to introduce deviation in everything right from the beginning, we insisted that it should only be" Islamic". They were naive enough to ask for another referendum. They had no idea of what our people were and had thought that our masses only comprised all those who whistled for them!

Nevertheless, they are not going to leave us alone. Thus, the present generation must take on training the next generation. They cannot change the minds of the present generation. They insist on the reopening of the universities under the pretext of a shortage of expertise and by claiming that we are against knowledge. Has any other school spoken about the importance knowledge in the way the Qur'an has? We need newspapers, but we do not need newspapers like the" Inqilab-e Islami". We need magazines but not like the ones of the previous regime. We need experts but not experts like Sharif Imami. Nonetheless, they were least concerned about research, the university, the press, or freedom. The crux of the matter was that they feared the spread of the Islamic Revolution to other places. Their fear is lest this Revolution spread to the other Muslim countries or even to America and among the African Americans. This is their dread. And that is why they used to claim that it is impossible to even breathe without America. But it is for some years now that we are managing everything without any help from America. They are afraid that this Revolution may spread to other places like Iraq and Kuwait. People who have traveled abroad have informed me that the situation is ripe for a revolution there.

It is easy to publish a magazine but it is very difficult to publish a good magazine. It is easy to put in a couple of pictures, some articles, some poems, and some jokes together and call it a magazine. This does not need any expertise. Such magazines should be published that when our youth go through them, their contents would compensate for the fifty years ruin of this country. You should compensate for the destruction caused in those fifty years. For fifty years our press and the radio and television spread deviated stuff, only to prevent our youth from treading on the right path. God Almighty came to your rescue and things have changed. These people are looking at reversing the trend of the Revolution. Those who wish to publish magazines should equip themselves to train the future generation. Be concerned about the next generation. Islam hold all generations accountable. We are also obliged to do something about the future generations. We need to start our training from homes and from our primary and secondary schools. May God grant you success in publishing educative magazines! And focus upon quality instead of concentrating on quantity.

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