The following is the full text of the speech delivered on October 11, 2012 by Ayatollah Khamenei the Leader of the Islamic Revolution in a meeting with teachers and professors of North Khorasan province.
In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
This is a truly great meeting, both in terms of appearances and in terms of essence. The fact that there are so many teachers and professors in this province fills one's heart with joy. Many of the comments which were made in this meeting were well thought-out expert opinions. It is enjoyable to see that so many good ideas, so many positive thoughts and so many well thought-out comments are produced by the people of this province - which is among our underprivileged provinces in terms of the available facilities, although it is very rich in terms of capacities and natural resources. Dear brothers and sisters, this meeting is a divine gift to me and I am thankful to Allah the Exalted for finding the opportunity to meet you and to listen to your valuable comments.
Some of the suggestions that the friends put forth concern executive organizations and government officials at different sectors. Normally, we pass these suggestions to the organizations that are responsible for them and we do not take action directly. Some other suggestions concern fundamental issues. The comments which were made by the lady who spoke in this meeting were very accurate, well thought-out and logical comments. Some of the other suggestions that were put forth are good enough to be studied and reflected upon. They are worthy of our focused efforts. I pray to Allah the Exalted to give me the opportunity to benefit from your ideas and to make use of them in managing our society.
There is a point that I would like to discuss. A beautiful song was performed in this meeting and it was accompanied by a good melody. The song contained good points. I am not addressing this point to the people who have attended this meeting, rather I am addressing it to everybody in every part of the country. It is very good if our government officials and our people - particularly our outstanding personalities - express their affection for each other. It is very good that a group of outstanding personalities, teachers and professors express their affection for government officials, which is not common in many other parts of the world. This is among the blessings of Islam, among the blessings of piety. And this affection is mutual. This affection between our government officials and our people or our outstanding personalities is not one-sided. Basically, one-sided affection is not possible. In the absence of mutual affection, everything that exists between two people disappears quickly. Therefore, there is mutual affection. However, the point that I would like to raise is that expressing this affection should not result in saying exaggerated things and making comments that are clearly exaggerated. Of course, one may exaggerate in poetry, but it is not good if small and imperfect individuals like myself are described and praised the way great luminaries of the world, infallible Imams, divine prophets and saints should be described and praised. We should not promote this culture in society. Avoiding such exaggerated comments is not at all in conflict with mutual affection.
There were very good and well thought-out points among the points which were raised by the friends, both the friends who belong to our universities and the friends who belong to our schools. We really need to promote schooling in our country. Competing with other countries in areas relating to material, scientific, military and political progress - which is the goal of the leaders of other countries - has never been the only issue of the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolution. In Islam, the issue of establishing a government is an issue that is related to "becoming", to a transition that originates from within. There are both angelic elements and animal elements within us. "Certainly We created man in the best form. Then We render him the lowest of the low." [The Holy Quran, 95: 4-5] This means that the capacity for improvement and transcendence and the capacity for decline and degeneration are infinite in human beings. The philosophy behind the creation of man is to enable human beings to make voluntary efforts to help their outstanding, positive and divine capacities prevail over their animal characteristics, and if they succeed, their animal capacities will also be directed into the right channel.
If the tendency towards transgression is utilized to increase one's piety, it will prevent transgression on what is held sacred - including human, social and ethical values - and it will be directed into the right channel. In the Holy Quran and in Islam, people have been ordered to "kill", but this killing is about making the best of the spirit that exists in human beings. The purpose is to guide humanity and to build a developed, free and transcendent world. In fact this killing means removing the obstacles that lie in the way of those who want to reach the peaks of human honor and dignity. If these characteristics and noble capacities are preferred to other characteristics, the world will become a better place. It will become a happy place. In such a world, there will be no transgression. In such a world, there will be no wicked actions. In such a world, human capacities and talents will not be wasted and derailed. In such a world, there will be no poverty and discrimination. Notice what a good world it will be. In such a world, human beings will be able to utilize all their capacities. Our capacities are far more than what has been discovered. We have many more capacities. We even underestimate our physical capacities. We do not even have appropriate knowledge of the physical capacities we enjoy.
I always provide an analogy in this regard. Look at the movements of a gymnast: for a person who is not athletic and has not trained his body, it might appear that it is not possible to move one's body the way a gymnast does. But through training, an ordinary person - who is not really different from other people - manages to make these movements. Try to understand what would happen if other capacities of human beings were utilized to same level and such capacities are in the thousands. Try to image how capable such human beings would be. All of these things would only happen in a world where divine and noble human characteristics prevail over unworthy characteristics. This is the mission. This is the goal. And if this is the goal, then it is necessary to make a lot of efforts.
We are taking our first steps on this path although it might appear we have made a lot of progress. This is not to say that we do not attach importance to the scientific advances we have made so far. After all, you see how proud we are and how much progress we have made in science, in technology, in politics, in constructing the country, in developing our national capabilities and in developing national dignity. All of these things are valuable, but these are only our first steps on this path.
When one considers our national mission and the Islamic mission of our nation from the perspective of a comprehensive transition, it becomes clear what role education plays, what role spiritual education plays, what role educational environments play. It will become clear that education which is offered at our schools and universities plays an important role.
I would say that the purpose of arranging meetings with our professors and teachers in Tehran and elsewhere is not limited to making a few statements or listening to the comments of the friends who speak in such meetings, which is of course valuable. The more important purpose of arranging such meetings is to promote the culture of respecting teachers and professors in society. We need this. We want our society to appreciate the value of our teachers, both those who teach at our schools and those who teach at our universities. When people appreciate the value of teachers, it is teachers themselves who are mainly responsible for preserving this respect by doing everything in their power to educate their students and to increase their capabilities as teachers. Therefore, the main purpose of arranging this meeting is to announce that we respect the teachers of this newly established province. Thankfully, one can see how valuable the teachers and professors of this province are.
Another point - which was mentioned by the friends and has always attracted my attention - is that we should primarily focus our efforts on spiritual education of our children. If we manage to shape their identity when they are young, this will always prove beneficial. There are certain things that have negative effects on one's behavior, but if one's identity is shaped during childhood, these negative effects will be diminished and there will be other factors which will help in this regard.
Today in advanced materialistic countries, one of the essential things they do is that they teach philosophy to children. Many people in our society believe that it is not even possible to teach philosophy to a child. Some people think that philosophy is a complex subject that only attracts certain adults. This is not the case. Philosophy teaches thinking and comprehending. It makes the mind accustomed to comprehending and thinking. This should develop from childhood. As far as teaching philosophy to children is concerned, content is important, but what is more important is form. That is to say, it is necessary to accustom people to thinking and reasoning from children. This is very important. I am happy that this point was raised in this meeting.
The next point concerns self-confidence. We need to instill self-confidence into our children from the beginning. Of course, this is not particular to children who are going through primary education. The same is true of high school students as well as university students. Unfortunately, a completely wrong attitude was established in our country and its consequences have not disappeared yet despite all the publicity work that has been done since the beginning of the Revolution. This wrong attitude is the view that we need the west, the sense of inferiority against the west. Unfortunately, this wrong attitude has not been uprooted yet. It still exists in the country, which is rooted in lack of self-confidence. You see that particular foreign brands are expensive but very popular among people from particular social backgrounds, while domestically produced equivalents are sometimes better in terms of quality. This is rooted in the attitude that I mentioned. This is a malady. If it is announced that a particular expert has been trained inside the country and not in a foreign country, people will develop a negative attitude towards him in the beginning. This will be the case until this expert manages to dispel the existing illusions by making outstanding accomplishments, which has happened a lot over the past years. But when it is announced that a particular expert has been trained outside the country, people will have a positive attitude towards him. These things are problematic.
I have repeatedly said that I am not at all opposed to acquiring knowledge from foreigners. I have repeatedly announced that we do not feel ashamed of learning from foreigners, but we feel ashamed to think that we will always covet their work and ideas with a sense of inferiority. Such a feeling is bad and it is necessary to uproot it. Sometimes when we want to promote a good behavior in our society, the example that we provide is from western countries. Why is this necessary? Why would we constantly reinforce the idea that in order to distinguish between good and bad and between ordinary and outstanding, we need to refer to the west? This point was mentioned by some of the friends: they said that we put our faith in the west rather than in ourselves. This does not mean that we are hostile towards the west. This does not mean that we are prejudiced against particular geographical regions or regions with particular political systems. This only means that when a people lose faith in their capacities and capabilities, they will suffer the same fate as dependent countries, including our country during the Pahlavi era.
We need to strengthen the spirit of self-confidence in our children. Sometimes I receive reports that in their classrooms, certain teachers or professors question an indisputable advance that has been made in the country. For example, when an advance is made in the area of stem cell research, in the area of nanotechnology or in other scientific areas, that advance is real, it is not disputable, it is in front of our eyes, it is tangible, but certain people in our schools or universities question this advance. They say: "No, this is not case. It is not clear whether this advance has really been made." Why would we do this? Even if we ourselves are not sure whether this advance has been made or not, what reason do we have to spread our doubt to our young audience? We should simply do research and find out for ourselves whether the advance has been made or not. One of the essential things that we should do is to create this sense of self-confidence.
The next point is patience. The spirit of patience is one of the things that we need in our social interactions. This is why patience has been stressed so much in Islam and in Islamic ethics. Lack of patience gives rise to many problems on individual and social levels. If our political groups treat each other in a patient way, the conditions will improve. If supporters of different political personalities treat each other in a patient way, the conditions will be a lot better. Patience does not mean that we should ignore each other's flaws. It does not mean that we should ignore the principles and values that we believe in. Patience is about the manner in which we treat people. "Call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and goodly exhortation, and have disputations with them in the best manner." [The Holy Quran, 16: 125] Even the disputes that happen over our beliefs or over other important issues should be "in the best manner".
The next issue is the issue of curiosity, which was also mentioned in the statements of the friends who spoke in this meeting. Curiosity means the desire to know, the desire to seek answers. Another point is teamwork, cooperation and the need to adopt a global perspective. We should make our youth and children accustomed to looking at things from a global perspective and not from a local and provincial prospective. There are certain issues that should be viewed in the context of 100 or 150 years, not in the context of 5, 10 years. These things require that we adopt a global perspective on different issues. The students that you are educating will become teachers or professors one day. They will become active managers. They will become outstanding experts. They will become influential elements in the political movement of our society. They will play an important role in society one day. Therefore, try to teach them to adopt a global perspective on different issues.
The next point is preparedness to work hard. One of the problems that we have is laziness. The issue of reading books is also important. Books are ignored in our society. In certain TV programs, people are asked how many hours a day they spend reading. One person says five minutes, another person says half an hour: these are surprising answers. We should make our youth accustomed to reading books. We should make our children accustomed to reading books. Once this habit develops, it will remain with them until the end of their lives. Reading books at my age is often far less effective than reading books at your age. Of course, I read several times more than our youth. What will remain with us forever is the knowledge that we gain from reading books at an early age. You should encourage your children to read as much as possible. You should encourage them to learn different things and different skills. Of course, it is necessary to avoid reading harmful books, but this is a secondary issue. The primary issue is that our children should be encouraged to learn. They should be encouraged to develop a habit of consulting books. Of course, our organizations and government officials should be careful in this regard: they should promote books that are good and beneficial because books that are bad are only a waste of time.
One of the ladies raised a very important point and I wrote it down. She correctly pointed out that the characteristics we want to build in children, do not develop automatically and that we need to work on them. Who is responsible for this work? Our teachers, both those who teach at our schools and those who teach at our universities. Our teachers should be prepared for this work. They should be experts in this regard. She said that this requires organized work in the form of a governmental organization. Yes, this is logical. The honorable Minister of Education is present in this meeting. I ask him to propose this idea to the government. I also ask him to evaluate the conditions and see what can be done in the Ministry of Education. The lady is right: if we want to develop good characteristics in students, we need to have teachers who know what to do. Not every teacher knows what to do in this regard and it is necessary for them to learn. There should be certain centers for this purpose. One of the suggestions that she put forth in this regard was that we should have research centers for studying family culture. The suggestion is a very good suggestion. It is necessary to work on this issue. Of course, the lady was speaking about moral security in the family, but all of the points she raised apply to our schools and universities as well.
We have made extraordinary progress in areas that have attracted our interest, in areas that have attracted the interest of our cultural and scientific personalities. This means that we must have no doubts that we have the capacity that is necessary for progress. This is a fact that lies in front of our eyes. At the beginning of the Revolution, there were around a hundred and seventy thousand university students in our country, but today there are more than four million university students in the country. At that time, we had only five thousand professors. During the early years after the victory of the Revolution, I remember that it was constantly repeated that we had five thousand professors. Some of them would leave the country and our government officials kept count. For example, they would announce that ten professors had left the country. Today the number of professors in our country is far more than that. Fortunately, we have tens of thousands of professors in the country. Today we have two hundred universities in different parts of the country. There are two thousand universities and higher education institutes across the country. These are not small achievements. We made all these achievements in harsh conditions. These sanctions - which they say are being increased - existed from the beginning. We also had to fight a war. We had to deal with declining oil prices at different stages. They had imposed numerous domestic problems on us. Our population has increased. At the beginning of the Revolution, the population of our country was thirty five million, which has doubled since then. We had to deal with all these issues, yet we thankfully managed to achieve all this progress.
I would say that none of the advances that we have made in scientific areas are the outcome of concerted efforts in particular government-funded centers. In many of the areas in which we have made progress, talented and enthusiastic groups of people were offered a little support and then they quickly reached the peak of progress. Years ago, government officials of a friendly country travelled to Iran. I do not want to mention the name of that country. They said they had allocated a certain amount of money to a particular area - such as biotechnology - and that the entire country had focused its efforts on that area. We did not do such things. What has been achieved is due to the capacities and enthusiasm of different groups of people. Many of the achievements are the outcome of sporadic efforts. It was not the case that the entire country made concerted efforts to achieve progress in a particular area, such as stem cell research. A number of enthusiastic and talented youth focused their efforts on stem cell research and they were offered a little support from particular organizations. Then, we quickly became one of the top countries in stem cell research. The same is true of nanotechnology and different other areas. The advances that we have made in the area of building missiles and rockets are also the outcome of the enthusiasm of a group of people who were working in a particular place. What I am trying to say is that we have infinite capacities in the country and we can make far more progress.
Currently, Iran ranks 16th in the world in terms of science. Who would have believed this? This is the statistic that has been presented by prestigious international centers. Moreover, an international center has predicted that Iran will rank 4th in the world in terms of science by the year 2018. This shows how many resources and capacities our country enjoys. Currently, Iran's contribution to global production of knowledge is two percent, namely two times more than a country like Iran should be contributing to global production of knowledge. These are outstanding and important things.
What I am trying to say is that we need to increase hope in the country. We need to do many things at different levels of government. There are many things that our senior government officials should do. But the important point is that in your classrooms, you teachers and professors should develop hope for progress in your young students. Then your students will be motivated to move forward. If this happens, the country will make the most of their capacities. We should try to create hope and dynamism in the country. There are certain dangers that lie in the way of our youth. One of these dangers is despair. Therefore, it is necessary to seriously avoid promoting despair.
Of course, there are certain problems relating to lack of resources in the schools and universities of this province. These problems have been reported to me. Also, the friends who spoke in this meeting mentioned some of the existing problems. I hope these problems are resolved. Of course, we will report these things to our executive officials. Executive work and other such things are the responsibility of other government officials and we should not interfere in such matters. Of course, we will stress these things and convey them to our executive officials, and we will ask them to try to resolve these problems as much as their resources allow them.
Another point is that you should guard against different kinds of false mysticism, which tries to creep into universities in particular. One of their plans is to promote false mysticism in universities, and this is one of the things that is crippling. Falling for the baseless claims of false schools of mysticism - which often originate from outside the country - is really crippling. The standard for spiritual transcendence and closeness to God is piety, fear of God, purity. If our youth - both girls and boys - have pure hearts, if they observe piety, if they try to avoid sins, if they perform their prayers attentively and seriously, if they do not drift away from the Holy Quran, they will not fall for false mysticism.
I often give recommendations to our youth regarding the Holy Quran. Try to preserve your close relationship with the Holy Quran. Recite the Holy Quran every day, even half a page. All of these things help you move closer to Allah the Exalted. It is these factors that give rise to spiritual purity and result in spiritual solutions. "Allah sent down His tranquility on His Apostle and on the believers, and made them keep the word of guarding (against evil)." [The Holy Quran, 48: 26] This is the blessing that Allah the Exalted highlights to believers. God says that He sent down tranquility on His Messenger and on the believers. This peace and tranquility, which is needed by human beings, can be achieved through the channels that I explained earlier. The primary channel is avoidance of sins.
Avoidance of sins does not mean that you should first avoid all kinds of sins so that you can enter the next stage. No, everything happens simultaneously. One should make serious efforts to avoid committing sins, and this is what piety means. Commitment to praying and reciting the Holy Quran in an attentive way and paying attention to other things that bring about spiritual purity - these things give us the peace and tranquility that we need. There is no need to resort to false and materialistic schools of mysticism which contain no element of truth. Try to direct the attention of both high school students and university students towards religion and piety. Piety is one of the essential elements that you should try to promote among your students, and you should know that Allah the Exalted will help you.
We have run out of time. I hope Allah the Exalted helps us benefit from what we said and heard in this meeting. I hope Allah the Exalted blesses all of us so that we can carry out our responsibilities.
Greetings be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings