In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all sentient beings, and peace and greetings be upon our Master and Prophet, Ab-al-Qassem Al-Mustafa Muhammad, and upon his immaculate and infallible household, especially the one remaining with Allah on earth.
I am very happy to meet you, and I thank Allah the Exalted who gave me another opportunity to visit this glorious province and to be present among you honorable and loyal people. Kurdistan is the land of great sacrifices, the land of art and culture. It is the land of sincerity and loyalty. Kurdistan is the land of loyal people who courageously foiled the enemies' plots during the most critical stages of the Islamic Republic. Kurdistan is the land of audacious and intellectually mature people who managed to recognize the enemies' plots at a critical time and nipped a great act of sedition in the bud through their sacrifices. The Iranian nation will not forget this. Kurdistan enjoys an honor that is rarely found in other provinces.
My dear ones, my dear brothers and sisters, immediately after the Islamic Revolution, there were some people who tried to create a civil war in the country. They sought to give rise to fratricide. Global oppressors were afraid of the possibility that an independent and faith-based government might come to power in the region. They were anxious about it. Therefore, they mobilized all their resources in a vein effort to destroy this newborn reality in its early stages.
The Kurdish people of this province went through a great test at that time. I have visited Kurdistan, and I have been witness to the greatness of the resistance of these people during times of hardship. Most of the things that I say about Kurdistan are rooted in my personal observations. Of course the resistance of the people of your province in different eras - both at the beginning of the Revolution and during the imposed war - has been conveyed to the entire Iranian nation.
My dear ones, from the beginning of the Revolution an evil policy was adopted in an attempt to create a chasm among different Iranian ethnic communities, thereby trying to break the impressive Iranian nation into pieces. They tried to infuse each ethnic community - Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Turkmen, and lors - with a different evil idea in order to create discord among them.They used to say one thing to the people of Tehran and Isfahan and something quite different to the people of Baluchestan - I spent some time among the people of Baluchestan before the Revolution - or Kurdistan, for instance.
The Iranian nation needed to be very vigilant to fulfill its great responsibility - which had been placed upon its shoulders thanks to raising the flag of Islam - and rise up to fulfill this responsibility. The Iranian people made many selfless efforts in different parts of this country and the people of Kurdistan did their share of work in this regard. These were some of the things that will go down in Iranian history.
Kurdistan province is a cultural center. Just take a look at the green and beautiful nature of this province, the sincere and kind nature of its people, and its history - many religious scholars, poets, cultural figures, and artists could be found in the recent history of this province. All these things point to the fact that this province is a cultural center.
The enemies of Islam and the Islamic Republic tried to cause security problems in this province during the early stages of the Islamic Revolution. It was not easy to solve this problem. But the Islamic Republic managed to overcome this problem along with the people of this province. They were trying to foment discord among the people and create a gap between Kurds, Azeris, and Persians. But their plot failed. "And they plan not but against themselves, and they perceive not." [The Holy Quran, 6:123]
You Kurdish brothers and sisters should know that those who came here [to Kurdistan province] - the youth who came here from different parts of the country to carry out jihad - and stayed in this province for a while, became deeply fascinated by the people of this province. The enthusiastic youth from Khorasan, Isfahan, Fars, Khuzestan, Tehran, and other provinces of the country came here to this province and stayed in different cities of this province - Sananadaj, Marivan, Saghez and other cities of Kurdistan province. When they returned, they brought with them the message of kindness. They were fascinated by the people of Kurdistan province. When I say that Kurdistan is a cultural center, it is all because of such kind behavior from the people of this province.
The memories of the brave youth who came here from other arts of the country and made sacrifices here are still alive in the hearts and minds of the people. The memories of such martyrs as Shahid Kaveh, Shahid Sayyad, Shahid Motavaselian, Naser Kazemi, Ahmad Kazemi, and Shahid Boroujerdi - these youth who spent a long time here and laid down their lives - are still alive in the minds of the people of this province. We thank God that the enemies could not achieve their goals.
Of course, I should tell you that the enemies will never stop pursuing their goals. An evil policy had been adopted in the country since the Pahlavi era: Alienating different ethnicities from one another. They used to alienate Kurds, Baluchis, Azeris, Arabs, and Turkmen from other people. They used to consider these ethnicities as aliens. Such policies were manifested in their behavior too. If you take a look, you will see that no major construction or cultural projects were carried out in this province during the Pahlavi era. They did not feel responsible and would not do anything in this regard. Construction projects were almost non-existent during the Pahlavi era. The same was true of cultural projects. Today, there are nearly 50,000 students studying at some twenty academic centers in Kurdistan province, while during the Pahlavi era the number of students in this province was only 360. The rate of illiteracy was also terrible during that era...