In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, and peace and blessings be upon our Master, Prophet Muhammad and upon his Pure Progeny, particularly the vestige of God remaining on earth.
Welcome my dear ones, our youth, our teenagers, you have made the environment in this Hussainiyah very pleasant. Your pure hearts, your souls filled with passion, illuminate the environment and make it pleasant, wherever you may be, whatever that environment that might be. I have prepared some related topics which I would like to share with you today, my dear children.
The first topic is about the 13th of Aban. Well, you have heard a lot about it. The 13th of Aban is a historic day. It is both historic and educational. When we say it is a historic day, it means that on this day there were events that will remain in history, these events cannot be forgotten and they should not be forgotten either.
They are educational because there have been reactions as a result of these events that serve as a lesson for us. Make use of these experiences for the future of the country, for your future, and for the future of our nation. The future belongs to you.
This day is an important day for us, but it [also] really agitates the Americans. This is a day that frustrates the Americans whenever it is commemorated. Your meeting, this meeting – when it is shown, you can be sure that the Americans will be angered by this gathering, this anthem, this communion. They will be agitated by it. Why? Because this day is the embodiment of the evil of the United States and its defeat. So, those who think that the US is an untouchable power, when we look at the events that took place on this day, it becomes evident that [this is not the case], that it is completely vulnerable. This turns into an experience for us.
Three events took place on this day, some of which are directly related to the Americans, and others are indirectly related to them. One event was the exile of Imam Khomeini which took place on the 13th of Aban (November 4), 1964. Why was Imam Khomeini sent into exile? Because a law was ratified by the direct order of the Shah [Mohammad Reza Pahlavi] to the parliament of that day. According to that law, the Americans who were in Iran were granted immunity. There were about forty to fifty thousand Americans in Iran – in the military, security, and economic organizations. According to this law, if these individuals committed any sort of crime in Iran, they could not be prosecuted.
So, for example, if an American happened to run someone over while driving their car, the judicial system of the country had no right to prosecute them. This was the immunity law of the Americans.
Imam Khomeini did not tolerate this. He gave a long speech, his voice [recording] and the text of this speech are available today. Because of this speech, he was exiled for thirteen years. We say thirteen years, because the revolution happened at the end of these thirteen years. If the revolution hadn’t taken place, this period of exile might have even lasted 30 years because of his opposition to this pro-American law. This was an event that was almost directly related to the Americans.
The second event was the killing of students. A number of children who were around your age were massacred in front of Tehran University. They were killed. We can’t say the exact number because these sorts of statistics did not exist back then, but a number of them – even one is too many. Even one is too many – a number of our dear children were martyred in front of Tehran University. This second event also took place on the 13th of Aban in 1978.
The third event which took place a year after that incident – after the victory of the revolution – was the students’ attack on the American Embassy. During that attack, many documents were found that revealed the United States’ conspiracies against the Iranian nation. [These documents] have been published in seventy, eighty volumes. You probably don’t have the time to read these books, [but] there was a time when I told the Ministry of Education to include the themes of these books in school textbooks. Unfortunately, they didn’t do it. These [documents] show what the Americans were doing during the time they were in Iran – that is, from around the years 1949 or 1950. It shows their conspiracies and acts of treason.
Well, there is a point to be considered here regarding the attack on the American embassy, which they actually called a Spy Den – and it really was – in their statements, advertisements, interviews, including the interview they conducted with me during my trip to New York when I was president, the Americans have introduced this event as the beginning of the dispute between the Iranian nation and the United States.
They claim that the reason why the Americans stood up against the Iranian nation was because of what you did at the embassy, that is, you attacked our embassy, and [as a result] a dispute was formed, a fight was created, an enmity was formed.
They’re lying! That’s not the issue. The dispute between the Iranian nation and the US began on August 19th, 1953. On August 19th, a national government was at work. Mosaddeq’s government was a national government and the issue he had with the west was about oil. Mosaddeq was neither a ‘hujjat ul-Islam’ [cleric], nor did he claim to want Islam. It was just about oil. The [country’s] oil was in the hands of the British, he said our oil needs to be in our hands. That was his only crime. The Americans staged a coup d’état, a very bizarre coup d’état.
There are some vague things [about that event] in my mind. I was fourteen years old then. There is a big difference between the time that we were 14 or 15 years old and today’s teenagers. Today, you understand and analyze things accurately, [but] that is not how it was for us back then. I have read the history behind it and am aware of the details. The Americans sat and conspired against Mosaddeq and crafted a coup.
Even though Mosaddeq trusted the Americans - he trusted them, he even liked them - he thought that the US government would support him against the British, [but] they stabbed him in the back!
They sent their agent, whose name was Kermit Roosevelt, to Iran. They had coordinated it with the English. They sent him to Iran with a suitcase full of dollars. He went to the British Embassy – he didn’t even go to the American Embassy – he coordinated it with some traitorous military personnel and a number of British-affiliated elements. They gathered up some thugs, killed the military troops, and created that disgraceful coup on the 19th of August. They also arrested Mosaddeq and his entourage. Some were executed and others were imprisoned for many years.
The disputes between the Iranian nation and the United States date back to the 19th of August. Why did you stage a coup against a national government that was elected by the people? Why did you overthrow it? You gave the oil that he [Mosaddeq] had taken out of the clutches of the English to a consortium, which included England, the United States, and several other governments. So, it went from the frying pan into the fire.
Our dispute with the Americans started from that day. Because of their interests, which was oil in those days, the Americans did not show any mercy even to a person who was trustful toward the US, and a westernized person – Mosaddeq was westernized.
Well, that was the beginning. Now American politicians are hypocritically and shamelessly saying that we support the Iranian nation! You hear these words in the news and on social media and in other places. They say we support the Iranian nation. Well, this is an extremely shameless claim!
I would like to ask the Americans the following question: Is there anything that you had the ability to do against the Iranian nation in the past four decades, that you haven’t done? Whatever they didn’t do was because they weren’t able to do it, it didn’t benefit them. If they could, they would have done it. If it was worthwhile for them and if they weren’t afraid of the Iranian youth, they would have started a direct war, like in Iraq. But they were too afraid to do it.
They did whatever they were capable of doing. They supported separatist groups at the beginning of the revolution. They supported the coup d’état attempt at the Nojeh Military Base in Hamedan. The Americans showed support for the blind terrorism of the munafeqin [MKO] which led to the killing of thousands of martyrs across the country. They supported savage Saddam Hussain during Iraq’s imposed war on Iran. They provided him with weapons, intelligence information, and aid. They made the Arabs pay money. There is some information about this – which I am not completely certain about, but apparently, it is reliable information – that even the start of the war was provoked by the Americans and they were the ones who forced Saddam to initiate the eight-year war. They [the Americans] shot down an Iranian passenger airplane in the skies of the Persian Gulf which resulted in the deaths of over 300 people and they did not express any regret afterward. They even rewarded that criminal general who shot down the plane, they honored him with a medal! This is how you have treated the Iranian people.
You imposed sanctions on the Iranian nation since the first year of the revolution. You imposed the most severe sanctions that history has ever witnessed in the last few years – they said this themselves - as well as their support for unrest and sedition in Iran. You clearly supported the seditionists during the sedition that took place in 2009.
Prior to that, Obama wrote to me saying that we want to cooperate with you, we are your friends. He was in a sense swearing that they did not wish to overthrow us. However, as soon as the sedition of 2009 began, they started to support it, in the hope that the sedition might go somewhere and bring the Iranian nation to its knees and overthrow the Islamic Republic. This is how you treated the Iranian nation!
You Americans openly declared that you killed our fearless general. You murdered him and you were proud of it and you announced that you gave the orders! Martyr Soleimani was not just a national hero, he was the region’s hero. Martyr Soleimani played a major and unparalleled role in solving the problems of several countries in the region. You martyred this great man and his companions – Martyr Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and several others. You supported those - the Zionists - who assassinated our nuclear scientists. The Zionists martyred our scientists one by one and you supported them. Not only did you fail to condemn them, but you also supported them.
You have frozen billions of dollars of the Iranian nation’s assets in the US and in other countries. If this money was at the disposal of a hard-working administration, like the current administration, it would be able to do great things with it. [But] they froze these assets, they kept them.
This excludes the assets that were frozen in the US since the beginning of the Revolution. The United States’ fingerprints can be seen in most anti-Iranian events and then they claim that they empathize with the Iranian nation. They said this again yesterday, that they empathize with the Iranian nation. They lie with complete insolence!
Of course, they have shown great enmity toward us, but the Iranian nation – getting the better of them - has thwarted many of these enmities. Some of these events are still with us, we have not forgotten them. We will never forget the martyrdom of Martyr Soleimani, they should know this! We have said some things about this and we stand by our word. It will happen at the right time, at the right place, God willing.
Well, the America of today is the [same] America of yesterday. The America of today is the same America of August 19, [1953]. It is the same America that helped Saddam Hussain. It is the same America of the past few years, with one or two important differences which we must pay attention to.
First of all, the enemy’s tactics have become more complex. We need to pay attention to this. The enmities remain the same, but the method of applying these enmities is different and more complex. It is not easy to untie the knots, you need to pay attention, you need to be alert. Of course, we trust our own children, our own youth, and our own officials. We know they are capable of dealing with things that are complicated, but it is complex. That is one difference.
Secondly, that day – the 19th of August and the like – and even until the beginning of the revolution, the US was the dominant power in the world, [but] that is not how it is today. This is one important difference. Today, the US is not the world’s dominant power. Many of the world’s political analysts believe that the US is declining. It is gradually melting away. We aren’t the ones saying this. Of course, we have the same opinion, but the world’s political analysts are also saying it. The signs are evident. The United States’ domestic problems are unprecedented in the economic, social, and moral fields, as well as their internal conflicts and the blood-stained divisions inside the country. [Another sign is also] their miscalculation of the world’s affairs.
For example, twenty years ago they attacked Afghanistan – the Taliban were in power at that time. In order to eradicate the Taliban, they invaded Afghanistan, spent money, committed crimes, had casualties, killed a lot of people, and so on. They stayed in Afghanistan for twenty years and after twenty years, they were forced to exit Afghanistan, handing the country over to the Taliban. What does that imply? It shows their miscalculations.
It shows that the calculation system in the US is no longer an organized, orderly, and accurate system. They don’t comprehend the issues well. They misunderstand them and act in a wrong manner as a result of this.
Their attack on Iraq also ended in failure. The fact that you see elections in Iraq today where an Iraqi citizen [is elected], this is not what the Americans wanted. When Saddam went, the Americans instated a military official as the Iraq’s head of state. And then they realized that they can’t continue with a military official, so they removed him and replaced him with a civilian – Mr. Bremer – as the top official in Iraq instead. This means that the country of Iraq was to be governed by a non-Arab, non-Iraqi, American ruler!
Now, I mentioned that I have some matters to say about Haj Qasem Soleimani. One of the things is this issue, but now is not the right time to talk about it. This was their intention. Their intention was not to leave Iraq. They then tried to appoint their own agents, but they failed completely. They failed in Iraq, they failed in Syria, and they failed in Lebanon.
The recent agreement between Lebanon and the usurping regime [Israel], regarding the issue of maritime gas field borders, and the like was a part of America’s failure. This is because the Americans started ordering things: it must be done this way and that way. Hezbollah rejected all this. [This is] America’s failure. It is obvious that their calculations are inaccurate.
One of the things that – I’m saying this now, some other people across the world have apparently said it too – I believe that one of the signs of America’s decline is the election of people like the current and the former president. A country of 300 million, 300 million-plus people almost destroys itself and elects a president in the previous term - somebody like Trump whom the world considers to be crazy and after he was defeated, a man like this current one comes to power, and well, you know the stories about him. This is evidence of the decline of a nation. This is evidence of the decline of a civilization. So, this was [matters] related to America.
Many other western powers are similar to the US in these aspects. Now, I don’t want to name them, but some other western powers are like America in this field. In their media, they teach destruction, they teach people how to riot and how to make Molotov cocktails and hand grenades. What is the reason for this? The issue is not that they are committing a crime by doing this. Yes, it is a crime, but it is also depravity. This is depraved behavior. When a government or a governmental organization’s media acts this way, it is a sign of their moral depravity.
The United States also played an obvious role in the recent riots that took place in our country in the past few weeks. The announcement made by the Intelligence Ministry and the IRGC Intelligence Organization is an important announcement. It is very detailed and some cannot be bothered reading it, [but] we have received their information and reports. This information is very important. There is a lot written on this subject. The discoveries that our intelligence services have made in this field are very valuable.
They sat and orchestrated plots for Tehran. They devised schemes for large cities and for small cities. The appearance is that there are a handful of young people or teenagers in the field. Well, these young people and teenagers are our own children, we don’t have anything against them. They are filled with excitement and emotions and they are a bit inattentive toward understanding these issues. No, we are more concerned about those who are orchestrating the events. They are the ones who entered the scene with a plan in mind.
What I am saying should be considered by everyone: they have a plan in mind. Our officials should keep this in mind. Fortunately, our intelligence officials are paying attention to this. Our political officials, our economic officials, all our officials should realize that they came onto the scene with a plot. The people and you youngsters should also realize this. They entered the scene with a plot. Their plan is to make the Iranian nation stand with them. They want to make the Iranian people believe in the same things that the British and American leaders believe in. This is their plan. This is their intention. However, the Iranian nation punched them in the mouth and it will continue to punch them in the mouth after this!
The ones we are really concerned about are those who devised these schemes and entered the scene of action with intention, plans, and knowledge. They were connected to foreign agencies. They committed a crime.
The incident that happened in the Shah Cheragh shrine in Shiraz was a great crime. What did those boys in the second grade or the sixth grade or the tenth grade do to deserve this? The poor six-year-old boy who lost his father, his mother, and his brother in this criminal act, why did they weigh him down with so much grief? Why? How is this child going to bear this immense amount of unbearable grief? These are crimes, they are great crimes!
The young, pious, and religious student, our dear Arman, who was martyred while being tortured and his lifeless body was abandoned on the streets of Tehran, what did he do to deserve this? Are these minor things? Who are these people? We need to think about it. Who are the people doing this? They are not our children, they are not our youth!
Who are they? Who is giving them orders? Why haven’t the so-called supporters of human rights condemned them? Why have they not condemned the Shiraz incident? Why do they repeat a false claim thousands of times on their platforms on the internet, yet ban the name of "Arsham" [one of the child victims of the terrorist attack]? Why? Are these so-called supporters, real supporters of human rights? That is what they are like, we need to recognize these, we need to recognize them! Of course, we will not let them get away with this. The Islamic Republic will definitely make these criminals pay! Whoever is proven to have collaborated with these criminals or has played any sort of role in these atrocities, will undoubtedly be punished, God willing.
I would now like to share a few words with you young people. First of all, the teenager of today, unlike the teenager of the past, is a mature element, a wise element. It was not like this during my time, I will tell you. I am talking about myself here. When the case of August 19th occurred, like many of you here, I was around fourteen or fifteen years old. There was a specter of cases happening before our eyes, [but] determining who they were, on whose side this person was, on whose side that person was, what was their purpose, why were they doing the things that they were doing - no, we did not pay attention to these matters. The teenagers today are not like this. The teenager of today thinks, analyzes issues, understands the analyses correctly, and realizes things. The young people of today are analytical people. This is a very important point. It is very significant.
Our children and our youth have things to say and this is the nature of the Islamic Revolution. Let me say this: this is the nature of the Islamic Revolution. If there was no Islamic Revolution, our young people – not teenagers and children now, young people, in their twenties – they would be so preoccupied with frivolities and lust that they would not even remember to think about the country’s fundamental issues. That is how it was back in the day.
I used to come [close to] here in these streets. There was a place called the Youth Palace, behind City Park. It was early in the evening. A number of young people had left the Palace and had come out onto the streets – it was some sort of a party – I was a seminary then. I was passing by and it really perplexed you to see the way these young people were dressed or the things they would do on the streets. Now, would a young person with these characteristics, be bothered to think about the country’s political issues, the country’s future, their responsibilities, and these sorts of things? It was the Islamic Revolution that awakened the youth, both during the uprising, in the final year of the uprising, when the youth entered the scene on the instructions of Imam Khomeini and after the uprising, up until today. Our youth have been growing every day. They are able to analyze and comprehend events.
Now, this is a fact. The enemy understands this reality just as we understand it. The enemy also understands that the youth today are well-aware of things. That they are focused, they are intelligent, they are capable of analyzing things. So, what does it do? The enemy is not going to remain idle. In order to neutralize the state of our youth, the enemy has started creating content targeting the minds of our younger population.
The large amount of lies that are prevalent on social media platforms are a result of this. All these lies, all these distortions, all the diversionary conversations, and the accusations are all made so the enemy can create content for these active minds. This is why I keep saying that you need to engage in the “jihad of clarification”.
You [have to] create the content. I’m addressing the officials here - the media officials, the communications officials. You need to create content which contains truthful and correct information and convey it to the youth before the enemy creates content that is false, misleading, and filled with lies. The enemy is busy doing this [students begin to chant slogans of support]…thank you, now listen while you’re here attending the session today, and then go and really start planning for it.
This is what I really expect of you, youngsters. Now, I will say it again, our time is passing, but it is a good opportunity for me to talk with you for a little bit.
So, the enemy is busy making plans. Like I said, our officials need to feel responsible. They need to know why the enemy is sensitive about a certain word, a certain name, and why they keep banning it. They need to know why the enemy keeps publishing so many lies on social media. They need to resolve this and deal with it. This is the responsibility of our officials.
You young people also have a duty. You need to feel responsible as well in order to distinguish the truth from lies. I believe it can be done, it is not impossible. They want to ingrain certain things using large volumes with repetition in the minds [of the youth]. But you can tell whether this contradicts reality or not, distinguishing the truth from lies and distortions.
Secondly, be wary of those who are of the same opinion [as the enemy]. Guide them. I am not saying you should fight with them, [but] guide them. Explain things to them. There are people who agree with the enemy, [although] it is not intentional. Some do not understand. They are uninformed.
One can see how certain individuals are saying things on social media or writing things in newspapers. These people are not antagonists, they have just misunderstood things. These individuals need to be guided. The best person who can guide them is you, young people. Write to them, talk to them, send them messages, explain things, and reason with them in your gatherings.
Of course, we know that dealing with these issues should be planned. The events that occurred these past few weeks were not merely street riots. They were detailed plots. The enemy initiated hybrid warfare. The enemy, namely the United States, the Zionist regime, some insidious and malicious European powers, and some groups, came to the scene with all of their capabilities. What do we mean when we say they used all their capabilities?
It means they used their intelligence services, their media, their social media capacity, and their past experiences. Well, they have had experiences in Iran. They had experiences in 1999, in 2009, and in the years after that. They failed there. They are using those experiences. They are bringing those experiences to the scene. They have done these things in other countries as well. They sustained some blows and they have also had some successes. They use those experiences as well. The enemy brought all these capabilities to the field these past few weeks in order to defeat the Iranian nation. Like I said, the nation literally punched them in the mouth, the Iranian nation left them wanting.
Well, now this is an expectation that I have of you, my dear youth, and all the other youth who will hear this talk later. But I do have another expectation as well. I mentioned in one or two of my previous speeches that there are many signs that indicate that the current world order is changing and a new order will prevail over the world.
What role do we Iranians have, and where will we be positioned, in this new order? This is an important question. What is this new order that I am talking about where the current order will be replaced by a new one? It cannot be said for certain, the dimensions and nature of the new order are not exactly known, but a layout can be drawn. There are some basic lines which will certainly exist in this new world order.
The first basic line of the new order is the isolation of the United States. In the new world order, the United States will be isolated, contrary to what George Bush Sr. said ten, twenty years ago about America being the only dominant power in the world.
After Iraq attacked Kuwait and the Americans crushed the Iraqi attack, he [George Bush Sr.] arrogantly said something along the lines of that today, the US is the be-all-and-end-all of the world. America will no longer have an important place in this new order that I am talking about, it is isolated [students chant “Death to America”]…yes, that’s what’s going to happen, “Death to America” will materialize. By the way, some people say that when you say “Death to America”, it makes the Americans become hostile toward you. I say that’s not the case. When the Americans started their hostilities, on August 19th, 1953, no one in Iran was chanting “Death to America”! Yet they still inflicted a blow on us, their blow was not a consequence of this chant. When they struck us on December 7th that same year [killing and injuring students who were protesting the state visit of then US Vice-President Richard Nixon], the students at Tehran University started chanting “Death to America”. Death to America is a reminder of December 7th, the chant started on that day! The Americans struck before that.
So, the US will have no choice but to stop interfering in various parts of the world. The Americans currently have bases in many different regions, including our region, in Europe, in Asia. They have populated military bases whose expenses are paid by taking money from the poor country in which the base is located. These countries are expected to cover their expenses, while the Americans sit back and lord over them! This will be over soon, the United States will have to pack its bags and leave these different [places] in the world. This is the first main line of the basic lines that form the new order of the future world.
The second basic line is the transfer of political, economic, cultural, and even scientific power from the west to Asia. Today, western powers have political authority, scientific authority, cultural authority, and economic authority. They have many things. However, perhaps a more accurate interpretation would be to say they had these things, but are gradually losing them. But they had [these] for many years. The west acted like this for two or three centuries. In the new order, this state will be transferred from the west to Asia. Asia will become the center of knowledge, the center of economics, as well as the center of political power, and the center of military power. And we are in Asia. So, that is the second point.
The third basic line includes the expansion of the idea of resistance and the resistance front against coercion. The initiator of this is the Islamic Republic. Because ever since the industrial revolution took place and the Europeans started advancing and colonizing other countries, they made the people and the countries of the world get used to the fact that submission and dominance are two inevitable corresponding parts of the world. This means that the world is split into domineering governments and countries, and states that can be dominated. This has been the situation and this domination system has been around for several centuries. Everyone agreed that they should accept the domination of western powers – even their culture and appellations.
Let me say this here – I have said it before – they call our region the “Middle East”! What does the Middle East even mean? It means that the origin and center of the world is Europe! Like that story about Mulla Nasruddin, where they asked him where the center of the world is and he replied, "the place where the nail of my donkey’s reins are [pounded into the ground], that is the center of the world!"
Any region that is far from Europe is called the Far East, because it is far from Europe. Whichever [country] is close to it, like some North African countries, they are considered to be in the Near East. Those that are in the middle of these are known as the Middle East. That is the basis for naming countries by Europe, that is how westerners were so self-entitled! This is why I insist on not calling it the Middle East, but West Asia instead. It is in West Asia after all. Why should we call it the Middle East?
The Islamic Republic was the one who formed this spirit of showing resistance toward the tyranny, power-seeking, and hegemony of the domineering powers. The first person in the world to say “Neither East nor West” was Imam Khomeini. Neither East nor West.
In those days, the world’s power was split between the US and the Soviet Union. Imam Khomeini said neither this nor that! All the countries in the world had to either be connected to the US or the Soviet Union. They felt they had no other choice. But he said, neither this nor that. This spirit, this logic, this solid and firm word has spread. Today, there are many people in the region who consider themselves to be affiliated with the resistance front. They are ready to resist. They believe in the resistance, they resist and in many cases, they get results, like the outcome that was achieved by the Lebanese because of Hezbollah’s efforts in the case of determining the [maritime] gas field borders.
I talked about three basic lines: the isolation of the United States, the transfer of power to Asia, the expansion of the resistance front, and the logic of the resistance. Indeed, other matters can also be added. They are in my mind, but these things were the more essential issues.
So, what is Iran’s role in this new order? Where will Iran be placed? What position will our dear country hold? This is the thing that you need to think about. This is what you need to prepare yourselves for. This is the thing that the Iranian youth can work on.
We can have an outstanding position in this new order, we really can. Why? Because our country has outstanding features that many other countries lack. First of all, we have human resources. We have really good human resources. The intelligence and talent of young Iranians is higher than the average intelligence and talent of the world. This exists.
Today, we are seeing the outcomes of the intelligence and talents of those who were born in the 1980s and 1990s. The young people and those who are making innovations and updates in various scientific and technological areas are allowing the country to rank among the top four or five countries in the world in a number of areas. These are the same people who were born in the 80s and the 90s. They are bearing fruit today.
God willing, the Iranian nation will also witness the blessings of those born in the 2000s and 2010s [early 21st century] – which makes up most of you who are here today – in the future. Of course, there will be disruptions, some problems exist which can create hindrances. So, our first advantage is that we have good human resources.
The second advantage that we have is the forces of nature, our country’s nature. We have many resources in our country. The diversity of our country’s natural resources is among the rarest in the world. In one of my speeches in this same Hussainiyah – I don’t remember the statistics now, I remembered it that day because I had researched it – I mentioned that we make up one percent of the world’s population, one percent. Now there are a few essential metals that are necessary for industries and these essential metals are also available in our country, and they constitute four or five percent of the metals available in the world! This means that we have more [percentage of] natural resources [in proportion to] the size of our own population.
I mentioned metals, but the same goes for our plant resources, our medicinal plants, and our mines. We are very wealthy in that sense. I have addressed different administrations, insisting that more attention should be given to our mining industry. Unfortunately, not much attention was given to it and many of them did not listen to the things I had said. I hope that by the will of God, the current administration will attend to these issues. I have heard they are doing great things in the field of mining. So, this was another important point.
Therefore, our country is advantaged both in terms of its human resources and its natural resources. It is also advantaged in terms of its geographical position. We are the crossroads of communication between the east and west and the north and south. If you look at the world map, you will see that we are located at a sensitive point. The east and the west can pass through us, as can the north and south. We can turn into a highly advanced and superior transit location in the world. Railway lines will be required – I need to have this heart-to-heart with you young people – I have repeatedly stressed the need for these railway lines with different administrations, but unfortunately, it has been neglected. In the early days after the demise of Imam Khomeini, some work was done on our railways, [but] nothing much was done after that. God willing, some good things are being planned for it. We need to, God willing, be able to find our place in the transit and transportation field.
The thing that is actually more important than all of the aforementioned advantages, is the logic of our government and civilization, which is the Islamic Republic. We have combined a republic with something that is Islamic. We have combined the people’s presence and their votes and opinions with divine knowledge. Combining these two things is not an easy task, [but] we have been able to do it with God’s grace. It is not flawless, I have never claimed that we don’t have flaws in these areas. No, we do have flaws, but our words, our logic, it is a new type of logic in the world. So, that was about those issues.
My last word to you my dear young people, you see that whatever you do, whatever we do, whatever we all do, our words and our actions, [they all] send signals to those outside the country. We need to be careful with the messages we are sending. These messages are not necessarily in words. Sometimes the way you even sit can send a message.
Sometimes, your gatherings in a certain place can convey a message. Sometimes the things you chant can send a message. Be mindful of the message that you are sending out to the world. I believe that the most important thing that must be relayed to the enemy front by the Iranian nation and the Iranian youth is the Iranian nation’s power of resistance.
The Iranian nation, the youth of Iran, must use their actions, movements, slogans, and their work to let the world know – which of course the enemy will also understand – that the Iranian nation has the power to resist. It is determined to stand up to coercion. Indeed, this is the duty of the people.
The officials have great responsibilities, our officials have many responsibilities in this field. The shortcomings of the past should not be repeated. Some government organizations need to play a highly active role in this field. These include the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Culture and Guidance and the ministries related to production, the Ministry of Industries and Mines, the Ministry of Agriculture, or the ministries related to the issue of transportation – these are important organizations – the Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology, which has the duty to [connect] the elites to the Elite Foundation. These organizations have great duties to perform.
My dear ones! You can be certain that if I do my duty, if you do your duty, if the different organizations perform their duties, wherever any one of us are situated, if we understand what our responsibilities are and do them, all of the country’s problems will be solved and we will achieve our ultimate dream.
May God’s mercy be upon our magnanimous Imam, our predecessors, our martyrs, and the families of the martyrs.
I wish you all the best. May God protect all of you. God bless you.
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