By Barry K. Grossman*
When one of the world’s most important, senior and consistent national leaders addresses himself to the world, only fools do not take the opportunity to listen. That being the case, I would encourage everyone to carefully read and consider Ayatollah Khamenei’s second open letter to the western youth and I extend this invitation not only to those who are already convinced of the Ayatollah’s wisdom, sincerity and profound knowledge but also, indeed, especially to those who find themselves “naturally” inclined to react with “contempt prior to investigation” when facing anything they associate with Islam or the Islamic Republic of Iran. I would add, moreover, that as constructive and compelling as the Ayatollah’s letter is, young people should do their own rigorous but unbiased fact checking in order to fully inform themselves about the matters canvassed in the Ayatollah’s optimistic message so those irrefutable realities become a permanent part of the reader’s analytical framework.
Of course there are those – and we know who they are – who will try to twist the Ayatollah’s words and by their mischief we should know them. They will not even try to understand the essence of the Leader’s message before they start to misrepresent it. They bridle at any informed attempt to discuss the historical, ideological, and political context which predictably and almost always with uncanny timing, creates tragedies like we recently witnessed in Paris. They have no interest in encouraging a constructive, cross cultural dialogue that values facts, principle and honesty over pragmatism and self interest; a dialogue which, as the Ayatollah explains, is a necessary step in arriving at a solution to the important problems facing the world today.
Instead, by inclination and as typically required by the terms of their engagement, the media executives, think tank denizens and counter intelligence operatives who shape public opinion have no interest in context and even less in facts or principles. Their trade craft is entirely focused on framing the public narrative with contrived minutiae and official talking points which they slice, dice and package for public consumption in a manner that advances their masters’ ideological agenda by shaping the proclivities of the ordinary people whom they pretend to represent.
Yet despite their best efforts, there is no avoiding the Ayatollah’s words of wisdom. Increasingly, ordinary people and especially young people are starting to understand that they have been systematically conditioned, manipulated and lied to. Increasingly people of all ages are waking up to the reality of what their governments and corporate citizens are doing, although for older people whose entire frame of reference has been contrived by the machinery of a toxic society, this gradual awakening is not in itself enough to draw them to a path which by design does not exist in their communities; that is, the path of righteousness.
In this information age and bearing in mind the countless public admissions made by members of the west’s political and military establishment, how can anyone not recognise that the terrorism which is being repeatedly perpetrated around the world every day was anticipated by analysts working in the west’s think-tanks, intelligence services and war machine, as the inevitable and therefore intended outcome of western foreign policy?
How can anyone deny that by manipulating terminology, using media chicanery, and focusing the public attention on meaningless banners of convenience used to distinguish good thugs from bad ones, the west now gets away with openly training and arming the very same elements it publicly claims to oppose?
How can anyone blessed with the power of thought deny that the political apparatus and mainstream media -which are both owned by the same corporate interests which have turned the USA into a hegemonic power fuelled by a war-based economy- systematically manipulate people into feeling terrorised by threats which do not exist and into expressing selective outrage on cue when European or American criminals of foreign descent predictably carry out acts of terrorism on their own soil, while remaining entirely unmoved by the graphic images of suffering of millions of innocent men, women and children victimised by state sanctioned terrorism every day in occupied Palestine and other regional nations being targeted by the US-led international order?
And who, except people with no knowledge of history, can honestly deny that the machinery of US government, after replacing the UK in the 30’s as the host and dominant sponsor of the World Zionist Movement and becoming the driving force behind the Atlantic World’s Israel project, has in recent decades itself been entirely commandeered by adherents to the secular ideologies of Corporatism and Zionism, most of whom are anything but Jews?
Indeed, who but mischief makers, the walking dead, and mignons of the Atlantic World establishment, could take issue with the Ayatollah’s optimistic words of wisdom?
Propaganda can change how people see but it cannot change the facts and, as the Ayatollah has so eloquently touched on in this second open letter to western young people, it can scarcely be denied that:
- Old world and indigenous civilizations are under continuous attack by the west while Muslims are now being systematically discriminated against throughout the Atlantic World;
- Terrorism is a concern shared by all nations;
- There can be no solution to the problem of genuine terrorism until its context is widely understood and its root causes rejected by ordinary people;
- Led by the USA, the Atlantic World apparatus considers any terrorism which the establishment perceives to be useful in advancing its interests to be “good terrorism”, while condemning all armed resistance to western hegemony and any politically motivated violence which does not advance its agenda as “bad terrorism”. This bifurcated and morally corrupt approach to the problem of terrorism has denuded the word any coherent meaning.
- “Good terrorists” have long been actively encouraged and supported by the US-led international community and its junior partners in the region. People in the Islamic World - where this long standing “good terrorism” is all pervasive and unrelenting, overwhelmingly suffer more than their western counterparts. In the Islamic World, this sanctioned political violence is not just a news story or an irrational state of mind; it is a daily reality which constantly threatens the very existence of people and their families;
- The US political process and machinery of government has been comprehensively colonised by supporters of Zionism and corporatism, so it is up to the western young people to be agents for change;
As the Ayatollah so wisely states in his letter, it is up to western young people to
“. . . lay the foundation for a proper and honourable interaction with the Muslim world based on correct knowledge, deep insight and by [learning lessons from past] tragic experiences.”
By striving to do this, young people will:
“. . . see that the edifice you have erected on such a foundation will spread the shadow of confidence and trust over the heads of its architects, grant them the warmth of security and clam, and radiate the rays of hope in a bright future on the world.”
Of course, the critics will dismiss the facts canvassed in the Ayatollah’s letter as conspiracy theory and anti-Semitism. Even though Atlantic World politics and big business by its very nature is rife with conspiracies. In any case, it hardly requires a conspiracy of 300 illuminated men secretly meeting in hallowed halls to clandestinely advance an agenda for world domination, for the self-evident facts identified in the Ayatollah’s open letter to be true.
With the world aggressively dominated by a Eurocentric civilization enriched by centuries of colonial looting and which has elevated the pursuit of material self-interest, it was all but inevitable that we would end up with a global state of affairs that predictably produces occasional tragedies like we have witnessed over the years in Paris, London, Madrid and New York, and experienced in front of a largely silent world almost daily in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, the Central African Republic, Myanmar and many other places, while the economies and traditional cultures of those nations are simultaneously under constant attack from the west.
Bearing in mind the social devolution and moral breakdown experienced by the Atlantic World during the post modern era, its unqualified commitment to the deregulated and amoral pursuit of profit was in itself enough to land most of the world in this bloody quagmire of broken body parts, human suffering, and social decadence without further need for what deniers typically refer to as a massive conspiracy.
As for worn-out allegations of anti-Semitism, people would do well to understand that relatively few Zionists are Jewish and certainly not all Jews are Zionists. In any case, it is worth bearing in mind that a 2012 Gallup poll found that only 38 percent Jews worldwide consider themselves religious and only slightly more than half believe that there is a God. The same poll found that only 55% of cultural Jews believe Torah was given by God to Moses. In other words, most of the European and American Zionists who occupy Palestine with US financed military force are in fact atheists who do not believe in the existence of God or the Torah even though they also somehow manage to assert a divine, Torah-based right to Palestine. Moreover, any student of history will know that while Europeans persecuted Jews for more than 500 years, only the Islamic world – from Morocco to Iran and beyond - consistently provided safe haven to Europe’s persecuted Jews. To constantly assert that any and all criticism of the secular ideology Zionism or its crimes is anti-Semitic, only discredits those people dishonest enough to make the allegation.
I sincerely hope that western young people and adults alike will take this opportunity to read the Leader’s optimistic message and rise to the call of duty by encouraging, even demanding the emergence of a better world for everyone.
* Barry K. Grossman received his B.Comm. from the University of Calgary in 1984 and his LLB from York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in 1987. After working as a litigator at a major commercial law firm in Toronto, he moved to Australia to teach at the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Law in 1988. He later worked for several years as a litigation consultant to the national Australian firm of Freehill, Hollingdale & Page before taking up a full time lectureship at Monash University’s Faculty of Law. Mr. Grossman has written extensively on various legal subjects and is a frequent commentator on political affairs. He is a Muslim and has resided in Indonesia since 1999.
The views, opinions and positions expressed on Op-Ed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions or positions of Khamenei.ir .
