YouSaid · the spoken record

Ali Khamenei

THE RECORD WRITES THIS SPEAKER AS ALI KHAMENEI

lines on the record: 69
first: 1987-09-24
most recent: 1987-09-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“This in itself is one of the manifestations of the belief and trust in God in all spheres of our individual and social life. The dominant thinking in the political world today believes that without reliance on one of the power blocs no movement may survive in the contemporary political world. There may be a difference of emphasis about this but there seems to be no argument on the sacred principle. There are also people who, ideologically speaking, endorse non-reliance or non-alignment but do not suppose, pragmatically speaking, that it could work. Our revolution has, in such an atmosphere, offered a new philosophy and followed it most sincerely.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“Furthermore, Islam is a sacred faith and a divine religion in more than 50 countries and among some 1,000 million Muslims and, therefore, a revolutionary victory the spirit and substance of which is derived from Islam is in fact the victory of those billion people over all historic invaders against Islam. It is for this reason that hundreds of millions of Muslims in dozens of Islamic countries have welcomed the victory of our revolution. This religious characteristic also stops the people, the leader of the revolution and its administrators from any retreat, defeat, fear or weakness, when you fight for God there is no defeat, let alone fear, weakness or retreat. Thirdly, non-reliance on either East or West was another exceptional characteristic of this revolution and is now the fundamental policy of out revolutionary system.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“There have been many revolutionary movements in history the combative spirit of which was fuelled by a religious faith, but little or no account has been taken of this factor by many analysts. In our revolution, however, everything was taken from Islam; its aims, its principles and its methods of struggle, as well as the formation of the new order and the particular form of its administration. This fact gives certain surprising dimensions to the definition of revolution and new meanings to its victory. As we know, Islam has been a target of assaults for the last century and a half by colonial Powers and their subservient, reactionary agents exactly because of its inexhaustible capacity for revolution and reconstruction.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“The doctrine of blood overcoming the sword is the old policy of the oppressed resisting and fighting the oppressor that was declared by the leader of our revolution long before it took place. Thus the first victory of our revolution was against the armed regime of the Shah, who was strongly backed by the West and the United States, It has since gained us other victories, some of which may even be rated as more important than defeating the Shah. This unique experience - unique at least in the last century - deserves to be carefully studied by both the oppressed nations and those oppressive Powers which underestimate the power of the people. Secondly, this revolution had its roots in religion, in Islam.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“The last bastions of the regime were barracks with no soldiers or officers, in the last hours a few garrisons showed some resistance, but all was in vain, because people were everywhere and overcame them. The miracle of this revolution was the victory of the people. It was only after the collapse of the military garrisons that arms fell into the hands of the people·, but then the kingdom had already collapsed and these weapons were used for the protection of the new revolutionary order. People, young and old, men and women, were the agents who defeated the Shah's regime, which was armed to the teeth and enjoyed the support of the biggest Powers. It was the people who established the order of an Islamic republic, and their weapons were their faith, their determination and their blood - and blood overcame the sword.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“The regime, cracking under the pressure of people who no longer had any regard for their lives, could not withstand the onslaught of the masses and was forced to make its greatest concession; it sacrificed the Shah, He fled the country, never to return, and after this the regime's retreat accelerated. The great leader of the revolution, whose every word to every individual Iranian was a lesson in awareness, resolve and purpose, was able to announce the formation of a revolutionary administration with trust in God Almighty, Who encompasses all other powers, and with reliance on the people's indomitable will. The Shah's tyrannical rule, which was left with no option, collapsed automatically and melted away.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“The Shah, the Prime Minister, generals of the army, ministers and other important criminals fled the country when they could to avoid the wrath of the people. This, of course, happened after a long year during which the regime had exploited all the political, military and police resources at its service to disperse people and force them back to work or to their houses, and in order to achieve this had shot and killed thousands of them in the streets, in the mosques, in the universities and in their workplaces, openly and indiscriminately. Despite all these measures, however, the people's presence had increased. In the very last months, when the regime became more violent, the people came out in millions.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“None of the familiar forms that have been instrumental in certain other revolutions were active or even present in our revolution: no armed guerrilla groups, no active military-political party, no groups of revolutionary, free officers and the like. There were only people, and unarmed people at that, who filled Tehran and other cities and towns in Iran with their presence. They crowded the streets and filled the air in the cities with their revolutionary presence and revolutionary slogans, in such a way that there was no room to breathe for the ruling clique and its government·, they simply had to leave their castles and centres of power and, one by one or in groups, to leave the country hastily.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“The ancient regime's claims of progress and modernization were all false, but the West's propaganda machine, especially its Zionist component, keep publicizing them. It was such a regime that the Islamic revolution toppled, proposing its own significant goals. Nine years have passed, yet it is still felt that the answers too many questions are not quite clear. The fact is that in the case of our revolution and our views and principles much more uninformed opinion and evil talk has been heard than in other cases. 1 shall now try, for the benefit of those interested in truth, to shed light on certain exceptional aspects which give different characteristics to this revolution. I shall end my statement with a brief message. First, the revolution was from its beginnings a people's revolution - totally, 100 per cent.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“But, despite earfuls of adverse propaganda, the awakening of Muslims in many Islamic countries is not an offspring of Iran's Islamic revolution; it is its brother-in-Islam. Iran is located at one of the most sensitive sites of strategic importance. It has a background of science and culture and abounds in material resources. The Islamic revolution in Iran was meant to be against a regime that had put all this at the service of the interests of the imperial-minded Powers of the world, particularly those of the United States of America, for almost a quarter of a century. Nobody needed the spiritual and material wealth of Iran more than the Iranian people, but they were denied it.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“It was on such basic principles and with such objectives that an Islamic revolution emerged in Iran and laid the foundations of an Islamic republic. Many analysts have searched for the roots of the Islamic revolution in February 1979, and many of them have failed to understand it correctly. In our opinion, this great event was partly a consequence of the inefficiency of the existing systems in the world and the emptiness and falsehood of the slogans of democracy and equality in those systems. Islam was able once again to shine in this dark atmosphere through the dust of distortions and misconceptions thrown in its way for many centuries. The sun of Islam shone on Iran and brought about a revolutionary storm. It is expected to shine on many other parts of the world. We must wait and see.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“Freedom and liberty, the equality of people, social justice, awareness of society's individuals, the combating of corruption and perversion, the superiority of human ideals over individual desires, the rejection of satanic domination, personal behaviour and ethics, and occupational and political scrupulousness are all born of and inspired by the same universal interpretation of the world and man. Islam rejects as immoral all systems founded on force, oppression, ignorance, suppression, tyranny and humiliation of man through discrimination on grounds of race, nation, blood or language It commands the faithful to approach with love, affection and support all mankind, co-religionist or not, except those determined to fight the Islamic order, who must be faced uncompromisingly.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“They also taught him that surrendering to enemies of justice, virtuousness and charity only results in the destruction of these values and amounts to acquiescence in evil, oppression and corruption. In Islam's divine thought the religion of God is not only the crowning of man's virtuousness, but the very form of life itself. Religion offers man a complete social system, not merely some forms of worship and certain traditions even though services of worship and traditions are full of the spirit of life and serve the same system. The social system is based on the same religious outlook.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“They also warned against wasting human potential and slipping into the mire of moral corruption. They opened fountains of virtuousness, honesty, love, work, initiative, knowledge and consciousness and they stressed the love of God and His blessing of people, which are man's only insurance against perversions and are a guarantee of the sublimation of his soul. They taught man to use his power to safeguard these values, to block the path of the intruding satans of corruption and perversion, to fight ignorance and the cruelty of slavery, to safeguard knowledge, justice and freedom. They taught him neither to oppress nor to let others oppress him they taught him to rise in defence of equity and justice and not to give evil a chance.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“When racial and geographical characteristics are disregarded, an act of aggression against a person is aggression against humanity. The feeling of superiority and monopoly has set brother against brother, and the blood that has flowed has never dried. The same motives and the same actions created streams of blood and, finally, seas of blood have appeared between those seeking superiority and domination and the victims of such arrogance. In this way peace has been taken out of man's life. The prophets invited people to submit to God, because this crushes the feeling of egocentrism and superiority in man and offers him the purity and tranquillity of a paradise on earth before the eternal one in heaven. They persuaded man to control his instinct of domination and superiority.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“Exploiting his intrinsic talents man can build the world created for him in the most beautiful ways and, flying on the two wings of faith and knowledge, rise to the highest spiritual and material peaks. Conversely, man can create a hell of oppression and corruption by going astray and wasting and perverting his God-given potential. The only light illuminating his path is belief in God and submission to His commands. The temporal world is a cultivating ground for the next world and death is not the end of life but only a passage to immortality and the beginning of a new existence. In Islam's divine thought all mankind are brothers and sisters and creatures of the Almighty. There is no discrimination because of colour, race, sex or geographical location of people and these distinctions do not make one man or a nation superior to others.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“The meaning of man, the interpretation of history, the analysis of past, present and future events, the concept of the material world, the explanation of elements that bind man to the world outside him, the earth, human beings and objects, man's understanding of his own existence - in short, everything that goes into the formation of human society's value system to attain an orderly human administration - are rooted in and emanate from this divine outlook. In Islamic thought all existence is the creation of God and an image of His knowledge and power; the whole universe is attracted to Him and man is His creature superior to others and His heir on earth.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“My country has been a centre of man's civilization and culture at some important, elevated stages of history and at present is the setting for a political system based on the same cultural background and traditions, which are now further enriched by an Islamic awakening. I come here from a land which is the birthplace of a more famed but Less understood revolution in contemporary history, a revolution founded on the religion of God, marching along the path of the prophets and great spiritual reformers, a path as long as the history of mankind. Islam's Unitarian theory is the unshakable foundation and the fundamental thinking of this revolution.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)
“O Lord, with Thy holy name I begin and from Thee I seek guidance and support. My life and death, my petition, prayer and praise belong to Thee. I beseech Thee to grant the clarity and magnetism of the word of truth to my utterances and make them a message for the millions of people who passionately thirst after truth and for those who shall, in the future, seek the truth. 0 God Almighty, my nation and I offer our thankful salutations to the souls of Thy great prophets, in particular, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad - Thy peace be upon them - who did their utmost and gave their lives in order to spread and immortalize the message of awareness and salvation of man, and our humble salutations to the pure and enlightened hearts who obeyed Thy message, especially to those among them who sacrificed their lives because of it.”
1987-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 42 (1987)