From Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s January 21, 2015, message
to European and North American youth
Excerpt, minor editing, end comment by
Carolyn Bennett
A timely preface from Christian texts (minor language update edit): Proverbs 4:1: Hear, children, the instruction of the elder, attend to know understanding ● Proverbs 4:7: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore, get wisdom, and with all your getting get understanding.”
KNOW
THAT OF WHICH YOU SPEAK
“The Holy Qur’an”
 |
| Supreme Leader of IranSeyyed Ali Khamenei var. Ali Hosseini Khamenei |
“I don’t insist that you accept my reading or any other
reading of Islam. What I want to say is: Don’t allow this dynamic and effective
reality in today’s world to be introduced to you through resentments and
prejudices. Don’t allow them to hypocritically introduce their own recruited
terrorists as representatives of Islam.
“…In reaction to the flood of prejudgments and disinformation
campaigns, try to gain a direct and firsthand knowledge of this religion. The
right logic requires that you understand the nature and essence of what they
are frightening you about and want you to keep away from.
“…Receive knowledge
of Islam from its primary and original sources. Gain information about Islam
through the Qur’an and the life of its great Prophet.
“I would like to ask
you whether you have directly read the Qur’an of the Muslims.
Have you studied the teachings of the
Prophet of Islam and his humane, ethical doctrines?
Have you ever received the message of Islam
from any sources other than the media?
Have you ever asked yourself how and on the
basis of which values has Islam established the greatest scientific and
intellectual civilization of the world and raised the most distinguished
scientists and intellectuals throughout several centuries?
JUDGE NOT
(Where have I heard that imperative? Do you know? Matthew Chapter 7 of Christian texts:
Verse
1: Judge not, that ye be not judged.
Verse
2: For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure
ye measure, it shall be measured to you again. [Ref.
New Scofield Reference Bible, Holy Bible, authorized King James Version, Oxford
University Press 1967]
“Impartial judgment”
Ayatollah
Seyyed Ali Khamenei continues
“I would like you not to allow the derogatory and offensive
image-buildings to create an emotional gulf between you and the reality, taking
away from you the possibility of an impartial judgment.
“Communication media today have removed the geographical
borders [but] do not allow them to besiege you within fabricated and mental
borders.
BUILD A BRIDGE
“Although no one individually can fill the created gaps,
each one of you can construct a bridge of thought and fairness over the gaps to
illuminate yourself and your surrounding environment.
“While [the existing] pre-planned challenge between Islam and you, the
youth, is undesirable; it can raise new questions in your curious and inquiring
minds. Attempts to find answers to these questions will provide you with an
appropriate opportunity to discover new truths.
“Therefore, do not miss the opportunity to gain proper,
correct and unbiased understanding of Islam so that hopefully, due to your sense
of responsibility toward the truth, future generations would write the history
of this current interaction between Islam and the West with a clearer
conscience and less resentment.”
PAST,
PRESENT BEWARE OTHERNESS: paranoid demonizing hostility
“Negative image of Islam in the West”
“…Many attempts have been made over the past two decades,
almost since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, to place this great
religion in the seat of a horrifying enemy.
“The provocation of a feeling of horror and hatred and its
utilization has unfortunately a long record in the political history of the
West.…A cursory review of recent critical studies of history would bring home
to you the fact that the Western governments’ insincere and hypocritical
treatment of other nations and cultures has been censured in new
historiography.
“The histories of the United States and Europe are ashamed
of slavery, embarrassed by the colonial period and chagrined at the oppression
of people of color and non-Christians. Your researchers and historians are
deeply ashamed of the bloodshed wrought in the name of religion between the
Catholics and Protestants or in the name of nationality and ethnicity during
the First and Second World Wars. This approach is admirable.” But what of the West and Islam?
ASK WHY
“… I do not want to reproach history but rather I would like
you to ask your intellectuals…
…why
the public conscience in the West awakens and comes to its senses after a delay
of several decades or centuries.
Why
should the revision of collective conscience apply to the distant past and not
to the current problems?
Why
is it that attempts are made to prevent
public awareness regarding an important issue such as the treatment of Islamic
culture and thought?
…Why
does the power structure in the world want Islamic thought to be marginalized
and remain latent?
What
concepts and values in Islam disturb the programs of the super powers and what
interests are safeguarded in the shadow of distorting the image of Islam?
“
|
…You know well that humiliation and
spreading hatred and illusory fear of the ‘other’ have been the common base
of all those oppressive profiteers.
“Now, I would like you to ask yourself why the old policy of
spreading ‘phobia’ and hatred has targeted Islam and Muslims with an
unprecedented intensity.
“…My first request is [that you] Study and research the
incentives behind this widespread tarnishing of the image of Islam.”
Only the youth can build a firm bridge to a better future. A better future rests with them. It depends upon the younger ones’ communicating an essential clarity of thought first gained through thoughtful study, diligent search and broad exposure unhindered by an old guard whose vested interests and hidden agendas have censored contemporary information and past history.
|
We must know that our ignorance, often a pattern of deliberate ignorance, is not only a danger to the world; it is also a danger to ourselves. We are neither apart from nor a land apart. We are one people among the world's peoples.
An older
man in a very old land has taken a most important step on behalf of especially (but not only) European and North American youth, and a better future. We should overcome our prejudices. Listen carefully, really hear and heed
the words of one who is truly wise, the Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
Sources and notes
“Iran leader message to the youth in Europe and North
America—Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has
addressed the youth in Europe and North America,” Seyyed Ali Khamenei, January
21, 2015, http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/01/21/394174/Iran-leader-addresses-Western-youth
Seyyed Ali
Khamenei (brief bio)
The second and current Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Hosseini
Khamenei (b. July 17, 1939, Shia Cleric), successor to deceased leader, Ruhollah
Khomeini, was elected as the new Supreme Leader by the Assembly of Experts on June
4, 1989. In June of 1981, Ali Hosseini Khamenei’s right arm was paralyzed, the result
of an assassination attempt. From 1981 to 1989, he was Iran’s President. As his
predecessor had done, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has issued a decree saying
that the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons is forbidden under
Islam.”
Fluent in Arabic and Persian languages (speaking in Azerbaijani,
some English), Ali Hosseini Khamenei has translated several books into Persian
from Arabic, including the works of the famous Egyptian theoretician Sayyid
Qutb. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei
A lifelong American writer and writer/activist (former academic and staffer with the U.S. government in Washington), Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is credentialed in education and print journalism and public affairs (PhD, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; MA, The American University, Washington, DC). Her work concerns itself with news and current affairs, historical contexts, and ideas particularly related to acts and consequences of U.S. foreign relations, geopolitics, human rights, war and peace, and violence and nonviolence. Dr. Bennett is an internationalist and nonpartisan progressive personally concerned with society and the common good. An educator at heart, her career began with the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since then, she has authored several books and numerous current-affairs articles; her latest book: UNCONSCIONABLE: How The World Sees Us: World News, Alternative Views, Commentary on U.S. Foreign Relations; most thoughts, articles, edited work are posted at Bennett’s Study: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/ and on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08UNCONSCIONABLE/prweb12131656.htm http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000757788/UNCONSCIONABLE.aspx Her books are also available at independent bookstores in New York State: Lift Bridge in Brockport; Sundance in Geneseo; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center in Buffalo; Burlingham Books in Perry; The Bookworm in East Aurora
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