Statements at the Meeting with the Organizers of the Martyrs' Congress of the Tribal Community of the Country

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Thanks be to God, the Lord of the worlds, and peace and blessings be upon our master Muhammad and his pure family, especially the Remaining One of God among the earth.

Welcome, dear brothers, dear sisters, and esteemed tribes from all over the country. I congratulate you on the birth of Imam al-Ridha (peace be upon him) and sincerely thank you for holding this congress, this commemoration; your work is very good, it is a correct endeavor. This commemoration you are holding and this session of ours is also an opportunity to draw the attention and consideration of the general public to the tribes. Imam said that the tribes are the treasures of the revolution, the treasures of the country. The people should not forget that we have valuable groups of tribes who are the reserves of the country; this must always be remembered by the people. One of the benefits of our meeting today and the session you will have in due time is that it familiarizes the Iranian nation with the tribes and the value of the tribes.

I want to briefly mention the tribes, but before that, I will refer to the statements of these brothers. The statements are good; the activities that both brothers mentioned regarding this congress or the commemorations of these twenty years are indeed valuable works. I also looked here in this corridor at the images of the activities that have been carried out and I saw them all carefully; good work has been done. The three approaches that they mentioned are all important, but there is one point, and that is that when you provide a dowry to a family, well, this dowry reaches them and they use it, and you also understand that they have used it; it is tangible; even what is not tangible, for example, consider planting a sapling, well, you plant the sapling — I saw its images here — after two years, five years, ten years, they grow tall and create a forest, a garden, a green space; you also see its effect. But how about cultural work? Well, you prepared a book, you prepared a film; what was the output of your book and your film? This is important; this is not as easy; the difficulty of cultural work is precisely this; the problem of cultural work is that you cannot definitively know the result with quantity and material work. A person prints a book; it may be read by a hundred people, it may be read by ten thousand people; it may not sell all of its first print, it may reach a hundred prints; what do you do with it? How do you act so that this cultural work reaches a result?

Today, we need cultural work more than anything else among all segments of the Iranian nation, including the tribes. The enemy of the Iranian nation, the enemy of Islam, the enemy of the country, the enemy of the Islamic Republic, relies today on soft warfare, which I may refer to later. The point is that friends who are involved in these kinds of commemorations and pay attention to cultural work should pay attention to this point we mentioned: what was the feedback of your work? What was the output of your work? How significant are its impacts in the tribal community?

The tribes of Iran are among the most loyal segments of the Iranian nation. When we say "among the most loyal," it is not based on taste or guess; it is based on the events that have occurred in the country and what we know. Both in our recent history and in the history of the past two or three hundred years, there are stories of the efforts made by foreigners, especially the British, to infiltrate the tribes; strange and bizarre actions that, if there were time and opportunity to mention, would not be bad; you should read about them in books. Foreigners tried to infiltrate the tribes and somehow force them to betray their country — in various ways; through division, through civil war, through various kinds of actions — but they could not lead them in the direction they wanted; this "most loyal" and "among the most faithful" that we mention is because of this.

In this recent period, that is, the period of the revolution, the period of sacred defense, and the period after the sacred defense, the tribes also passed good tests; the fact that more than eleven thousand [of this] population were martyred among the tribal community is very significant. It was not the case that all our tribes were on the border, under threat; of course, some were on the border and were immediately threatened during the sacred defense, but some were not, they were in the middle of the country and there was no direct threat to them, yet they rushed towards the fields of sacred defense and defended and worked.

What factor caused our tribes, despite their different ethnicities and languages, to stand together and serve Islam and the country? What was the thread that united them? It was religion and piety. Religion is the factor of unity, the factor of progress, the factor of sacrifice and selflessness; the factor of religion compelled the tribes to stand together in the fields; it did not allow these ethnic diversities and such to create separation among them, to create conflict; religion has such an effect.

Our great Imam (may his soul be sanctified) also used this very factor to bring about this great revolution and lead it to victory, and after the victory of the revolution, he was able to preserve the country with this very factor. If it were not for the factor of religion, the revolution would not have succeeded; be assured of that. No other factor could have brought those young people who came empty-handed to the streets and stood against bullets, against guns, to stand in this difficult and hard field; no other factor could do that; their religious faith brought them there. The Imam used this to ensure that this revolution succeeded, and then he used the faith of the people to secure this country. This country, after the revolution, was coveted, they coveted it. It was not the case that suddenly Saddam would rise up and come; no, they provoked him, forced him, gave him hope, made promises to him, and fulfilled their promises; they gave him money, gave him weapons, provided him with war plans to come. The aim was not to come and separate a part of the country; the aim was to come and, by separating a part of the country or through various other methods, to eliminate the Islamic revolution; that was the goal. America was behind it, Britain was behind it, France was behind it, the reactionary governments were behind it, and everyone who followed them was there; they all came wanting to tear the country apart, they wanted to bring the Iranian nation back under the domination of America, they wanted to enslave the Iranian nation, the Imam did not allow it; by what means? By the means of religion; religion is like this; religious faith has such an effect.

Your martyrs are also a beautiful and magnificent manifestation of this religious faith. These eleven thousand martyrs that you gave actually demonstrate the impact of religious faith. This young man could have stayed in his home, his life, in his environment, with his parents, with his wife, with his children, enjoying the pleasures of life — to the extent possible — but he did not do that, he abandoned everything; he left his dear child, his dear wife, his beloved parents; why? What was this motivation? It was the motivation of religion; now whether he was a warrior and returned, or became a disabled veteran, or was martyred. The parents who were able to endure this calamity, this hardship, this burning heart, found solace through the blessing of religion, [the effect of] religion.

A friend of ours lost his son in an accident, he was a bit upset; a father of three martyrs was there, I said to him, you lost one son, this man lost three sons; he said, sir, the sons of this [man] are martyrs, this is not a sorrow! You see, this is a correct statement. Yes, there is a pain in the heart — this wound that is inflicted on the heart of the father and mother cannot be denied — but the families of martyrs find solace, they endure, because they know that their young man is with God, he is alive; they make a transaction with God. Indeed, God has purchased from the believers their souls and their wealth in exchange for Paradise for them; they fight in the way of God and kill and are killed; both have a reward: taking casualties from the enemy has a reward, and being killed by the enemy has a reward. They made a transaction with God; both that young man made a transaction with God, and this father and mother and wife made a transaction with God. The factor of religion should not be forgotten in this matter.

Now some people in various analyses say, [they say] this young man went to protect the borders of his country, to create security. Well, yes, it is clear; the security of the country, the safety of the country, stems from these sacrifices, from these martyrdoms and becoming disabled veterans and struggles and confrontations; there is no doubt that this leads to the security of the country, but his motivation was religion, it was God; his motivation should not be reduced to anything less than religion. In fact, they acted for God, they worked for God, and the dignity of the martyrs is also because of this; the dignity of the martyrs is also because of this. Now there are some who have nothing to do with religion, they cannot deny these martyrdoms, [therefore] they manipulate the motivations. And one of the most important dimensions of the enemy's soft warfare is precisely this: to extinguish or weaken this motivation of religion — which is the most important motivation, the highest motivation — among the people.

Today, any action taken in the country against religious traditions and sacred values has a political motive behind it; the person may not even know it, but it exists and they have been led to this path. Weakening religion, weakening religious traditions, weakening religious symbols and rituals, questioning these, making them appear illogical, are all things that the enemy uses; now the person who does this may not know, may not pay attention; yes, sometimes some people act out of negligence.

Today, the enemy's effort is to weaken religious faith, to weaken hope, to weaken optimism about the future and the management of the country; these are things they are planning on, they are making plans on. [For example] what can they do so that the people's belief becomes that there is no future, that the future is a dead end and they are in a cul-de-sac; they are planning on this, making programs, and sometimes unfortunately in our own official spaces, they spread these among the people in such a way that people come to the conclusion that the paths are dead ends, the paths are wrong, or they come to the conclusion that the country's officials, the management of the country, do not know how to manage the country. All this effort is being made, all this effort is being exerted, and in the face of these efforts, this is how it is dealt with. Now suppose, for example, the country's law enforcement apprehends a number of thieves within 48 hours after a robbery; well, they should be praised, [but] in our national media, it is spoken in such a way that instead of being praised, they seem to be reprimanded! It is not intentional — it is certainly not intentional — but it is negligence; these negligences benefit the enemy. Anyone who discourages the people about the future is working for the enemy; whether they know it or not. Anyone who weakens the faith of the people is working for the enemy; whether they know it or not. Anyone who makes the people distrustful and pessimistic about the activities and efforts and planning of the country's officials is working for the enemy; whether they know it or not.

The officials of the Basij who work on tribal issues, [their work] is valuable work. The works that the friends mentioned, we observed examples of them here in the images; pursue these works, these works are valuable. But the responsibility is not only on the Basij; the Basij has limitations, it has limited resources, it tries as much as its resources allow. All officials of the country must strive, the relevant officials must identify the problems of the tribes, resolve them, and as I mentioned, especially they must think about cultural problems, work on them, and plan correctly, God willing.

We hope, God willing, that the Almighty God grants you success and elevates the ranks of your dear martyrs. Your martyrs and all the martyrs of the country are those who taught us to be hopeful; that is, our warriors entered the battlefield under conditions where, according to ordinary calculations, there was truly no hope for victory; there was really no hope for victory. On the third or fourth day of the beginning of Saddam's attack, news was coming from Dezful and Ahvaz and such places one after another; I went to ask the Imam for permission, I said I am going there, perhaps I can attract forces, I was almost certain — similar to certainty — that there was no return; we went there with this assumption that it was impossible to do anything. Well, you observed how the Islamic Republic, our youth, under the command of the great Imam acted in such a way that this sacred defense ended with the absolute dignity of the Islamic Republic, the enemy was crushed, its nose was rubbed in the dust. This hope was given to us by our warriors; that is, in all conditions, even in conditions like the early days of the war, one must remain hopeful for divine assistance and for one's own efforts. God willing, may the Almighty God act with you according to these hopes, grant you success, assist you, and may you be able to achieve the desired results from the efforts you are making. Please convey our greetings to all the tribes of the country of which you are representatives here.

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings.