Statements of the Supreme Leader in Meeting with Nurses and Veterans on Nurse's Day

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

I also extend my congratulations on this blessed birth to all the lovers and followers of the Household of Guardianship, and especially on this day—which has been named Nurse's Day—to all the nurses of the country, who are a hardworking and valuable group, and likewise to the sisters of the Zainab Society who began and organized their cultural activities in the name of this noble lady. I hope that the pure spirit of Lady Zainab al-Kubra (peace be upon her)—to whom a significant part of the great and enduring epic of Ashura belongs—will be alive, present, and instructive not only among the women of society but among all individuals.

Firstly, I feel it necessary to sincerely thank all the nurses across the country; although our people are grateful to the nurses in their hearts. Anyone who has visited a hospital or has been a patient or a caregiver knows how valuable and effective the role of a nurse is. In truth, this profession of nursing is a strange combination—which I mention to appreciate the nurses and to draw the attention of all people to this noble group—on one hand, it is a combination of mercy, compassion, kindness, and care, and on the other hand, knowledge, understanding, experience, and skill. Kindness alone is not enough. Sympathy is not all of nursing. Knowledge is required for a nurse to perform their duties correctly and appropriately. Knowledge alone without compassion and kindness is not sufficient. This knowledge must be accompanied by a gentle human spirit, with love and a sense of responsibility and compassion towards the patient. These two dimensions are combined in nurses. Therefore, if there is medicine but no nursing, medicine will not be able to cure the patient's illness. A significant part of the improvement in the condition of our patients is due to the caressing hands of the nurses.

My dear ones! Appreciate this position; consider this service great; thank God for having enabled you to perform this important task and do it as best as you can. During the imposed war, our nurses served greatly and this group is busy working day and night. The tasks mentioned by the honorable minister are all necessary tasks that, God willing, we hope will be carried out quickly and in the best manner, and may God reward those responsible who have made efforts in the past years.

A point I briefly mention on this occasion is that this combination of knowledge and human emotions is important and necessary everywhere. Today, the reason why the advanced, ultra-modern knowledge of Western civilization and the world cannot save humanity is that it is not accompanied by humanity. Wherever there is knowledge, but conscience, spirituality, ethics, emotion, and human feelings are absent, humanity will not benefit from that knowledge. Knowledge without spirituality and ethics becomes an atomic bomb, attacking the innocent; it becomes a weapon targeting civilians in Lebanon, occupied Palestine, and other parts of the world; it becomes deadly chemical substances, destroying women, children, young men, humans, and animals in Halabja and other parts of the world! Where did these come from? These deadly substances came out of these centers of knowledge and these European countries! They were the ones who made these substances and provided them to a regime that did not have the necessary considerations. The result was what you observed. Weapons and various scientific products have not been able and cannot make humanity happy today, make families prosperous, and allow children, women, and men to taste the joy of life; because they are not accompanied by ethics and spirituality.

In Islamic civilization and in the sacred Islamic Republic system, which is moving towards that civilization, we have aimed to advance knowledge along with spirituality. This is why you see that the Western world is sensitive to our adherence to spirituality; they label our religiosity as fanaticism and backwardness and consider our interest in moral and human principles as opposition to human rights because this method is contrary to theirs. They advanced science—of course, it was an important and great task—but it was separate from ethics and spirituality, and it became what it became. We want science to advance with ethics. The university, just as it is a center of science, should also be a center of religion and spirituality. Graduates of the country's universities should come out religious, like graduates of religious seminaries. This is what they do not like and do not want. For this reason, for years, they have been accusing the Islamic Republic with various accusations. These accusations have become so repetitive that they are nauseating to listeners! They accuse the Islamic Republic of fanaticism and backwardness and—according to them—fundamentalism, meaning extreme rigidity with no flexibility! They introduce Islam in this way; while rigidity is there, life devoid of spirituality, compassion, mercy, and humanity is there, where even the warm environment of the family cannot keep children within it.

Look today in the so-called advanced industrial countries, how many teenagers and children are either orphaned or have guardians but have fled from home, wandering the streets at night, committing crimes, murder, and becoming addicted to smoking and various harmful addictions. This belongs to them. It is those rigidities that create these youthful rebellions there.

From thirty, forty years ago, the actions that young people did under various names—like the Beatles and so on—until today, all because those societies cannot satisfy and fulfill those human emotions. They are rigid, inflexible, one-sided, oppressive, and strict. The Islamic environment is not like this. The Islamic environment is one of mercy, moderation, the rule of spirituality and piety, which itself means an open embrace for all human emotions, all correct human feelings, coexistence, and spiritual comfort for humans and peace of hearts.

A noteworthy point on the occasion of the seventeenth of Shahrivar, which these days are enduring days in our history. I have a memory of the seventeenth of Shahrivar, 1357. Before this bloody incident happened in Tehran, the policy of the oppressive regime was to divide the fighters and consequently the Iranian nation into radicals and moderates, extremists and moderates. This is a very noteworthy point that today, like a mirror, teaches us all the lessons. Anyone who studied the newspapers of that time and the statements of the officials of the oppressive regime understood that they wanted to separate those who were against them and fighting from each other. They introduced those who were sincere supporters and lovers of Imam Khomeini (may his soul be sanctified) and openly expressed the path of the Imam as radicals, extremists, and fanatics. In contrast, some of those who were interested in fighting but were not very serious in that path, or were serious, but the regime thought they were not serious, were introduced as moderate individuals with whom it was possible to negotiate and talk. I felt this danger at that time. I was in exile in Jiroft at that time. Perhaps it was the fourteenth or fifteenth of Shahrivar. I wrote a letter to one of the well-known gentlemen in Qom and explained this policy of the regime to him and said that with this malicious plan, they want to find an excuse to oppress the sincere and lovers of the great Imam and place you against them without you wanting it. I had written this letter but had not yet sent it. It was Saturday, the eighteenth of Shahrivar, when the radio and newspapers broadcast the news of the massacre of the seventeenth of Shahrivar. The next day, we in Jiroft became aware of this incident. I wrote in the margin of that letter to that gentleman: "Wait until the morning of his government dawns, for this is still the result of the dawn." I sent that letter to that honorable gentleman through a traveler. They started the oppressions against the true fighters and revolutionaries, the example of which was the massacre of the seventeenth of Shahrivar.

The same policy was started by our enemies a few years after the victory of the revolution abroad, which continues to this day. They sit and analyze that certain people are radicals, fanatics, backward; certain people are moderate, certain people are not negotiable, certain people are! With those wrong and incomplete perceptions, they sit and analyze and broadcast on their radios! What I want to say for the awareness of the dear nation is that know this is the same policy; this is the same malicious plan that eighteen, nineteen years ago, was carried out by their agents inside Iran; today, it is being carried out by the same designers and policymakers at the global level, again targeting the Islamic system and the Islamic revolution.

Thanks be to God, the Almighty has made our enemies among those who do not know and could not know this nation, this culture, and this movement and struggle. The Almighty closed their eyes: "And He placed a veil over their sight"; they cannot understand what is happening inside this country; who the honorable clergy, the great scholars, the politicians of the country, the high-ranking officials are, what they are, what they say, and what their words are. Of course, perhaps there are some among them who know the truth and express something for the expediency of the time. These words they say are all either out of ignorance or out of malice or both! They neither know this nation nor do they intend to be mischievous and malicious.

Dear brothers, dear sisters, and all the Iranian nation! Know that today, thanks be to God, at the level of the country's officials, there is no one who even has a slight inclination towards the policies of global arrogance and colonialism and an interest in flexibility towards them. The top officials of the country are all lovers of the revolution and the path of the Imam and are devoted to Islam and move and breathe for the commandments of Islam. Today, thanks be to God, the government is like this, the president is like this, the officials of the three branches are like this, the representatives of the parliament and the high-ranking members of the judiciary and also all the officials of the country are like this.

What is before the officials of this country today is the path of the absolute rule of the luminous commandments of Islam over the life of society and each of our individuals and also the strengthening of the true Islamic system. Do not doubt this for a moment; let them say whatever they want. These are the desires of their hearts that appear in these expressions: so-and-so is our supporter, so-and-so is interested in a relationship with us, so-and-so is against extremism, so-and-so is such! Extremism and moderation are in their minds.

There may be different tastes in various fields and in some of the country's executive policies. It is human nature; there is no obstacle and it cannot be expected otherwise. Of course, one manager has one way of managing, another manager in another department has another way of managing; but thanks be to God, all the officials are on the same path that the great Imam announced from the beginning and strengthened its foundations and established the sacred Islamic Republic system on that basis.

One of the greatest characteristics of this system is its confrontation with global arrogance and the arrogance of the arrogant powers of the world. The Islamic system will not yield for a moment to the bullying of any power. We know that because justice and truth are the main and natural flow of the universe and the movement of beings and all parts of the universe and the growth of all living cells and the movement of all molecules of objects and bodies are in the direction of truth; the growth of non-truth, the growth of falsehood, and the cancerous growth is doomed to perish. Therefore, any movement based on the claim of truth and effort and struggle behind it will be victorious. Therefore, when we claim and say that the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic system will eventually bring the arrogant powers to their knees, we speak on this basis—that is, the rule and law of the universe.

Of course, "Indeed, they see it as distant, but We see it as near." Those who are superficial see this as far; just as during the struggles, those who were superficial saw the fall of the Pahlavi government and the oppressive regime as far from reach, even impossible; but it was possible and it happened and was accomplished. Ten years ago, if someone claimed that the Marxist regime would be wiped off the face of the world and that there would be no trace left of the Soviet Union with that name and sign, none of the superficial people would believe it. Many of the truths of the world are like this.

Global arrogance and human arrogance and tyranny towards nations are not enduring in the world. If you see that a certain power and another power, and at the head of all, the oppressive and tyrannical regime of America, today express these words with shouting and yelling, do not think that these are also in the sense of true and enduring power; no, it has no credibility. We do not want to predict and specify a time; the nature of the world is that truth prevails, provided that the people of truth stand behind it and struggle and strive for it.

The Iranian nation, by the grace of God, will be victorious in all these fields. By God's grace, it has overcome all obstacles so far; it will be the same in the future. Do not think that the Iranian nation is weak because it does not have the support of powers in the world; no, it is very strong; because this spirituality and this faith are in it and these devoted and interested and faithful officials are working and striving in this country. All the people must continue this path unitedly and with one voice and one language, and move along this path. The Almighty will also bestow His grace and, God willing, the progress of the Islamic Republic system in the fields of spirituality, materiality, politics, and the administration of the country's affairs will improve day by day, and these small and large problems, some of which have been imposed and some of which are the nature of progress, will be resolved by the grace of God and with the efforts of the officials and with the help of the people.

We hope that the Almighty God will make the sacred heart of the Imam of the Age pleased with all of you and make the pure soul of the great Imam happy.

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings