Statements of the Supreme Leader in Meeting with a Large Group of Workers and Teachers on the Eve of Workers' Day and Teachers' Day

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

Dear brothers and sisters, welcome. I hope these two auspicious days recognized in our country as Teachers' Day and Workers' Day will be a source of blessings for you, the entire Iranian nation, and the officials, as they have been thanks to the blood of our dear and honorable martyr, the late Ayatollah Motahhari (may God be pleased with him) until today.

The teacher is the embodiment of knowledge; the worker is the embodiment of action. Therefore, Teachers' Day and Workers' Day mean the day of knowledge and action. The foundation of society is also based on knowledge and action. If we can develop these two pillars—knowledge and action, education and training, work and innovation—among ourselves and create noticeable progress in these two areas in the country, which, thanks be to God, has been achieved to a large extent today, the country's movement towards its goals will accelerate, problems will be resolved, and what our great revolution has envisioned for Islamic Iran will come closer. Therefore, these two pillars are important. Those who represent these two pillars—the country's teaching community and the education and training sector on one side, and the country's working community and the sectors related to work, innovation, production, industrial and agricultural movement, and others on the other side—are of great importance to the country.

On the occasion of today's gathering, which is held for Workers' Day and Teachers' Day, I present one point for the workers' community and the teachers' community of the country and one point for the officials. My first statement to the workers' and teachers' community of the country is an expression of respect, affection, and encouragement. I am sincerely grateful to the workers' community and the teachers' community of the country. I know how much our enemies tried to separate these two great communities from the people and the revolution, but the resistance of individuals in these two communities thwarted their efforts. Among the workers, they spread so much sedition to perhaps stop the wheels of work in the country. Among the teachers and the education and training sector of the country, they spread so much sedition to perhaps close our schools and classes, but they could not. Until today, by God's grace and relying on the faith and enlightenment in the hearts of the individuals of this community, they have not been able, and I am sure they will not be able in the future. This is a source of gratitude from me to God and to you.

My advice to you is to improve the quality of work in both sectors day by day, God willing. The fact that we spoke about work conscience two or three years ago and this expression is repeated in mouths is a very important point. I do not know to what extent those who utter this sentence pay attention to the importance of this concept and its impact. Work conscience is an expression similar to political conscience and scientific conscience. The meaning of this word is that the person engaged in work should develop a conscientious feeling towards the work and consider themselves responsible for it. This is different from responsibility towards the employer; it is something else. In addition to the religious and human aspects and commitment, a person should consider themselves responsible for the work itself, to do it correctly, completely, strongly, and in the best way, whether someone is supervising them or not. This is the meaning of work conscience.

In Islam, where work is considered worship and value, it implies that whoever accepts and commits to a job should perform it in the best manner. This statement applies in the classroom, on the production line, in the field, at the sewing machine, and in housework. In any type of work—considering that teaching and education are also work; very valuable work—if the doer of the work has work conscience, the work will be done in the best way. This is the key to the country's problems. If you buy a product and take it home and see that it breaks down after a short time and the work done on it was not correct—meaning distrust in the work being done—this will no longer happen if there is work conscience. If someone sends their child to school and does not know what they will become or what kind of element they will turn into, this will no longer be the case.

When all workers engage in work with a sense of work conscience and understand that while they are working, even if the employer is not present, God Almighty is present and watching, the noble scribes are present, and the close angels of God are watching; every effort made to improve the work will be praised by the noble scribes and recorded in the doer's record of deeds. These things are not accounted for in our human calculations, and we often do not see them, we neglect them, and we do not pay attention to them; but in God's account, these words do not exist.

If you were in the classroom for that last minute and taught and did not let it go to waste; or if you truly spent time with that misbehaving student and made your efforts; or in the factory, or in the field, or at home where you are working, or anywhere else, you paid attention; that needle you carefully inserted into the fabric and... this precision and attention will be recorded in your record of deeds. This recording in the divine record is not only beneficial for the afterlife; it also has an effect in this world. That is, meticulousness and precision in worldly work will create a proud, prosperous society with strong, steadfast people who will not submit to the enemy, free from the meanness of the creation of God and the enemies of society. It will also create a good name for this society and this country in the world. These are related to this side of the border of death. On the other side of the border, which is the afterlife and divine reward, these actions are consequential. This is our advice to you. I also have this request from the workers' community of the country and the education and training community of the country, along with deep heartfelt thanks and gratitude. God willing, you can improve your work day by day.

I also say to the officials of both sectors not to be immersed in the current and daily problems of these two sectors. Beyond these problems, they should seek to improve the quality of these two sectors. Our nation's talent is outstanding. We have been emphasizing Iranian talent for several years. Some thought that we were saying something out of love for our people and our country; however, what we said was based on statistics and information. Fortunately, in recent years, strong documented news and reports have been disseminated and made available to the people, and you have seen examples of them. In these global competitions held under the name of the Olympiad, you saw that our youth, even though they are at the beginning of their work, shine better than most countries. In global competitions, in scientific challenges, in accepting some large and complex industrial tasks, in precise and detailed industries, some of those who went from our country were able to surpass others. This is the same outstanding talent.

On the other hand, if you give even the most talented person a shovel and force them to do unscientific work, their talent will not flourish; but when the field is open and the country, thanks be to God, is free from foreign domination, gradually the atmosphere of the country became good. When the environment of education, training, research, universities, and schools became favorable and the government and officials of the country encouraged, talents bloom; and you see that they have bloomed.

Given this high talent, we must also have skilled workers in the field of work; we must have innovation in the issue of work; our working environments must be a collection of active, capable, and knowledgeable forces; not a worker who does not know what they are doing. Officials must provide the ground for innovation and creativity and advance it day by day. Of course, a lot of work has been done—not that we want to say it hasn't—but they must do more and move faster in this direction.

The same applies to education and training. In the environment of education and training, something must be done so that not even one talent is wasted among these millions of Iranian teenagers and young people. That is, to the extent that our secondary education is—these twelve years they study—everyone who studies should not have their talent wasted. Now, after that, some may go to university, some may go to technical fields; there is no problem, and all of it is good; but during this time, all talent must flourish. They must do something to make this happen, otherwise maintaining the normal course or focusing on quantities is not the essential work of the officials of these two sectors. In the field of work, for example, they should diversify and expand employment. This is our expectation from the officials of these two sectors. What we recommend in these areas is not only related to these two sectors; it relates to the whole country and its benefits return to the whole country.

My dear ones! The Islamic Republic of Iran is currently passing through a very important and sensitive stage, like the years of war. That was one way; this is another. During this period, our enemies outside the country—namely these governments and agents of global arrogance—are sitting and staring at Iran to see if they can bring the Iranian nation down from its principled and Islamic positions or not. Their effort is focused on this.

See, there is a chain in the world with a few arrogant countries at its head—namely America and some European countries—that consider themselves the advanced countries of the world. They are at the head of the chain, and behind them are small, poor, and weak countries and non-popular governments that are dragged in the direction by the same chain. Those chain countries impose whatever they want and whichever direction they choose on those behind them. These poor ones have accustomed those bullies to bullying. The work of these two groups is like a game that children play; that is, a few stand in front, and the rest hold their skirts and run and move after them. In my opinion, the fault of the bullying of today's arrogant governments lies largely with the regimes that, due to their own weakness, have accustomed them to impudence, high expectations, and bullying.

In the meantime, Islamic Iran has been addressing these countries for seventeen, eighteen years, saying: be yourselves, be independent, have your own nations, manage yourselves, adhere to your culture, independence, and path, why are you following? The government and the nation of Iran themselves have stood like a mountain and have not submitted to their impudence and bullying. While in the past, Iran was also one of those countries that held the skirt of the front and ran and moved after them!

After the issue of the war ended, they said now that the issue of war is over, perhaps we can, in the post-war situation where the government and the nation of Iran want to start reconstruction, under the pressure of necessities, force them to abandon their positions and come back to follow the arrogant countries; but they saw that it did not happen. The Iranian nation, throughout these years, has both, thanks be to God, progressed and taken great steps towards the development of the country and done a lot of work, and also, in terms of political positions on international issues, has made its positions clearer, more explicit, and more decisive day by day and has not submitted to them. For this reason, they are trying to exert pressure.

During this period, the Iranian nation must be very mindful of self-improvement. The Iranian nation must make every effort during these years, when their hope is not yet cut off, to ensure that it does not have even a slight reliance on outside its borders—meaning true self-sufficiency in the full sense of the word—so that they cannot bully.

Look at the meeting that the European foreign ministers had yesterday! They made absurd and rude statements; they took incorrect positions; they spoke and left! What was the goal? The goal was to pressure the government and the nation of Iran. The Iranian nation and government must show that their response to rude, arrogant, and impudent governments will be very severe and decisive.

One of their very wrong statements was that they sat together, combined their minds, and said let's go and ask the Iranian government to respect human rights! No matter how much I thought about what name could be given to their stance and what the meaning of their action is, I found that apart from the word 'impudence,' I cannot say anything else about their action. In expressing these matters, the gentlemen were impudent. Human rights?! European governments have committed the most human rights violations in the last century. One hundred years, and if someone goes back before a hundred years, it is the same.

I have leafed through and looked at the history of Europe to a large extent. At least in this hundred years, these same Europeans, those who sat in Luxembourg yesterday and trimmed their beards to the same length and talked and issued wisdom(!), have colonized dozens of countries in the world. If colonialism and the violation of the rights of nations are sins, this sin is only on the shoulders of these governments whose representatives sat yesterday and talked about Iran respecting human rights! This is the fire-starting of two world wars that belong to decades ago; but in our own time, who created chemical weapons factories in Iraq that caused so much disaster? These same gentlemen. Who created nuclear facilities for making atomic bombs in Iraq that threatened the entire region? These same gentlemen. Who facilitates and justifies the crimes of Israel, which commits a crime every day that passes? These same gentlemen. Those sitting here are the survivors of the martyrs of Qana. Last year, the Zionist government committed one of its most disastrous crimes in front of these gentlemen's eyes. Did they open their mouths?! Did they even utter a word of condemnation?! God forbid! Their existence is so mixed with human rights violations.

Right now, inside the occupied territories, they are committing all these crimes. Daily, the ordinary homes of the people of Lebanon are bombed. With helicopters, they come to the villages and towns of Lebanon, land, pick up people, and take them to prison! These actions are carried out in front of the eyes of these Europeans—who are of their own kind! Did they say a word, absolutely not! Did they frown a word, absolutely not! In the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so much disaster was created; after they saw it was very ugly—because the rest of the crimes might have been committed outside of Europe, but this crime was committed in the heart of Europe—they made some noise and fuss; but they did not take any correct and real action. Even now, Muslims are under pressure by the Serbs. The criminals who killed thousands of people, or buried them alive, or destroyed them in prisons from hunger, are now walking freely in Europe; no one objects to them! Then these European governments, with all these crimes that have been committed either by themselves or in front of their eyes and they have not said a word, how can they have the audacity to tell Islamic Iran—to a popular system and a brave nation—that it violates human rights?! Is this anything other than impudence? They are truly impudent!

They think they are scaring the Iranian government and say we will cut off critical dialogues. To hell with cutting them off! If there is criticism, we have criticism of you. The name of these dialogues was wrong from the beginning. I always said to say these dialogues are two-sided criticism. If the criticisms are two-sided, we have more criticism of you than you have of us. What criticism do you have? Your criticism is that why are we committed to our Islamic principles! This is our pride. See how impudent, oppressive, unfair, brazen, and malicious the enemies of the Iranian nation are! The enemies of the Islamic Republic are like this. Of course, the Iranian nation, which has seen greater enmities than these, stands like a mountain.

Does anyone care what they have said? Of course, our government, which, thanks be to God, has had very good positions in response to their ugly actions, must act with full power from now on, and in the first stage, the German ambassador should not be allowed to come to Iran for a while. The rest who want to return as a so-called conciliatory move, there is no problem. They left themselves, they return themselves. They saw that their departure has no importance. They want to return, there is no problem; but in the departure of Iranian ambassadors to their countries, there should be no rush. They should see what is expedient with patience and opportunity; whatever Islamic dignity requires—as we have always said—they should act accordingly.

Let both the Europeans and others know this point. Europe should not think that we need it; absolutely not. We do not need Europe at all. We can manage our country without Europe. Now suppose, if four luxury and decorative items come from somewhere, they do not come; what importance does it have? What is needed by our nation is produced domestically, and if there is something we need, there are many countries lined up to sell to us. What need is there for these few European countries that think they own the world?!

Of course, in my opinion, in this matter, they were deceived by the Zionists and the Americans; that is, they were under pressure from the Americans, but they did not understand who they were dealing with. They do not know that Islamic Iran is not a country that can be brought down from its positions with these words or forced to submit to anyone. Iran is a country that, for eighteen years, with all the problems that the superpowers have created for it, has reached this point with solidity, power, and complete dignity. Iran is a country that, from the situation of the days of the revolution—when nothing was at its disposal; neither our factories worked, nor did we have a farm, nor exports, nor imports—has reached this point. Today in this country, so much work movement, production, activities, and scientific and research enthusiasm are taking place! This should make everyone understand that this nation is a lively, awake, constructive, and enthusiastic nation and does not need anyone. Those who want to have relations with Iran should know that if the relationship becomes arrogant, the Iranian nation will reject it.

My dear ones; teachers, workers, youth, those whose work and independence and the backbone of the country are in your hands! Your responsibility is heavy. See how the enemy is. See how unfair, ruthless, and impudent the enemy is. If you want the enemy not to dominate you, you must work well. Everyone must work well, everyone must do the work for God and accurately, so that, God willing, this Islamic country and this proud and honorable Iran can stand against the enemy and make everyone understand that by the blessing of Islam—which 'Islam is superior and nothing is superior to it'—no one can have superiority and arrogance over this nation.

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings