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DEFENDERS
48
Au t umn&wi n t e r
2 0 1 4 & 2 0 1 5
The recent events in France and similar
ones in some other Western countries
have convinced me to directly talk to
you about them. I am addressing you,
[the youth], not because I overlook your
parents, rather it is because the future
of your nations and countries will be in
your hands; and also I find that the sense
of quest for truth is more vigorous and
attentive in your hearts.
I don’t address your politicians and
statesmen either in this writing because
I believe that they have consciously
separated the route of politics from the
path of righteousness and truth.
I would like to talk to you about Islam,
particularly the image that is presented
to you as Islam. 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.
Here, I don’t want to deal with the
different phobias with which the Western
nations have thus far been indoctrinated.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
historiographies.
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 bloodsheds 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.
Bymentioning a fraction of this long list,
I don’t want to reproach history; rather I
would like you to ask your intellectuals as
to 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?
You know well that humiliation and
spreading hatred and illusionary 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. 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? Hence, my first request is: Study
and research the incentives behind this
widespread tarnishing of the image of
Islam.
My second request is that 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.
I don’t insist that you accept my
Message dated 21 January 2015 from Ayatollah Seyyed
Ali Khamenei, Leader of The Islamic Republic of Iran,
addressed to Youth in Europe and North America
In the name of God,
the Beneficent,the
Merciful
To the Youth in
Europe and North
America,