Imam Khomeini’s Last Will and Testament

I advise the Ministry of Guidance (Ershad) for all time, especially in this particular era, to do its best in propagating right against wrong and for portraying a true picture of the Islamic Republic. Now that we have eliminated the superpowers from our country we are the subject of much hostile propaganda by the mass media dependent on the big powers. The writers and spokesmen dependent on the superpowers have accused us of whatever they wanted, and sadly enough the majority of Muslim governments which, according to the dictates of Islam, must extend a brotherly hand to us are rising against us and against Islam and, our propaganda power being very weak, every foreign government aligned with the world-devouring powers is making some sort of inroad against us.
You know that today the world turns on the wheels of propaganda. It is saddening that the so-called intellectual men of letters privately inclined to either of the two powers, hampered by their selfishness, and by opportunism and monopolism, are incapable of thinking about the good of their 1ation and their people and are unable to compare the freedom and independence in the Islamic Republic with its status during the past regime.
They would not set the honorable life such as they now have, although devoid merely of the material plentifulness and extravagant sensuality of their past, against what they earned during the autocratic monarchy in this country at the cost of their subservience, their servant-like status, and by eulogizing and raising the elements of corruption and the fountainheads of tyranny and prostitution.
They would not stop levelling unfair remarks and unjust accusations against this new-born Republic and they would not push pens or lash their tongues in a single file with the nation and government against the worldly gods and the fiendish.
Tablighal [ideology-oriented publicity work] is not the task solely of the Ministry of Guidance, but of all scholars, public speakers, writers and artists. The Foreign Ministry must do its best 10 ensure that our embassies abroad will have ideology-oriented publicity periodicals to unveil the brilliant vision of Islam to the world people.
Once the graceful visage of Islam to which the Holy Qur’an and traditions have invited humans is seen unmasked by enemies and once the mask of the enemies of Islam and its misinterpreting friends is taken off, then Islam will be universal, and its proud banner will be hoisted in the four corners of the world. How agonizing and tragic it is that Muslims have a possession unique since the beginning of history until its end, and not only have they failed to present this valuable gem to other people who, simply by reason of their human nature are its natural seekers, but they have consigned it to oblivion, are ignorant of it, and sometimes even run away from It.
K. Another extremely important social and cultural determinant is the status of educational institutions ranging from kindergartens to colleges and universities, which I would like to point out again, due to its extreme importance. The ravaged people of Iran must know that during the past fifty years Iran and Islam have suffered more with regard to the universities than they have suffered from anything else.
If our universities and our other educational centers had a curriculum and status consistent with Islam and our national interests, our country would not be swallowed by England and later by the U.S. and the Soviet Union: and in that case predatory agreements would never be imposed upon our nation; never would foreign advisers find their way to Iran; never would the wealth and the black gold [oil] of this suffering people be pocketed by the satanic world powers, and never would the Pahlavi Dynasty and their dependents be able to plunder the wealth of the people with which to build palaces in and outside of our country on the bodies of oppressed masses and fill foreign banks with the plundered wealth of those tyrannized people or spend the same for their corrupt fun-making and for the hedonistic orgies of their dependents.
If our majlis, our cabinets, our judiciary power. and our other organs had been manned by graduates of Islamic and national universities, then our nation today would not have to tackle with such ruinous problems; if upright personalities with Islamic belief in its true sense-as opposed to the anti-Islamic mentality today-had found their way from the universities to the three branches of the government, then we would have different things today, and a different nation, and our deprived people would have rid themselves of the claws of deprivation, and would have cleared our society of the bits and pieces of a tyrannical monarchy, of prostitution, addiction, and of houses of ill fame, each of which was alone capable of leading our valuable and active youths to their doom; and if things were otherwise our people would not have been handed over a self-ruining and nationally-destructive legacy.
If our universities were conceived with Islamic, humane and nationalistic values then they could have produced hundreds and thousands of educators for the Iranian society. But it is unfortunate and saddening that our colleges and universities and our high schools were supervised and our youngsters were educated all- except for an oppressed minority- by people who were West-struck or East-struck and there being no other alternative, our youth were nurtured in the bosom of the wolves dependent to the superpowers and would upon graduation occupy legislative, public and judiciary offices to act only according to the dictates of the tyrannical Pahlavi regime.
Now, thanks the Blessed and Supreme Lord, our universities are rid of the claws of the criminals; the people and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, for all time in the future, have a responsibility to prevent infiltration into colleges and universities of proponents of irreligious and deviate ideologies or of ideologies of either of the two power blocs so that they will not encounter problems in the future, and so that the society will be in control. My advice to students at colleges, universities and teacher-colleges is that themselves rise boldly against deviations so that the independence and freedom of themselves and of their country will be safeguarded.
L. The armed forces: the army, including also the Sepah (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps), the gendarmery, the state¬ police, the committees, the Basij (Mobilized forces), and tribal forces are important in their own capacities. They are powerful hands of the Islamic Republic and are protectors of our boundaries, roads, towns and cities and villages, and of our security at home, and as such should be subject to the special attention of the nation, the government, and the majlis.
And they should all bear in mind that the big powers and destructive policies tend to exploit the native armed forces of other countries more than they exploit any other group or institution in that country. It is the armed force that is likely to fall prey to political foul plays, state coups, and to devices for chaining governments and regimes. Fraudulent people and scoundrels attempt to buy the chiefs in the armed forces and get hold of countries with the aid of those local chiefs, and as result of the collusions of deceived army commanders, dominate and deprive people of their freedom and independence.
But as long as army commanders are upright and chaste, the enemies of the nations will not be able to stage coups in other countries or occupy those countries, or if they venture to do such things, their schemes will be aborted by committed commanders in those countries.