Imam Khomeini’s Last Will and Testament

Now that we have largely disentangled ourselves from those traps, seeing the unprivileged present generation rising up to work and contribute to the technological and industrial progress of our country, many of our factories manufacturing such things as aircraft, in the face of initial feelings of their incapacity for turning the wheels of our factories and the feelings of an eventual turning to the West or East for help, our youth manufacturing many parts and components to cope with economic sanctions and the imposed war and offering those items at lower prices than similar foreign-made products and demonstrating the native capacity, by this last will and testament of mine I beg to offer this nation my heartfelt advice against allowing themselves to be lured to the international plunderers and succumbing to the satanic insinuations of the politicians dependent on West and East, and advise them to rise up for ending the remaining symptoms of dependence with diligence, resting assured that the Aryans and the Arabs are not inferior to the Europeans, to the Americans and to the Soviets, and assure them that once they have discovered their true selves [they will] discard self-distrust and the tendency to expect help from others. Certainly, in the long run, you people will demonstrate the talent and the capacity to manufacture absolutely everything, and you are able to go as far as other people, like you have, provided only that you trust m the Blessed and Supreme Lord and have self-confidence and are committed to the goal of ending your [technological] dependence on foreign countries and are ready to tolerate the burden of hardships for attaining a dignified life and ridding yourselves of foreign domination.
It is incumbent upon governments and people at the helm, now and in the future, to appreciate their own native expertise, cheering them on by their material help and by their moral encouragement, to prevent the inflow of luxury but needless or ruinous products and to help the nation survive with what it has until they make everything they need.
I call on the youth, both boys and girls, not to sacrifice independence, freedom and humanitarian values for attaining a luxurious life, however hard it may be, or for sensual pleasures and abandonment and for visiting the dens of prostitution which may be offered to you by the western powers or by their treacherous local agents. Based on all past experiences they think only of seeing your destruction, of beguiling you into forgetting about what is going on in your own country and preoccupying you with other concerns so that they may plunder your wealth, and put the shackles of colonialism and dependence on your feet, and make you solely a nation of buyers of foreign-made goods. This is a device whereby they mean to keep you backward and, according to their own term. ‘semi-savage’.
F. Among the plots of the western powers, as I have all too frequently reminded, is to control our public educational system, especially our colleges and universities, which are centers for nurturing people for taking the helm of the country in the future. With the ulama and the holy and theological students they have a scheme which differs from that for high schools and universities.
Their scheme is to do away with the scholars (ulama) and to isolate them, either by suppressive measures such as they did at the time of Reza Khan-which backfired and led to opposite results- or by publishing defamatory propaganda and implementing other satanic devices for alienating the ulama from the college students and college graduates and so called the intellectuals which device was implemented by suppressive measures at the time of Reza Khan and which continued, though cunningly rather than by power of force, during the reign of Muhammad Reza.
At the college and universities the ideal of the foreign powers is to alienate students from their own native culture and lure them to the West or East and to select government administrators from the same category of graduates and install them 1n ranking positions so that the foreign powers may then exploit them as tools for doing whatever they want to do to this nation; so that they [the educated] will lead the country along a course ensuring the plundering of its wealth by foreign powers, and its orientation towards western cultures, the ulama being unable to counter the scheme because of their being isolated, hated and defeated.
That is the best scheme for keeping colonized nations backward and for plundering their wealth, since it assures the superpowers of the unobstructed, unprotested, and cost-free pocketing of the wealth of nations.
Therefore, now that the universities and teaching colleges are being reformed with an academic and administrative purge, we have a responsibility to extend a helping hand to the people in charge so that we will ensure that never again in the future will our universities be misled to deviate education and anywhere we should happen to encounter a symptom of deviation we should try to rectify it as speedily as we can.
This vital goal should be implemented first and foremost by the mighty hands of the youth in colleges and universities and teacher colleges, and to salvage the colleges and universities from academic ruin is to salvage the country and the nation.
I first and foremost exhort the youth and the youngsters and secondly their parents and friends and the people at the helm and self-committed intellectuals to endeavor with all their hearts in this concern and entrust the universities to future generations, as they should be. I also advise all future generations to protect the universities against the pitfalls of inclinations to West and East, and by the humanitarian and Islamic endeavor eliminate the influences of big powers from their country and make them feel frustrated in their plots. May God be your Supporter and your Savior.
G. A principal thing is the commitment of the members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis). We witnessed what Islam and the nation suffered as a result of unqualified and deviate parliaments from the advent of the Constitutional monarchy until the rule of the criminal Pahlavi Dynasty, and we remember the bulk of afflictions and grave losses as a result of the involvement of the worthless and servile criminals in state affairs. Which sufferings were the worst of the past history.
During a period of fifty years a treacherous pseudo-majority [in the parliament] against an oppressed minority acted virtually as the extended hands of the British and the Soviets and more recently the Americans for carrying out the wishes of those powers in Iran and for plunging the country into its doom.
Since the institution of the Constitutional monarchy in this country, almost none of the important articles of the constitution were observed. Before Reza Khan, the promoter of the Western culture and a handful of tribal chiefs and big landlords acted as local agents of the foreign powers and during the reign of the Pahlavis, by the very same criminal regime and its stooges.
Now that with the Blessings of the Supreme Lord and the willpower of the glorious nation of Iran the people are exercising the right of self-determination, the majlis deputies as true representatives of the people selected by the people and for the people, without the interference of the government and tribal chiefs, and in view of their commitment to Islam, there is hope to expect that all forms of divergence from the right path will be prevented.
By this last will and testament of mine I exhort the nation to send only self-committed and qualified candidates to the majlis; people who are committed to Islam and to the Islamic Republic and people who usually hail from the middle-class families as well as from the deprived masses, who do not diverge from the right path. Who are not inclined to the Western or Eastern ideologies or to other deviated schools, who are educated and well-informed about political developments and Islamic politics.
I advise the revered ulama, and especially our highest religious sources (maraje’), not to be indifferent to and not to evade involvement in the significant issues of the society and especially in such issues as presidential elections and majlis elections. You all witnessed -and the future generation will read and hear- how the veteran politicians inclined to West and East managed to eliminate the ulama from the political scene: a people who had instituted Constitutional monarchy with their toil and much hardship, and how the ulama too, were taken in by politicians into believing that involvement in state affairs and in the affairs of Muslims is below their dignity, and you witnessed their retiring from the scene and their giving of the political arena over to the crazy adherents of western culture wreaking the havoc as they did to the Constitutional monarchy and Islam to make good on, which would still take a long time.
Now that with the grace of the Almighty the obstacles have been removed and a favorable atmosphere avails itself for the participation of all sectors of the society, there is no good excuse for evading our individual responsibility, and I remind you that to neglect the affairs of Muslims is a cardinal sin.