IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST
BENEFICENT, THE MOST MERCIFUL
GOD'S BLESS IS WITH THE ELDER
(Prophet Nohammad p.b.u.b.)
S-TATEI 1ENT OF
BROTHER DR. MORAMNAD YARIGAR RAITESH
HEAD OF ThE DELEGATION OF THE
ISLAMIC REHJBLIC OF IRAN
BEFORE THE WORLD ASSEMBLY OF AGING
26 JULY 1982 - 6 AUGUST 1982
VIENNA - HO U %
NONDAY,2 AUGUST 1982
/ I03Th
—2—
I SEEK REFUGE IN ALLAH FROM SATAN
THE OUTCAST
IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE BENEFICENT,
THE MERCIFUL
By the declining day,
Lo! Man. is in a state of loss,
Save those who believe and do good
works and exhort one another to truth
exhort one another to endurance.
(Holy Qurtan — Sure asr)
Madame President,
Distinguished Delegates,
Peace be upon you!
Thanks to God, our express to all souls Nartyres of history
and especially all: Martyrs of the Islamic Revolution of Iran.
Thanks also are due to those who have been instrumental in
organizing the humanistic meeting so as to overcome the problern
afflicting the old people and relieve some of their hardships.
It is hoped that such gathering which is directed divinely
helps open the route towards Allah and the ultimate happiness
in this world and in heaven.
The traditional Iranian values consider the old people as a
blessing for the family, and in our country Islam brought
about a drastic change to honour the elders even more.
The great instructions of Holy Qur'an were so enlightening
that they penetrated in the depth of Moslem's hearts and as
you remember, most Delegations from the Islamic countries
addressed the verses of the Holy Qur'an. regarding the old
—
people without any former consultations.
In these verses Allah emphasizes the most possible
respect to the elder people. (Verses 23—24, Sure 17)
As the Holy Qu.rtan and Islamic Ideology teach us, the reality
of human life is not limited between birth and death. In fact,
the distance between birth and death is a proleeding period
for the future life. In this period, the one who helps the
others specialliy the eldersswith the belief that he is doing
so because of his Islamic duty, will earn the fruit of his
doing in the eternal world.
Madame President,
Distinguished Delegates,
Regarding these facts Iran 's oppressed people, after centuries
having been oppressed by cruel kings, followed the Message of
a long suffering, virtueous, spiritually old man: Imam
K h o in e j n j which caused the overthrew of one of the
most tyrannic, discriminative dynasties and created the
Islamic Revolution upon I n d e p e n d e n c e ,
F r e e d o in , and governmental system was based on the
Islamic laws according to the constructions of the Holy Qur'an.
This system was voted yes by 98,7 % of the voters.
This changing of .the system was not liked by the satanic
Super Powers of West and East who were accustomed to colonize
and to exploitation of natural resources of the oppressed
people. So they tried to create different problems and diffi-
culties through internal and external plots for the new and
young Islamic Revolution of Iran.
Of yourse, they did. not know that any kind of plots which
they tried to b±ing before the Islamic Revolution would be
eliminated by the help of God.
Qur'an promises that these kinds of problems will be returned
to the superpowers themselves:
“And they (the disbelievers) schemed,
and Allah schemed (against them): and
Allah is the best of schemers.”
(Sure 3/54)
—4—
?•ladame President,
Distinguished Delegates,
Some of the difficulties which they have plotted — and still
are doing so — against our Islamic Revolution are as foll6ws:
1.) Various conspiricies and cornplôts in different
states especially in boardering ones like
Kurdestan and Khusistan
2.) Political and economical interference through
spying by the so called “American Embassy”
3.) Economic sanctions and freezing the assets of our
poor people in the American Banks.
4.) Direct military attacks by using the American Basis
in territories of regimes dependent on U.S.
This direct attack in Tabas was removed, again, by the
help of the almighty and merciful God, and, some of the
American attackers were burned during this action.
In eliminating this plot no hand of a human being was
used - only Allah helped, us and proved once again that
“Hast thou not seen how thy Lord dealt with the owners
of the Elephant?
Did he not bring their stratagem to naught,
And send against them swarms of flying creatures,
Which pelted them with stones of baked clay,
And made them like green crops devoured (by cattle)?”
(Sure 105/1—5)
5.) Afternot succeeding in the above mentioned plots
including various attempts of coup d'etat, the
Imperialism treated Saddam Hussein to go to war against
the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Saddam Hussein, who knew through Western and Eastern Super-
Power-Advisers that we were at the beginning of a new govern-
mental system and our army and the Islamic Guardians were not
prepared to protect our national and Islamic integrity — and
in reality we did not think that any of our neighbours would
start a war against us — attacked us, captured various towns,
bombed and martyred many many innocents, old and kids,
refuged more than 2 millions of our fellow citizens and
left us thousands of handicaps, children without fathers,
fathers and. mothers without children and the old ones who
have lost their youths which were their supporters.
Saddazn did two other things which were unpredictable:
1 - Ousted and refuged alot of elders and kids,
barefeeted and hungry in the worse climatical
regions with the argument that perhaps their
ancestors had an Iranian birth certification.
2 — The worse one — bornbardements on Moslems in-
cluding many many elders who were attending their
Friday Prayer and demonstrating their wishes for
freedom of Palestine from the hands of Zionism.
The last Friday of the previous Holy Month of Rarnadan, which
is called “Day of Ghods” by our Leader, hundreds of fellow
citizens have lost their lives in this barbarian action.
Madame President,
Distinguished Delegates,
7 Old-age problems in our country are similar to the other
socalled “Third World Countries”.
As our Islamic laws and regulations would tell us, we do have
the programme for our elders, but the problems we have mentioned
before plus the internal terrorism which Is protected and sup—
ported by Foreign Powers have martyred many of our great
thinkers who could have given erfect programmes about aging.
To name, the Head of our Judicial System, Martyr Dr. Seyed
Mohammad Beheshti and about more than 20 members of the Parlia-
ment and many ohter members of the Cabinet, e.g. Martyr Dr. Faia
bakhsh, who was a knowledgeable man and the Head of the Organi-
zation for elders and disabled persons, and also our martyred
President Rajai who had an efficient programme for elders
especially for the farmers in the rural areas. ith all of
these problems still the programme of the martyred Rajai is
a succeeding one.
— 6,—
i4artyr Rajai believed that our country has the same problems
as many other developing countries, and since there are living
more old-aged in rural areas than in urban areas we should
protect the life and social welfare of our elders in the
rural areas at first.
Rajai believed that the old people who work all their life in
the villages protect the people in the cities, and after they
got old they have no more production so they would not have any
income to make their living. For a country like ours which had
been the battleground for the Super Powers for more than 50
years and our exonomy has become dependent upon oil - if we
protect and follow the project of Nartyr Rajai which is insuring
social security and financial facility to the old people in the
rural areas, after they are retired, we will get rid of depen-
• dency and our elders in the rural areas would have no problems
any more.
This projeôt will have two other benefits for us:
1 - The decrease ofmigration of the rural people
to the towns.
2 — It encourag s our rural people to be more productive,
to give their experiencies to the society and to the
next generations and, also, by increasing their
productivity they enable us to get independent as
soon as possible.
Tofollew this kind of project we need natural resources,
human resources and money. The present war which has been.
imposed on us by Iraqi's Baath Party has cost us thousands
of people's life including the elders pLus 150 billions of
Dollars and millions of war—refugees.
All these problems made us difficulties in following the
programmes for aging.
Now the question is what should we do?
Should we sit down and let the foreign aggressor capture
thousands of kilometers of territories of our Islamic
Republic?
Shou1e j b and listen the news —maybe some day
the socalled U.N. Security Council would pass a resolution
condemning the aggressor which we have not heared about yet?
Even if it passes such a resolution — what happens?
•There have been passed so many resolutions by this Council
to decrease the aggression of Zionism — did any of them have
any effect?????
We are defending our belief.
We are fighting to get back and to protect our homeland from
the foreign aggressor. If we sit down and do nothing what
will our next generation tell about us?
This is a natural law that the man has been created free and
he has to defend his rights. Our book, the Holy Qur'an, is
telling us in different verses that this is our religious
duty to protect our rights.
The Moslems are on the defensive side of the wars. This is
true for Moslems in Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iran.
Defending Islam has been practised by our Prophet r'lohamrnad
pb.u.h. who is the last of the Prophet's line like Prophet
Ibrahirnp.b.u,h., Noses p.b.u.h. and Jesus p.b.u.h., and also,
the tactic of defending our Islamic ideas was used once again
by Martyr Imam Hossein (p.b.u.h.) Who was one of the real
followers of Prophet Noha-arnad p.b.u,h.
Madame President,
Distinguished Delegates,
The problems of aging are getting worse. The old refugees from
World War I and World War II are still problems in some countri.
Since the creation of socalled “Israel” and various catastrophes
in wars like 1948, 1956, 1967, 1970, 1973 and the ongoing war
now have martyred and refuged ‘thousands of elders.
We surely thank the majority Delegates who left the conference
room when “Irael” spoke. But we say this is nothing The
Lebanies and the Palestinians are being massacred.
• —8-
We hav o something! Our Leader, Irnam Khomeini, noticed
the danger of “Irael” more than t w e n t y years ago and
then he became exiled.
Beside “Israel ” our worse problems are those Powers and Zuper
Powers which voted YES for the ci ation of the state of Israel
in 1948. We have to fight them too; we have to fight U.S. and
the others who backed Israel.
l4adame President,
Dear distinguished Delegates,
The last Message of the Delegation of the Islamic Republic
of Iran, which I am representing, is that the only solution
for all of these problems is to make a revolution within the
U.N. Security Council.
‘Ihile they hold the right of veto in the centre of decision
making of the U.N., the Super-Powers create all the problems
for the poor nations and then they sit in the assemblies and
conferences to ‘solve' our problems.
We say this right of veto has to be taken away from them,
otherwise Discrimination, Apartheit, Racism, Colonialism,
Arm-races and the other. subsequent problems like aging will
be going on and on. Our question is: Are the problems of our
youths solved by the U.N. that we are looking for solutions
of problems of old—aged? We say that the oppressor can never
decide on behalf of the oppressed; this is the message of
Imam Ali p.b.u.h. who says, “Be the enemy of oppressor and
the supporter of the oppressed!” -
Finally, since we have found the solution of all problems
in the Holy Qur'an, we will present one .volume of this book
to the Assembly as the way for solving all kinds of problems
in the world.
Imam Khomeini, our beloved Leader, is a man who obeys Allah
and follows the line of this book; he is more than 80 years
old and is solving the most difficult problems.
• • • — 9 —
We assure you that if the internatio,zi L ommunity uses
this book as a guide-liner there won't be any problems
such as aging.
Peace be upon you.
The Delegation of the
Islamic Republic of Iran
Dr. I ohammad Yarigar Ravesh
Dr. Ahrnad Vaezi
