Iranian President Dr Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi addressing the "Logic of Revolutionary Reconstruction of the Country's Cultural Structure" conference in Teheran today.
Tehran/Washington: In face of widespread protests led by women groups and global condemnation of forces deployed by its regime to suppress the voice of the protestors, Iran today said it was reviewing its existing laws to bring up the “revolutionary reconstruction” of the country’s cultural structure.
Iranian President Ayatollah Dr Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi today said, “The Supreme Leader of the Revolution [Ali Khamenei] has always emphasised on the great capacity of women to play a social role. It is also necessary to become more active in radio and television, which has a great responsibility in this field”.
Dr Raisi stated that “in addition to the headquarters and the centre for the implementation and follow-up of this huge (revolutionary reconstruction) plan, which is obliged to report on the implementation of this plan in a continuous and regular manner, I will personally pursue the implementation and progress of this plan”.
His statement was made after the United States Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s meeting with a group of Iranian American activists and thought leaders focused on Iran for a discussion on respect for human rights, particularly women’s rights, as well as the Iranian government’s ongoing violent crackdown on peaceful protestors and its disruption of access to telecommunications and the Internet.
Dr Raisi though stated, “In the current storm in the field of cyber and cognitive warfare today, a country that relies on rich cultural foundations has no worries and is not harmed. If we rely on our rich cultural foundations, we will not be afraid of machine development and technological progress”.
Blinken asked civil society partners for their perspectives on what more the United States could do to support the people of Iran, particularly in light of the Iranian government’s state-sponsored violence against women and contempt for human rights. He praised the courage of the Iranian people, especially the women and girls of Iran. His meeting, according to the US State Department, was meant to continue to discuss ways in which the U.S. could support the Iranian protestors and support defending human rights.
Human rights organizations claim that the Iranian Government till now has killed more than 200 people including students, journalists, human rights activists, teachers, and lawyers, in its crackdown. Earlier, United Nations Human Rights experts too had strongly condemned the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after her arrest for allegedly failing to comply with Iran’s strict rules on women’s dress by wearing an “improper hijab”, and the violence directed against peaceful protesters and human rights defenders demanding accountability for Amini’s death in cities across the country by Iranian security forces.
The USA claimed today the Government of Iran continues to disrupt internet access for its 80 million-plus citizens and preventing them and the rest of the world from watching the ongoing crackdowns. “This cruel and violent suppression of peaceful protests shows that the Iranian Government clearly fears its own people,” Vedant Patel, Principal Deputy Spokesperson at the US State Department, told reporters.
Dr Raisi while speaking at the “Logic of Revolutionary Reconstruction of the Country’s Cultural Structure” conference in Tehran, emphasised the necessity of revising the existing laws in accordance with the evolution of the structures. Explaining further, he said this importance, which was also emphasised by the Supreme Leader of the Revolution in the field of revising the laws, should be taken into consideration – “The proposal of this demand and necessity is a proof of concern of the Supreme Leader towards the issues and cultural field of the country, which has always been under attack”.
The President said, “The Supreme Leader of the Revolution has always emphasised on the great capacity of women to play a social role. It is also necessary to become more active in radio and television, which has a great responsibility in this field”.
Dr Raisi stated, “It is very important to be able to eliminate inconsistencies and interferences and, although to a small extent, and, sometimes reduce conflicts as much as possible”. He said that today and in the era of virtual space, new requirements must be carefully considered and taken into account, and pointed out, “The inclusion of new requirements in cultural reconstruction must happen with the participation of people, especially the young”.
He added, “Progressing things in the field of culture cannot be done only with directives and instructions, and it requires persuasion and removal of possible doubts because when people are persuaded in this field, the decisions will be institutionalised and their implementation will be guaranteed in some way”.
According to Dr Raisi, the organisation of cultural interaction patterns was an important necessity in the field of realising the transformation of the country’s cultural structure. “Just as in the field of diplomacy we emphasise on expanding relations with friendly countries and standing against hostile countries, in the cultural field we must also interact with the cultures of other countries,” he said.
Stating that the importance of culture comes from its identity formation and authority creation, the President added, “Today’s identity and authority of Islamic Iran originate from our rich culture, which has been under attack not only today but always”.
He stated that the intellectuals, the educated and the elites of the society were the main guardians of monitoring the developments and they should identify the harms before others and warn them in time and provide solutions to solve them before others. “Throughout the long history of our country, there have always been compassionate people who identified harms before the general public, warned about them and took action to resolve them, and this procedure is basically the indicator and criterion for identifying elites and intellectuals,” he added.
The President stated, “Growth and progress in this system should naturally be culture-oriented, and basically, culture should be the flagship of any progress. The dynamism and transformation in all spheres and arenas of the Islamic Republic of Iran system are due to the centrality of culture”. This, according to him, explained the position and importance of culture and structure in the Islamic Republic system. He pointed out, “The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, with his accurate understanding of the position and importance of culture, demanded the revolutionary reconstruction of the country’s cultural structure. This demand arose from a social necessity, the realisation of which requires a sense of responsibility and a different movement than before”. He added, “Every revolutionary movement, as stated by the Supreme Leader of the Revolution, relies on rationality and wisdom in its heart”.
While stating that the realisation of reconstruction required a revolutionary outlook with an emphasis on the principles and foundations of the Islamic revolution, as explained by Imam Ayatollah Khomeini and Ali Khameini, Dr Raisi said “our martyrs have established these principles and foundations with their blood”.
He though added that it was not necessary to “redo” all the work, including in the field of research because much research and pathological works had already been done in many cultural centres, which should be taken into consideration and the same work should continue.
The President stated, “In this path, we have a huge system of cultural views of the Supreme Leader of the Revolution at our disposal, which we must use to draw the current situation and the desired situation and take advantage of the solutions to close the gap between these two”.
Ayatollah Raisi emphasised the need for cultural decisions to have persuasive, media and cultural attachments and added, “Even when decisions are made in the cultural field, their implementation needs cultural attachments because these attachments will guarantee a deeper impact of these decisions”.
– global bihari bureau
