We and You… A Difference That Can Create Awareness, Not Hostility
In moments of major crises, when voices
intermingle and positions collide, disagreement is no longer merely one opinion
facing another; it becomes a mirror revealing what lies deep within of
principles and values. Experiences often reveal what words fail to describe,
and events expose what has long been hidden behind slogans.
And we—the believers in truth and freedom,
the sons and makers of the revolution from every religion, color, and
sect—differ from those who grew accustomed to looting, plunder, and domination,
who were tools of a corrupt authority that fell morally before it fell
politically. Our difference carries no hostility toward those who return;
rather, it forges awareness. Whoever among you wishes to hear the voice of
dialogue, let them first read these words.
Between Cruelty and Mercy…
A Scene that Reveals the Gap
I recall an incident that has remained
fixed in memory despite the passing of years. A young man from the “shabbiha”
stood before a sheikh in his seventies, head held high, swaggering with his
power, and coldly said: “I will kill that cat to show you my marksmanship…
killing a man to me is like drinking a glass of water!” These were not passing
words of bravado, but a reflection of a mindset so accustomed to violence that
it trivialized blood and made killing an easy, weightless act.
By contrast, we fear Allah even in the
smallest creature; we see life as a blessing not to be taken except with right.
We understand that mercy is strength, that dialogue is the beginning of reform,
and that a word of truth saves the oppressor from himself before it saves the
oppressed from his tyranny.
Freedom… Who Elevates
It and Who Degrades It
We are not like you in our understanding of
freedom. Some see it as absolute for themselves alone, forbidden to others, or
as authority over people’s necks by which they impose their views through
coercion and force.
We, however, see it as a responsibility
before it is a right; we see it as a bridge to understanding, not a gateway to
enmity. We proved this on the day of liberation, and on the day when
demonstrations erupted on November 25 in opposition to the rule of the
revolution—when the men of the revolution themselves protected the
demonstrators and secured their protest.
This is the freedom we uphold: a conscious
freedom that elevates human dignity, grants the ability to say “no” with
firmness, to build one’s homeland without arrogance, and to engage the
different with respect, without contempt.
Money and Power… Between
Goal and Means
You look at life as the hunt for
opportunity, the plunder of wealth, and the leverage of position or influence,
until ethics became for you a luxury to be dispensed with. We, on the other
hand, believe that money, if not lawful, is a burden upon its owner, and that
authority, if not built upon justice, turns into a curse upon those who wield
it and those subjected to it.
The trials of the transitional phase proved
what we say: those who wronged you were held accountable before those who
spilled the blood of revolutionaries for years were tried. We want a state that
safeguards rights, protects blood, honor, and dignity, honors laboring hands,
and advances agriculture, industry, and trade as alternatives to plunder and
corruption.
Whoever seeks construction, we stand by
them; whoever desires reform, we are broad-chested toward them. The land is too
vast to be narrowed against its own people.
An Outstretched Hand,
Not A Raised Fist
We are not advocates of conflict, nor
seekers of vengeance. Nations are not built by revenge, nor do they rise
through rancor. We carry our wounds not to pass them on to our children, but to
turn their pain into resolve and strength. We raise our voices with the truth
so that those who strayed from it may return. We want transitional justice to
heal some of these wounds—containing the pain rather than letting sedition
explode through it.
As for you, when you deny the realities of
the present, you push toward explosion and belittle pains that no one has the
right to ignore.
We want a society in which all participate:
those who disagreed and those who agreed; those who erred then repented; those
who went astray then found guidance.
We want a state governed by law, where no
one stands above another except by the measure of the good they carry.
But you refuse to grant yourselves the
chance for review, manufacturing confrontation through stubbornness that
benefits neither you nor your children.
To the Simple Person:
Fire Does Not Distinguish
The greatest threat to nations is
surrendering their necks to those who ignite strife. There are those who cannot
live except amid fog, because clarity exposes their weakness; and those who
live off hatred, because it elevates them as everyone else falls. But fire does
not recognize its owner—once ignited, it consumes green and dry alike, turning
enemy and friend into the same ashes.
We say it sincerely: do not follow everyone
who blows on the bellows. The beneficiary of sedition seeks to protect himself,
not you. A day will come when the wrongdoers will know that Allah’s promise is
fulfilled. The third acceleration has begun; destiny is not repelled by the
defiant or the arrogant.
In conclusion, we do not boast of being
different, but we know the value of principles when darkness intensifies.
We differ from those who see cruelty as
glory, and we hope for their guidance, not their defeat. We differ from those
who elevate money above the human being, and we remind them—not to overcome
them, but so that their right may return to them.
We differ, yes—but our difference is not a
curse. It is an opportunity for awareness, dialogue, and partnership in homeland.
So whoever seeks good, its door is open;
and whoever prefers sedition—the course of history continues, truth remains,
and regret avails nothing when the curse of the eighth decade arrives, the head
of the serpent is severed, the tails fall, and falsehood is erased by Allah’s
permission.
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