NEW YORK (Dispatches) -- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi says Western powers have impeded the growth and progress of other countries through their culture of domination and by exploiting international entities to their own benefit.
“Unfortunately, the culture of hegemony has defined its interests in holding back other countries,” President Raisi told the Transforming Education Summit at UN Headquarters in New York.
The hegemonic powers “have impeded other countries’ growth and progress by creating an unfair world order, abusing international organizations, and drawing up schemes to impose their own cultural and intellectual views,” he added.
Raisi said cultural domination and confinement of knowledge are the worst kinds of oppression and injustice.
He urged international entities to respect countries’ cultural and educational sovereignty, noting that it is impossible to transform the education system without taking into account values such as family, equality, and spirituality.
“International organizations are expected to respect countries’ educational and cultural sovereignty and protect them against cultural invasion,” he said.
The history of Iran’s civilization, the president said, began with science and knowledge, adding the Islamic culture elevated it and established its pillars on heavenly reflections.
Raisi said Islam invites humanity to acquire knowledge with the aim of achieving equality, spreading spirituality, and bringing prosperity and development.
“Making progress is a matter of significance for almost all countries, and while governments have implemented international recommendations in this regard, serious challenges have been imposed on national and indigenous cultures simultaneously.”
A development that lacks spirituality and morality won’t last long and will result in societal collapse, the president said.
Moral values such as respecting the family, protecting the environment, establishing equality, denouncing violence and extremism, promoting internet safety, and encouraging healthy online habits must be among the priorities for transforming education, he said.
The president also took a swipe at the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, criticizing its approaches as “one-dimensional” and “secular,” and saying that the Islamic Republic has drawn up its own educational agenda based on Iranian-Islamic principles.
Iran’s newly set-up educational system is now shifting from rote learning to a system relying on research, creativity, skill-training, and commitments to cultural and religious values, Raisi said.
Raeisi left Tehran for New York on Monday morning to take part in the UN General Assembly.
The Transforming Education Summit was convened in response to a global crisis in education. The crisis, which is often slow and unseen, is said to have a devastating impact on the future of children and youth worldwide.
Upon arrival in New York, President Raisi said there are a number of major problems facing today’s world, all of which stem from unilateralism.
Asked about the subject matters that the president will address during his visit and address to the UN session, the president said he would use the opportunity to explain the Islamic Republic’s standpoints and perspectives.
“The United Nations should be truly an organization for all nations. It must not be an organization for powerful governments,” he said.
“We are now faced with a host of global problems and issues, which can be naturally discussed in such meetings to find solutions,” Raisi added.
He noted that since such problems are general problems affecting the entire world, their solutions must be found through collective wisdom.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Iranian president reflected on the issue of unilateral sanctions imposed on countries.
Raisi described sanctions as a “weapon in the hands of big powers, which they use in order to apply pressure on other nations.”
The president said unilateral coercive measures are at odds with “peace, calm, and security,” and mostly harm nations.
The U.S. retains the coercive economic measures, although it is bound by an International Court of Justice ruling to lift those bans that prevent exports of humanitarian goods to the Islamic Republic.
“Naturally, other nations will have to resort to countermeasures,” Raisi said, referring to the countermeasures that the Islamic Republic has been employing in reaction to the sanctions.
Turning to the issue of terrorism, the president said this phenomenon is the source of a large part of displacements across the world.
He also criticized the support provided by certain countries and international plays for the terrorist groups.
President Raisi finally addressed the issue of war and bloodshed throughout the world, reaffirming the Islamic Republic’s outright opposition to all forms of war.
“These issues must be discussed and their solutions, as I said before, are collective wisdom and discussions” among nations, he said.
“All these problems are results of unilateralism in the world; I mean, unilateralism gives birth to such issues that are currently tormenting the human societies,” the president said.