TEHRAN -- Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Wednesday warned Iran’s scientific community of soft wars being waged by the world’s colonial powers with the aim of rendering nations indifferent or ignorant to their talented minds and setting the stage for pillaging those nations.
Ayatollah Khamenei issued the warning at a meeting with a group of young Iranian academic elites and top talents in science.
The Leader described genius a divine blessing and reminded the youth to be grateful for this blessing.
Explaining the characteristics of a genius and outstanding person, the Leader said, “What makes an outstanding person outstanding is not merely talent and mental capacity, because many individuals have a high mental capacity but it is wasted in them.”
The Leader mentioned that this divine blessing should be appreciated and supported with hard work.
“If a talented, gifted individual does not take advantage of and use this blessing and if they are lazy, uncaring and negligent, they will definitely not become an outstanding person. An outstanding person is a person who thanks God.”
Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated that it is primarily up to the outstanding person himself or herself to appreciate this blessing. Secondly, it is up to their environment, or in other words, their family, their teachers and ultimately the government and the officials of the country to help them in doing this.
The Leader stressed that Iran’s level of talent and intelligence is higher than the global average.
“One important part of the soft war waged by the colonizers at present and at all times has been causing the Iranian nation to forget its talents, to become indifferent about them or to cause the nation to deny its talents.”
Ayatollah Khamenei described Africa as being a continent of great historical civilizations, but the arrival of colonialism completely destroyed that continent. “Nehru said that before the British entered India, India was a self-sufficient country in terms of its own domestic industry - the industries in the early 19th century. However, when the British entered - first the East India Company and then the British government - they caused the people of India to feel that it was impossible to live except with British and foreign products. This means the denial of a nation’s capabilities,” the Leader said of India’s prominent anti-colonial figure Jawaharlal Nehru.
Over the past two centuries, Ayatollah Khamenei stated, Iran too suffered from the same fate before the victory of the Islamic Revolution.
“When neglect of one’s power and capabilities becomes dominant in a nation, plundering that nation becomes easy. Remember that neglect and plundering come together. Negligence is the precursor to plundering, and plundering increases negligence... This holds true about countries that were colonized directly and also about countries like ours that were not colonized directly. This is why they want us to be negligent about our capabilities.”
Referring to the commotion surrounding Iran’s missiles and defense weapons, the Leader stated that this is one of the propaganda efforts made by the enemies in order to make the Iranian nation disregard its own capabilities.
“God warns in His heavenly book that the enemy wants you to neglect your weapons and possessions in order to attack easily, which is significant today given the pressures and controversies in the world over the issue of UAVs and missiles.”
The Leader touched on certain hurdles and unfair actions that are sometimes taken against the academic elites in Iran, encouraging the youth to fight against and to eliminate the hurdles. He said one of the ways to thank God for being outstanding is to use one’s talent in the way of God.
Ayatollah Khamenei said to turn Iran into a scientific center in the world, “the first stage is to bridge the gap that exists between us and other countries in terms of science. There is a gap to be filled.”
“Of course, we admire the scientific progress which our statistics shows and global statistics shows we have made. This scientific progress is commendable and we have truly made progress. However, we are far from being on the frontlines of science in the world and this is due to the fact that they have held us back for two hundred years.”
Referring to the rapid pace of progress after the victory of the Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei said, “The second stage is to progress past the borders of global science. In other words, we should be able to offer new scientific aids and new scientific discoveries to the world... Then, the next stage is to pursue a new Islamic civilization.”
The Leader also urged the academic elites to show creativity and innovativeness in scientific areas.
“Innovativeness means discovering a natural law that has remained undiscovered until today. Then on the basis of this discovery, you should produce science and create many new technologies. You must pursue this path.”
Ayatollah Khamenei called on the scientific community of the country to pay attention to the current issues of the country and to conduct problem-oriented research. He asked them to focus their attention on finding scientific solutions for solving problems such as environmental issues and traffic problems.
The Leader said one of Iran’s goals is to be among the top 10 countries in the area of artificial intelligence. He requested that scientists focus their attention on this area.
Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei said, belongs to the youth who he described as the builders of Iran’s future.
He asked the administration to employ the youth in various areas and called on the academic elites to ready themselves and to find their role in the management of the country.