BY Keyvan Salami
Christmas this year has coincided with the birthday of prophet Mohammad of Islam (by lunar calendar). The two great prophets God granted man to lead him towards peace and prosperity. They two men of God came to teach us how to have respect and love for each other, and how to struggle against evil. The two glorious messengers who received affronts, heart rendering and physical harm from the dark minded creatures of their time that cared for nothing but their filthy lust for power and wealth.
The first enemies of God and his prophets in our time include the Ayatollahs in Iran who have brought misery to the Iranians and the people of the region. Crooks that used religion to usurp the wealth of deprived people of Iran. Their victims are the Iranian people who suffer from abuse, diseases and high costs of living, Iranian workers who have not been paid for months and end up in prison if they protest, Iranian women whom Mullahs’ laws consider as second hand citizens, Iranian students whose everyday protest has become part of their studies. Iranians are suffering most from extremism by the fundamentalists who rule their country. Iranians are the victims of the world’s only fundamentalist state rule, a regime that implements the most savage suppression for its people, and the most ruthless terrorism for its neighbors.
The extremism that we face in our world today is a class of barbarism remained from the Middle Ages that misogyny, and violence are its two essential characteristics. The teachings of Iran’s Ayatollahs who label their deeds as the “will of God” have never had any connections to Islam, and there is clearly no place in the modern world for such a worldview.
Ever since Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, Tehran became a successful model, which fundamentalists could follow in order to gain stature, power, and sovereign legality. This also provoked Sunni extremists like the Islamic State– why can they not create their own “Islamic” State when Shiite fundamentalists have already done so? The regime in Tehran as its officials claim is exporting its revolution to other countries. The 37 year history of this regime has shown that what they are exporting is, of course, Islamic fundamentalism with bombings, suicide attacks, assassinations, and hostage-takings as some of its sub- groupings. Without the sponsorship from Tehran Shiite terrorist factions, including Badr militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and others who were directly formed by the Iranian regime would have vanished. Iran is the main state power that legitimizes the global Islamic extremist threat. The past four decades tell us that nothing is more dangerous for fundamentalism and extremism than democratic and moderate ideals. That is where the need for support of the Iranian resistance arises. The world news in 2015 has unfortunately been filled with horror. The carnages in California, France or else showed that the threat of Islamic extremism recognizes no boundaries and that the sense of security U.S. President Obama expressed earlier in 2015 was ill-advised.
Iranian Resistance president-elect, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi
Maryam Rajavi, at Christmas Eve
Maryam Rajavi, the president elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), In her message on the occasion of Christmas and the New Year wished “that 2016 would be a year of unity and victory over Islamic extremism and especially the religious fascism ruling Iran and its evil allies in the Middle East who sow the seeds of enmity in the world.”
Her message is made timelier by the fact that this year Christmas coincides with the celebration of the birth of Mohammad in the Muslim world.
She used her Christmas message to underscore her view on the need for unity in the fight against Islamic terrorism: ‘Muslims and Christians can rely on their common values to stand up to those who pervert their religions. So, in contrast to what the extremists want, we should make our hope and faith in humanity deeper than ever.”
Attending Christmas Eve Mass at St Germain-des-Près, in Paris, Maryam Rajavi also extended her Christmas greetings and said, “I have come here to pray before Jesus Christ for the salvage of my oppressed people in Iran. I have come to pray for the salvage of people in the Middle East from the clutches of tyranny and extremism under the name of Islam. And I have brought with me the message of Iranian Muslims, especially the men and women who are enduring steadfast at Camp Liberty”. She also added, “As a Muslim woman I reiterate that Islam is shocked by the violence and terrorism perpetrated in the name of God”.
Follow Keyvan Salami tweets at @SalamiKeyvan