Mr. Khamenei,
Greetings.
Word from within your medical circle is that your health is poor, and they believe your death may be very near. That may not prove true, and you may live a few more years. But sooner or later, in the words of Abolfazl Bayhaqi, you will "receive the command" and leave this transient world for the abode of permanence. In keeping with the noble Prophetic hadith "Hasibu anfusakum qabla an tuhasabu wa zinuha qabla an tuzanu" (Take account of yourselves before you are taken to account on the Day of Judgment, and weigh your deeds before they are weighed on that day), I want to help you with this reckoning and hold a mirror before your eyes so that you may see yourself and your record in it.
Seize the moment now, while the blessing is still in your hand,
For this fortune and this realm pass from hand to hand. (Saadi)
Mr. Khamenei:
For ten years, as a member of the Revolutionary Council and as president, you shared responsibility alongside Mr. Khomeini for building the Islamic Republic, and for 29 years, as Leader of the regime, you have been directly responsible for everything that has happened in the country and for everything this regime has produced. What exists in the country today is the product of your leadership, and its good and bad will be recorded against your name in this world and the next. Take a look at the country. One sees a people who are exhausted, hopeless, hungry and angry, in a country full of problems and disorder. In the economic sphere, nearly half of the nation's wealth is in the hands of you and the institutions under your supervision, such as the IRGC. An official of the Central Bank is quoted as saying that part of the oil revenue is deposited at the Central Bank into a special account of yours under the heading of "the Leader's share." Thus the unprecedented corruption that surges through every pillar of the country begins with you yourself. Inflation, high prices and the heavy burden of taxes have broken the backs of ordinary people, while at the same time a small circle of power brokers and those around you wallow in billions of windfall wealth and let out drunken roars. More than one hundred thousand billion tomans of bank deposits belonging to the people have been plundered, and with the banks' circulation brought to a halt, an unprecedented recession has engulfed the entire country; the wheels of the economy have rusted and are, in effect, no longer turning. The first consequence of this recession is the unemployment of several million of the country's young people.
In the social sphere, more than 11 million people live in the slums on the margins of the big cities. More than three million are living with the demon of addiction. Theft, bribery and graft run rampant. The country's environment is on the verge of destruction, and people struggle even to secure the two most vital elements of life: clean water and clean air.
In the cultural sphere, the country's universities are at the lowest levels in their history. Contrary to the false statistics you have been given and have repeated many times, the country's scientific standing is dismal by any measure, and Iran has fallen out of the global circulation of science and knowledge. In the arts, artists live under the pressure and constriction of repression, suffocation and censorship. Some have been sent to prison and others driven into exile, and those who remain, like lichen growing from hard granite, still manage to blossom from within the stone of these pressures, but at the cost of endless heartache and daily abuse. Of course, the flatterers and court poets in the mold of Anvari who have access to your court are a separate matter; they feed on the crumbs from the table of your power and wealth.
In domestic politics, in a word, anyone who thought differently from you was branded either a traitor and foreign mercenary or a fool and an ignoramus. During your rule, thousands have been sent to prison or placed under house arrest, hundreds have been murdered or executed, a number have disappeared or been made to vanish, and many others have been driven into exile and homelessness. The people have been deprived of the ability to organize in civil institutions, and even their most fundamental rights and freedoms have been subjected to repression and suffocation.
In foreign policy, too, your warmongering in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan has so far left hundreds of thousands killed, wounded and displaced. It has squandered billions of dollars of the nation's wealth, plunged Iran into an isolation unparalleled in our country's history, and in return given aggressor Russia a free hand in every pillar of the country.
What I have written is only one in a thousand, a grain from a heap. A full account would fill a mathnawi of seventy maunds of paper. If you step a little outside the wall of flatterers and yes-men crying "long live the sultan," you can see the pain and suffering of Iran and Iranians far more clearly and completely than what a mirror held by the likes of me can place before your eyes. In my view, understanding what the nation wants, at least through the several elections of the past twenty years, is not a difficult task, but throughout these long years of your rule you have insisted on not hearing the people's message and on speaking to them in the language of command and threat.
Mr. Khamenei, do not say that the governments in office were to blame, or that so-and-so failed, or, to use your favorite word, that the enemy did not allow it. The present condition of the country is a full-length mirror of your management and responsibility.
Thirty years at the helm of a country with such sweeping powers is a full lifetime, enough either to turn Iran into a rose garden or to bring it to its current dismal state. The country stands on the brink of collapse and disintegration. You are the principal party responsible for the current situation.
Unfortunately, you personally no longer have the time, the years or the capacity to rebuild the ruins and repair the damage you have inflicted on this land. But to make up for a small part of what you have destroyed, I have three clear and specific proposals for the few days of life you have left, and I hope that by succeeding in carrying them out you may make some amends for the past. And of course, in keeping with the noble verse "My success is only through God," I pray that divine grace may assist you on this path.
First proposal: Replace the inept head of the judiciary and issue a general amnesty for all political opponents inside and outside the country. Free the political prisoners and our dear ones under house arrest. Take the path of national reconciliation and let the different groups of the people cooperate and compete with one another in building Iran in a healthy and lively atmosphere. The revolution is over; let the country's young generation emerge from "the current sensitive circumstances" and live. In place of the constant repetition of the word "enemy," put friendship; in place of chanting for death and spreading hatred, bestow on the people a love of life and kindness. Give joy and hope back to the people.
Second proposal: Return to the people all the property, estates and wealth that you, the institutions under your supervision and the other rent-seekers close to the regime have stolen from their hands and mouths. Declare this wealth national property and require the government to return this accumulated fortune of more than two hundred billion dollars to its rightful owners and to spend it on creating jobs for the millions of unemployed in the country and on improving the lives of workers, teachers and wage earners. Return the people's property to the people.
Third proposal: The system of the absolute guardianship of the jurist has been ineffective and has failed in every area. Power concentrated in the hands of one person has produced nothing but corruption and rot around that center of power. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. You have not yet died, and already the succession crisis over who will seize this bloodstained seat has begun, and blood has been shed. Using the authority you hold, put the Constitution of the Islamic Republic to a referendum, and if the majority of the people vote against it, oversee free elections so that a Constituent Assembly elected by the people can write a new constitution, return power to the people, and hand this house over to its owner, the nation of Iran. Give Iran back to Iranians.
I tell you what the duty of conveying the message requires;
Whether you take counsel from my words or take offense. (Saadi)
Mohsen Sazegara
Khordad 1396 [May–June 2017]
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