Broadcast by PARS TV 12 February--Behrouz Souresrafil (Excerpt):

Behruz Souresrafil: The governor-general of Qazvin has given such an image of Qazvin for the viewers of Islamic Republic television that you have to see it yourself to believe how each one of you is losing the chance to live the happiest life by not living in Qazvin. If you think you are living a good life in Los Angeles, New York, Washington or London, you are mistaken! Happiness is found only in Qazvin, and now the governor-general of Qazvin will explain it to you and you will see it for yourself on Islamic Republic television.

IRINN Announcer: The president of the Democratic Party of Lebanon said the Islamic Republic can be a model for the nations of the Third World for achieving independence and entering into the era of development. Talal Arsalan explained that unlike other revolutions, the prominent indications are that after victory, Iran's Islamic revolution quickly entered a period of tranquility and construction of the nation's populist institutions.

Arsalan added that the Islamic revolution resembles a sudden explosion against the great powers, which had become accustomed to using the resources of Third World nations.

Qazvin Province (red)

IRINN Interviewer: Mr. Naseri, what were the gains of the revolution in our province?

Naseri: Yes, I was saying that I myself was born in the province at the beginning of the revolution, I am the province governor-general and I can make a full comparison. Today we have no rural areas in the province without potable water, we have no rural areas without electrical power, we have no rural areas without telecommunications, almost all our province has asphalt roads, I can say that our health care network is absolutely complete, there are no basic problems in our rural areas for living a desirable life, and this cannot be compared with the time before the revolution.

Our province has 2,500 industrial units, most of which were established after the triumph of the revolution. ... Likewise in the areas of public service and cultural, athletic and recreational facilities, there is no comparison with what existed before the revolution, and if the youth in our province are interested in sports or reading books praise God they have no basic problems making use of the cultural facilities.

The revolution has brought about the necessary changes in the lives of the units in our province, and most important of all, our society is much sounder, more lively and more active than it was 30 years ago.

Souresrafil (chuckling): Dear viewers, you see the former president of the Democratic Party of Lebanon has said that the Islamic revolution was a superb revolution because its most important characteristic is that it moved quickly towards the creation of populist institutions and especially peace!

You see how our country has now been at peace for 30 years! There have been incidents that disrupted this peace but they were small and unimportant in the view of this Lebanese. We ourselves have had shortcomings, but some Lebanese with no skills or abilities has endorsed the happiness and good fortune we have!

Peace! Of course this peace was disrupted by a little war between Iran and Iraq, but this Lebanese gentleman is right. That little war didn't disrupt the peace too much. This peace the revolution has given our country for 30 years is truly unaffected by these little things! If 300,000 or 400,000 people were executed or tortured, it was obvious, if their heads and legs were cut off, if they were stoned to death, these do not disturb a nation's peace!

If even today Iran is on the verge of being attacked militarily by the Americans or any other disaster, this does no harm to the peace the revolution has given to our country! We ourselves didn't know or sense it. It is a good thing a Lebanese was found so our ignorant nation could understand the happiness and peace the revolution has brought to us!

As for this governor-general of Qazvin, you would think the people of Qazvin are really the stupidest people in the world. This place he has created in the Province of Qazvin--and this is very important because at first it was just a municipality--the things he talked about don't exist anywhere! Even here in America where I live things are not as good as what he described. Everyone who lives somewhere else, whether Qazvini or not, is an ignorant person. ... It isn't just Qazvin. The governors-general of every other part of the Islamic Republic that you see on Islamic Republic say the conditions in their cities are better than they are in Qazvin!

This reminds of a joke. After this person who shoots prisoners in the head [tir-e khalas zan] became president, the people of Qazvin were saying that this executioner is the best president of the republic we have yet seen in this country because ever since he came and won the election, the entire world has cursed us!

Now every Qazvini youth who uses heroin or does something to get himself flogged, every Qazvini youth who takes a Qazvini girl out of her home and gets her into a thousand difficulties, everyone who gets AIDS in Qazvin, every Qazvini who doesn't read and every Qazvini who fails to make use of this happiness and good fortune has really just cast a vote for his own stupidity.

When the Islamic Republic has created such paradises in our country that have no precedents anywhere else in the world, I don't know, the nation of Iran is sick if it makes the slightest protest or objection, or if spends the shortest moment without happiness! The reasoning the Islamic Republic is using today is very, very interesting and really instructive.

They all keep coming forward, everyone from the ministers to the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their office chiefs, saying that in a certain area our situation is better than it was before the revolution. First, the situation is truly laughable, and secondly in every trash heap in the world, if the Islamic revolution had taken place there, it would have been better off 30 years ago than it is today!

If that same previous regime had remained and if this glorious peace-bringing, constructive revolution had not taken place, do you think conditions in Qazvin would be worse than they were 30 years ago? When we had the disease of ignorance, they could do anything they wanted to do, and praise God the preachers were able to fool large numbers of ignorant people (I don't want to call them stupid because there might be one or two people left there who are not stupid).

Now every Qazvini youth who uses heroin or does something to get himself flogged, every Qazvini youth who takes a Qazvini girl out of her home and gets her into a thousand difficulties, everyone who gets AIDS in Qazvin, every Qazvini who doesn't read and every Qazvini who fails to make use of this happiness and good fortune has really just cast a vote for his own stupidity.

When the Islamic Republic has created such paradises in our country that have no precedents anywhere else in the world, I don't know, the nation of Iran is sick if it makes the slightest protest or objection, or if spends the shortest moment without happiness! The reasoning the Islamic Republic is using today is very, very interesting and really instructive.

They all keep coming forward, everyone from the ministers to the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their office chiefs, saying that in a certain area our situation is better than it was before the revolution. First, the situation is truly laughable, and secondly in every trash heap in the world, if the Islamic revolution had taken place there, it would have been better off 30 years ago than it is today!

If that same previous regime had remained and if this glorious peace-bringing, constructive revolution had not taken place, do you think conditions in Qazvin would be worse than they were 30 years ago? When we had the disease of ignorance, they could do anything they wanted to do, and praise God the preachers were able to fool large numbers of ignorant people (I don't want to call them stupid because there might be one or two people left there who are not stupid).

This happiness, this good fortune, this victory--where is it? Everywhere, in all the statistics, in all the equations, in all the newspapers, everywhere you look--this is inside Iran itself--Iranians have become physically smaller due to malnutrition! Yet in the last 10 years the Japanese have gotten almost 10 centimeters taller!