His Ayatollah Qassem’s speech on the eve of , February 14th, 2022, commemorating the 11th anniversary of the onset of the glorious February 14th
In the name of of Allah the Merciful, the most compassionate. Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds. Peace and blessings be upon our prophet Muhammad and his pure progeny
Peace be upon you, my dear brothers and sisters, who have been brought together at the commemoration of the popular movement in our dear Bahrain, which began on the 14th of February of 2011 AD. It is a movement imposed by the general political and rights reality; a regressive, pressing religious, civil, social, individual, living and cultural reality, produced by the unjust official policy. This reality has dictated the movement’s list of demands, since its inception, and there is no end to it except with the fulfillment of these demands, the realization of the rights and the abolition of falsehood. That’s just what stop it. Therefore, there is no point in the attempts if those who are trying to stop it before that, through formal or deficient solutions. A partial solution would meet part of the demands, while the rest of the remain demanded until they are fully achieved, because any of these popular demands, which have ignited the movement, is not baseless, neither a favour from anyone, nor a marginal issue
This movement was not an emotional state separate from a conscious reading of religion, reality, and the necessary interest, with the aim of repelling injustice, which is destructive and unbearable. In our list of popular demands, there are nothing important and others marginal. If we say that specific demands are more important, or if we say some demands are at the top, then we do not mean that there is a demand that can be dispensed with. Our people’s demands vary between very important, more important, and what is more necessary
Our people, and every oppressed people, have a choice between two options when they are oppressed. First, being patient with the bitterness of oppression, knowing how severe is oppression; Second, being patient with the torments of the path of getting rid of injustice and reaching justice. Yes, it is necessary to be patient with these torments as a second option even if it exhausts the patient to get rid of. The first option, if the people tolerate oppression, then, they will lose their religion, their worldly affairs, their dignity, their pride, and their freedom. And this is totally rejected. It is religiously and logically rejected. On the contrary, the second option requires to be patient while the confrontation, provided that the confrontation is positive, rational, and sane, even if the road is long, especially if the people are a Muslim people
I say ‘especially if the people are a Muslim people’ because Islam fully insists on its followers not to be patient with injustice, and not to fail in sacrifice to ward off injustice and lift it from its shoulders
Our believing people are aware that faith is not a base from which they harm others. Faith never cause harm to anyone, unless sometimes that is required, even if the oppressed, themselves, are harmed more than the oppressors while facing injustice. Faith is the base of striving to repel injustice from oneself, and not to committing injustice. Faith is the basis for bringing the wrongdoers back to the truth, and there is no righteousness for the wrongdoer without it. Indeed, when the believers move to confront injustice, this is for their own good and the good of the oppresser themselves. Faith is the starting point for a decent, rational, just life in which everyone become joyous. Believers do not face injustice with a similar injustice, and in a manner that does not adhere to the relgious rulings and the supreme values of Islam. The premise of faith is the elimination of oppression and the achievement of justice for all
Faith is the solid basis for bearing the responsibility of reform and being patient with the costs of this responsibility, knowing that the road to reform may be long. No one can block the path of reform, nor can the anti-reform shut its door, as those have exerted relentless effort to fight reform. Nevertheless, this responsibility is borne by believers who are known for their patience and steadfastness. Genuine faith is compatible with solidity, patience, pride, honour, self-esteem, and adherence to freedom. Those who are under the illusion that the conditionsof the [Bahrain] crisis would persist, ignore that the consistent practice of change is ongoing and does not stop
?When did change in human history end
The practice of change is conditional, and does not stop, and when its condition is met, it occurs, and it imposes itself on all the obstinate oppressors. It is conditioned that people change themselves, and that they prepare themselves fully, from within, for what they aspire to. Every change has a weight, and every weight of ambition and aspiration has its equivalent in terms of effort, jihad, cost, preparation and equipment. There is no gain for progress without a positive change, a positive change deep within one’s soul. Moreover, there is no defeat except by a negative change and corruption within one’s self. Verily, when the believers who discipline themselves positively, the change that occurs to them is a productive change. The individuals who enact insufficiently as they regress from within and their strength points decline, a negative change occurs them. Likewise is the society’s condition of change, negatively and positively, the focus must be on their inner selves, reality and then the external conditions
The great historical transformations teach us that the cosmic consistent practice is the impermanence of stagnation and deflation. We notice that when the sun rises every day, it rises to something new. And every action has a result that is appropriate for this type of efforts. Yes, the will of humans has its role in changing, as God has ordained. This is God’s practice and norm that He has made the will of human an essential role in changing themselves, their status quo and the conditions around them
It is not for the laggards to wish for victory, but rather the promised victory is for those who strive in the cause of Allah and who prepare themselves to bear the cost of victory. The cost of victory is neither humble nor short in time. Hence, to attain victory, it is necessary to persist and to have a consistent patient What creates change and victory is to unite the stances over the righteous demands and to exert effective efforts on the path to achieving victory
For those who dream of victory, without providing its premises, their dreams and illusions will regress and they will receive no gains, and their crises will never be settled. Victory has never never knocked on the doors of societies to move them from a state of humiliation to glory, and from slavery to sovereignty. People should seek victory, run after, beg for, and do everything they can to achieve it. It is a false wish that people sit in their homes, and surrender to the humiliating reality, waiting to be victorious. If our people want to overcome their homeland’s crises, they must unite, unite their efforts on the path to a solution, identify the optimal solution, know how to perfectly deal with it, and eventually to well-purchase it
Besides, if our people want to drown in problems, let their forces stagnate, their activism stop, and let them surrender to rest, and let sleep be sweet for them. Indeed, a nation, in which division prevailed among it (a division sponsored by unjust government), this scattered nation enables and assists this government to persist in its oppression
The people of Bahrain are attentive to this, alert and wary, God willing, against falling into the prohibitions of this division. Unequivocally, if uniting over good and truth is a way out of salvation, then uniting over evil and falsehood is fatal and a limitless corruption
Our [Bahraini nation] has its unique human identity, dignity, pride and religious identity. It is eager to regain its freedom. It also has physical and material necessities, needs and demands, and its demands from the ruling regime that it recognize its entire rights and respect them, sufficiently and practically. If this does not happen, the crisis will not be resolved between this people and the government. The public affairs, now and in the future, will not stablise to those who do not give the people any value, do not recognize their rights and are hostile to them. Thus, the people, who submit their affairs to those who do not respect them, have mercy on them, drain them, strip them of their humanity, exploit them and enslave them, are a fallen people in the eyes of religion, reason and instinct, and they are to blame in the eyes of sane people
Our Bahraini people are far from this situation, that may happen to some peoples, as our Bahraini people are known for their Islam, their authentic upbringing, their glorious history, their Hussaini pulpit’s education, their pure loyalty to the progeny of the Prophet (may God’s prayers be upon them all), and their firm and solid belief in God, the Blessed and Exalted
O strata of our Bahraini people, and the opposition factions: we must know that there is a stark contrast between giving precedence for the ego, I mean the personal ego, the partisan ego and similar types of ego, which is known for its worldly desires and individual ambitions over the collective interests, and giving precedence for the issues that serve the interests of society and the eternal moral values. This contrast hinders the prevail of honor and dignity of the divine decrees, and hinders the victory of the nation and the people. It is of the most severe contrasts as giving precedence for the ego is an inevitable loss for the nation
If our Bahraini people, who seeks to fulfill its demands, the smallest or the largest, if it aims to record the greatest losses, the inevitable losses; then let them give precedence for the personal or partisan ego and any ego that hinders this ambition. As for the people who wants the demands to succeed, let them ignore the ego’s desires, and let them merge with the desires of the general movement, which would benefits everyone
May your movement proceed vigorously and rationally, with the spirit of one community and one soul, united interest, common present, and common destiny, and that you do not have a thousand opinions, but one, so you avoid thousands of loopholes that will cost you the heaviest losses
Your path to victory is one, and that is the path of unity, the path of solid construction, the path of a solid and cohesive array, in which there is no gap or outlet for the enemy or the deception of Satan
Maintain your peacefulness as you have always been, and intensify your conscious, active and deliberate jihad efforts. Choose the well-thought-out opinion resulting from your common and objective thinking, and that based on the need to reach a just solution to this nation’s crises, with regard to its relgious and worldly affairs, its hereafter, honour and dignity
There is no solution, brothers and sisters, without a real, just and thorough settlement to the problem of problems, which is the political crisis. Further, there is no settlement of the political crisis without a just constitution that does not reflect the will and interests of the authority. Its policy with the citizens has clearly demonstrated its inability to draft a just constitution, which treats them equally, recognizes their rights, pride and dignity, and that it they are the basis of power
Our proud, intelligent, faithful and jealous people, the deferring views of the opposition blocs and the people must reach a consensus. This responsibility is upon you and the honorable, righteous opposition, which is loyal to its religion, its values, and its nation, and for your sake and your interests. All of you must become one, solid, and coherent building, with no gap or outlet that any oppressive force can infiltrate through
O people of reform, by your demand for reform, you nullify what unjust policy leads to. The result of the unjust policy: to divide, to dissipate, to create fierce enmities far from all values, far from divine rulings, from rational norms, from the human dimension. This is what an unjust policy leads to. As for your reform, it is to confront all that, to eliminate hostilities, to eliminate injustice, to eliminate humiliation, submissiveness, backwardness, ignorance, and anything that degrades the human being and weakens the community
The unjust policy has its goal, and the demand for reform has its goal, which are completely opposite. The request for reform is to provide a dignified, glorious, dear, free and proud life, which is based on divine values and the provisions of the sacred Sharia. As for unjust policy, it is to sabotage decent life, to replace it with chaos, division, alienation, enmity and gloomy grievances
The falsehood of [the government] should not prevail over your right. Its insistence on injustice should not hinder your insistence on bringing your homeland and society to justice. You do not seek injustice to anyone, and you do not want to harm anyone. Nonetheless, your reform movement aims at benefiting everyone and at bringing honour and dignity for all your compatriots, in this world and in the hereafter
Bless you for this intention and this endeavor
Our dear, noble, committed, faithful, proud, rational nation is targeted by the current regime, which rules with all kinds of injustice, and which has sell at the lowest price in order to be one of the tools to abort the nation’s renaissance movement, to alienate it from its great religion, its honorable civilizational identity, and its straight divine line
Our honorable people: Do not accept injustice, humiliation, mortification backwardness. Watch out not to be the lowest of the price as you are the people of loftyness, and you are the people of dignity, and you are the ones whom God and Islam refuse to be humiliated. Watch out not to be the lowest of the price through shameful deals. Go sticking to a solid, stable, comprehensive unity, go together as an opposition and as a nation until you break the restraints and shackles, and eventually obtain your confiscated rights
It is an absolute great duty on the shoulders of every jealous Muslim, in and outside Bahrain, to confront the unjust policy, which wants us to be part of ‘Israel’, and which, on daily basis, ‘Israel’ from occupying Bahrain, the citizens of Bahrain, the dignity of Bahrain, the honour of Bahrain, the religious identity of Bahrain and of the entire nation
Every day, we notice a new empowerment by the government of this fallen entity on the land of Bahrain. This empowerment brings the complete occupation of Bahrain, similarly to that of the occupation of Palestine. We have seen how the government has acquiesced to the US and the Zionist desire to set up a high-ranking officer to run the colonial invading movement from inside Bahrain, by this entity, closely and directly
?What remains of being completely occupied
What is left for us to separate from our nation until we are part of ‘Israel’, from the Israeli entity, and from being a spearhead against our nation for the sake of Israel’s pride, arrogance and victory; and to crush the Islamic nation
We are on the right path, we have Basira (insightful), we are aware, we follow à straight religion, we are on the path of pleasing God in our struggle to restore our rights, to restore Bahrain’s faithful identity, Bahrain’s divine pride, freedom, collective interests of every Bahraini citizen
May God’s peace, mercy and blessings be upon you. Stay firm as advocates of the truth and righteousness. Stay firm on the path of victory, and you will emerge victorious
