Cultural activities in Lebanon

Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2021-11-09

Before going abroad, I was familiar with fluent Arabic to a great extent, and after the trip, due to my previous talent in this field; I was able to make up for my shortcomings in a short time and very quickly. I also got familiar with slang Arabic. One of the things I started on the sideline of my activities was the translating of a few books that I felt needed to be published for the campaigners inside and outside the country.

The title of the first book I published abroad was "Experiences from the Palestinian Revolution". This book had been written by Munir Shafiq, in which he stated the principles that every person should follow in the party organization. Some of these principles were: respect for the public, secrecy, and a series of organizational principles.

I translated another book entitled “The Behavior of a Revolutionary Campaigner”. The book was given to the people who came there for education, and some people took it inside the country and gave it to the campaigners.

After the move done by the Peykar group and the book written by Mr. Farsi in rejecting the Marxists, I was also encouraged to translate the book “Local Communism and National Freedom Movements of the Arabs”. Before the revolution, the book was published secretly and distributed among the students and some of the campaigners. It worked, and some campaigners who thought the Marxists had the science of struggle and should follow them became aware of the blows that Marxists had inflicted on Arab national movements in countries such as Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. In this book, it had been proved that many of these communists were originally Jewish or Jewish-born people, or had close ties to the Zionists and were their agents, and they dealt deep blows on the Arab freedom movements through their ties to the Soviet Union.

There was also another book titled “US Military Aids to Iran” which in fact had disclosed a series of US aids to Iran during one decade. It was originally a thesis of an Arab student who had educated in US universities. This book was also translated and published before the revolution.

There were also pamphlets about explosives as well as ideological, security, political, and historical pamphlets which were educational. They were translated briefly and given to the friends. One of the things we did in the Middle East especially in Syria and Lebanon was to transfer to Iran the Imam’s speeches and communiques as well as the useful speeches and books which did not exist inside the country through the pilgrims who came to Syria and came back. Since the number of pilgrims was large and they came to Syria regularly by land and air, they were a great means for transmitting the news inside and outside the country, and even some of our letters came out the country through the pilgrims, and we also received leaflets and books. We embedded them in their belongings without their information and sent them to Iran.

We also used the hajj period for campaigning and disclosures. During this period, some one hundred and twenty thousand Iranians came to Mecca and Medina to perform hajj rituals and we could easily communicate with and give them the Imam's communiques, books and tapes, and be informed of the news inside the country. We also met friends who were based in Syria, Lebanon and Najaf in those days, because at that time they also came to Mecca and Medina.

During the hajj period, some of the Imam's declarations and communiques which had been translated into Arabic were distributed among the Arabs. In 1976, when I went to Mecca for performing hajj rituals, I had taken two suitcases with me to distribute among Iranian and Arab pilgrims. Most of the times, my friends who came from Syria officially wrote slogans against the Shah. Once, one of our friends, Haj Ali Sedaghat, filled all the doors and walls of Mecca and Medina with the slogans “Down with Shah” and “Down with Israel”. Sometimes they wrote slogans in support of the Imam and introduced him in this way. Also sometimes they spray-painted slogans on large cars.

Mr. Seyed Sadeq Mousavi, who is a descendant of Seyed Abdullah Shirazi and is still based in Lebanon as well as martyr Seyed Mohammad Slaeh Hosseini helped a lot in translating the Imam’s communiques in Arabic. Seyed Mohammad Saleh Hosseini had a close relation with Jalaleddin Farsi and was an Iraqi campaigner who had been based in Lebanon. He was martyred in a battle.

Source: Memoirs of Ali Jannati, compiled by Saeed Fakhr Zadeh, the Center for Islamic Revolution Documents, 2012, pp. 136-138