Mar 21, 2014

In his New Year’s address today, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stressed that the country’s economic and political policies should take precedent.

In his Nowruz speech yesterday, Khamenei announced that the Iranian year of 1393 would be named, “The year of economy and culture with national determination and jihadi management.” Last year was named, “The year of political and economic epic”; however, Khamenei conceded yesterday that the “economic epic” was not achieved.

In today’s speech, Khamenei gave equal focus to the “resistance economy” and culture. The resistance economy is an economic plan that attempts to focus on Iran’s domestic capacities and production to reduce their vulnerability to sanctions and other external factors.

In regard to the country’s cultural policies, Khamenei said, “Culture is like the weather — whether we want to or not, we have to live it; therefore, whether it is clean or polluted, it will have different effects on society and the country.” He continued that culture impacts people’s “economic, social and political views; therefore, cultural beliefs cast a show over all other issues and is more important.”

Khamenei asked officials to “be careful with sensitivity and alertness of the extremely dangerous cultural breaches and to perform their required and defensive duties.” He warned that while Iranian officials have been negligent in their cultural policies and are at fault, too, it is important to “not ignore the enemy’s destructive activities of the last 35 years.”