Ayatollah Khamenei Highlights Western Failure in Coronavirus Battle
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei highlighted the defeat that the West has suffered in handling the COVID-19 outbreak, stressing that such failure must be made public to enable the nations to make important decisions about their fate.
Ayatollah Khamenei attended a meeting of the Coronavirus Fight National Headquarters via video conference on Sunday.
In the video conference, attended by President Hassan Rouhani, ministers of the cabinet, provincial governors, and members of the headquarters, the Leader highlighted the West’s failure in the global test of battle with the coronavirus, saying the Westerners are trying to hide such defeat.
“It is necessary to investigate and express the aspects of this (Western) inability, because deciding the significant fates of the nations depends on this knowledge,” Ayatollah Khamenei added.
The Leader also pointed to the “defeat of the West’s management capabilities”, noting that although the coronavirus outbreak in Europe and the US occurred later than in the other countries, the West failed to handle the situation.
"Since the coronavirus outbreak started later in the US and in Europe, they had time to prepare themselves for confronting this virus, but they failed to do so. The high numbers of those afflicted by this virus and deaths in the US and in some European countries confirm this fact," Ayatollah Khamenei said.
"In Western countries, health institutions ignore the elderly, the poor, people with Down syndrome and so on, because these people don't have the ability to earn money and create profits. This exposes the realities of the failure of the Western social philosophy," the Leader noted.
The Leader then noted that even the “Western social philosophy” has ended in failure in the face of the novel coronavirus, saying the nature of social philosophy in the West is based upon materialism, which is why the elderly, the sick, the poor and the underprivileged people in the West were ignored after the pandemic and a large number of people in the retirement homes died of the disease.
Moreover, the West suffered a defeat in the arena of exhibiting public morality, the Leader underscored, citing the cases that people swarmed the shops in the West.
Ayatollah Khamenei then praised the Iranian nation for the “truly amazing and honorable” struggle against the coronavirus, saying the Islamic Republic has done an admirable job in providing medical services, prevention, screening, and disinfection of public places in the fight against the disease.
"My purpose for this meeting was to, first of all, thank those active in fighting corona, those who are working day and night. Secondly, I would like to thank God, the Exalted, due to the great success of the Iranian nation and the officials in combating this disease," the Leader said.
"I give my condolences to all those who have lost their dear ones due to corona anywhere in the world. We pray for all those afflicted by this disease and ask God to grant elevated ranks to the health professionals who were martyred fighting this virus," Khamenei.ir quoted the Leader as saying.
"The occurrence of an incident like the corona outbreak has led to certain behaviors, which have been seen in some countries where people are rushing to stores and panic shopping. Such behavior is not seen in Iran at all and our people have truly shone with their calmness," Ayatollah Khamenei added.
"Western civilization’s failure in the global trial of combating corona is obvious and quite visible. The West and westernized people don't want this failure to be seen; however, it is necessary to study and speak about the various dimensions and reasons for this failure," the Leader underlined.