If you look at the discourse before the revolution, whether it is the left communist, whether it is the right secularist...the entirety of this discourse was such that it encouraged the kind of ascendancy for a man like Ayatollah Khomeini.
All manners of freedom, including freedom of expression, freedom of conscious, freedom of thought...it accepts tolerance. But it is not an atheist society. Religion is the private affair of an individual...be present in the public domain, but state has to be clearly separated from religion. When I'm speaking, I'm speaking only for myself. At the same time, I know that these ideas have wide support among the Iranian population.
We've had 60 years of intellectual development in Iran. How can we have the same system? Even theories of secularism are constantly being revised and changed.
When I say that I am opposed to this budget, everyone says, "Well, what do you think the United States should do?" My response is, "Why should the United States do anything?"
Whatever Iranian people have bought, they have bought in the black market. It is not clear what they have bought, how many secondhand materials they have bought. I am very worried that something like Chernobyl will happen to Iran.
The Shah's regime was an incorrigible regime and after a while, when the revolution happened, the situation began to change, revolutionary conditions was created...we simply wanted to change the regime.
Supporters of the national front, Mosaddeq, believe that in Iran, we don't have a nationalities problem, we don't have an ethnic problem. It is like living with your wife, with whom you are in love and you are intensely involved in, but you also have tensions. And their position is that they want to deny that these tensions exist.
When I was on my hunger strike, and I was in a hospital, the guards who inflicted all manner of injustice against me, and all manner of hardship...I could witness that as a result of Ahmadinejad, they lived in a dream. They believed that paradise is around the corner and that all their demands shall be met.
Today, as a result of a miraculous set of circumstances, Iran is going to get between $50 to $55 billion in oil revenue, which is unheard of in the history of the revolution.
The solutions to the problems of the distraught lower strata of society are problems that can only be solved in the context of an overall political, cultural, economic development.
We have two kinds of oppression. Oppression that is universal - everyone in Iran is subject to it. But everyone has also their own, unique way of experiencing this oppression.