Ma Ju: Najiaying Mosque Protest and Hui Muslims 03

Audience Question: 

Since I have a history degree, I realized that when Xinjiang was still in the honeymoon period with the CPC, the CPC was particularly good at pulling one faction against another. In Xinjiang, he would also use the tactic of pulling one faction against another. For example, he would pull in some of the Uyghurs to suppress the Hui, and he would pull in the Siberians to suppress the Kazakhs, who in turn would suppress the Hui and the Uyghurs. He used this kind of sand mixing method back and forth, and we were all very jealous of each other and distrustful of each other. What I want to ask you is, I know that in Uyghur there is a very common family name in Chinese called Baimaiti. The Uyghur word is مُحَمَّد, which translates to "Muhammad" in Hui, which is your last name, Maju. Maju: There are two different kinds of Audience: that is to say, the Hui surname Ma and Baimaiti are actually one and the same concept Maju: There is this one, not exactly, there is a part of it Audience: Yes, not exactly. I'd like to ask you, under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party's ethnic policy of pulling one faction against another, what is the state of the relationship between the multi-ethnic groups in Xinjiang? What is the relationship between the Uyghurs and the Kazakhs and the Siberians and the Hui?

Ma Ju: 

Okay, good question. The Siberians are from what is today called the Siberians. Then in fact, he was part of the Manchus who moved west back then. So the fact that they moved there actually has something to do with the Sibe general who went there at that time. The Xibo generals were actually the generals that we know as the Ili generals. So the Siberians, during the Manchu Qing Dynasty, were the ones who suppressed the borders, the same concept as today's regiments. But their capabilities were not the same as those of today's Communists. So the Communist Party's strategy in ethnic minority areas is to fight one by one, and what does it usually do? If the place is Mongolian, he won't pull the Mongols. He'll pull in a smaller ethnic group, two together. It's the same in Xinjiang, he mainly wants to rule you Uyghurs, he won't take you Uyghurs. There's a famous saying in Xinjiang that's still being said today, what's it called? It's called "Kill the Han and destroy the Hui". This is what the Communists have been propagandizing, saying that in that land, the Uyghurs will kill not only the Han Chinese, but also the Hui. Why do I want to verify this? Because a lot of Hui people in Xinjiang, every time I tell them that we should not turn a blind eye to the Uyghurs, "Oops, that stalker." They call the Uyghur people head-wrappers, Sufi headdresses, that's why they're called head-wrappers. They say, "You can't trust this head-wrapping, it's all about killing the Chinese and destroying the Muslims." Whenever I hear this word, I always want to find out where it comes from. The earliest documents that can be found in the literature are the documents reported by the General of Ili to the Manchu government, which can be found in Beijing, but not through other academic sources. I finally found out that in 1934, when the Uyghur army was stationed in Urumqi, when the Uyghur army marched from Ili to Dihua, which is today's Urumqi, there were only a few thousand Han Chinese soldiers in the city. There were only 50,000 Han Chinese in Dihua, and how many Hui people were there in Dihua? Eighty thousand. There's even a theory that there were 120,000. But I prefer to say less, because many Chinese accounts are exaggerated. Like Cao Cao's 800,000-strong army in the Red Cliff battle, it's always a good way to get more people down. So we generally in China, no matter whose number it is, we have to compress it to get to the mean. Whether it's 80,000, 120,000 or 50,000, it must be the most important force for the ruler to unite. Because we may not be very clear about one thing is the Hui society after the Manchu regime, there is a martial arts habit, everyone practiced especially in the era of cold weapons. Until the 90's, China's martial arts champions were either from Dezhou, Shandong or Changzhou, Hebei, all of them old Hui. Ma Changchun, this and that, all old Hui Hui, why all old Hui Hui? It's a long story. You may not know, but during the Ming Dynasty, all the bad guys were old huihui. The East and West factories were full of old Huihui, and it was the old Huihui who did all the bad things back then. The Hui Hui did a lot of bad things in history, a lot. When a regime relies on them, it's because they still feel that even though I'm an old Hui Hui, I have to make myself clear. So, the old Hui of the martial arts were crucial to the defense of the so-called Urumqi. And how to unite them, and actually the Han Chinese dialog is also average. What can we do? What would unite them? They wanted to "kill the Han and exterminate the Hui". This slogan first appeared in 1934. And I found the son of a man who lived through 1934, and wrote in a small, concise way about what it was like. How they practiced the regiment? How did they defend together? It goes back to a word I used earlier, Shangwuistan, the so-called Great Hui, where Ma Shaowu was a native of Yunnan. In the late Qing Dynasty, after the failure of the Du Wenxiu Uprising, he ran away to Gansu to look for his uncle. His uncle's name was Ma Yuanzhang. After he found him in Gansu, there was an official in Xinjiang named Yang Zengxin, have you heard of him? Where is Yang Zengxin? He was from Yuxi, Yunnan. And Ma Shaowu was from Yuxi, Yunnan.  Ma Yuanzhang is also from Xiaohui Village, Tonghai County, Yuxi, Yunnan. After Yang Zengxin arrived in Xinjiang, Ma Yuanzhang wrote a letter. Because Ma Yuanzhang that period can be said to be the king of the northwest. His ability to control the entire northwest, especially Gansu, Qinghai and Ningxia is more than anyone's ability to control. So he sent Ma Shaowu to Xinjiang and said, "You go there to develop." Ma Shaowu went to Xinjiang to Yang Zengxin, and Yang Zengxin gave Ma Shaowu a small official position. At the beginning, he was in Dihua, and then later on, when Ma Shaowu went to Xinjiang, he had a secret mission to go to Kashgar to get the head of the man who was in Kashgar at that time. The man from Kashgar was one of Zuo Zongtang's men who massacred Ma Hualong. He was one of Zuo Zongtang's men, who slaughtered Ma Hualong's 300-odd people in Ningxia via the western part of the country, and he went to Kashgar to get his head in order to avenge the massacre. Later, he went to Kashgar and became the governor of Kashgar. After taking that man's head, Yang Zengxin appointed him as the governor of Kashgar. Kashgar is the home of the Uyghurs, what should we do? Because Ma Shaowu had a very high position in the religious community, if the Uyghurs were to hold an event today, for example, you'd see all the Uyghur chairmen and so on come. The people are also here, but they won't listen to him. Why is that? The people want to listen to the person who knows about religion. I'm a student of religion, I know about religion, everyone knows that, so the people will definitely elect me. Because Ma Shaowu is very knowledgeable at the religious level, he has used religion to enlist the big ones in Yecheng in the Kashgar region and in several counties around the region. There is a saying among Muslims about unity (not in Chinese). What is this saying? It's what Muhammad said, that Muslims are all brothers and sisters. With such a phrase, many people can be united. Mashaowu became the leader in Kashgar. Then he trained his troops, but soon the Uighur First Republican Flag, as we know it, appeared on the southern border. Soon there was a siege of Kashgar, with armies coming from all over. At this time, we know that the republic was not long established before it was destroyed by another Muslim army, who was it? Yes, Ma Zhongying, Commander Ma. Who was it? It was Ma Bufang's cousins. He led his brothers from Qinghai to Xinjiang, where they combined with Ma's forces to destroy the Uyghurs There was a lot of conflict between the Uyghurs and the Muslims in the process. But this conflict is quoted by many as the reason for killing the Chinese and exterminating the Hui. In fact it is not. I want to tell you one more thing, one more statistic to tell you. The Uyghurs are the most tolerant and kind-hearted people I have met in so many countries I have traveled around the world. Why is that? Is this my personal feeling? No, it's a consensus. It's a consensus of the peoples of Central Asia, you have to believe that. In the 50s and 70s, during the Cultural Revolution, when our family fled there, our village fled to that place. The Uyghurs gave us woolen blankets, clothes, onions, potatoes, carrots and meat. We were fed by them. When we arrived there, we didn't have a house, so we dug a pit, a pit in the ground, and the family curled up in this pit, and little by little the Uyghurs helped us to survive. We didn't see them rejecting anyone. And until the Uyghurs became an ethnic minority in that area, they were deprived of all their rights, and today the Communists want to deprive them of their right to practice their religion. So my answer to your question is that they use all sorts of third party forces to suppress minorities and that's been their policy all along. China also has a policy called the Kini policy, a colonial policy, under which Uighurs, Tibetans, Mongolians, Hui, Zhuang, people of all nationalities are first lured into the country, and then when I have more power, I will kill you one by one. This is the reason why the map of China has been expanding from the center of the Yellow River to the south, and why the Hmong people all live in the mountains. Back then, the Miao lived on the plains. Some people say why are all the Miao villages built so high? Someone once told me that when I was in Guizhou, we went to Liupanshui, Guizhou, and there was a Miao village that was built very steeply, and basically just hit a nail on that stone cliff and hung it over there. I said who would want to live up there? Imagine who? There are pythons and tigers and leopards and wolves down there, not so much, but only the scariest people, the ones who go up there. That's my answer.

Audience Question: 

The first issue is that you just mentioned the reflection on the Han Chinese being the white people of China for so many years. I think this is very, very valuable. Because of my own personal work experience, I often come into contact with some Chinese in the United States in New York, the local Chinese community. In fact, I have also found that there are some Chinese in the United States who are very similar to Chinese Han Chinese who lack understanding and empathy for other ethnic groups, and then have little interest in them. To a certain extent, we also lack goodwill. And then, at the same time, we complain that we're being treated unfairly as a minority. So I'm just thinking that this kind of soul-searching may require a very strong sense of self. Sometimes it takes a beating. So I just wanted to ask you the first question, is there a solution to this?

Ma Ju:

There is a solution to this matter. I've been thinking about this specifically because I've been reflecting on it, but I haven't done any real research. What did I think about? I sometimes think about it because I studied theology, so sometimes I think about it from a theological point of view in terms of a lot of logic and a lot of starting points. What was the Arab world like before the Qur'an came into being and before Muhammad came into being and before he began to propagate these ideas? After my research, I found that Arab thought was literally the center of human hell at that time, killing girls. Kill the girl child. Kill the girl child. If you have a boy, if he's a little bit handicapped, a little bit skinny, you throw him away, you throw him straight to the baby tower. So in China in the 19th century, there was this baby girl's tower that looked like this. And what is the main way to get a wife? By robbing. What is the main source of food? By looting. The marauding caravans did all sorts of bad things, they did all sorts of things, they did all sorts of things, they did all sorts of things, they did all sorts of things, they did all sorts of things. They do whatever is good for them, and they kill each other all the time. If you rob a good thing today, I'll come to your tribe and rob you. There are all kinds of things, all kinds of things, sons marrying their mothers, all kinds of things. How did the Arabs emerge from this process to reflect on their own civilization, which they have since built? Some say it's all about the coming of Islam. In fact, we know that the power of religion is limited. It would be irresponsible to think that the power of religion is unlimited. What is more important to us? It's that the land has another opportunity. We all know that there were only fifty years between the early days of Islam and the sudden outbreak of Islam. What were the causes of these fifty years? Two things. You all know that Muslims don't drink, right? Do you know why Muslims don't drink? What's the reason? Early Muslims drank, Muhammad drank. And it was all good. Until one day, all of a sudden, they realized something, and there's a verse in the Koran that confirms it, and what does it mean? What is the meaning of this verse? Allah is most pleased with those who are good at giving and helping and have compassion and empathy. Why were baby girls killed in those days? There was not enough to eat. Why did they throw those who were a little unwell into the baby tower? Because there were no social skills and no food. Why no food? Who was the biggest consumer of food? The discovery of brewing, limited land, limited fertilizer, there was no chemical fertilizer at that time, it was all pigeon dung, camel dung, or some peat in some places that appeared as a nutrient. In this context, how can the people be truly charitable? By taking all the land and limited resources to grow food to feed the people. With this one move, the Muslim population exploded. And what was the situation at the same time? All the Christians around started rebelling against the church. As many of you may not know today, in the later stages of the European Reformation, many things were to be reformed, and the Arabs reformed them first, and what was the result? Many of the surrounding Christian countries, including Egypt at that time, including Somalia, Eritrea, as we know it today, and many of the countries in North Africa at that time were Christian countries, and all of a sudden they realized what? All of a sudden, what did everybody realize? What was the best resource at that time, to be fed. It wasn't the Internet, it wasn't the dollar, it was hard currency. While the population was exploding, culture and everything else was coming together. Why tell this story? Well, it's an event that led to a massive cultural influx in the Arab world, a massive influx of different ideas and different forces. And the Arabs have the added advantage that when resources come in and there's a religious and a moral basis for a public consensus on social justice that allows them to control their material needs, they quickly begin to make a shift. Religion tells them a program, but in reality, a series of policies, a series of practical operations that can compel people to change and benefit everyone, are what people will change. That's why I believe Chinese society today lacks the ability to empathize. I often talk about what is a human being? At least I say modern people, if you don't have the ability to empathize, you have to consider whether you are a modern person or not. To put it in an extreme way, whether you are a human being or not is a problem. That's a very extreme statement. Because we don't have the right to say that other people are not human beings, and that in itself we are in the wrong. But what we are talking about is such a definition under special circumstances. So don't have this kind of reflection on Chinese society. Think of it as if it's stubborn. Like I'm telling you, a small board can be solved. When that place becomes democratic one day, the people will be able to elect a real person that they can support. When that person tells people that the ability to reflect is the foundation of our modernity, will this become a social consensus anytime soon? Because the power of morality is something you can't carry. Everything in China today is afraid that the power of morality will destroy it. And the hidden things, the dirty things, the wrong things, when morality really comes, it's going to destroy it very quickly. Don't worry about all that. Believe in people. It doesn't matter what you are, it doesn't matter what religion you believe in, it doesn't matter what kind of person you are. It's not that Americans are better than us, no. So have absolute faith in yourself and in your people, in the power of morality.

Audience Question: 

The second question is, we have been mentioning the word Xinjiang, which actually has a very strong colonial coloring in Chinese, and I noticed that you deliberately avoided mentioning these two words in your own YouTube program. So I wanted to ask you, what are your thoughts on this issue? And for that land, now that we're all speaking in Chinese, is there a term that might be able to maximize the number of references that are not offensive to anyone?

Ma Ju: 

I'll show you a way. I use two words, a geographical word called "north and south of the mountains" and another word called "Uyghur homeland". The reason I don't use the term Xinjiang is that it's a dirty word, a clear dirty word, with no trace of modernity. By using the term East Turkestan, I seem to be denying the rights of the existing inhabitants of that place. After all, there are 10 million Han Chinese living in that place. When I support the justice of the Uyghurs, can I ask them to deny the rights of the Han Chinese who are now living there? What am I pursuing? What am I supporting? If what I'm supporting is even more evil than today, then what am I doing? That's why we always say don't oppose the Communist Party in the same way as the Communist Party. If you are the same as his way, then what are you? If we don't have this introspection, what the hell are we doing? So I don't really want to speak in terms of East Turkestan like that. But I want to say that if someone out there asks me where I'm from, I've written very clearly on my Twitter bio that I'm a wanderer, a person without a homeland, but my spiritual homeland is two places, one is Palestine and the other is the homeland of the Uyghurs. Why do I say this? Because I feel that my spirit, my spirit today, comes from the Palestinians. Why from the Palestinians? Because I realized that the only people in the world, the only people in the world today who are resisting, who are daring to take stones to the tanks, are the Palestinians, and they've been doing it for decades without interruption for 75 years. I don't care if the way they resist is terrorism, or if they resist in a way you don't like, they have always resisted without giving in. We people are meant to have that spirit. So why Uyghurs? Because when our whole family had to die, the Uyghurs took us in, they gave us hands and a place to live when we were in the most difficult times. So it is my hometown because they are not free.

Audience Question:

And then I said that after China's Operation XX, you can see a lot of ugliness about religion, about having religious beliefs. There's a weird thing, I don't know if it's in my head or in the water. I actually went to a monastery one day, and this strange form of lack of understanding of religion, of religious beliefs, what kind of policy do you think comes from that? And what do you think about the policy that there should be such a ban on Islam now, that underage people can't get religious education? And what are some of the powerful ways to resist these atrocities, especially for victims overseas? Especially for victims overseas?

Ma Ju:

OK, this is actually a very specialized question, and it requires a lot of detail. But I think first of all, if you're often in a Chinese-speaking environment, especially as a believer in Tibetan Buddhism, or Falun Gong, or Islam, you're going to run into some very strange problems. What do you say about these problems? Actually he and what you say are two different things. What he thinks is one thing, let's say you're in the age of the Internet you have to deal with countless wise people, countless eyeballs, in the whole universe around the globe. You also have to deal with stupid people who don't even recognize themselves at the same time. This is an assumption, there will be both wise people and stupid people at the same time in a space, in a small space, you even have to face each other, so there is no way you can avoid it, and we can't find a reason to avoid it. Yesterday there was a Mr. Zhou Youguang said a sentence is he advised ah. He said, "We should not look at the world from China, we should look at China from the world. In this way we can see this ugly and ignorant evil of ours, this stupidity of ours, all things clearly." What does this statement mean? It means that the great unification of the Chinese government and Chinese society over thousands of years has prompted and demanded that all the ruled fool you, make your brain stagnate or even shrivel up, and be more conducive to rule. This is why some people often say that you China has not produced a Nobel Peace Prize. And Nobel Prize scholars and physicists why some people have been exploring the so-called scientific mechanism, management mechanism. What I would rather explore is how can independent cognition and innovative cognition be generated under this mode of thought? That's a bigger question. So with regard to what you're saying later on about how this ethnic minority or people of faith are going to face the problem of the break in the faith, that under the age of eighteen is not allowed and so on and so forth. As long as the Communist Party does not only disallow those under 18, but also those over 18, we have to be clear about this. He doesn't allow those under 18 years of age because of a so-called draconian law. What is not allowed above the age of eighteen is that if you are eighteen years old and you are a college student and you have to go to school twice, the school will not allow you to graduate. If you're twenty-five years old, you have a job, and the head of your organization talks to you, so you can't go either. The fact that no one is allowed to go is essentially a policy of religious genocide. Religion, no matter how people on all sides understand it, no matter if they think it's an ignorance or what it is, it doesn't matter how they categorize it, what's important is what's important. What is important is that the atheistic state is opposed to the existence of objective reality, which is a fact. Religion is an objective reality, no matter how ignorant you think it is, no matter how bad you think that religion is, that merit is not appropriate, or whatever, it is objective. And we, as modern people, are meant to embrace and understand that existence. Just like we are going to answer the questions of the wise, we are going to answer the questions of some of the unwise, you are going to face the Communist Party. So as not to confront or even to exclude and destroy it. What is this? This is called anti-civilization. So this anti-civilization is the characteristic of the Communist Party of China. At the same time, it is also the combination of the culture of the great unification and the close and so-called communism. How do you resist the double yoke of such a reality? I can tell you, you can't do anything. Because you really can't do anything. What can you do? You say I'll figure out how to get a few messages out there, but can you fight this policy? The saddest thing is that you can't fight the inability to fight state terrorism. So this force against civilization, you have to believe in one thing, and that goes back to your faith. You believe in one thing, you stick to the right path, you are the one who does good, then you must be the path of the blessed, by walking the path of the blessed, you must be the path of the successful, stick to that.

Audience Question:

I want to ask a question. I don't know how you see this Islamic regime in Iran and their women's revolution, including their protesters who would have this protest move of burning hijab. So I don't know how you see Iran and their revolution as a Muslim.

Ma Ju:

For the hijab revolution, I want to tell you about one of the most primitive things that a lot of people don't know about, that a lot of people think, is that Muslims have to wear the hijab. I want to tell you that the Qur'an never requires that when you go to the heavenly chamber, even if you're not required to cover your face, you should remove it. What is this thing called the hijab? It comes in two forms. What's one of them? I was in Arabia, Saudi Arabia, and I hiked across a desert, and when I did, I wore a piece of cloth around my head. You know, the fastest way for the body to lose moisture is through the canopy, and if you cover it or wear a hat, you lose a lot of moisture, and in the desert, wearing a turban around your hair is the best way to stay hydrated, and that's one, and two, because of this custom of living, everyone in Arabia, men, women, all of them, wear a turban, and that's an Islamic thing, isn't it? No, it's not, but it's become a symbol of a patriarchal society that oppresses women in this way, and now it makes people think that Islam is like this I often go to Malaysia to fight with Malaysian scholars, and I say, "This isn't Arabia, where the humidity in the air is over 90 degrees, and the water in the air stays in the water, so why would you want people to wear this?" And he never dares to tell me that it's an Islamic requirement, and that it's the best way to stay hydrated, and that's why I'm not a Muslim. Tell me that this is an Islamic requirement, what is the Islamic requirement for women? It's true, you should be more dignified, don't wear jewelry, don't show off your wealth, don't let them jingle, it's for your safety, but? The patriarchal society has exaggerated it, and that's why I fully support the hijab movement in Iran, because it's oppressive, and I'm going to tell you something that a lot of people have never thought about, what are the two most obscene countries in the Islamic world, and what are the two most obscene countries in the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia? Saudi Arabian men are the number one tourists in the entire Middle East, you know, in the Middle East, all the women who go out on one-night stands are Iranian women, why? Because it distorts human nature, which is something that many people don't know, and there are many Arabian countries that have sex workplaces that are legal and have licenses, which is something that a lot of people don't know, right? So, the Islamic world is a very rich and diverse world, and we know Arab street, you see that Arabian man, he's a very rich and diverse world. We know the Arab street, you see the Arabs are letting us live in the Arab life in general, no different from when I was in New York, and the same as when I was in Beijing, but a lot of outsiders think that they seem to be puritanical all day long NO NO NO NO NO Arabs are married to only a handful of wives, and some people say that the Arabs have deprived women of their basic rights, but I'd like to tell you that the Chinese are only realizing the so-called women's control of money in their homes. I want to tell you that the Chinese have only now realized the so-called woman's right to control the money in the family and the Arabs have realized the right to property for more than 1,000 years if you want to marry a second wife, I don't agree with it, you can never think of it in your whole life if you dare to fool around outside, you'll be whipped, and you'll be divorced from all the family's property so many people have misconceptions about many things between women and men in the Islamic world but some people say that's not true so how do I see people in Afghanistan learning about women learning not even how do you say it so well remember that's not an Islamic rule that's a tribal rule in Afghanistan there are also people who say that you in the Islamic world practicing stoning people to death I told Jesus that it's not even allowed to be practiced in Islam Islam has long since banned stoning but there are some tribal people who practice it you It's like the human rights declaration of 1948, what the communists are doing to us today, it's not appropriate to say that it's a human rights declaration, is it? So, a lot of these very complicated things, there's a huge difference between that and religion or beliefs, and Iran, I can tell you that the vast majority of us today have a misunderstanding about Iran, and Iran's democratization is better than any other country overseas, and it's better than Russia, and it's better than Russia. Iran's democratization is stronger than Russia, many people say they don't feel it, every member of parliament is elected by the people one by one, the president is also elected, but the Ayatollah, the supreme religious governor, don't think that he's a grass-roots person, they're elected, he's elected by 14 people, 13 people what 13 people, 7 lawyers from the secular courts, and 6 religious scholars, 6 religious scholars elected by each province and region, and 7 religious scholars elected by each province and region, and 6 religious scholars elected by each province and region, and 7 religious scholars elected by each province and region. The six religious scholars are also elected by each province and region, and the seven lawyers are also elected by each region and region, so why do we need to have the Ayatollah in this position? I'm also telling you today, if we look at the United States, we see the separation of powers, the President, the Parliament, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court, and in Islam, Ayatollah Khomeini is trying to implement the American democracy in the Islamic world, but why is Iran failing so much today, I attribute it to two reasons, one reason is that Khomeini, the one who strangles the dragon, ends up being the evil dragon, and he's become a slave to the power, and the other reason is that he's become a slave to the power. Let's not forget that after the success of the Islamic Revolution in '79, the Iran-Iraq war broke out in '80, and in the Iran-Iraq war the Americans backed Iraq, just like Russia and the Ukraine today, and Iran could not defeat the American-backed Iraq. Iraq occupied a large part of Iranian land in the Gulf and the Iranian Defense Ministry's army was made up of corrupt Pahlavis who were wiped out, and they were about to attack Tehran, so what did they do? They formed two groups, the infamous Basij militia, and another group, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which was originally called the Taliban in Iranian, what does that mean? The Taliban in Afghanistan is also a student army Iran started recruiting in mosques and all over the country you can think of it as a kamikaze when they went into battle they didn't care about their lives they didn't fight the way the regular army fights it's just bomb blasts and then charging forward and in three tries, they beat Iraq to death and that's what the Iran-Iraq war was all about and the organization quickly gained popularity after it was formed. After the establishment of this organization, it quickly gained a high level of support from the people of this country and in order to mobilize resources for this organization, it set up an economic department, a supply department, a transportation department, an oil transportation department, a mineral department, a military production department, including the so-called drones that you see today that are aided by the Russians, all of which are produced by them Iran quickly set up a whole system of the defense industry, all of which were controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In 2020, Suleimani, who died in January, led the last attack on Iraq, the so-called Iraqi army of 10,000 men, was wiped out by Suleimani, a few thousand fighters from the IRGC, and that's how he became famous, Suleimani, and that's how he ended the war in '88, with the signing of a cease-fire. After the signing of the ceasefire agreement, this organization has not been disbanded and today Iran is dominated by the IRGC in the economic lifeblood of the country and all sectors of the economy are owned by the IRGC so there are two sets of regimes in the country, one is the democratically elected regime and the other is the regime that holds the gun and won't back down anyway that's the Iranian Revolutionary Corps and Iran is a country where from other perspectives, we all know that people from other countries can march and protest in the streets, but we often don't see them. Often we don't see that, we don't see that people have the right to go on YouTube, to go on Twitter, to go on Facebook, and of course sometimes it's shut down, but when it's shut down, it's a state of emergency for two weeks at the most, and then if it goes beyond that, then it has to be lifted, and the law states that the government respects some of the laws, so there's a special characteristic there, and there's a lot of misconceptions that we've got about Iran, but we've never accused it of anything, it's just a failed state. Thank you, Salaam.