Islamic Revolution Fervor

[Canuck_Buck]

NEW YORK"” Zahra Saremi took a different sort of vacation this year to celebrate Iranian New Year"”touring the bloody battlefields of Iran's long war with Iraq at a week-long camp dedicated to martyrdom and patriotism.[/b]

Such tours are a crucial tool for Iran's clerical leaders as they seek to keep alive fervor for the 1979 Islamic Revolution, especially among young people with little or no memory of it.

Saremi and about 100 young men and women lined up at buses one morning in Tehran in late March, heading for the border regions of southwest Iran. About 1 million Iranians are taking the same journey during the three-week Nowruz holidays, which extend until mid-April, in tours organized by the Basij, the volunteer paramilitary wing of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

They visit the desert scenes where Iranian troops threw themselves in deadly human wave attacks against Iraqi lines in offensives with codenames like "Dawn is Coming" and "Certain Conquest." They hear lectures from military officers, visit the old trenches and bunkers and sleep in military garrisons.
Most importantly, they commemorate martyrs.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,347048,00.html

[:'(][:'(]

[Aught Six]

We do the same kinds of things on vacation here in the U.S.

[Canuck_Buck]

are you saying you are part of an Iranian terror cell there in the usa?

[Aught Six]

No, I'm saying that nationalism in itself isn't a bad thing.

In all seriousness, this story illustrate's the Iranian government's fear of losingmore influence over the youth. Many of thekids, particularly those among the more highly educated urbanites, want to see more liberalization of Iranianlaw. Gettinga grip on the youthis obviouslykey to maintaining (or not)that kind ofaging theocratic system, and the mullahs know it.

This story reminded me of 'Jesus Camp'. In order to neutralize negative outside infliuences (pop culture, liberal thinking), just take the kids away to revisit their roots andgalvanize their identities. Whenever I analyze an enemy or enemy state, the first thing I do is count the differences and similarities. Sometimes the similarities shock me, although they don't necessarily surprise me, having observed a thing or two about human nature.

And call me a cynic, but I would imagine that more than a few people here in the U.S. would renew their calls to turn Tehran into a glass parking lot.Of course, that's the kind of thing that plays right into the mullahs hands. Some people say it in jest, but somehow the joke is lost in translation when it reaches the other side of the world.

If we're going to live to see a freer Iran, we must keep increasing thepressure on the government in Tehran. But at the same time, we have to make inroads with the Iranian people, particularly the young ones who are much more hip, cultured, and connected than their parents. If we make them feel like we're targeting them and the mullahs at the same time, they're naturally going toto perceive us as the enemy that the religious nutjobs paint us to be.

[falcon]

"If we're going to live to see a freer Iran, we must keep increasing thepressure on the government in Tehran."


"Free Iran" equals oxymoron.