When I left Iran after the 'Islamic Cultural Revolution', I thought it was all over. I thought by brainwashing and controlling the university students they will eventually control the whole society. How wrong I was! A valuable lesson I have learned in the last three decades has been whenever any state tries to force feed a population with an ideology, it will have the reverse desired effect for the state, people will only vomit the state ideology when they are forced fed with it.
I remember asking an Ethiopian friend of mine, who lived under the Marxist rule in Ethiopia, if they were ever taught all that Marxism-Leninism stuff in the schools? He shook his head as if I reminded him of a sore subject and told me, 'Every day we had to stay behind after lessons for these special ideological classes and pity that kid who asked a question which would prolong these torturous sessions, we would get hold of him after class and beat the crap out of him, for we wanted to go to the beach or to the cinema after school and the last thing we wanted to do was to listen to all that drivel a minute longer than we had to..'
On the other side of the coin, under the Shah, reading Marxist literature was banned, yet the Iranian youth would go out of their way to get hold of a copy of the Communist Manifesto. The illegality of it just made it more exciting and having read such literature was like wearing a badge of intellectual honour.
The Islamic Republic never learns however. In fact whenever there is a feeling of despair and despondency, one can always look forward to the regime shooting itself in the foot. Last week, the Minister of Social Welfare, Ahmadinejad's friend and crony and overnight multi millionaire, Sadegh Mahsouli, announced that only kindergartens that teach Islamic values as the main core of their curriculum will receive government loans and grants and kindergartens which ignore Islamic teachings will be severely dealt with! And what specific Islamic values are at the top of the priority list of the Multi-Millionaire Minister? Mr. Mahsouli wants kindergartens to teach the kids about martyrdom and bring them up as martyrdom seeking toddlers!
So after failure of 'cultural revolution' in universities and schools, guess what will happen at the kindergartens!
Iranian kids having to toil in brick factories while overnight millionaires like Social Welfare Minister Mahsouli rant on about what should be taught at kindergartens
5 comments:
By having the children work when they are young, the regime trains them to be good slaves...
It's always the same: the ego rich trying to dictate to the humble poor! I saw a bit of last Friday's prayers in Tehran. You only have to look at all the bland and bored chicken coup faces in the crowd to know that change is in the air! The strutting Roosters who squark all their diretripe, can't see that their feathers are slowly being plucked in lieu of the people eventually stringing them up. Beware despots... The Fox is coming...
Excellent post Potkin...I was taught to read Farsi out of Islamic Republic school textbooks, this was over a decade ago. The amount of Islamic brainwashing within the books was unbelievable.
Some of my younger relatives are now beginning to learn Farsi with newer books...if anything the new textbooks are packed with even more
religio-political mumbo jumbo than before. When I read them I feel like I'm reading a pamphlet for the Islamic Republic Party!
It just goes to show that whether under the Rafsanjani/Khatami era which I learnt in, or during the Ahmadinejad era which my young relatives are learning in, the books are still filled with the same old nonsense produced to brainwash little kids.
Arash
Great Post from Arash. As a P.s. It's true... The more you try to ram home a political, religious or idealogical edict, the more people just question or rebel against it! This again shows the moronic white-wash blanket of the current regime... I'm sure even blind followers of Khamanei's tyranny aren't so thick? And yet they willingly abdicate rationality, intelligence and logic to the hive paid-off mentality mantra of a corrupt system! Such people are gutless and self centred with personal greed! History shows that ultimately such people end up against the wall or trying to pathetically excuse themselves in court! After all, paying to brainwash kids must surely rank as one of the most dispicable, frightened, desperate and cowardly acts of them all! Can you believe it? Mature men afraid of simple school kids! Viva the Islamic Rebublic of Iran! Yeah right!!! Viva a free thinking, secular, intelligent and proper morally objective Iran that teaches rather than blackmail preaches the kids I say! Azadi Irani... Never forget it!
The kids will only have to grow up and look at the hard struggle of their parents daily lives to understand that what they're being taught is bull. I'm just sorry they're growingup in a society being forcefully run by these donkies. Great post by the way.
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