Pupil and Student Basij: The “Liar Generation”
The Pupil Basij are students ages twelve to eighteen who participate in religiously directed after-school activities and specialized summer camps. The Pupil Basij organization plays a role similar to that of the Young Pioneers in the Soviet Union or the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany; it straightjackets impressionable minds and discourages free thinking. As in mosques and local communities, Basij representatives in primary schools inculcate revolutionary ideas. Throughout Iran, there are ten thousand Koranic schools to pave the “motorway of martyrdom.”
This indoctrination following the revolution has created generations of young Iranians who scrutinize the behavior of their friends, classmates, and parents for signs of dubious conduct. The children share their suspicions with their teachers, who, in turn, report to the Basij. A woman recounted that her father drank whiskey but fibbed that it was a soft drink, lest the truth be revealed to her teacher. “We have been instructed to lie to everyone. We are a liar generation,” the young woman confessed.
The Student Basij, founded in 1989, is a student organization at a university. The Islamization of Iranian universities in the early 1980s was intended to build and maintain ideological fervor. Tehran University’s Basij was established in January 1990. War veterans were given a distinct advantage in university admissions, and 40 percent of university slots were reserved for Basij and Guards. The Student Basij is headquartered in Tehran and has a regional headquarters in each province. There is a Basij organization at every university.
Universities in Nazi Germany were also under state control. As with Soviet student groups, Nazi student organizations surveilled faculty and fellow students until the fall of the Third Reich. They ensured that lectures and publications conformed to the ideological guidelines set by Nazi leadership. Many university students join their Basij chapters for reasons similar to those of students in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. The Soviet Communist Youth Movement, or Komsomol, was founded in 1918 as the Russian Young Communist League. University student groups existed in Nazi Germany, too. They became pathways to political leadership and career advancement and served as centers of social activity.
In Iran today, joining the Basij offers immediate and sometimes substantial rewards. Membership is easy. Applicants for admission are given preference if they have ties to the Basij. Some students join the Basij because of their Islamic beliefs and their commitment to the regime’s philosophy. There are also social advantages. Students from poor or rural families find a warm home among the Basij. Student Basij also holds short-term recreational, cultural, and religious camps. Top Basij students are selected for additional intensive ideological and political courses.
The more ambitious university Basij participates in extracurricular social campaigns. One example is the Justice Student Movement, which encouraged attacks on the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem in May 2018, offering a $100,000 bounty for its destruction. Iranians scrutinize their professors' lectures, thereby facilitating the Guards' purge of reformist intellectuals and lecturers from universities during periods of social upheaval. Students are also expected to offer their full devotion, including their lives, to the causes espoused by the Guards. Some students prepare for martyrdom operations, and Zara is one of them.
Basiji Zara, a third-year university student, is fully covered in garments, and only her eyes are visible on the street. She attends Basij guidance sessions where she and others are indoctrinated into martyrdom culture and tactics. Ayatollah Khomeini is liberally quoted during the pep talks. Leaders stress the need for a network of martyrs to supply the Guards for suicide attacks around the world. Each volunteer is required to submit their last will and testament so they can be deployed at any time.
Zahra has prepared her last testament, in which she affirms that her life’s goal is to become a martyr; “My father fought on the front . . . and I too am eager to become a martyr and to fight on the front.” She envisions her death in these terms: “It’s just like in Palestine. They strap explosives . . . and then you attack in some location where the enemies gather.” This fanaticism alienates many Iranians who do not support the Basij. Often, the Basij feel like pariahs in their own country. Many Iranians speak only to Basij when necessary, seeing them as a hostile occupying force. Basij tend to mingle among themselves. One venue is within walking distance of Tehran University and is run by the Student Basij. Café Kerase—an old Persian word for “a book”—is open to all “if they observe Islamic dignities,” its owner explained. The cafe attracts conservative customers who find other coffee shops in the capital city too Western. Student Basij feels comfortable there and is unlikely to receive hostile glances from liberal-minded students.
Professors’ Basij Organization
In the 1980s, Iranian professors faced challenges similar to those confronting their Russian and German counterparts in the early Soviet and Nazi years. Then, intellectuals could not escape the new political conditions. Some had their decisions made for them. In August 1922, Lenin corralled liberal-oriented professors, placed them on two ocean liners, and deported them to Germany. The vessels became known as the “Philosophers’ Ships.”
In Germany, some intellectuals left early, anticipating persecution by the Gestapo. Some were hardened communists of the Frankfurt School, such as Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno, while others were liberals, such as Thomas Mann and Hannah Arendt. Some prospered in the West, whereas others never fully adjusted. But many German and Russian professors never left for the West. They saw their careers soar and felt comfortable with the new regime. Now entrenched in positions of power and prestige, they molded the intellects of future leaders and scholars. The careers of German racial theorists flourished in Nazi Germany. Martin Heidegger, the most prominent philosopher of his day, signed the Loyalty Oath of German Professors to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist State in 1933. In the Soviet Union, Professor Trofim Lysenko, a dedicated communist, rejected scientific theories of natural selection and promoted a pseudoscience that devastated Soviet agriculture for generations.
Like their German and Soviet counterparts, Iranian professors faced the choice of whether to leave or stay. Some left; some stayed and kept quiet; others became boosters of Khomeinism. The Professors Basij Organization was officially established in 2001 to ensure that the ideas of the revolution ring on campus. There are 350 professor-associated clubs in Iranian universities. Many professors have taken courses at Imam Housein University, and some teach there. Basij connections at the university further employment and promotion prospects.
As in the early Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, Iranian professors rewrite curricula to conform to ideological standards. The Professors’ Basij transformed the humanities curriculum. Genres of “resistance literature” and “holy defense” became mandatory components of university programs. As in the Nazi and Soviet eras, professors serve on cultural councils, where they monitor fellow professors and students. Periodically, particularly after periods of social unrest, universities are purged of supposed dissident elements to ensure ideological conformity. The more dedicated, the more vacancies left by cashiered faculty are filled. But there may be long-term liabilities for Basij-affiliated professors if the mullahs’ rule falters. Because many Iranians despise the Basij, many students strongly distrust and dislike professors closely connected to that organization.
