Martyrdom
Like the Nazis and the Soviets before them, Iranian leaders have made martyrs of children and young leaders. The Germans hailed twenty-two-year-old Horst Wessel, who was killed by a communist, and immortalized him in ceremony and song as a major Nazi propaganda symbol. For the Soviets, the young hero was thirteen-year-old Pavlik Morozov, who denounced his father as an enemy of the state. After his father was executed, Pavlik was killed in a family conspiracy. In turn, Pavlik became a national hero and the subject of statuary, folk songs, and an opera. Iran, too, has its child hero. There, October 30 is celebrated as Student Basij Day, commemorating a 1980 battle of the Iran-Iraq War in which a thirteen-year-old Basij, Mohammad Hossein Fahmideh, threw himself under an approaching Iraqi tank, killing himself and disabling the enemy tank.
Khomeini hailed the boy as a hero and built a monument in his honor, which has since become a pilgrimage site for schoolchildren.78 Throughout Iran, children have been drawn into celebratory anniversary festivities, screaming their loyalty to the regime. Parents teach their children to hate America so that it “flows in their very being!” In successive decades, Iran would groom and field more martyrs. The ruling clergy would ordain a cult of self-sacrificial murder. Mothers of the Basij would raise sons to kill themselves and the sons of others. One mother of a boy celebrated as a martyr explained to her suicide-attack-bound son, “I am not sad at all. . . . You are going to a good place. Why should I cry?” Her son was killed in Syria.
The Education Ministry promotes martyrdom in school textbooks and has established ten thousand Koranic schools to pave the “motorway of martyrdom and humanity.” Guards-produced Fars Media circulates cartoons glorifying martyrdom. In one television cartoon, a young bearded Basiji is handed a Koran and sent to battle. While dreaming of his wife and child, he wakes to the sound of gunfire and artillery. As he rushes to the aid of a fallen soldier, he is killed, dying as a martyr. Basij-led moral instruction extends well beyond the classroom. Outside of school, children are indoctrinated to prepare for adulthood. The girls are guided toward domesticity, while the boys prepare for war.
Daily life toughens children. At an early, impressionable age, children are forced to witness beatings, humiliations, and killings. Moderate civil servants have criticized the system's coarsening of children, which forces them to attend public hangings. In Mashhad, the Guards operate an unconventional amusement park—the City of Games for Revolutionary Children. In the park, young, impressionable boys are dressed in military uniforms and escorted by a military commander who orders them to fire small-caliber weapons at a wide range of targets. Some targets bear pictures of Iraqi soldiers, while others are facsimiles of fighters for the Islamic State in Syria or images of the Saudi royal family. Children blast plastic bullets into targets bearing images of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. political leaders.
In 1982, the IRGC established its first high school in Tehran as a preparatory school for future service in the Guards. Soon after, it opened similar schools, which have since eased entry to university and, subsequently, to a career in government. The Guards monitor the progress of promising students from middle school through university. The Basij and the Qods Force, in particular, strategically place recruiters near holy sites, mosques, schools, and community centers to attract volunteers. The Imam Hussein University, established in 1986 and located in Tehran, is run by the Guards and houses the organization’s intelligence academy. The Guards use it as a training center and a recruiting ground, in addition to its many other functions, including nuclear research, also under the purview of the Guards. Recruits and journeymen-level intelligence professionals are trained in the fundamentals of the profession at IHU. Senior-level cadres also attend courses; the university’s students are trained in many aspects of espionage, including its history, tools, and practices.
Courses examine the role of espionage in international relations and national security. Recruits train in open-source and covert intelligence collection. They are taught about the role espionage played in the early days of Islam. Guard cadets are taught that Islamic intelligence began with Mohammed, was developed by Ali, and was refined by successive generations of Muslims. The IHU teaches intelligence tradecraft and instills elan in the Guards. Instructors explain that, according to texts produced by the university, the United States promotes “global hegemony” and that Iran has been directed by divine providence to fight this enemy. In the academy, Iranian leaders highlight the importance of intelligence by citing the frequency with which the terms “enemy” and “hostility” appear in the Koran. They cite passages in the Koran that relate to the tactics, techniques, and procedures of early Islamic leaders.
Basic courses focus on tradecraft and field exercises. The faculty of Basic Jihadi Sciences trains all Guards officers and cadets. The first year of training is described as 50 percent ideological content, 30 percent military training, and 20 percent moral conditioning. The second year is more specialized. After completing all phases, individuals must take six-month introductory courses to prepare them to enter the Guards.
They are also trained in cyber capabilities. There are also IHU centers with a paramilitary focus, where recruits train in live-fire combat and asymmetric warfare. The IHU occasionally deploys its faculty and employees abroad, for example, sending trainers to Syria and Iraq to serve as advisors. Guards promote higher education in neighboring countries. The Qods Force serves as a liaison between Iranian university officials and foreign leaders.
One of the more colorful personalities associated with the IHU is Hassan Abbasi. Known by the baffling moniker “Kissinger of Islam,” Abbasi directs the Center for Doctrinal Strategic Studies, a think tank linked to the Guards. A self-styled renaissance man who lectures on economics, history, politics, and cinema, Abbasi rose through the Guards to become a leader. As such, he often serves as the voice of the Guards, with statements such as “America means enemy, and enemy means Satan.” Though the West sees suicide bombings as terrorism, Abbasi salutes them as noble expressions of Islam. Abbasi fears that the West’s soft war against Iran erodes the loyalty of younger generations. He has declared that this soft war is rooted in freemasonry, democracy, and Zionism and has theorized that the American cartoon figures Tom and Jerry are part of a Zionist conspiracy. Popular TV series like The Simpsons, Lost, and South Park, he said, have resulted in “Hollywoodism”: “They entertain us, but indoctrinate us at the same time. . . . The images you see pollute your sexual fantasies.”
