12.12.2022, Moscow.
The Islamic Republic of Iran needs to find a new answer to the question of the revolution’s actual goals and formulate them for the society to overcome the current crisis, analyst of Rossa Primavera News Agency Middle East editorial Yevgeny Vinogradov wrote on December 11.
The observer commented on the address of the Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council of the Islamic Republic on December 6. The ayatollah stressed the danger of the situation with the control of the cultural sphere of the country falling into foreign hands and called for the revival of the revolutionary culture and spirit.
The Supreme Leader’s official website noted that Khamenei spoke of the need to correct cultural policies and revive revolutionary values, including “opposition to the West,” “sacrifice and unselfishness.” At the same time, the published text of the speech does not inform about the goals that could become the driver for such a renewal, the analyst noted.
Vinogradov recalled that one of the causes of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 was the contradiction between the Shah regime’s slogan about the harmonious combination of Iranian spiritual traditions and Western technology and the country’s increasing Westernization and dependence on the West. In particular, at the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980-1988, Iran found itself in a situation when the country imported even barbed wire, he explained.
The mobilization of the population to defend the country and the slogan “We can” proclaimed by Iran’s first spiritual leader Imam Khomeini 40 years ago have produced an “Iranian miracle,” the observer emphasized. For instance, the country managed to maintain and upgrade the American F-4, F-5, F-14 fighters under the sanctions, to assemble and improve the centrifuges for uranium enrichment, which was very difficult from the technological point of view, he specified.
The state policy concerning science, higher education and high-tech industries led to the fact that today Iran occupies a serious position in the development and production of unmanned aerial vehicles, medical equipment and medicines, it has significantly advanced in the nuclear industry.
However, today there is an active westernization of academic circles and young scientists, the activity to spread the ideas of the Islamic revolution in other countries, which was high in the first years after its victory, is also on the decline, Vinogradov stressed.
On October 3, 2022, Ayatollah Khamenei, addressing young officers in the wake of the turmoil in the country, stressed the need for security for the country’s citizens, including personal, business, leisure and entertainment security. Such an appeal is already an appeal to consumerist rather than revolutionary values, the columnist notes.
“Drawing an analogy, we can say that Iran partially repeats the path of the Soviet Union, which from the course on the world revolution first moved to the course of building socialism in a single country, achieved enormous success, created the ‘Russian miracle’ of industrialization and victory in the Great Patriotic War, and then, failing to formulate new revolutionary ideals, in the 60s took a course to build a Soviet consumer society,” Vinogradov stressed.
According to him, as a result the Soviet consumer society lost the Cold War to the West in 1991.
The state system of Iran, suffering from severe economic sanctions, cannot “come to terms” with the part of the society and elite focused on the Western individualistic and consumer way of life, noted the observer. And this part is very significant.
One factor that has had a significant impact on the part of Iranian society involved in the protests is the authority of those who supposedly carry the principles of Western culture and way of life – the Western media, Western officialdom and pro-Western groups on the Internet, he specified.
The collective West uses its cultural authority to influence targeted social groups even when the West itself has long since forgotten its own values like “human rights,” which it uses to people in other countries, Vinogradov said.
“To revive a revolutionary culture and spirit, Tehran will need to find a new answer to the question of goal that fits into the country’s spiritual traditions and responds to the demand for progress and development, by presenting it to advanced and patriotic segments of society, so that an alternative cultural movement can be formed and the whole society saved from a further slide toward Western ‘ideals’,” the observer concluded.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
