Earlier this month I saw two news articles coimg from Iranian military personnel that made the headlines in Persian section of the BBC on-line. Although we all know how ill-intentioned Brits policy makers have been towards Iran and BBC in specific has served their royal court from time to time, but the devastation of the message of the newsmakers surpasses the possible cruel intention of the news carrier, BBC.
General Jafari, the head of Islamic Republic Guardian Corps (IRGC), last Friday in a convention with the title of “Students, Elections, Maximum Participation, and National Unity” among the members of his militia, Bassij, after criticizing the content of the Human Sciences curriculum in Iranian universities, has clearly sided with the conservative front in coming Iranian parliamentary election and advised the Bassij to vote for an specific conservative alliance. This would be a fine statement from nonmilitary personnel, but it is devastating to the long tradition of Iranian military of not being affiliated with any type of political interaction.
However this wouldn’t be as much alarming if he hadn’t said in his inauguration speech late last year, “the main duty of IRGC is cultural and to protect the Islamic Revolution, not only the Republic of Iran”. This is not only an insult to Iranians but it is a blow to the Islamic belief and the direct deviation of the command of the creator of Quran that “Quran (Islam) is sent by us and we shall guard it (so it does not need a foster guardian)”.
However the reader should have easily dismissed the above statement of Gen. Jafari as a propaganda tactic if the second statement from the Head of Joint Chief of Staff of Iranian Armed Forces, Gen. Firoozabadi resurfaced recently, indicating that the Human Sciences curriculum should be revised and the “Iranian Universities should be rebuilt based on Islamic thoughts”. This is also against the long standing military tradition to stay out of the universities.
I’d like to remind Mr. Firoozabadi that despite the recent efforts of Islamic scholars such as Mehdi Bazargan, Mohammad Bagher Sadr, Morteza Motahari, Ayatollah Taleghani and many more Islamic intellectuals, Islam does not have a name brand school of thoughts yet. You can’t have an Islamic Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry as well as Philosophy, Economics, and Politics. These are simply human thoughts and Islam is a humane ritual, a humane path towards the creator.
Although Iranians all around the world appreciate the sacrifices that member of armed forces have made for the Iranian nation but as Khomeini wrote in his will directed to the members of the parliament at the time, “You should appreciate this beautiful people, and if you don’t then they will do things to you that would be worst than what they did to the Shah”. At last, you should think how to achieve an Iranian unity by serving Iranians and not by denying forces of the nature.
