The “Cultural and Arts” division of the IRIB channel 3 has released a two episode documentary program directed at explaining the problem facing the Iranian Youth. It is centered around the popularity of Iranian Rap music and titled “Shock”. The program is quit dreadful in the level of untruthfulness and absurdity is uses to explain the issues and problems facing the young people of our nation. Some of the readers here might ask, “well, what did hell did you expect”? My answer is, more than what I saw!!

A little about the Iranian youth, this crucial demographic group between the ages of 15 and 29 comprises more than one-third of the nation’s population. Young Iranians face bleak employment prospects and shifting family and cultural dynamics, posing a pressing political and economic challenge to their government, which apparently doesn’t care about the roots of the problem but prefers to point fingers and blame others. I mean if we know anything about any government that is the first route they take, this is not limited to Iran. While the Iranian economy has grown at high rates during the past decade, young Iranians have had a great deal of difficulty accessing the benefits of this economic growth. The connected and the wealthy have absorbed the bulk of this economic windfall leaving the rest in the dust with nothing to show.

In this documentary, IRIB has focused their energy into a 2 episode non-sense and rather than focusing on the mix of personal and cultural frustration and economic discontent that has resulted in the issues the Iranian youth face, they have moved to blame each and every problem of this generation to the music that has become popular in Iran recently. The producers and directors have tried to relate the issues of the Iranian youth from daily social problems, drugs and alcohol abuse, runaway kids, homelessness and way of dressing up … all the way to the absurd accusation of promoting devil worship and anything under the sun to the Iranian rappers and underground musicians rather than focusing on the truth. I mean you’d think we’d want to find the root of the problem and then solve an issue but no, that would be to inconvenient for too many powerful people.

Erfan has recently released a 5 minute commentary that is a direct reply to these accusations and puts the attention back at IRIB and the producers of this program by asking them to focus on the TRUTH rather than creating a mirage that does not and will not solve anything but only make this music more popular. I mean what is cooler than music that your government does not want you to listen to??!! Watch Erfan’s reply below. Links to the original TV program are provided on the button of this page.

NOTES
You can watch the “shock” program on YouTube using the links below and form your own judgment.

-- Part 1 [1]

-- Part 2 [2]

-- Part 3 [3]

-- Part 4 [4]

-- Part 5 [5]

-- Part 6 [6]