09-25-2004, 07:16 PM
|
|
|
Confirmed User
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: godless northwest
Posts: 1,552
|
Quote:
Originally posted by jimmyf
hogwash
|
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sta...e_of_youth.stm
Quote:
Rebellion was in the air in July 1999, when Iran was rocked by the most serious unrest for years as pro-reform students staged protests across the country. These drew a violent response from hardline vigilantes and security forces. Mr Khatami had to stand by as the hardliners, backed by the Supreme Leader and the conservative institutions of state, crushed the student protests using overwhelming force.
Many young people are ambitious, but they are also anxious and disillusioned in the face of an uncertain future. Unemployment is high and many have lost patience with the religious restrictions on their daily life and the lack of any real reform of a political system they see as outdated and unresponsive.
|
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/cep...youth_20021024
Quote:
Young people in Iran, who comprise a disproportionately large part of the country's population, are anxious for political change that promotes a more open society, according to author and journalist Afshin Molavi. At an OSI Forum on October 24, Molavi, a leading expert on Iranian affairs, said that younger Iranians are particularly bitter over efforts by conservative clerics to limit access to information about the outside world.
Molavi's recent book, Persian Pilgrimages, chronicles his visits to shrines around Iran during 1999 and 2000, a trip in which he spoke candidly with Iranians about the country's theocratic government and the nascent political reform movement, the lagging economy, and conflicting attitudes toward the United States.
|
http://www.payvand.com/news/00/dec/1160.html
Quote:
Iranian youth shun religion, prayers after entering school
Tehran, Dec 31, IRNA -- A high-profile Iranian cleric said in the central city of Qazvin on Saturday that most of the country's youth give up practicing religion and saying prayers after entering universities.
"If you open your eyes, you will see that the youth, brought up in the lap of the Islamic Revolution, shun religion and saying prayers when they enter universities," Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi said at a meeting of clerics in the province.
He urged clerics to give up their "indifference" toward this phenomenon, adding the country's enemies, its "satans," were trying to strike a wedge between religion and state.
"Satans are trying to make people indifferent to social affairs so that the idea of separation of religion from state becomes an accepted fact," Ayatollah Yazdi said.
"The most fundamental and necessary principles of the system are being questioned today and state figures support the move," he added.
He it is incumbent on clerics to revive religion, saying, "If the roots of religion are replanted in seminaries, universities will follow suit."
He said youth deviation was partly due to the allocation of state funds for the publication of un-Islamic books.
"Today, (a portion) of the state budget is allocated for the publication of books written by (Ahmad) Kasravi (a writer who has been denounced for his counter-revolutionary record) who denies the existence of God. The Culture Ministry, on the other hand, provides the funds and distributes such books among students," he added.
|
We could have "won" Iran without lifting a finger. But what was seen as an unprovoked attack against their part of the world has now reversed many young Iranians positive perception of America. Bush has fucked everything up. He just keeps giving radical islamic leaders more material to work with.
You will never win a culture war with military force. |
|
|