Let the Swords Encircle Me by Scott Peterson

Author:Scott Peterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

LEADING THE CHARGE WAS Mehrdad Bazrpash, an Ahmadinejad adviser on youth whom I met in the well-appointed presidential offices in downtown Tehran. He was a “youth” himself and looked out of place in this seat of power. He bore the distinctive features common to many of Iran’s ideologues: pale skin, sunken eyes, and the patchy beard of a young man who had never applied a razor to his face. He gave the impression of spending as much time at prayer in the mosque as in the classroom, and he wore his piety on his sleeve.

Bazrpash used no notebook; there was nothing to indicate in this office that pen or paper—much less a computer—played any part in his daily work. A former head of Basij at Sharif University, Bazrpash was anxious that I quote him correctly, but the e-mail address that he took time to etch into my notebook failed to work.

Ahmadinejad’s big plans for youth were evident during his campaign, this apparatchik told me. “During the elections, sixty to seventy percent of the president’s slogans were about affairs of the youth,” he said. 86 “What is important . is to create enough opportunity . to let their capability flourish.” Iran’s young people had proven themselves in nuclear science “without depending on outside powers.” They had excelled in stem-cell research and won international science prizes.

But Bazrpash defined “joyful and happy youth” in religious terms drawn from the “sacred” Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. During the previous eight years under Khatami, he claimed, many youth had strayed from these ideals. His job was to set it right. “We talk all the time about wrong interpretations of what made youths happy in the past,” Bazrpash said. “With the right tools, we can define what is happiness for the youth. It’s the job of the state to create and transfer this culture of sacrifice to these youngsters.”

Those tools included “correct [TV] programs,” especially during religious festivals. Also planned were more public sports facilities. Parliament had approved a $1.3 billion “love fund” to give newlyweds a head start. “Our programs should be acceptable to all kinds of youths,” Bazrpash told me. “We are pursuing an advanced . and happy country, and the existence of these youths is the source of joy and happiness. We will introduce the model of happy, young Iranians to the world.”

(Bazrpash would have to wait for that result. It wasn’t long before he was appointed, at twenty-eight years old and widely criticized for his inexperience, to be executive director of the large vehicle maker Pars Khodro [SUV models] and then its parent company, Saipa. Two years later in July 2009, Ahmadinejad named Bazrpash a vice president for youth affairs. Though reportedly unhappy at being shifted away from the captain of industry fast track, by spring 2010 Bazrpash, as head of the National Youth Organization, launched a new website with courses designed to lower the rising divorce rate by educating young couples about successful marriage—from sexual problems to happily-ever-after.)

BUT NOT ALL YOUNG

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