The Resistance of Culture and Thought in Universities, Bankruptcy and the Disgrace of Regression!

The Resistance of Culture and Thought in Universities, Bankruptcy and the Disgrace of Regression!

On the Occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the "Cultural Revolution" and Attack on Universities

Professors, Students!

Forty years ago on these days, when the spring of freedom had not yet winded, by beating the drums of the "Cultural Revolution" and attacking the country's universities, the IR waged a war on knowledge and wisdom and forced the hub of science and higher education in a dark era.

By Khomeini’s decree, Hezbollah thugs were sent to the universities to brutally force the students and professors out of the last stronghold of freedom and thought. Following the criminal attack, universities remained closed for nearly three years, and when reopened dissidents were not allowed to enter. In the meantime, the freedom loving students were slaughtered, forced to leave their homeland, imprisoned and confined at home. The dissident professors were stigmatized as anti-revolutionary, the professorship was taken away from them and many of them were forced to join the brain drain caravan. During those three years, more than 40,000 dissident professors and teachers were purged.

The motivation of the IR was to screen the students and professors with violence and to suppress the university. At that time, cultured people called the regime's move a blow to the roots of dissidence in Iran and called it a pre-planned plan. The "Cultural Revolution" project of the IR had a strategic and ideological feature, and it was not in vain that the university's closure was not ended until that project was operational. The first thing that was done after the reopening was to create Islamic associations and control the university. The aim of this program was to conquer and distort the university in order to Islamize it. The "Cultural Revolution" was the central concern of all high-ranking ideological and political leaders of the regime, who made secret preparations to do so from the day after the 1979 Revolution and finally unveiled it in May 1980.

Dear Students, Professors and Teachers!

The consequence of the "Cultural Revolution" of the IR was a dire and irreparable damage inflicted on our science and knowledge. The ruling reactionaries, by committing this crime against science, retrogressed reproduction and training of educated cadres in Iran for several years. On the other hand, many unintellectual people who were affiliated to the regime got into universities and became part of ruling officials. The regime did not refrain from any trick to "Islamize" the university and to bring this pillar of culture under the domination of the seminary. But the regime, with all its coercion, was forced to retreat step by step and inadvertently in the face of the strong need of society for modern higher education.

Despite all opposed Islamic barriers and institutionalized gender discrimination, the number of female students has surpassed the number of male students. The consolidation of the seminary and the university not only did not last, but it failed and the clergy’s outcry of despair was heard from the throat of the second Supreme Leader. Khamenei rose up in revolt against the "promotion of immorality and deviation from principles" in university's social sciences, and once again, like a paper tiger ordered a change of direction of the university towards religious precepts. The Islamic “Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat - Office for Consolidating Unity”, considered to be the essence of the “Cultural Revolution”, after a few years moved in a direction that had nothing to do with its motives and primary goals and gave birth to secular tendencies. Although the “Cultural Revolution” did great damage to the science and academia, it eventually went bankrupt. Our young age society already has a population of over 4.5 million students, and its alumni population is close to a quarter of the country's population.

Intellectuals and Researchers, Artists and Promoters of Art!

Science and art are intertwined and together they are the building blocks of society's culture. The Islamic Republic (IR) does not tolerate either, and the sharp edge of its "Cultural Revolution" has, above all, targeted the throats of art and authors. This aiming, was not only to distort it, but also beyond it, to destroy everything that had any sign of artistic creativity and intellectual freedom. The regime allowed digging into every hiding place of intellectuals and art developers’ lives and killed them with the weapon of regression. This act was reflected in the discordant decree of the Supreme Leader of the IR: "Break these pens"! The “Cultural Revolution” sought to replace lamentation with music and to justify cinema, the war front and repressions. It intended to let pen go under censorship, to seize the book by a handful of bigots, to seize and shut down independent press, to kill or make artists and culturists commit suicide or to go to prison and to go vagrant inside and abroad.

Culture Compassionates!

You, the members of the artistic community and the freedom-loving thinkers, with all the terrible pressures that have been, and still are, imposed on your body and soul, have never given up and have become role models for future generations of this country. You, the cultural activists of this country, with reliance on the long-standing cultural challenge of our land, have endured these forty years and creatively enhanced our cultural structures. During these four decades, you composed poetry and created literatures, created paintings and sculptures, composed and sang songs, produced films, and revitalized theaters. The authors of our press world, under the watchful eye of the regime’s night watchmen and with tangible struggle and risk of life, imprisonment and deprivation published independent weekly and periodicals and in the oppressive atmosphere of Sharia and religion became the language of different parts of the society and responded to the needs of civil society. Our modernist, critics and intellectual culturists, with a secular and democratic view, paved the way for intellectual and artistic brilliance in the darkness of the regression, and paid a heavy price for it such as the murder of Mohammad Mokhtari, Saeedi Sirjani, and dozens of others like them. Our national cultural movement once again raised the flag to reflect what has been seen many times in our history against the tyrants and the arrogant thinkers. The culturists of this land, in every confrontation with the anti-culturalism of the time, have risen to protect the cultural heritage, have nurtured it and have given a new richness to it by learning from other cultures.

With the continuation of this historical tradition for the last forty years, you, culture lovers, have made the intellectual and artistic critique and culturalism overcome bigotry and ignorance. The "danger of cultural invasion" in the words of the Supreme Leader of the IR over the years not only reflects the concentration of regression in the behavior of this religious regime, but also, moreover, is rooted in the fear of these cultural destroyers of cultural enthusiasm in the society. The regime pretends that this is a threat from outside, but it knows very well, and you, the sympathizers of culture know more than that, that this is a cultural creativity that comes from within the society against the anti-cultural invasion of the regime. This resistance has been achieved, flourished and borne by the efforts of you, the people of culture.

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the regime’s anti-cultural attack on universities, so called “Cultural Revolution”, the Left Party of Iran (People’s Fadaian) congratulates you, intellectuals and researchers, artists and art developers on a fruitful cultural effort to counteract the regime’s destructive effects and wishes your perseverance for our country’s progress in knowledge and art.

Political-Executive Bureau of the Left Party of Iran (People’s Fadaian)

May 1, 2020