Iran Press/ Commentary: Seyyed Razi Emadi, Iran Press News Agency's political analyst, has made a review of the Islamic Revolution's task to repel the western plan for universities as the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, in a meeting with a group of students described it as a Jihad Clarification.
The critical point in the speech of the Leader of the Revolution yesterday was dealing with the situation of universities at the beginning of the Islamic Revolution, along with introducing the security of the country, border security, and internal security as an immediate action plan.
The Leader of the Revolution answered why the university was considered so important, which he felt was in line with the country's security, by raising a few other essential questions. One of the questions was what was the situation of the university at the beginning of the revolution?
The situation of universities at the beginning of a revolution
The fact is that the university at the beginning of the revolution was like the political system before the process. The political system of Iran during the Pahlavi era, a Western-affiliated system, lacked independence while the Islamic Revolution defined a new identity for the Iranian political system, the essence of which freedom is the central signifier.
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The same is true for the university. In this regard, the Leader of the Revolution stated in his speech yesterday: "There were two types of views on the university: one view was the view of the revolution and one view was the view of the anti-revolutionary retrogressive current."
These two types of views had opposite characteristics. In the words of the Leader, "the revolution saw the university as a venue for elitism to develop the country and solve the country's problems; to compensate for the country's 200-300-year old backwardness.
While the retrogressive and counter-revolutionary currents did not look at the university. "They set up the university in the country and ran it to make dependent elements so that those from within the nation could do what they were forced to do from the outside. Due to this situation, attention to the university became one of the central policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Western neo-colonial plans for the university
Another critical question in the speech of the Leader of the Revolution yesterday was about the western plans for the university in Iran. The West's most important program was to train corresponding elements inside the country, elements that could pursue the policies and interests of the colonial powers inside Iran.
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The Leader of the Revolution called this approach a "neo-colonial" policy and stated: "They came to the conclusion that direct colonization no longer works. A new policy was created, and that policy was to train people in the target countries so that those people would do what the colonizer was supposed to do, say what he was supposed to say."
Another Western plan pursued through the retrogressive and counter-revolutionary currents was that universities should be merely consumers and not producers of science themselves. In fact, the West planned that universities should not achieve scientific independence and be simply consumers of the science that the West delivers.
The science that was handed over to the academic community was not the science of the day but, in the words of the Leader of the Revolution, "the remnants of Western knowledge" and worthless knowledge. The result and goal of this strategy were to make the Iranian university community, whether professor or university, a "consumer scientist" and a "consumer society."
While promoting Western norms and values within the Iranian academic community and consequently the Iranian society, this approach also turned the country into a consumer of foreign goods and, at the same time, was a severe obstacle to its development because it practically destroyed scientific independence.
What did the revolution do for the university?
Another critical question in the remarks of the Leader of the Revolution yesterday was what did the revolution do for the university in the face of the neo-colonial approach of the West? In this regard, the Leader of the Revolution mentioned several vital issues. First, the "revolution saw the university as a center of national authority." With the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the university had to move out of consumption and become a center for the production and growth of science.
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This view aligns with a larger global view of science that "considers knowledge to be power." This is why the Leader of the Revolution has always emphasized the importance of science and knowledge in the last 33 years that he was at the helm of the Islamic Revolution, and in the slogan of the Iranian New Year, he also raised the knowledge-based production.
The experience of Iran's nuclear program is a clear example of the importance of knowledge because it shows that the enemies, despite the many obstacles they orchestrated, have not been able to deprive Iran of its nuclear rights because Iran has acquired nuclear knowledge and has many nuclear scientists who can run the peaceful nuclear program in the country.
Islamic Revolution brought back identity to the nation, universities
Secondly, the Islamic Revolution gave identity to the university, which resulted from providing uniqueness to the nation. In this regard, the revolution prevented the "de-religionization" of the university, giving university character and independence. Also, the production of science within the universities and the change of the identity of the consumer university to the producer university caused the training of many elites who found their identity in the world and became famous, which was one of the essential services of the revolution to the university.
The Leader said in this regard: "We did not have anything to be proud of at the university that day in terms of scientific work; sometimes it is possible that an elite young man, for example, an intellectual, did something in a corner that we are not aware of now, but the university as a whole, had no significant scientific movement.
Today, by the grace of God, great and remarkable scientific works have been done in the university, and again, they are being done by professors, by educational workshops, by elite students."
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Third, after the Islamic Revolution, universities have grown significantly in quantitative terms, and the number of students and professors is not comparable to the beginning of the revolution. The Leader of the Revolution stated: "In terms of the number of students, that day, the number of students in all universities in the country was about 150,000. Today, the number of students is millions; there are now millions of students besides the educated and the graduates.
In this respect, quantity is not comparable. Government and non-government universities. In terms of a master, according to the report given to me that day, all the professors of Tehran universities were about five thousand at the beginning of the revolution. Today we have tens of thousands of professors, among whom there are outstanding professors, there are exceptional elite professors."
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