By Reza Shafa
The Iranian regime is setting up classes for teaching the Farsi language in various countries in order to expand fundamentalism.
According to information obtained from inside the mullahs’ regime, the regime is pursuing its policy of spreading fundamentalism and terrorism in former Soviet states, as well as some of the deprived countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Under the cover of developing cultural links and teaching Farsi, the regime is carrying out such policies by spending large sums of money supplied by government organs such as the Culture and Islamic Communications Organization (CICO) and its embassies. It is clear, of course, that the regime has no interest in cultural and literary matters, and that it is in fact using this as an official excuse for other purposes.
The regime’s cultural envoy in Lebanon has brought the teaching of Farsi into the al-Mahdi educational system. This year, nearly 400 individuals were exposed to such training from the mullahs’ regime. Next year, the regime intends to expand the teaching to other Lebanese cities as well. Its proxies in Lebanon have so far distributed 500 books in Farsi in al-Mahdi schools, and every week 27 Farsi classes are taught at two of these schools.
Former Soviet states, Pakistan, and Hungary are some of the other targets of the Iranian regime for its expansion of fundamentalism under the guise of teaching Farsi. For example, in Tajikistan, the regime uses cultural channels as a cover to set up publishing houses to publish books with the aid of the CICO. The regime also grants at least 100 scholarships to Tajik university students annually. Supplying Farsi text books to elementary and university students, penetrating this country’s curriculum and text books with the Islamic fundamentalist ideology of Ruhollah Khomeini, and launching camps and meetings are all cloaked as “scientific” activities. In October of this year, and in coordination with the regime’s embassy, 30 students from Tajik universities were taken to the holy city of Mashhad in Iran, purportedly to learn about Iran, its language, and literature. Such trips were also carried out for university students from Kazakhstan.
In October, the regime’s Kosar Institute set up a session at the Eastern Studies department of the Kazakh National University, in which the cultural liaison of the regime’s embassy participated. In Armenia, Farsi is taught at 26 centers, which are influenced by the regime and its proxies. In addition to these, in October of this year, the mullahs’ regime resorted to an extensive propaganda campaign at the Cultural and Handicraft Industries Exhibition held in Budapest, Hungary. And, according to another report, the regime’s cultural centre at the Office of Religious Affairs in Lahore, Pakistan, has launched a three-month Farsi program.
African countries have not been deprived of the regime’s so-called free cultural education either. There are multiple reports in this regard, of which one can be mentioned here. The regime has set up a Farsi class at a university in one of the poorest countries in Africa, the Comoros Islands. Such is the case with many other countries in Africa, where the regime enters through so-called cultural channels as a cover to expand terrorism and fundamentalism.
With regards to the regime’s real objective by conducting these so-called cultural initiatives, Ali-Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister for the mullahs and currently an adviser to the mullahs’ Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, explicitly revealed that, “Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, everyone was advocating that we must use this new found opportunity to reposition ourselves so that Iran could emerge as the major and recognized power in Central Asia and the Caucasus. What was needed more than anything else was speed of action. One of the things we did in Tajikistan was to renew and strengthen the Farsi language. We took a 707 cargo plane, loaded it with lots of Farsi books and sent it to Tajikistan.”
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Reza Shafa is an expert on the Iranian regime's Intelligence networks, both in Iran and abroad. He has done extensive research on Iranian Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS) also known as VEVAK, Intelligence Office of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Qods Force among others. Currently he is a contributor to NCRI website.