Iranians question harsh propaganda

Rym Ghazal, Correspondent

• Last Updated: September 14. 2008 11:18PM UAE / September 14. 2008 7:18PM GMT

TEHRAN // An Israeli soldier, looking somewhat confused, presses a red button releasing what appears to be a nuclear bomb targeting Iran, but the solider makes a mistake in setting the bearings and the bomb lands back in Israel.

That was just one of a wide variety of propaganda pieces, most of them satirical with a serious undertone, broadcast daily on local Iranian television channels.

This particular spot with its high quality 3D animation was broadcast this summer around the same time the country test-fired nine missiles, including a new version of the Shahab-3 with a range of 2,000km.

“I don’t believe most of what I see on our channels,” said Marzieh Nahdieh, 21, who admitted to being a bit jaded by the constant stream of propaganda and talks of “war”.

“If you listen to everything that is being said, then you would think we were always at war,” Ms Nahdieh said.

Throughout the country, graphic posters and murals of “martyrs” lost in war adorn buildings, street lamps and gardens, accompanied with slogans reminding Iranians of their “glorious history” and “unshaken bravery”.

Ms Nahdieh’s married sister, Sofia, 24, scolded her younger sibling for speaking so openly about her opinions and advised her to “get married soon” and not discuss politics, which is a “man’s world”.

Besides the obvious propaganda, the local news broadcasts extensive reports from the Palestinian territories and Israel, with exceptionally graphic images from Gaza of mutilated bodies and weeping families after raids by Israel. “Iran spends a lot of money and attention on its propaganda machine,” said Afshin Molavi, a political analyst on Iran at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC.

Mr Molavi said the anti-Israeli and anti-US propaganda is actually aimed at winning over the Arab and Muslim world.

“Iran broadcasts news about Arabs, uses Arabic-speaking channels and invites Arab media over and does a lot to gain support of its neighbours,” he said.

Explicit imagery and political slogans are widely used by such groups as Hizbollah and Palestinian resistance groups to garner support for their causes.

One such similar hardline militia group in Iran is Sepah, which is dedicated to defending the Islamic revolution and still occupies and uses the former US Embassy in Tehran that it occupied during the 1979-80 hostage crisis. One of Sepah’s jobs is to maintain the huge, colourful anti-US and anti-Israel murals across the former embassy’s exterior walls.

Iranians from throughout the country still visit and pose in front of murals depicting the United States as “satan” with such drawings as the Statue of Liberty with a skull face and another of a black hairy monstrous arm suffocating the world wearing bracelets with Israeli and US flags on them.

The embassy has been renamed the US den of espionage, where deliberately the US government crest is left polished and intact right next to “Down with the US” graffiti. Mr Molavi believes Iran is “still trying” to convince Iranians that the United States is “bad”.

“Iran likes to show how uncaring the US is towards its people and irresponsible, like during the Katrina hurricane disaster,” he said. “Iran has to use many tactics as ordinary Iranians are less sympathetic towards the major Arab causes, like Palestine. One of the most successful propaganda [tools] by Iran was during the Iraq-Iran war, as they inspired many Iranians to go to war, to die as heroes and go to heaven,” he said.

“But overall Iran is hurting itself by delaying its reintegration into the international community and having normal trade and diplomatic relations with the rest of the world.”

A former Iranian official, who requested anonymity, defended Iran’s use of propaganda and said “what Iran does is no different than what other countries do to push forward its agenda”.

“The US is a master of propaganda, and uses it all the time to convince its people to go to war against nations like Afghanistan and Iraq,” said the former official.

“Iran uses humour, conspiracy theories and politicisation of sensitive subjects to convey messages to its people and to the outside world,” he said.

Iranians with business outside the country and who have had a chance to see the world never took any of the propaganda and slogans seriously. If anything, they believe they are hurting Iran.

“Iran has a lot of give, and its people are smart and moderate, but that doesn’t come through because of all this propaganda from all sides,” said Hayder Hakimzadeh, 35, who often travels to the UAE and Europe for business.

“The extreme image currently portrayed of Iran plays a great role in the unsympathetic international attitude towards Iran and its people.”



rghazal@thenational.ae