Iran uses ideological indoctrination as political control tool, experts say

When Benny Sabti was a child I grew up in IranHe remembers receiving an unusual award at school. “Being an excellent student, I received a Persian translation of Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf,” Sabti told Fox News Digital. “They translated Hitler’s book into Persian and distributed it to the students.”

The experience stayed with him. Looking back, says Sabti, now an expert on Iranian affairs at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Israel, it reflects a broader effort by Iran’s ruling clerical establishment to shape how young Iranians see politics, religion and the world around them.

Schools, mosques, workplaces, and the media became part of an ideological system designed to foster loyalty to the regime. But critics of Iran’s leadership say religion itself was often not the ultimate goal.

“For them, faith is their tool,” Banafsheh Zand, an Iranian-American journalist and editor of the magazine Iran So Far Away Substack, told Fox News Digital. “It’s not the be all and end all. It’s a tool they can hide behind so they can carry out all their crimes.”

Primary school girls wearing traditional hijab sit in a classroom, Tehran, Iran, October 1, 1997. (Kafeh Kazemi/Getty Images)

Religion and power

The Islamic Republic was founded on the principle of guardianship of the jurist, which places ultimate political and religious authority in the hands of the country’s supreme leader.

But Zand argues that in practice, the system functions less as a purely religious project and more as a mechanism of political control. “It’s like the mafia,” she said. “They use faith to keep people down.”

According to Zand, the ideology is reinforced through a combination of financial incentives and intimidation. “They tried with incentives and money and buying people out,” she said.

Programs linked to the Basij, a militia affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have often provided benefits such as jobs, housing, and education to families allied with the regime.

“If you are poor and join the Basij, they give you benefits,” Zand said. “But you have to go with whatever they give you.”

Ideology is ingrained in everyday life

Al-Sabti says the Islamic Republic Built a wide network Designed to promote ideology in everyday life. “In banks, offices, public places and even in markets, representatives of the regime walk between shops telling people that it is time for prayer and checking on people who do not show up,” Sabti said.

The mosques themselves are closely integrated into the political system. Friday prayer imams often deliver sermons in line with government messages.

“There are 16 propaganda bodies in Iran,” Al-Sabti said, describing a network of state institutions responsible for spreading the regime’s interpretation of Islam and the ideals of the Islamic Revolution.

Some institutions also focus on exporting that ideology abroad. “There is a university dedicated to Converting Sunnis to Shiites“They bring people from Africa and South America to Iran, convert them to Shiite doctrine and bring them back to export the Shiite Islamic revolution,” he said.

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Persian language edition of Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf.

Indoctrination in schools

Schools play a central role in the regime’s ideological system.

“The schools are very indoctrinated,” Sabti said. “In civic studies textbooks, Islam is promoted as superior to all other ideologies.”

Religious messages It appears across the curriculum. “You cannot separate any subject from Islam,” Sabti said. “Not history, not geography. Everything is mixed with ideology. The only thing missing is adding it to mathematics.”

For Al-Sabti, the Mein Kampf incident symbolized the ideological environment to which the students were exposed. He said the message fostered hostility toward perceived enemies and established a political worldview from an early age.

Ideology and hypocrisy

Sabti says the regime’s credibility is also undermined by the behavior of Iranian elites. “You can see that in the second generation,” he said. “Their children live abroad while Elites live in palaces in Iran and other countries. “It’s hypocrisy.”

Ideology is always reinforced by intimidation, Zand says. “They make examples out of people in the most horrific ways possible,” she said. “It’s fear and manipulation.”

According to Zand, that is An atmosphere of fear It shapes the daily life of many Iranians. “Everyone is afraid of the police,” she said. “Everyone is afraid of their neighbors.”

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School children sit together in the classroom wearing masks and distancing themselves from each other, with Iranian national flags on their respective desks, on the first day of school reopening, at Nojavanan School in the capital, Tehran, on September 5, 2020. (Photo by Atta Kinari/AFP/Getty)

Ideology is losing its grip

Despite the regime’s wide-ranging ideological machinery, Sabeti believes that many Iranians have never accepted the worldview the government has tried to impose.

“Over the years, the indoctrination stopped working,” he said. “Most of the public doesn’t really believe it.”

However, the Islamic Republic remains in power. “The system maintains control through Money, weapons and propagandaAl-Sabti said.

Zand agrees that the regime has not completely reshaped Iranian society. Many people comply ostensibly to avoid punishment, she said.

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Iranian school girls wearing angel wings carry flags and photos of Iran’s top leaders, past and present, as officials and security forces mark the 37th anniversary of the day the father of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returned from exile in France, at the mausoleum built to house his remains on February 1, 2016 south of Tehran, Iran. (Scott Peterson/Getty Images)

“They will have no problem with the transfer as long as they realize that the new Iran has no room for violence and the terrifying characteristics of the Islamic regime,” Zand told Fox News Digital.

She said that beneath the surface, Iranian cultural identity remained intact even after decades of pressure from the state.

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