Iran’s Minister of Education says school textbooks will be altered in the new academic year in order to strike back at the so-called "soft war."
ILNA reports that Education Minister Mohammad Hajibabayi said: "School textbooks will undergo fundamental changes this year."
He added: "In view of the fact that the enemy likes to target youth, we will vaccinate the students through education."
The so-called "soft war" is described by Islamic Republic authorities as "the soft cultural and social threats and the power of the enemy" aimed at the Iranian government; this includes attempts to reform the system from within, or what’s called a "velvet revolution."
Iranian authorities refer to the mass demonstrations that were triggered by allegations of fraud in the 2009 presidential election as "the soft war of the enemy."
Hajibabayi added that "it is our true and legal duty to immunize our students against the soft war."
The minister said the enemy’s methods are much different from 30 years ago. “The minds and thoughts of the students must be geared towards identifying and fighting against the soft war," he said
In the wake of those 2009 protests, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, pointed to educational institutions as breeding grounds for "western modes of thinking" and "discordance with Islam."
Therefore, universities and schools have faced several changes over the past two years in the name of "confronting the conspiracies of the enemies of the Revolution." Most recently, some universities have begun instituting gender separation in the classroom, humanities courses have been reduced and in some cases completely omitted, and scores of professors have been dismissed.
