Supreme leader's letter to European and North American youth is the Islamic revolution's new strategy in international cultural diplomacy | ||
Supreme leader's letter to European and North American youth is the Islamic revolution's new strategy in international cultural diplomacy 1. What is the most important aspect of the Supreme Leader's message to European and North American Youth? It seems that the Supreme Leader's letter includes preliminaries which serve a pivotal message. This message, in brief, distorts the assumption that referring to information and images about Islam, that today are broadcasted by European and American media, can depict a reliable picture of Islam and since at the current time the confrontation between West and Islam has become unavoidable, the message encourages the reader to gain a true and real image of Islam in order to avoid committing noncompensable mistakes. Regarding that for answering other questions, some discussions are offered regarding the preliminaries the Supreme Leader used in his letter, it's better to point briefly to the preliminaries in order to reach a clear understanding about the relation between such preliminaries and Supreme Leader's message: - In this letter the goodwill of rulers and owners of media cartels has been questioned. - Addressing the youth, in a fundamental issue which is considered as one of the most important problems of the current world, the Supreme Leader somehow shows them that he trust them and considers them as people who have goodwill and justice-seeking spirit. - The letter questions the image western media depict of themselves as the supporters of human rights and justice-seeking regarding the background of these governments in not-so-long pasts like world wars, Vietnam War, etc. - The Supreme Leader somehow has encouraged the Collective consciousness of the western thinkers to criticize their statesmen big mistakes whenever they face them. However, analyzing the chronology of such mistakes and when they have become general and dominated, it turns out that there is a multi-decade delay. - The letter unveils the media trick that says western media and rulers usually one or more decades after the brutalities they made already come to the conclusion that they have made mistakes. Because, this trick inspires the audience to consider them as the good characters because they dare to confess their even big mistakes. But what is important is that it happens when the stable door is closed after the horse has bolted. - He warns his audiences to avoid the same condition in which after several years they would understand that their perception of Islam was not correct. - For him, Tekfiris and terrorist groups, as one of the most important sources to publicize a negative image of Islam, are the product of western media to undermine Islam's reputation. - Then this question is emphasized that what aspect and dimension of Islam has convinced the holders of power and media in West to confront it so harshly? Thus, he encourages and incentivizes the reader to understand and study Islam through the right ways. - But how can achieve a right picture and understanding of Islam, the Supreme Leader, in this step in which a question has been raised in the mind of the reader on how can determine the correct account of Islam, offer a solution. - Making direct relationship with Islam through reciting Quran and reading Holy Prophet's history directly In conclusion, it turns out the Supreme Leader at first destabilizes the image offered by western media about Islam and at the same time necessitates gaining a right picture of Islam and introduces the direct refer to the original sources as the best way to understand Islam.
2. How can interpret the Islamic Revolution's Supreme Leader regarding the challenge between Islam and West? Is it implies the new challenge between Islam and West? The Supreme Leader's letter to European and Northern youth was written regarding the new political requirements across the world and islamophobia and iranophobia policies taken by the western governments. If one consider this letter and the condition under which it was written, he will confirm that the world has riddled with turbulence's and accidents which can destabilize the region and the world for many years if are not faced and interacted properly. In a nutshell, it is a perception and understanding of Islam which is broadcasted across the world and the most important effective components of development of such perception can be discussed through two main pivots. The first one is that fundamentalist Islamist used to commit any unethical and immoral cruelty such as cutting hands and heads, throwing people from high buildings and burning human beings and books, demolishing artistic works, etc. in the name of Islam. The second is that they suggest such cruelties with the best visionary quality and the best documented form to their audiences. These two components are those that are recalled as the islamophobia and the Supreme Leader has written this letter to depict Iran's strategy against this strategy; hence, it seems that the letter needs to be interpreted beyond a regular political letter which its importance is dwindled away over time. In this condition, it is possible to offer a more precise analysis of the Supreme Leader's letter. This letter has been written in order to neutralize above mentioned dangers and it is clear cut that its long-term cultural objectives will be met only when the general lines of confronting with islamophobia, which have been listed and pointed out in this letter, are followed continuously and effectively through innovative and artistic media activities, as same as the islamophobia policies which followed by West and terroristic groups. Therefore, it seems that this letter and its main pivots must be treated as the new strategy of the Islamic Revolution of Iran in the first step of confronting with the Islamophobia phenomenon and in the second step to publicize and promote Islamic values in the new international condition. On the other hand, the Supreme Leader's letter unveils the new strategy of Islamic Republic of Iran in the International Cultural diplomacy dimension.
3. How do you analyze the fields of acceptance of Supreme Leader's letter by the young generation of USA and Europe? The new principles of the West' civilization which calls for people to stick with individualism,Epicureanism, secularism and liberal democracy apparently have failed to saturate nature of western thinkers and youth. Inclination towards post-modern viewpoints among western thinkers and scholars and introducing the west's culture as the sole reliable culture in the world and acknowledging most cultures regarding the time and spatial requirements in which they have been grown are signs that show that western thinkers have not be convinced with the dominant culture over the western societies. As most people, especially the youth, inclination to spirituality and faith within recent decades somehow demonstrated that the religion-free culture of west fails to respond and meet the epistemological needs of people to a divine fact and spirituality in their life; thus, to tackle the problem they started to seek for a certain sort of spirituality that is compatible with the cultural values of west including individualism, epicureanism, separate ways of religion and governance. Most sociologists and scholars have justified the western youth inclination to the new-emerging spiritualties and some individualistic oriental religion with this reason. In this new perception there was no special position for Islam for which Enjoining good and forbidding wrong as well Jihad against oppressors were strong; however, was this individualistic spirituality able to compensate the epistemological gap in the western culture? For those who believed in Islamic teachings, it was clear that according to "the nature made by Allah in which he has made men; there is no altering of Allah's creation", the religion that saturates all dimensions of mankind dimensions is Islam, hence it was predictable that although these fake spiritualties could heal the wound of the west's god-free culture, but they could not bring about a fundamental treatment for its disease. What is seen today as the unpredictable inclination of western youth towards violent spiritualties including Satanism and recently inclination to Tekfiri groups such as Alqaeda and ISIS are somehow the consequences of secular spirituality failure to satisfy them. Therefore, it is evident that the divine nature of mankind needs a religion which can meet his/her all existing dimensions and it is the pure Islam which puts compassion and violence in their proper positions. As you see, the thirsty of audiences' nature to a religion which has such features can somehow support the effectiveness of this message. It seems that the Islamic revolution's trust in the Islam wholeness and his knowledge about various dimensions of audiences' nature has convinced him to write the letter. It is necessary to pay attention to this fact that if the target society has the potential to accept this message, it does not mean that out success to transfer the message is guaranteed, but for this message is transferred and heard, we need broad activities in this field which must be organized by the relevant organization and motivated youth.
4. Despite the efforts of hegemonic systems how can the general diplomacy of Imam Khamenei come to conclusion? To answer the question, its better to make a comparison between Imam Khomeini's historical letter to former USSR authorities and the letter of Ayatollah Khamenei. Imam Khomeini in his letter, regarding the media requirements of his era which almost makes impossible to make direct connection with another nation, analyzed the situation of this country according to his understanding of its intellectual and cultural principles and predicted the collapse of this superpower and tried to depict a horizon for the foreign minister of USSR. Therefore, Imam Khomeini's letter is a letter with all necessary details that would be required for transferring a message, accordingly we see that Imam found himself obliged to write a long letter and attached anything that would be necessary to transfer the message. For instance, he introduces several sources for reaching a correct account of pure Islam and even he missioned a board to answer possible questions and ambiguities including someone like Ayatollah JavadiAmoli. In contrast, in letter of the Supreme Leader it must be considered that he has said that speaking with politicians and statesmen of west does not seem useful, because he thinks that they have separated the way of honesty from politics. Here the target audiences of the letter are North American and European youth, because they are next generation of their country and they can direct the destination of their motherlands; on the other hand their truth seeking is stronger in their heart. Accordingly, it must be examined what is the best possibility to transpire this message to American and European youth? Today, virtual and social networks have not yet censured, hence using such networks for such kind of messages is ideal; however, this question is raised here why this message did not transferred by Iranian state media such as Press TV and Hispan TV. The answer is clear, Ayatollah Khamenei were seeking for releasing the great capacity of Muslim youth in this way. He took a giant stride to build a new sort of culture and accordingly the most important factor for transferring this message are motivated youth who access new media tools. As a result most people who are involved with modern technology are obliged to promote rather the formal organizations of the country. It is important to note that Ayatollah Khamenei is used to invite youth to do bog jobs for many years; in this regard we can point to justice-seeking, software movement, political analyses, etc. The media-based point that must be considered is that social and virtual networks are featured with certain requirements in transferring a message. For example, the message should be short, eloquent, convincing, etc. The letter of Ayatollah Khamenei has been written in accordance with such requirements. He has offered his message through an attractive and short format; therefore, preparing materials for sidelines of this message, so that to be appropriate with this media is among the activities that must be followed by authorities and the youth through the mentioned networks. It helps the message to be broadcasted very properly to the audiences.
5. How west has depicted Islam in USA and Europe? After Islamic revolution and especially after collapse of USSR, Islam was posed as a new alternative for liberal democracy among the Muslim thinkers and even most westerners and liberal democracy advocates need to find a fundamental solution for this. Therefore, two important events should be happened, one is media and propaganda activities arranged by Zionist enterprises and trusts including producing movies, TV series and documentaries which are set in order demolish Muslims' and Islam's reputation continuously, another is raising and creating terrorist groups who work behind the mask of Islam and Islamic values and teachings. They depict a violent, corrupted and lusty picture of Islam to the world. These two components are astonishingly synergistic, as the western media extract the best and most attractive and most real propaganda materials, that can approve their claims, from behaviors of these fundamentalist groups which mostly are filmed documentarily. These videos are accessible for everyone through online tubes. On the other hand, these groups sometimes have the best filming equipment and create a pervasive and extended dread and fear through such videos across the world. This dread and fear sometime do not let their victims to dare to resist and as you see many basements and cities surrender without a little resisting. It helped them to progress very quickly and without stop in Syria, Iraq, Sinai Desert, Libya and Nigeria, etc. these two components have acted as two blades of scissors and spare no efforts to destabilize Islam as a whole.
6. What do you think about Islam's future in USA and Europe? Undoubtedly our current behavior and function will be effective in future, the Supreme Leader's letter can be analyzed in this regard, as well. Therefore, the target behind writing this letter would be collecting all facilities and using optimally them in order to achieve the target and preventing them from being wasted. Today, North American and European youth, regarding the numerous failures of their sociopolitical systems, have become ready to hear something other than what is broadcasted by the formal medial and their rulers. On the other hand, new media such as social networks have developed an infrastructure by which can bypass formal media and make a direct relationship with the reader or audience. This letter not only has a message for American and European youth, but also it is meaningful and useful for motivated Muslim youth. This letter shows the way of fighting and resisting against the Islamophobia, which can be a religious imperative for each Muslim youth. The whole contents of the letter need documents for supporting; for example, violence and oppression we see from advocates of human rights across several past decades can be documented with documentaries, movies, video clips, poems and introducing historical books along with a brief description about them. It has been already done by west media and now we need to review them or preparing a report about activities of Hollywood on Islamophobia. Likewise, preparing proper translations for the Noble Quran, encouraging audiences to communicate with Noble Quran and preparing documented books and literature about the Islamic history are among duties and responsibilities that are important in this regard. It is clear that if Muslim youth find themselves responsible, they need to review Islam through authenticated resources and literature, it can result in elimination of many diversions and distortion in their minds. Finally, if all relevant organizations and institution of Iran and more importantly NGOs and the youth work on this issue, then a capacity would be developed in the country for promoting Islam, which is unique across the history, because this promotion is possible without travels, and hefty facilities and expenses and since this interaction is done face-t-face and the receiver is active reciprocally, the effectiveness of such relation would be interesting. It helps us to find many missionaries with high motivation and familiarity with language and culture of the target society with lowest cost…
7. What are the executive and practical solutions to enhance the impact of this message? The Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution has determined the main agenda of new general diplomacy of Islamic Republic of Iran. He has pointed to several preliminaries to reach the final target which is the main and pivotal message of the letter. Raw materials are necessary and vital for each preliminary and deliver to people regarding the requirements of such media. Therefore, preparing documented sources for each preliminary, especially using art works, can be useful in this area. For example, despite what west media try to show about Islam, Muslim never slaughtered people during conquering Quds, but they took there through peace from crusaders. Likewise, the violent behaviors of US army in Vietnam, during the 16-year war threw 500000 bombs over the Vietnamese heads, they burned forests and finally after leaving 45000 dead, 300000 wounded and spending 150 billion USD and historical digrace they leave there through their warships. The Islamic Thought Foundation, regarding its innate potential, can prepare a reference website in this regard and invite all readers, either the target readers or those who are determined to play a key role in transferring the message to cooperate. Both Islamic Thought Foundation and Islamic Culture and Relation Organization, based on their important and valuable experiences in exporting the Islamic revolution's message, can design a part in the mentioned website for answering the questions of audiences and they can use any point or material that would be useful and necessary in this website. It would have a part in which users can share their experiences and exchange what they have found and seen in their own country, city or region. Mosques' artistic centers can hold competitions in order to identify the exemplary missionaries for this great mission. It is necessary to remind that the most important factor to be successful in this area is involving the Iranian and Muslim youth with this issue. They are very talented and have high capacity and play a key role in this regard.
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