Iran International
Critics say promoting ‘Hello Commander’, a pop genre religious and ideological song among Iranian children is reminiscent of Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany.
State propaganda organizations and the ministry of education have been promoting ‘Hello Commander’ in schools since it was broadcast from state television for the first time this year after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s Iranian New Year speech on March 20.
Teaching the song to children has apparently become compulsory in schools. In the past two months it has been performed at huge gatherings of school children in city squares and stadiums and broadcast by the state television (IRIB) in news and other programs.
‘Hello Commander’ is a song dedicated to Mahdi, the 12th Imam of Shiites who has been in occultation since the 9th century according to believers. The song and its promotion are unusual as the music is in the often frowned upon pop genre which has no place on Iran’s state media.
“Me, the little me, will become your general,” children sing to the Imam, promising him to rise up, to sacrifice everything to him, and to become his Ghasem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guard’s Qods Force commander who was killed by the United States in Baghdad in 2020.
The song also mentions 313, the number of the Imam’s helpers when he returns to earth, and is full of words such as “soldier, general, commander, and “uprising” as well as other religious terminology and notions.
‘Hello Commander’ also mentions Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who is believed by his devotees to be the Imam’s representative on earth and has to be obeyed as the Imam would be if he were present among believers. “Hello Commander! Sayyid Ali [Khamenei] has called his children [to mobilize]!” children sing.
The education ministry is now planning a 100,000-strong gathering at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium to perform the song at a special ceremony next Thursday (May 26) although a football match this week at the same stadium was held with no spectators “to prevent the spread of Covid.” Many alleged that the decision to hold the match without spectators was a measure against eruption of an anti-government protest during or after the match
The promotion of the song by the state media is meant to indoctrinate children and brainwash them, critics allege. They also say the promotion of the song by state media and the Islamic Republic’s propaganda organizations is reminiscent of Nazi propaganda methods which included teaching children and the youth songs in praise of the Führer.
Many social media users have seen the song as propaganda for Khamenei as the Imam’s deputy, and commander-in-chief of Iran’s Armed Forces, and drawn a parallel between him and Hitler by sharing a video of Nazi Youth gatherings with the original audio replaced with ‘Hello Commander’.
“In his last years, like all other dictators, Hitler resorted to performance of a ‘Hello Commander’ song in schools to reassure his supporters but this didn’t save him from defeat because it was too late,” one of the many such tweets by critics said.
London-based Iranian journalist Morteza Kazemian also shared photos of Nazi Germany’s huge gatherings in Hitler’s support on Twitter with the ‘Hello Commander’ hashtag and said dictators are destined to fall, even if they are as powerful as Hitler.
The push to take over the country’s only broadcasting organization started in December 2021 with the appointment of Vahid Jalili as acting IRIB chief for cultural affairs and policy “evolution”.
IRIB operates under the supervision of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office, so the changes must have received his approval.
Vahid Jalili is the brother of Saeed Jalili, former chief nuclear negotiator, and ultraconservative Paydari Party’s presidential candidate in 2017. Saeed Jalili and IRIB chief Payman Jebelli were close colleagues at the Supreme Council of national Security in early 2010s.
It took Vahid Jalili only a few months to begin the “evolution” at IRIB. In early May, he chose ultraconservative Mohsen Barmahani as his deputy for TV operations. In less than one week, Barmahani, whose previous position was the head of the documentary department of Iran’s English-language rolling news channel Press TV, appointed new heads for six of IRIB’s key channels.
Like Barmahani himself, all the new channel chiefs are hardliners close to the Paydari Party. The Public Relations Office of the IRIB celebrated the appointments by publishing a poster that showed the pictures of Mohsen Barmahani and Meysam Moradi Binabaj who has been appointed as the chief of Channel 1, and the new managers of other channels.
The chief of Channel 3, Ali Forughi has been re-instated in his post. Vahid Rahimian, an Iranian filmmaker, wrote in a Twitter post that all of the new directors belong to the ultraconservative Ammariun Group close to former nuclear negotiator Said Jalili and that all of them are members of the ultraconservative Paydari [Steadfastness] Party. Ammarium is also close to the cultural wing of the Revolutionary Guard, IRGC.
A report by Iran International earlier this year revealed that many IRGC intelligence officers were in charge of IRIB's news operations.
Reformist news website Ensaf News also confirmed that “nearly all of the newly appointed state television managers are close to Saeed Jalili,” but warned that “instead of heralding an ‘evolution,’ the appointments marked a resemblance to the managerial style of Channel 3 Chief Ali Foroughi,” who is a relative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and is notorious for his despotic management and firing some of the popular TV personalities such as sports commentator Adel Ferdowsipour who were not quite obedient to him.
Ensaf News noted that the appointments were in contradiction to Jebelli’s promise of “Giving a voice to the voiceless,” when he was appointed as IRIB Chief in 2021. The Paydari and Saeed Jalili have no shortage of media outlets as they control nearly all the state-owned print media, the official news agency IRNA, as well as some of Iran’s key news websites including their mouthpiece Raja News.
The new managers have served in key positions at the Ammariun Film Festival and IRGC’s Owj Media Center which produces movies and TV series that propagate the hardliners’ ideological line of thought. One of the center’s well-known productions is the TV series Gando about the alleged infiltration of foreign elements and Iranian liberals in key organizations such as the foreign ministry.
The official news agency IRNA introduced the new managers as “young revolutionaries,” a characteristic first mentioned by Khamenei as the new generation that will steer the Islamic Republic in its second 40 years.
According to IRIB’s Young Journalists Club, the oldest one of the new managers was born in 1974, while the rest of them were born between 1981 and 1988.