Word: basij
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...scene was like the Iranian answer to March Madness. At Amir Kabir University of Technology in Tehran this past December, a crowd of several thousand packed the school's auditorium. On one side were hundreds of members of the Basij, a volunteer paramilitary force controlled by Iranian hard-liners, who had been bused in to cheer their most prominent alumnus, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They waved placards and roared as Ahmadinejad boasted about Iran's growing power and dared the country's enemies to challenge it. But in the back of the room, a group of 50 activists burned...
...Ahmadinejad's loyalists come from the regime's powerful core institutions, from groups like the Revolutionary Guards Corps and the basij, a vast paramilitary network of students and other mostly young Iranians. Beyond that, he has indeed attracted strong support from nationalists for his defiance of the West and underprivileged Iranians who hope to benefit from his promise to spread the country's oil wealth around more evenly. But there are doubts about how long he can sustain that broader support. Less than halfway into his four-year term, many Iranians are griping about rising inflation and the economic...
...suave Hossein Rahimi the new face of the basij? Not really. As the son of an adviser to the Defense Minister, he is drawn to hard-line politics out of family loyalty. But like many children of the revolutionary elite, class privilege sets his lifestyle apart from the basiji rank and file. He watches Fox News and discovers old friends on www.orkut.com. His favorite movie is A Beautiful Mind, and he lives in a well-heeled neighborhood of north Tehran rather than in the working-class quarter of Naziabad where his basij is based. "Not only do I like Eminem...
...Unlike Rahimi, most basij members are poor. Their sleeves reach their wrists, their shoes are scuffed, and they're unlikely to know of Eminem. Many eke out a living by renting motorbikes to work as messengers or bike taxis; hordes of them idle sullenly on their bikes near Tehran's grand bazaar. With this sort of work, it will take them an epoch to raise enough money to get married. The basij might give them a small stipend and help cover holidays at the Caspian Sea, but it cannot buy them an apartment or sustain a life. Embarrassed by their...
...Ahmedinajad won the loyalty of the basij, and the voters who responded to their campaigning, by promising to relieve the grinding poverty that remains the lot of the majority a quarter-century after the Islamic Revolution. Piety and a hawkish foreign policy might be enough to retain Rahimi's support, but for most of his basij brothers, the new President may be judged on whether he is able to make their lives more like Rahimi...