December 13-2013
. . . onslaught
Western media are promoting the western lifestyle and norms in Iran, charged Majid Qolizadeh, the managing director of the Tasnim News Agency, on Monday.
“Most of the satellite networks’ efforts are aimed at promoting and conveying the western lifestyle,” said Qolizadeh, during the opening ceremony of a Tasnim provincial office in Gilan province.
Qolizadeh described a society’s culture as among the most fundamental of issues, saying the Iranian media must shoulder the responsibility of safeguarding the Islamic-Iranian culture, which he said is under the “cultural onslaught” of its enemies.
This is not a new regime theme. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi frequently asserts that a major goal of the West is to destroy Iranian culture and supplant it with Western culture. That charge justifies the regime’s efforts to limit contact with the outside world.
“The cultural onslaught issue, which we have put great emphasis on today, is a clear reality that will not go away through denial,” the Supreme Leader said in September 2011.
“We must wake up and realize that our culture and our society are threatened. Even the origins of our national and Islamic cultures are in danger,” he said.
Earlier this year, the government opened a center to counter what it calls the enemy’s “soft war,” a term used by officials to refer to the cultural invasion and intelligence tactics used by foreign countries deemed hostile.
