Chopper/Funeral

FX:  Choppers/chanting

Starts 01.00.00.00

Corcoran:   In Tehran the dead are bid farewell in a stage-managed outpouring of grief.

00.15

This is the pure essence of fundamentalist Iran -- a regime built upon the tenets of suffering, sacrifice and martyrdom. A regime living in the past.

00.26

In the coffins, the recently discovered remains of soldiers who died 15 years ago in the Iran-Iraq war.

00.45

Now being laid to rest amid the fading rhetoric of a revolution some 20 years past.

00.53

Crowd:   Death to America! Death To America!

01.00

Corcoran:  But peer behind this façade and you'll find fewer Iranians listening.

01.06

The real chant now is not for revolution - but for social and political evolution.

01.11

Map Iran

Chanting/music

01.17

Picture of Ayatollah

Corcoran:  A battle has been joined, for the hearts and minds of Iran's youth.

01.39

In the twenty years since the revolution,  Iran's population has nearly doubled to 70 million people.

01.49

Now dominated by a generation X that's managed to transform the strict Islamic dress code into a fashion statement.

01.56

It's a generation in a hurry, with no time for fundamentalism.

02.04

Riot on university campus

FX:  Gunfire/rioting

Corcoran:  For a few days in July, it looked like the start of a second revolution.

02.20

Students on the campus of Tehran University demanding political and social reform, and demanding it now.

02.28

It all started with a peaceful student protest against the closure of a reformist newspaper.

02.38

But the response was swift and violent, as hardliners retaliated by raiding student dormitories.

02.45

Students in destroyed dormitory

Student:  Take a shot of this! Is this a student dormitory - does this look like a dormitory?

02.58

Corcoran:  Where are all the students?

Student:  They're all battered and bruised and in the hospital.

Fire on campus/burning bus

Corcoran:  Sent in to crush this youthful idealism -  not the police or army - but a militia called the Basij - defenders of the fundamentalist revolution.

03.15

For hardliners Tehran University is also a symbolic rallying point, because it was from here 20 years ago that another generation of students launched their revolution to overthrow the hated Shah.

03.31

Having scattered the reformists, the Basij gather  on campus for Friday prayers.

03.45

Prayerleader: I am the Basij and I am the Divine Army!

Crowd: I am the Basij and I am the Divine Army!

Prayerleader; Basij are the army of the Hezbollah!

Crowd: Basij are the army of Hezbollah!

TV Reporter

Corcoran:  Their affirmation of loyalty broadcast live on national television.

04.03

Reporter:  Hello to our dear and valuable viewers. Tehran University --  this meeting place of the lovers of God...

04.07

President Rafsanjani

Corcoran:  Working the crowd, political power broker and former President Rafsanjani. With one hand on the pulpit, the other on a rifle, he's proved a deft hand at pleasing both sides.  Today he throws in his lot with the hardliners.

04.15

Rafsanjani:  As soon as the Basij name appeared, the counter-revolutionaries went back to their nests!

04.32

Crowd

Prayerleader: Give the order! The Basijis are ready!

04.37

Crowd:  Give the order! The Basijis are ready! Death to America! Death to America!

Mani in car

Mani:  What the students want is the rule of law -- respect for their dignity.

04.56

Corcoran:  Fearing further Basiji attacks, most students have gone to ground, but not 24-year-old Mani Asgari, back out on the streets after the protests.

05.10

Mani:  I think reform should take place but I don't think we will ever have another revolution- no -- but reform, yes-- because after each revolution reform is inevitable.

05.21

He's been dubbed the Gorbachev of Iran -- President Mohammad Khatami is a mullah with a powerful mandate -- 70 percent of the vote.

05.46

He's trying to steer a course between the conservative Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamani, and his student followers who want the reforms to go much further.

06.00

And like Gorbachev, he  risks being overtaken by events -- left behind in political oblivion.

06.10

Basij in training

And these are the people who want to deal democracy a knock out blow.

06.22

Defenders of the faith, fresh from their clash with the students.

06.30

They called themselves the Army of Hezbollah.

06.34

But to most Iranians they're simply the Basij - meaning the mobilised. 

06.44

This unit is led by a 63 year old grandfather and national karate coach, Ahmad Olamaei.

06.48

The unarmed combat display is for a new batch of recruits, some as young as 12.

06.57

Ahmad

Ahmad:  Basij is an organisation which participates in everything to defend Islam without getting paid for it. Their only wish is to become a martyr for Islam and to have that martyrdom confirmed by the Supreme Leader.

07.03

Corcoran:  They're the sons of the working class, who owe their education and improved social status to the revolution.

07.33

Ahmad:  Basij is a group that works with knowledge. Most of those here are university students. They have knowledge. They are not common people. Because they're knowledgable they understand.

07.41

Corcoran:  Until recently, the Basij  were just an unofficial morals police -- enforcing what had been a strict Islamic dress code.

08.01

But with the Army and Revolutionary Guards now displaying an unwillingness to crush civil unrest, these young zealots have become the enforcers of the regime.

08.09

Training session

Basiji leaders have been discreetly rewarded with funding, arms and key posts in the security forces.

08.21

During our visit the guns remain hidden.

08.28

On display is Ahmad's 10 year old grand daughter Hanie, trying hard to show us what she'll do to the students.

08.31

It's all very cute, but the Basij are preparing for a war. The enemy - reformists - who allegedly conspiring with America and Israel to topple the Islamic State.

08.46

Basij student

Basij student:   At the beginning the Basij took action against these enemies and especially on the day of the march, frustrated the enemies goals.

09.00

Corcoran:  Now numbering around 400 thousand, the Basij was originally raised as a part-time militia during Iran's war with Iraq.

09.22

Ahmad:  We had 8 years of holy defence against the heretics. It was the Basij who won the war -- otherwise no country could withstand those dirty elements.

09.36

Corcoran with Ahmad

Corcoran:  They were little more than cannon fodder.

09.55

It was the Basij who served as human mine sweepers -- walking arm in arm across minefields - clearing a path with their lives and limbs for the professional soldiers who followed.

09.57

Boys and old men whom Ahmad proudly led to martyrdom and glory.

10.09

Ahmad

Ahmad:  I went to the front fifteen times and each time for two to four months. They came here to develop their body and soul and then they went to war and gave their lives in defence of Islam.

10.15

Corcoran on street at night/enters restaurant

Corcoran:  To meet the Basiji's enemy I'm quite literally invited underground.

10.44

Not a den of bombing throwing students, but a stylish restaurant revelling in Iran's Persian heritage.

10.50

This is what Ahmad and his young Basiji's fear --  the middle class.

10.58

Music

Corcoran:  Mani is there, to introduce me to his family, and an evening's entertainment regarded by hardline mullah's as dangerously subversive.

11.10

Young girls dancing

Old patriotic songs from the pre-revolutionary days nearly bring the house down.

11.20

Band

Singer:  Since loving you is my occupation, my thoughts are never far from you.

Our lives are worthless before you -- long live the soil of Iran!

11.26

Corcoran:  It's all pretty tame by western standards, but before President Khatami's, such a performance would've had the Basijis crashing through the doors and dragging everyone off for interrogation.

11.46

Actor in restaurant

The ban on singing and clapping has been lifted - but dancing is still outlawed.

12.05

In reality, this place only survives now through hefty pay-offs to local security officials.

12.11

Tonight's highlight is the Siabazi  or black game, a traditional satire of the master-servant relationship.

12.24

With the mullahs firmly entrenched as the revolutionary ruling class, the role models need no explanation.

12.32

Servant: Don't hit me!

12.39

Master: I'll hit you until you go blind!

Servant:  Don't hit me!

Master:  I will!

Master: Mobarak?

Servant:  Yes?

Master:  What are you doing?

Servant: Nothing -- I'm just adjusting the satellite dish.

Corcoran:  It's enough to have the Ayatollah Khomeini spinning in his grave.

12.52

Mani's parents in restaurant

Mani's parents -- like so many others here --  were in the vanguard of the 1979 revolution. Now they laugh at the leaders they were once prepared to die for.

12.57

Mani's father

Father:  The economic situation didn't get better -- it even got worse -- and we do not yet have the freedom we expected.

13.12

Mani gets photo albums

Corcoran:  Just a quick browse through the old photo albums and you realise that this is a family with strong revolutionary credentials.

13.30

Mani's parents Abdullah and Parvin, and brother-in-law Majid, relive those dramatic days of twenty years ago.

13.39

Mark: This is you in your revolutionary days?

13.46

Father: Yes.

Majid:  With a gun in his hand.

Corcoran:  As a young civil engineer Abdullah liberated the Tehran water works for the revolution.

13.53

Photos

Father:  They are the workers of the water treatment plant.

13.59

Mark: Yeah?

Father:  There was a group working and protecting the water treatment plant in those days...

Majid: Against pollution by the Shah!

Mark:  Why did you need guns to guard the water treatment.

Majid: They worried about the pollution of the water by SAVAK or security agency of Shah.

Mark : Sabotage?

Father:  Sabotage, yes.

Photo of young Mani holding gun

Corcoran:  And the four year old boy  proudly holding his father's rifle is none other than Mani.

14.27

Mark:  That's you is it?

14.32

Mani:  Yes.

Majid:  That's Mani with the gun.

Father: Mani and my daughter.

Mark: This is a revolutionary family!

Majid: This is my wife.

Corcoran:  Despite the nostalgia, this family of true believers has lost the political faith and is prepared to say so. It's a brave step - reformists may be in the majority  but the hardliners still control the men with the guns.

14.44

Majid

Majid:  I think the power is so delicious. Power is sweet and everyone who has power tries to save it.

14.59

The main part of people in Iran favour gradual reform from an Islamic regime to an Islamic democracy. So I think President Khatami is the head of the movement, which is not a revolution -- it's an evolution.

Basiji in Cemetery of the Martyrs

Corcoran:  Ahmad guides his Basiji troop through  a very different photo collection.

15.41

This is Behesht-e-Zahra -- Cemetery of the Martyrs.

15.48

A memorial to what he calls the Imposed War -- Iran's 8 year bloodbath with Iraq that claimed one million lives.

15.52

Young Basiji's are told how the war united a factionalised nation behind the mullahs.

16.03

How Iran has been bound by blood, and how many of the dead here are the teenage martyrs of the Basij.

16.09

Ahmad with Basij

Ahmad:   This tank that you see here is a reminder of the war...

16.18

A thirteen year old youth tied a grenade to his belt  and went under an enemy tank and destroyed it. Our pride is that our 13 year old youths confronted the enemies with grenades and frustrated them.

Corcoran:  The enormity of the sacrifices are largely lost on a younger generation.

16.50

So the Basij constantly reinforce their one tangible link to the past.

16.56

Joolaei and brother at grave

Seyed Mohammad Joolaei is a Basij.   Every week, he and his brother Mehdi come to wash the grave of their martyred father and knock on the marble -- a call to his soul.

17.06

Joolaei:  We don't need change or reform - those who follow their own greed are the ones who should change.

What the history of the last 20 years has shown us is that the Basij - now, how can I say it -- is even more ready for sacrifice than before.

Corcoran and Mani outside internet café

Corcoran:  As much as they cherish the past, the Basij cannot ignore the encroaching sprawl  of the global village.

17.56

Inside café

Nor can they simply delete the reformists demands for democracy.

18.07

During the riots hardliners switched off the mobile phone network being used by the students.

18.12

But the security forces soon realised they'd been defeated by the power of the internet.

18.18

Computer screen/Mani

Mani:  It's about three years since internet access has become widespread within the universities - and in the past couple of years, it's been spreading everywhere.

18.26

Corcoran:  Mani needs only log on to America's CNN -- news service of the Great Satan -- for an update on what's happening just around the corner in Tehran.

18.43

Mani:  What Mr. Khatami said the day before yesterday about showing greater force against the pressure groups was good news for the students and people of Iran generally.

18.51

Basij marching

Corcoran:  The good news may be short lived. Reformists now fear that the Basij are preparing to do much more than pull the plug on technology.

Singing

19.09

Corcoran:  The shrine of his Holiness Emam Khomeini -- father of  Iran's fundamentalist state.

19.30

To his disciples Khomeini created a perfect state as inviolate as the Koran, where political or social change equates to sacrilege.

19.40

But change is now inevitable. Parliamentary elections are slated for early next year, and pundits predict a landslide win for the reformists.

19.55

Kids singing

For the true believers, Iran will  again be polluted with decadent western influences that they fought so hard to erase in the revolution two decades ago.

Singing

20.05

Corcoran:  That sense of betrayal is now being drummed into the next generation of little Basijis.

20.21

Repeatedly chanting the mantra of spiritual enlightenment, and the glories of a fundamentalist state that must be defended to the death.

20.27

Kids singing:  I seek victory from God through you and I ask for your intercession for me before God -- so intercede on my behalf before God and save my from my sins.

20.38

Ends 20.55