لطالما حاول النظام الإيراني تشكيل الخطاب الأكاديمي حول إيران والإسلام والشرق الأوسط في أمريكا الشمالية. ذلك لأن النظام يدرك تمامًا حقيقة أنه في الغرب عمومًا وفي الولايات المتحدة ، على وجه الخصوص، تلعب الأوساط الأكاديمية دورًا مهمًا في الاقتراب من الشؤون السياسية اليومية وكذلك وضع خطط سياسية طويلة الأجل. ببساطة، في عالمنا المعاصر، تعد الأكاديمية الغربية دعامة للسياسة. لذلك، إذا كان بإمكان النظام أن يجعل الأكاديمية الغربية متعاطفة مع رؤيته، يمكنه أن يضع درعًا في قلب الغرب للدفاع عن معارضي النظام والخصوم الآخرين.

ولقد استغل النظام الإيراني العديد من الطرق والأماكن المختلفة لتحقيق هذا الهدف. وكان أحد الأماكن المهمة هو تمويل جامعات أمريكا الشمالية وغيرها من مراكز التعليم العالي والبحوث تحت غطاء الأنشطة الثقافية. على سبيل المثال ، مؤسسة Alavi هي خليفة لمؤسسة Pahlavi التي كانت هبة من شاه إيران الراحل في عام 1973 لتعزيز العلاقات الثقافية والاقتصادية الدولية. وقد صودرت المؤسسة من قِبل النظام الإسلامي بعد ثورة 1979 في إيران وأعيد تسميتها لاحقاً باسم علوي على شرف الإمام الأول للشيعة. وهي فرع في الخارج لمؤسسة المستعز الإسلامية للثورة الإسلامية، وهي منظمة سياسية ومالية قوية ذات أصول كبيرة وممتلكات واسعة داخل إيران وخارجها.

How the Iranian Regime Shapes the Academic Discourse in North America

By: Reza Parchizadeh

For long has the Iranian regime been trying to shape the academic discourse on Iran, Islam and the Middle East in North America. That is because the regime is fully aware of the fact that in the West in general and in the United States in particular academia plays a significant role in approaching day-to-day political affairs as well as conceiving long-term political plans. Simply put, in our contemporary world, Western Academia is a pillar of politics. So if the regime can make Western Academia sympathetic to its vision, it can practically set up a shield in the very heart of the West to defend against the regime’s dissidents and other adversaries.

The Iranian regime has been exploiting many different methods and venues to achieve that end. One important venue has been to fund North American universities and other centers of higher education and research under the cover of cultural activities. For instance, the Alavi Foundation is the successor to the Pahlavi Foundation which was an endowment made by the late Shah of Iran in 1973 to promote international cultural and economic relations. The foundation was confiscated by the Islamist regime after the 1979 Revolution in Iran and later renamed as Alavi in honor of the first Imam of the Shiites. It is an overseas arm of the Mostaz’afan Foundation of the Islamic Revolution, a powerful political and financial organization with considerable assets and vast properties both inside and outside of Iran.

More precisely, the Alavi Foundation is a front organization for the promotion of pro-Iranian-regime activities in North America. One of the methods the foundation uses is to fund Iranian, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies departments in some of the most prestigious centers of higher education in North America so that they promote the specific vision of the Iranian regime in those regards. For example, the centers funded by the Alavi Foundation have a tendency to employ “scholars” and admit “students” who work along the Iranian regime’s ideological lines. In fact, many of these regime-affiliated scholars and students are directly dispatched from Tehran to be appointed as professors or fellows at such centers.

The centers funded by the Alavi Foundation never employ, introduce or promote Iranian dissidents or any other experts who do not see eye to eye with the Iranian regime. Along the same lines, these centers only publish “research” that does not go against the Iranian regime’s vision in any way. Any research material with a dissenting approach will be rejected straightaway. As such, the Alavi Foundation, by giving voice to currents that promote the Iranian regime’s vision on the one hand and silencing dissenting voices on the other, polices and shapes the academic discourse on Iran, Islam and the Middle East in North America. That is why any material that is openly critical of the Iranian regime rarely gets published in publications affiliated with American and Canadian universities and other centers of higher education and research that receive funding from the Iranian regime. This stranglehold of the Iranian regime on humanities in North America must break so that the liberal democratic voices can be heard.