To overcome dead ends

The death of a young member of a family is perhaps the most bitter event for any family. Thinking about all the dreams and happy days that this young person once had, thinking about their happy childhood memories, thinking about the first time they called their parents or the first time they walked a few steps makes every heart heavy with sorrow. Even more bitter than this is when families find out that their loved ones have ended their own lives. Families whose members committed suicide cannot forget this incident or reduce its effects for a long time and some for the rest of their lives. The feeling of guilt and self-blame that this incident leaves for others is no less than the tragedy of losing a loved one. These descriptions were told to give a shocking statistic: “In most Western countries, suicide is one of the four leading causes of death for young people aged 15 to 29.”

Some sentences have a lot to say

The statistic mentioned above has a lot to say: why should a young person, with all the passion and energy of youth, with all the facilities that are available in those countries for their growth, with all the love that their family has for them, and with all the dreams and goals that are in their minds, do something like this? Maybe in asking these questions, we should doubt our presumptions a little. Do young people in the West really have the same passion for life as it is shown in the media? Are the scenes of college sports competitions or glamorous parties and the determination of Western students to achieve high academic degrees in internet advertisements constitute the entire reality of their lives?

The 40% rate of sadness and hopelessness among students, the staggering statistics of the growth of addiction to pornographic content on the internet, the high rates of alcohol consumption among young people, and the high volume of sales of anti-depressants answer our questions. These show that the youth’s passion for life is under the influence of all these factors deep inside the Western culture and lifestyle; seems like the road is not as smooth as it is thought to be.

Economic conditions and culture have not helped much to reduce the mental pressure of young people and motivate them. Numerous researches in Western capitalist countries have shown that the new generation is increasingly facing financial problems for education, housing, and marriage.

Economic policies and economic culture of the people in these countries have caused these young people to be involved in the most intense competitions to earn the minimum income for life, and even with a job, they do not see a clear horizon ahead of them. About 50% of American, British, French, Canadian, etc. young people have no savings at the end of the month and live “paycheck to paycheck.” This causes heavy work and mental pressure on young people and changes their lifestyle.

Many of these young people who are exposed to depression, addiction, and poverty do not have the shelter of their family by their side as they should. The divorce rate has been over 40% and 50% in Western countries for decades, and the family union does not have the warmth to embrace its children. The new generation, which is likely to be a child of divorce or has grown up with only one parent, is also involved in many problems of modern illicit relationships. About a fifth of couples in America and Britain are simply “cohabitants” without any legal obligations. Over 40% of young people in these countries have not been faithful to their spouses, and the spread of the phenomenon of “child-free couples” is another example of the coldness of the family in the West.

Such identity problems are all the result of one problem, and that is the absence of a lofty goal and ideal in human life. Famous thinkers and philosophers in the 19th and 20th centuries in the West theorized and propagated the absurdity and meaninglessness of life, and they went to the end of this road by committing suicide. The crisis of nihilism in Western countries has directly served the desires of capitalists, and the absurd lifestyle has caused the concerns of Western youth to be nothing more than the satisfaction of carnal desires. Even in the 20th century, the justice-seeking ideals of young people in Europe, America, and South America could not aim anywhere beyond economic justice.

How can such an intellectual and objective dead end be overcome? What is the spirit and thinking that has been able to emerge from the fight against this atmosphere full of despair and create a model?

Basij, an offspring of the Islamic Revolution

After the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Western thinkers were very surprised by the emergence of a religious revolution in the materialistic world of that time. Imam Khomeini seemed to have pull out the flame of a living and reviving spirit from under the ashes of the colonized Muslim nations and called it “Basiji spirit.” According to Imam Khomeini’s student, Imam Khamenei, Basiji means “a thought … which is built on the two fundamental principles of belief in God and self-confidence.”

This thought saw a child named Mustafa in its arms in 1986: Mustafa Sadrzadeh, who was born in a war-torn city during the years of the Iran-Iraq war, moved to a city near Tehran with his family at the beginning of his teenage years. The economic problems in Mustafa Sadrzadeh’s life were so severe at some moments of his life that he had to work 2 or 3 shifts a day and not come home. He lived in neighborhoods that drug addiction and other forms of lawlessness were prevalent there. He entered the field in a period of the history of the Islamic Revolution when the Resistance Front was fighting alone in Syria and Iraq against armed groups that were supported by the largest Western military powers. But Mustafa never succumbed to economic and social problems at any stage of his life, because the Basiji spirit in his heart reminded him of his goal in life every moment and showed him the way to serve that holy goal. If it was a financial problem, Mustafa’s double work and effort along with his and his wife’s contentment would overcome this problem, if it was a cultural and social issue in the neighborhood, his spirit of sympathy and cooperation with his Basiji friends would’ve solved it, and if there was talk of a war against a well-equipped terrorist group like ISIS, it was his trust in God and belief in the reward of jihad in the way of God that made him never despair, never sit aimlessly, and never get tired and see a dead end in front of himself.

According to us Muslims, belief in God is in the nature of all mankind. This belief in God has a clear social identity and that is seeking justice. Seeking justice, if placed along with belief in God and the divine commands of the prophets, will lead to the formation of a fighter, sympathetic, hardworking, and selfless identity, which has been manifested in the form of Basij in Islamic Iran. This natural desire for justice may also flow in inappropriate channels and do not help to get out of intellectual and real-life dead ends. Similar to what the postmodern justice seekers have injected into the minds and souls of some western youth in the past decades, where they have increased the rate of suicide, mental and physical diseases among them.

Among these very young people, a justice-seeking movement, relying on its human nature, shouted in support of the Palestinian people. This justice-seeking cry of American students for a few months marked one of the liveliest scenes in the lives of American youth in recent decades. In a way that Imam Khamenei called them “a branch of the Resistance Front” in his letter to them. Imam Khamenei mentioned this issue in his speech on November 25, 2024, saying:

In today’s world, many young people in different countries reach a mental dead end and feel useless. They are young, have no ideals, no goals, and feel useless. … Suicide rates go up. You hear about this, and you read in the statistics that suicide rates are increasing around the world. The reason is that young people feel they have come to a mental dead end, feel useless, and feel powerless in the face of the various obstacles in their way. This feeling of helplessness drives them into a dead end. The “Basiji mindset” breaks open the dead end. One of the characteristics of the Basiji mindset and Basiji culture is that it breaks open the dead ends. It doesn’t allow a young person to come to a dead end. Why? Because … first of all, the Basij have confidence in themselves and their abilities. They know that they can if they put in the effort. Second, they aren’t intimidated by the empty threats of the Domineering Powers. … Now, look at the propaganda of the US, the Zionist regime, and others. They create a tumult over various issues, whether true or false. The Basiji youth smile mockingly at this clamor and pay no attention. They aren’t intimidated. Third, the Basiji youth have ideals and have goals. They aren’t without a goal, and they have faith in their goals.