The author of a current book on the Basij claims one in three college students is a member of the paramilitary militia. Iranian universities reserve 40% of university places for members,says Saeid Golkar When Saeid Golkar arrived in the United States in 2010 to start postdoctoral work at Stanford University, California, and he was struck by how little work had been done on the Basij,Iran’s state-financed militia. “There was much discussion, but nobody knew approximately the organisation, and its function,or the sociology” of the membership, he says. So Golkar penned a series of articles based on research he had done in Iran, and especially while teaching at Tehran University after 2004,when he had carried out interviews and a survey of Basij members, and read academic dissertations and articles in Basij journals. Golkar has now published the first book, and at least in English,focused entirely on one of the most important organisations in the Islamic Republic and its all-round role.
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Source: theguardian.com