By Hassan Abbas
Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was the first supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran after its revolution from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was also an Iranian cleric, politician, and political theorist who was aware of the important role of political messaging and narratives. He once stated that “the importance of printed materials is equal to the importance of the blood shed on the battlefronts,” and he did not stop at this comparison—he went further, adding that “the impact of pens is greater” than that of “the blood of the martyrs.” This statement is not surprising when placed within the context of his ideological framework, which has a missionary character and views media as a guiding instrument tasked with missions such as “raising awareness among all segments of the population,” “educating them,” “liberating them from alienation,” “carrying the call of Islam,” “refining society,” and “spreading divine ethics.”
In Lebanon, those whom Khomeini referred to as the “youth of Hezbollah”—meaning the believers in the Iranian Revolution wherever they may be—began working and engaging in serious activism as early as 1982, nearly three years before the release of the “Open Letter” in which they formally introduced themselves as a political organization under the name “Hezbollah.” From the very beginning, they were keen on spreading their ideas to as many people as possible, due to the missionary and emergent nature of their movement in both the religious and political spheres. They followed the guidance of Khomeini’s ideas, fully aware of the importance of traditional media—and even more so, of something they considered more impactful: the mosques.
