One.

Looking at the political slogans at the beginning of the 1980s surrounding the Iran-Iraq war, one can clearly understand the goals of the Islamic Republic’s government to increase the population’s awareness. Slogans such as “The Twenty Million Army”, “If this war lasts for twenty years, we will stand”, “Oh Army of the Owner of Time, be ready, be ready!”, or “The path to Jerusalem passes through Karbala” all convey this message.

Implementing these slogans in the reality and ambiguous and dangerous situation of war meant the value and importance of “population”; an importance of investment for a new political system that still did not have the ability to recruit ideological Shia soldiers outside its borders, and needed a army of defending soldiers to establish its government and resist the pressure of this destructive and uncontrollable war.

War was an opportunity for domination and control over all members of society; from controlling critics and political opponents to writers and poets; from controlling books, media, and cinema to universities and schools; from the streets to homes. A control that, through censorship, coercion, threats, committees, and street patrols, eventually fell under the rule of the government and became normalized for two decades.

However, within the scope and range of this control, women were of greater importance; because as society became more Islamicized, the lines of prohibition, elimination, and censorship against women became more prominent and intense until it came to a halt on the issue of “Islamic hijab”.

Compulsory and incentivized childbearing was one of those subjects that, through the use of slogans, transformed from a social issue to a political matter, and women’s role as the primary bearers of this ideology multiplied several times over. These were women who, faced with the prohibition of abortion, were also denied access to preventative measures such as condoms, birth control pills, strict restrictions on tubectomy, and so on. As a result of these strict measures, encouragement for childbearing through the guidance of psychologists and ideological filmmakers, who sought to link population control programs before the revolution to the exploitation of capitalist, colonial, and imperialist systems and Zionists, increased day by day. The bodies of women became more and more enslaved to the government, and population control and family planning programs were transformed from an economic and social issue to an Islamic one, similar to all other aspects that had been transformed in this way since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution: economy, family, government, society, university

Two.

Because the goals of population policies in the Islamic Republic have never been defined based on socio-economic conditions, understanding these seasonal changes (whether in population reduction programs or population increase) is easy, because the origin and phenomenology of population control in the Islamic Republic has never been based on what is pursued in other countries. In other words, in developed societies, population control policies are designed based on goals and outcomes, and issues such as resource scarcity, income, reduction of labor statistics, etc. are among the priorities for reviewing population increase programs. The roots of population policies in the Islamic Republic are still ideological, and in every period when ideological perspectives become a concern for rulers and officials, such programs are put on the agenda.

The ideological approach to childbearing in the Islamic Republic has resulted in there being no consistent incentives for it, except in recent times, and it changes in each period depending on the political situation. For example, during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, when oil revenues reached four hundred and ninety-four billion dollars, the incentive for childbearing was limited to a short period of time and a small amount of one million tomans. However, this move was able to temporarily elevate his populist slogans in his competition with other political rivals.

Three.

The Islamic Republic system has been constantly faced with ideological collapse among the lower classes of society from December 1977 until today. The oppressed, who once filled the ranks of Friday prayers and proudly displayed their victorious fingers in long election lines for the cameras of state television, have come to realize since 1977 that they are no longer the beneficiaries of the high inflation and minimum wages. Not only are they no longer the beneficiaries, but their descent into poverty is a direct result of embezzlement by government officials and their cronies.

The reduction of this level of social credit and the separation of a large portion of the population who had been shocked by the peaceful protest of going to the ballot box in 1400, prompted the system to move towards presenting plans and projects for increasing the population by clinging to statistics and reports related to population projections and aging, etc. These plans, with the help of financial incentives such as housing, land, cars, increased subsidies, various loans, etc., can be used to populate the “newly arrived” class; the same needs that the disadvantaged class had come to the streets to obtain.

The Islamic Consultative Assembly is currently welcoming and promoting initiatives such as “Excellence of the Family”. As an example, despite having industries such as oil, gas, petrochemicals, customs, etc., the province of Khuzestan has the highest rate of immigration among all provinces in the country, with a five percent higher unemployment rate than the national average.

It seems that what is in the agenda of the government is not plans for increasing the population for the well-being of families, but rather population control for the formation of a loyal foot soldier system that intends to once again bring the streets and homes under its control with government economic incentives in the future.