Those comrades who are active in the sector of youth or concerned with its affairs . . . should recognize its importance and appreciate the significance of the words: “Win the young and safeguard the future”.
Development of political attitudes in 1930's Iraq, an ex-province of the Ottoman Empire, led Arab nationalists to reorient their thinking from “the Western tradition of Natural Law and rationalism” to that of “the Third Reich.” Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq, Saddam’s Iraq: Revolution or Reaction? 91 (1986) (quoting Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism: A Critical Inquiry 100 (Marion Farouk-Sluglett & Peter Sluglett eds. & trans. 1981)). This philosophical shift occurred as the Ba’th Socialist Party was beginning its formative development. Cf. id. at 92.
In the first year of Ba’th Socialist Saddam Hussein’s control of Iraq, Hussein apparently synthesized the state socialization tenets of previous totalitarian regimes:
Perhaps you have no opportunity to ask yourself . . . what makes the youth the centre of so much attention in young countries and especially those which are working hard to change their present state for a better future by unconventional means, namely by revolutionary means? . . . Why all this emphasis on youth, while not forgetting the role of every other sector in the new construction of society . . . ?
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. . . [W]e find it inadequate to give the young the same kind of general attention given to society at large. To enable our youth to participate actively in the transformation process, we must . . . allocate for them a special programme in addition to the general one. . . . . With the correct fashioning of our youth as a result of this approach, we shall safeguard the future and ensure [their] full utilisation . . . in the service of revolutionary aims.
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. . . The ability of the young to develop in response to the new ideas and principles of the transformation process is much greater . . .
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. . . [W]e must act speedily to stop all elements from adding to the foundations of the anti-revolutionary forces, whether in the form of action or intellect. The best method for doing so is to . . . [w]in the young in order to stop new factors from strengthening the foundations of the counter-revolution . . . .
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. . . [W]hen we win the young we leave nothing substantial to the others.
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. . . [T]he care of the young can only be effected by elements that are competent educationally, intellectually, and practically.
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Those who work among the young must be known for their experience and ability to win over the masses. Each one of them must be a psychologist so as to be able to tell when to speak and how to win over his listeners . . . . This is a matter which has a special relevance to work among youth.
The subsequent development of citizens depends to a large extent on their formation during their youth.
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How do we choose personnel for work among the youth? We must put the required specifications in regard to their age, education, morality and the Party’s standard.
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In order to lead, you must convince the people that you are leading that you are just, even when acting severely in matters which call for severity.
Upon assuming the presidency, Hussein stated that “‘the youth have no social awareness or political affinities’” and “‘therefore the Party and the State should be their family, their father and their mother.’” Efraim Karsh & Inari Rautsi, Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography 176-77 (1991) (footnote omitted). Saddam Hussein implemented his philosophy by enacting “[l]aws for . . . compulsory education . . . including imprisonment for all those who failed to attend classes.” Id. at 91.
Drawing upon his careful study of the Ottoman Empire (which targeted Armenians, Kurds, and other minority groups), and National Socialist Germany (which targeted Jews, Gypsies, and others), Saddam used the Iraqi education system to cleanse and suppress both the Kurdish minority and the Shiite Muslim majority. He controlled and terrorized parents by holding their children hostage and by teaching students to spy upon their elders. Saddam’s educational system proved to be effective at suppression, but it devastated the human intellectual capital of Iraq.
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