Presidential advisor comments on rush for Pashaii’s funeral

TEHRAN -- Presidential advisor Seyyed Reza Salehi-Amiri has commented on the rush to participate in the funeral of Iranian pop singer Morteza Pashaii, who died two weeks ago at 30 after battling cancer.

 

A crowd of over 30,000 people, most of them youths, attended Pashaii’s funeral procession, which began at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall. The rush for the ceremony has been in the limelight over the past two weeks. 

 

“One of the most important points in this issue is the unpredictable nature of Iranian people,” said Salehi-Amiri, who is also the director of the National Library and Archives of Iran, in a press conference on Tuesday.

 

“This event also showed that our society and the new generation have a need for social vibrancy and a mechanism to let them release their energy,” he added.

 

He lamented Iranian social experts’ inability to give a proper analysis about the issue and said that there should be no worry about the formation of social gatherings for different purposes.

 

Salehi-Amiri said, “The cultural taste of our society has changed and we need to be familiarized with informal cultural issues and to analyze them.

 

“The social networks should be recognized and of course they should be channelized. The most important function of the networks is to change an atomized society into a socially integrated community.

 

“Consequently, Iranian society has shifted from political areas to social issues. So, during the splendid ceremony, we did not witness any protest or hear any intense mottos. But they wanted to express this request: ‘I want to live’. There is no reason to consider the gathering a protest. It was only a movement conveying a message – the message of life.” 

 

MMS/YAW

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