Talk:Plastic key to paradise

a whole page based on a claim of an NYtimes reporter ?
way to go Sarmadys (talk) 06:09, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

This is just a ridiculous article right now
From it's Random Capitalization to how it's only presents pro-Khomeini arguments (including from something titled "Khomeini's Search for Perfection"), without relating any of the original claims, or even who and where and when made them.

Here's a few claims:
 * http://bostonreview.net/archives/BR32.6/milani.php (by Abbas Milani)
 * https://books.google.pl/books?id=NkxZcHL1xdYC&pg=PA42 (by Ronen Bergman)
 * https://books.google.pl/books?id=seS-0JTykgoC&pg=PA447 (by Richard Landes)
 * https://books.google.pl/books?id=etS4WrHQ3okC&pg=PA60 (by Efraim Karsh)
 * https://books.google.pl/books?id=wJVtAAAAMAAJ (by Farid Khavari)
 * https://books.google.pl/books?id=748gQV5W_S8C (by Mansur Rafizadeh)
 * Khomeini's Boys (a BBC docu)
 * https://books.google.pl/books?id=PGiA6KkQErQC&pg=PA17 (from also BBC's Richard Staples)
 * https://www.rferl.org/a/Commentary_How_Schoolchildren_Are_Brainwashed_In_Iran/2054304.html

Also the keys were actually sometimes described as metal not "plastic" to begin with. And as issued to volunteer children of the Basj militia, not the regulars (the article's "Iranian soldiers"). SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 13:38, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Is this even legitimate or Atrocity Propaganda
There's just something really weird about the whole nature of this. While I do know that they most likely used people in human wave attacks and did use people to clear mines but the entire 'Plastic Keys To Heaven' thing sounds really fake to me. There are little to no accounts from veterans who fought in the war, let alone any photographs which have surfaced of the keys. I feel as if this was some sort of atrocity propaganda the Iraqis circulated that has somehow re-surfaced.

I think the reality was that they were issued a prayer book called Mafatih al-Janan and some reporter thought they were literal keys to heaven, so he put that in an article (and because of US anti-Iranian sentiment going on people believed it). Let alone the lack of primary sources and images.

TuaamWiki (talk) 24:05, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Response too above argument proposed by TuaamWiki
This topic is presented by primary sources. A good example is the widely-read book Persopolis, part of the curriculum of many (Atleast my) Highschool(s). There is a BBC documentary called "Kohmeinis Boys" (Or something similar) that mentions it. It is also not an unreasonable thing too imagine, when you consider the time-frame of the Iran-Iraq war and it being proclaimed as a "Holy war". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.120.81.94 (talk) 16:57, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Response to above comment
Well, I checked around and besides the Iranian-Exile movie and Persepolis (the latter is exaggerated in some instances, specifically the keys), there are truly no pictures of these plastic keys, and so I believe completely that it's a mistranslated to an actual Shia prayer book called 'keys to heaven', which was issued to soldiers as well as plastic identification cards.

Also, this quora post about it (not to be used as actual citation): https://www.quora.com/Is-there-really-any-basis-for-the-Plastic-Keys-to-Heaven-fact-that-people-reported-during-the-Iran-Iraq-war. I would recommend removing the Persepolis link because while it is an account it isn't necessarily historically accurate.

EDIT: To also further iterate, the Iran-Iraq war wasn't always a holy war. In the early stages, it was purely an Iranian defense against the Iraqi invaders, and of course eventually it became a 'holy war', but that was on the later stages of the Iranian offensive from 1984 - 1988.

Personally, I've seen plenty of accounts from people on the internet (people who actually fought in the war) and none of them remember the Plastic Keys. Nor are there shrines in Iran specifically dedicated to the children or to the artifacts themselves. In Iran, you'll find graveyards with pictures of martyrs often aged 18 - 20, and occasionally a younger teen but never a full graveyard of children. I believe that in truth, it's bullshit. I've looked through tons of Iran-Iraq footage, studied the war for about a year and besides the same newspapers being referenced there is virtually no photo evidence of them existing.

On the subject of Persepolis using it, Persepolis isn't a historical textbook stating the actual facts of the war, it's well known that one or two things in the book are exaggerated for entertainment purposes. While I don't doubt that her story is true, it's pretty obvious she put in one or two things for exaggeration's sake.

I think we should probably just delete the article because It reeks of atrocity propaganda. The US very well said that the Iranians gassed kurds when it was truly the Iraqis which did it, and while the Iranian government is no pure angel there's a difference between something that's true which the government did and something that they clearly did not did. You want to know what they really did? Mass purges of the military, killing anyone who politically stood against the government, regressing certain rights of the people, making themselves a social pariah for 8 years.

The Plastic Keys argument makes the validity of those soldiers which indeed defended their home country doubtful, and I think that's a rather distasteful thing to do, because in the end they were still combating Iraqi aggression which was wrongly applied against their country.

TuaamWiki (talk) 1:02, 27 June 2019 (UTC)