26.07.2006

Don't desert them

'No to war, no to repression' is an open letter by Iranian student leaders in opposition to both imperialist aggression and the oppression of the islamic regime. Two were recently arrested. Mehdi Kia of Iran Bulletin/Middle East Forum introduces it with a discussion of its background and the solidarity tasks of the left

History repeats itself - the first time as tragedy and the second time as catastrophe.

For the second time imperialist designs on an Iran ruled by an islamic regime (which itself was instrumental in brutally destroying every truly anti-imperialist force in the essentially anti-imperialist Iranian revolution) has caused utter confusion in sections of the left. For the second time many of those who are the natural allies of the struggling people of Iran are preparing to desert them - in the vain pursuit of a phantom anti-imperialism.

As the US and its allies prepare for another colonial conquest, the workers, the women, the youth of Iran, the natural forces of a genuine anti-imperialist resistance against the war clouds gathering over Iran, are being ignored by a significant section of progressive opinion and progressive forces outside the country - both Iranian and non-Iranian.

In article after article, meeting after meeting, the proto-fascist religious regime governing the country - complete with its storm troopers and 'brownshirt' equivalent (the million-strong Basij militia) - is presented as a force that can withstand the imperial onslaught. When the actual struggles of a significant section of the people of Iran are not actively being maligned - echoing the official Iranian position of being in league with, or dupes of, foreign intelligence networks - they are simply ignored as a nuisance.

A significant section of what calls itself the Iranian left and a tragically large part of the left outside Iran's borders seem to have lost their political senses. It is as if the left is so paralysed by its own apparent weakness, that it is totally blinded to its strengths. It seems to have forgotten the very basis of its own identity - that its strength lies in supporting, organising, propelling the everyday struggle of the people and working class for their democratic rights, for control of their own destiny, against exploitation, for freedom from poverty and need.

Let us see what the people of Iran are actually fighting for:

l Women have been organising for basic gender equality, and against sexual apartheid - and numerous discriminations in everyday matters, not least in law. Issues they have to deal with every day, day after day. A recent announcement made it a criminal offence, punishable by 70 lashes, not to observe the "strict female covering" (sharia hijab), a tightening of the law. In a football-mad country, women cannot even watch a match. They do not even have the right to custody of their own children. One recent rally addressing some of these limitations was brutally suppressed by security forces.

l Workers are fighting for unpaid wages, against mass lay-offs and unemployment, for the basic minimum living conditions currently denied them. They are demanding independent unions - the Tehran bus drivers' union was savagely repressed and its leaders are still in jail after six months.

l The student movement, which was crushed after the street protests of six years ago, is on the rise. Its leaders are regularly harassed and arrested.

l The Azeri Turks, Kurds, Baluchi, and Arab ethnic minorities are demanding their right to speak and be educated in their own language; and taking a stand against ethnic discrimination and a system of ethnic apartheid. They have been attacked, shot at, arrested and executed.

Encouragingly, all these movements are slowly beginning to see themselves as part of a common struggle.

Are these not the struggles with which we, the left, have identified over the last one and a half centuries? Have we, the left, lost our way so much that we have forgotten why we are anti-imperialist? Is it not because imperialism enslaves? Then how can the left even imagine for an instant that a regime that enslaves its people can be 'anti-imperialist'? How can those who profess to being progressive ally themselves with the most regressive forces in the Middle East? Will such a short-sighted and totally absurd policy not merely hand over these nascent movements for freedom into the eager hands of those same imperialist forces we profess to oppose?

If there was a policy destined to fail utterly, this is it. Just as it failed the last time around - sending tens of thousands of the best sons and daughters of Iran to the firing squads and gallows in the early 1980s.

The argument put by these analysts revolves round a few mantras: 'The Iranian regime is capable of reform.' 'The Iranian people have rallied round the populist regime.' 'We must focus on the greater evil of US imperial designs.' And 'We must not play into US hands by seeming to be of the same voice' ...

Well, a regime that believes in the absolute primacy of divine law is fundamentally incapable of accepting the right of people to legislate, unless this is imposed on it from below. A reform movement within the islamic regime is a mirage. The utter collapse of the reform movement, symbolised by the landslide presidential vote against Mohammad Khatami, is living proof of the immutability of the islamic regime.

And, yes, the people of Iran may in part have been frightened into pulling back - but the fear results from the abyss being prepared for it in Washington and other capitals, and the bludgeon of repression being rained on it by the islamic regime at home. And the absurd and discredited notion of the 'lesser of two evils' merely perpetuates and strengthens both evils - which, incidentally, feed off one another.

But the spirit of freedom is never far below the surface in Iran - witness the numerous mass movements for democracy over the last century, beginning with the revolution of 1905, followed by the movement for democracy, leading to the nationalisation of oil in the 1950s and the anti-dictatorial revolution of 1979, brutally hijacked by the dark forces of Khomeini.

This open letter by elected leaders of some student unions is an example of the struggles that are going on, and the clear-sighted views expressed by the youth of the country. If only the many pundits and leaders of the left thought so clear-sightedly!

The student movement has come a long way from when it was a mouthpiece for the mullahs. Today's discourse is equally directed against the US imperialists and the anti-democratic rulers of the country. They see correctly that the islamic regime is the other side of the coin to imperialist aggression. Both are reactionary. Both are poison for the Iranian people. And both feed off one another. Without the antics of the Iranian regime, would the US and its allies find it so easy to mobilise for an attack on the country? There is a clear anti-war message in this letter - the movement in the west must take heed.