22.03.2007
Solidarity with Iran needs a fight on two fronts
Last week, tens of thousands of Iranian teachers went on strike, demanding an increase in their miserable wages and the resignation of the education minister. In Tehran over a thousand were arrested. Tina Becker also reports on the efforts of the Hands Off the People of Iran campaign to get more organisations involved
The Iranian teachers' strike received widespread solidarity from the workers' movement internationally. There were many resolutions and emails. This is very much welcomed by comrades in Iran. It gives courage and shows that they are not alone. Although most of those arrested in Tehran were released on the same day, the state's crackdown was meant as a warning sign to the growing democratic movement in Iran.
Clearly, the Iranian workers' and democratic movements have not been fooled into siding with their own repressive regime - despite the threat of an imminent US attack or even a nuclear strike. Naturally, most of the demonstrating teachers are against any form of imperialist intervention. After all, it will be they, their spouses, children, cousins, parents, brothers and sisters who would suffer. But nor will they be bullied into supporting the butcher at home.
In other words, the democratic and workers' movement in Iran is already showing us what kind of solidarity movement they need: one that opposes and fights against both the plans of the imperialists and the repressive islamic regime. These are exactly the campaigning slogans of the steadily growing Hands Off the People of Iran campaign, which now enjoys the support of 10 organisations and many individuals (see www.hopoi.org for details).
But, unfortunately, our efforts to get more organisations involved has found a barrier in the political inadequacies of some on the British left.
On the one hand, there are the first campists of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, who cannot possibly support HOPOI because it campaigns for the immediate withdrawal of US-UK troops from the Middle East. On the other, there are those who think that, because HOPOI opposes the theocratic regime, it must be a "cover for imperialism".
Take Owen Jones, who is part of John McDonnell's campaign team and the leader of the Socialist Youth Network (in effect the youth organisation of the Labour Representation Committee). At the January 13 SYN conference, the comrade made sure a motion to support HOPOI was amended in a way that negated its purpose. He successfully moved to delete all references to HOPOI on the basis that it was a "CPGB front" (see Weekly Worker January 18). Iranian comrades who are playing a leading role in HOPOI will be interested to hear that.
Thankfully, comrade McDonnell himself does not seem to suffer from this type of sectarianism. In reply to our request to sign up, he had no hesitation in doing so. He was sent a link to the full HOPOI statement, plus a brief outline of the campaign's purpose: ie, to "oppose any attack on Iran and at the same time give solidarity to the fight of the Iranian people against that repressive regime".
This obviously infuriated Owen Jones. In reply to an email posting by a CPGB comrade on facebook.com, he demanded that McDonnell's name to be taken off the supporters' list. He claims that this seasoned politician did not know what he was doing: "What he agreed to sign was the statement against repression - which he's more than happy to do as a dedicated campaigner against such repression. However, that's as far as it goes."
Clearly, this incident must be deeply embarrassing for comrade McDonnell. Is McDonnell in charge of his own leadership campaign, or is it Owen Jones who is running the show? Who, if anyone, told Owen Jones to issue this demand that McDonnell's name be taken off the HOPOI supporters list? Is McDonnell his own man, or is Owen Jones out of control and shooting his mouth off? The movement should be told. After all McDonnell is running to become the next prime minister. And Iran matters.
If John McDonnell really wanted to withdraw his name, surely he would have the integrity, the honesty, to simply write to the campaign directly and explain his reasons. We refuse to believe that he would use someone like Owen Jones to duck out of taking a clear and principled position on an issue as crucial as Iran.
The whole left would gain if McDonnell was able to get the necessary 44 MPs backing him to become a candidate for the Labour leadership. But it would be a matter of grave concern if comrade McDonnell were not able to support the struggle for democracy and socialism in Iran because of the perverted 'anti-imperialism' of comrades such as Owen Jones.
In the same facebook.com entry, comrade Jones can be found accusing HOPOI of being in the "long ignominious tradition of 'left' covers for imperialism". This is the sort of charge that has often been used on the left to excuse the indefensible. It certainly cannot be down to HOPOI's inability to write plain English. HOPOI's two main slogans are 'No to imperialist war! No to the theocratic regime!' Clear enough, one would have thought. And completely principled.
But comrade Jones and his ilk believe that they are obliged as a matter of the highest duty to support whoever is attacked by imperialism. The enemy of imperialism that way becomes their friend and anyone who questions that perverted logic must thereby become a friend of imperialism.
Such a crazy political method is akin to not being able to fight on two front, or not being able to walk and talk at the same time. HOPOI can and must. It speaks out against any threat of military intervention or sanctions. At the same time it stands alongside the peoples of Iran in their struggle against the theocracy.
Funnily enough, an organisation that could genuinely be accused of consistently providing a cover for imperialism - the Alliance for Workers' Liberty - is also determined to keep its distance from HOPOI.
Sacha Ismail has been arguing that the AWL-dominated student campaign Education Not for Sale (ENS) should not support the campaign: "I don't, speaking for myself, think it is a good idea to sign the statement, since I think it has been drafted in such a way that it excludes those who want to support Iranian workers, etc, oppose US imperialism, but differ on some specific slogans (eg, immediate withdrawal of all troops from the Gulf)", he writes on the ENS email discussion list and later stupidly asks: "Why has the HOPOI campaign been set up in such a way as to exclude those who oppose imperialism but don't favour calling for immediate withdrawal?"
Because, Sacha, you cannot possibly oppose imperialism in any real, meaningful way if at the same time you ascribe to its troops some kind of progressive role in 'keeping the peace' in Iraq. Your alleged opposition to imperialism becomes nothing more than empty posturing. A minority in the AWL has started to understand that, but it is obviously still beyond our Sacha.
Taking the opposite point of view - opposing imperialist intervention, but dumbing down all criticism of those in the imperialists' sights such as the Iranian regime - is the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (Casmii, successor of the Socialist Workers Party-run Action Iran). Casmii almost exclusively concentrates on "opposing sanctions, foreign state interference and military intervention in Iran" (mission statement) and even feels the need to point out that it is "independent of all political groups and governments, in particular the Iranian government" (just in case you were wondering). In previous debates with Action Iran, CPGB members have been told that we should not criticise the Iranian regime, as this would "give ammunition to George Bush".
Paradoxically, then, in view of the SWP's support for the line of both Action Iran and Casmii - ie, effectively acting as apologists for Tehran - Socialist Worker has now published an article which has a rather more principled position. Naz Massoumi (previously billed as a supporter of Action Iran and presumably a member of the SWP) finishes a report on the teachers' strike with the transparently correct statement that "the anti-war movement in the west has a key role to play in offering solidarity to the Iranian people, while resisting any attempt by rightwingers to use their struggles to justify a murderous military attack on the country" (March 24).
Are we maybe witnessing some kind of a conversion? Mike Gonzales, one of the SWP's leading members in Scotland, was, after all, one of the first to sign up to HOPOI's statement. Well, there's always hoping "¦ More likely, though, the comrades will fall back into their usual position of siding with their enemy's enemy, if bombs start falling on Tehran.