24.10.2007
Lies and confusion
After the exclusion of Hands Off the People of Iran campaign, along with Communist Students, from the Stop the War Coalition some quick-thinking members of the Socialist Workers Party decided to defend the expulsions on the social networking site, Facebook. Chris Strafford reports
After the exclusion of Hands Off the People of Iran campaign, along with Communist Students, from the Stop the War Coalition some quick-thinking members of the Socialist Workers Party decided to defend the expulsions on the social networking site, Facebook. Not through honest, open discussion, but lies and slanderous attacks against Iranian comrades and the legitimacy of Hopi.
In a discussion between supporters of Hopi in Manchester and the SWP there has been a lot of bullshit thrown around. Most of the time the SWP comrades did not know what they were talking about, so resorted to making it up as they went along.
An early example of how well the SWP members grasped the intricacies of the discussion was when Andrew Cunningham (campaigns officer at University of Manchester) managed to confuse the CPGB with Andrew Murray's Communist Party of Britain by declaring: "CPGB is a Stalinist party. Furthermore, what Murray said is true. Hopi was launched in the Morning Star in direct opposition to Stop the War Coalition." He later told me in the students union that he received a Hopi leaflet in Manchester with the shah's logo on it.
An equally inaccurate charge was then thrown at Hopi by Dominic Kavakeb (SWP): "Just to say Hopi was not set up by Iranian exiles at all. It was set up by white English people who think they have the right to tell the Iranian people what to do - incidentally they don't." Hanif Leylabi (SWP) spewed the same crap. Until we provided them with internet links to Hopi's site. They went somewhat quiet on the issue after that. If they looked beyond what was being said by a Stalinist and their own SWP, they would clearly see it was jointly set up with exiles from and around Workers Left Unity Iran and Rahe Kagar.
During the discussion we pointed out that STWC and Campaign Iran are soft on the Tehran regime. We were called liars but just look at what the SWP's Lindsey German writes on her blog: "Iran, which has seen in the past week real elections (where the president's supporters did badly) and real protests against the president, is back up there as part of the axis of evil." She clearly thinks that the arrest, beating, imprisonment and execution of Iranian trade unionists, women's activists and gays is okay, so long as the regime claims its elections were fair - even though candidates are vetted by the regime and a whole range of opponents prevented from standing.
Another lie was that the Iranian people are uniting around the regime, "because their opposition to imperialism is more important than to their government" (Dominic Kavakeb). I doubt he will read much about the struggles in Iran on the Campaign Iran website or even in Socialist Worker. He should try looking at Iran Bulletin or Rahe Kargar and he would soon realise that the regime is coming up against serious opposition from students, women and workers pretty much across the whole country.
Comrade Kavakeb later said he knew a woman who was a member of Hopi who was "also a Tory and shah supporter". Well, if a Tory supporter of the shah really has signed up to Hopi, she must be just about as confused as some SWP comrades.