WeeklyWorker

Democracy & State > Political Islam

None of the above

07 Jun 2012

Calling on Egyptians to vote for the Muslim Brotherhood is insane, argues Paul Demarty

The killing of Mahsa

22 Sep 2022

Yassamine Mather says the imposition of the ‘full hijab’ by the Gasht-e Ershad morality police is a class issue. Richer Iranian women, the well-connected, have little to fear

Messianic colonialism

09 Jun 2022

Religious ideology and nationalist ideology have a unique interrelationship; after all, even secular Zionists have to justify their ongoing colonial project with reference to a god they do not believe in. However, as Moshé Machover shows, it is the religious Zionists of the far right who are increasingly setting the agenda, not least by staging all manner of highly dangerous provocations

Bitter fruit of imperialism

04 Nov 2021

Islamist jihadism is a modern, not an ancient, phenomenon. Yassamine Mather looks at causes, social roots and terrible consequences

Honouring the victims

14 Oct 2021

On October 9 a group of Iranian revolutionaries, now mainly based in North America and Europe, organised an online meeting to commemorate the 1988 massacre of political prisoners. Among the speakers were Yassamine Mather, Shahin Chitsaz and Mike Macnair

Media muddle

23 Sep 2021

Yes, they are deeply reactionary, writes Yassamine Mather. But they have learnt to survive, adapt and win

Rightwing hopes dashed

16 Sep 2021

After the scuttle from Afghanistan, reality is finally sinking in for the royalist, cultist and paid-for ‘regime change’ advocates, writes Yassamine Mather

Mirror images of terror

16 Sep 2021

Al Qa’eda wanted to provoke, the US neocons wanted to be provoked. The result has been a whole series of failed states, writes Eddie Ford

Reruns and failures

09 Sep 2021

Eddie Ford is unsurprised by America’s failure to get a smooth, South Africa-type transition of power

No longer a US problem

02 Sep 2021

Undoubtedly the region’s powers see opportunities with the Americans gone, but mostly they see dangers. Yassamine Mather looks at the prospects now that the Taliban are back in Kabul

Surviving against all the odds

12 Aug 2021

Why are the leaders of the Islamic Republic still looking so confident? The answer lies in the dismal failures of the global hegemon, argues Yassamine Mather

Centrality of class independence

12 Aug 2021

Khomeini and the clergy completely outmanoeuvred the left. But it need not have been that way. In his second and concluding article on the role of oil workers in the 1979 revolution, Peyman Jafari stresses the complex nature of ideology and class consciousness

The Imam, the strikers and the black, black oil

05 Aug 2021

There are rich lessons for today in the experiences of the oil strikes of 1978. In the first of two articles Peyman Jafari charts the incredibly difficult struggle for organisation, hegemony and strategy

Looking back over the ruins

15 Jul 2021

The final withdrawal of American troops must be put in the context of the April 1978 revolution and the subsequent reaction. The USA and Saudi Arabia armed, financed and promoted a counterrevolution, which included Osama bin Laden and al Qa’eda and ended in the triumph of the Taliban. This is an edited version of an article written by Jack Conrad and first published in June 2003. Its main target is Sean Matgamna, patriarch of the social-imperialist Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. Nowadays, the AWL describes the Taliban as “Islamo-fascist”; back then, though, they were “our kind of people”

Same old, same old

24 Jun 2021

The election of Ebrahim Raisi hardly signals a major change, writes Yassamine Mather. Yet, while the left remains confused, opposition to the regime is palpable

Highlights of ‘democracy’

17 Jun 2021

Not only are the candidates useless: the pundits are worse. Yassamine Mather reports on the presidential election campaign, as it enters its closing straight

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