ISFAHAN, Iran — Protesters in the Iranian town of Varzaneh clashed with police this week after more than a month of demonstrations against the government’s diversion of water from central Isfahan Province to other regions.
Witnesses used social media to report that dozens were injured in the clashes with authorities and many were arrested.
The protesters say that a pipeline is diverting water from the Zayandehrood River and is leaving their area parched.
The protests reportedly first turned violent on February 27 after demonstrators damaged the pipeline.
“The Labour Representation Committee is an affiliate of Hands Off the People of Iran and I call on others to support its important work. With the war drums beating again in the Middle East and the imperialist pressure on the working people of Iran growing daily, principled international solidarity is vital.
Hopi is at the forefront of that activity and deserves the backing of activists and organisations in our movement”
Yassamine Mather reports on the chaos that is the Islamic Republic
Another victim of the regime’s priorities
In Iran, presidential elections are looming, the economy is in freefall, the public hanging of small-time criminals is creating an atmosphere of terror, repression is worsening and workers are protesting throughout the country. There are unconfirmed reports of an explosion at the Fordo uranium enrichment plant and the infighting between factions of the regime is shown live on state-owned TV. Meanwhile, Israel has bombed a military facility in Syria, claiming it is used by Iranian Islamic guards, and civil war is breaking out in Iraq, Iran’s main Shia ally. Finally, the country’s aerospace agency has sent a monkey into space! All in all, as far as Iranians are concerned, it has been an eventful start to 2013.
A combination of sanctions and endemic economic mismanagement has resulted in a constant fall of the country’s currency, the rial. The Iranian press and media blamed “leadership confusion at Iran’s Central Bank”1 for the latest drop in the exchange rate. However, this fall is a continuation of a general trend. According to official statistics, the dollar was worth 33,000 rials on January 20, 36,250 rials on January 23 and 40,000 rials on January 31.2 As late as 2006, the exchange rate was 11,000 rials to the dollar.
Iran is failing to extract and sell sufficient amounts of oil, its major export, and sanctions are really beginning to take their toll, but the political elite are engulfed in a bitter internecine struggle, further eroding confidence in the future of the Shia Republic. The pious leaders of the religious state are busy converting their fortunes, often accumulated through corruption, into foreign currency and there is considerable speculative selling by clerics and high-ranking government officials, who see spiralling inflation devaluing their assets. The government has responded to the latest currency crisis by arresting money traders in Tehran and other major cities, but the reality is that senior ayatollahs and government officials – the main culprits, as far as the flight of capital and savings is concerned – do not use small traders: their currency exchanges are via banks and major corporations.
The governor of Iran’s Central Bank, Mahmoud Bahmani, an ally of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed he was investigating such transactions, when news agencies reported on January 20 that he had “resigned with immediate effect”.3 However, Ahmadinejad refused to accept the resignation and the next day Bahmani was sacked for making improper withdrawals from client accounts.4 All this was part of a major power struggle between Ahmadinejad and the ‘principlist conservatives’, both sides accusing each other of massive corruption. Allah’s first Shia government on earth has turned out to be one the most corrupt.
On February 3, German police arrested an Iranian man carrying a cheque issued by a Venezuelan bank worth €54 million. According to the weekly Bild am Sonntag, he was the former head of Iran’s Central Bank, Tahmasb Mazaheri, who was in charge until 2008.5 Only a few days later, and in retaliation for accusations against his appointees, Ahmadinejad used a live broadcast from the majles (Islamic parliament) to show a video allegedly proving the corruption of his arch-rivals, the four Larijani brothers. The Iranian president was trying to prevent the impeachment of the labour minister, claiming the majles speaker, Ali Larijani, was part of a corrupt clique. Despite the president’s efforts, MPs voted by 192 to 56 to impeach the minister for appointing Saeed Mortazavi, an Ahmadinejad supporter, as head of social security.
Mortazavi is a former prosecutor of the Revolutionary Islamic Courts who had been dismissed in 2009 following accusations of torturing prisoners. In 2010 the Iranian parliament published the findings of an investigation into the death of protestors arrested following the 2009 presidential elections. The report identified Mortazavi as responsible for the death of three political prisoners at Kahrizak detention centre and the abuse of dozens of others. By February 5 Mortazavi was in prison awaiting another trial!
While defending his temporarily rehabilitated ally, the Iranian president played a video which “showed Fazel Larijani, a younger brother of the speaker, negotiating with Mr Mortazavi over a deal to benefit from the sale of companies affiliated to the Social Security Organisation, while also asking for a 600 or 700 sq m villa.”6 Larijani senior accused Ahmadinejad of “immorality”, “mafia” behaviour and plotting to “blackmail critics”.7
The Larijani brothers are considered to be the most loyal political allies of the supreme leader, ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and, according to rumour, Khamenei would like to see one of them as the next president. Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani is head of Iran’s judiciary, another brother was deputy foreign secretary and a fourth is a diplomat. Ahmadinejad and his supporters often refer to the Larijanis as the “smuggler brothers”.
This latest infighting between the president and the ‘principlists’ is particularly significant in that it indicates the decline in the authority of the supreme leader. Less than two weeks ago he called on both sides to stop insulting each other “at a time when the nation faces serious external threats”. The fact that his advice was so blatantly ignored by the factions of the regime is in itself an indication of the severity of the current political crisis. Khamenei showed his disapproval of Ahmadinejad’s antics by refusing to send his representative to the airport when the president flew to Cairo.
But the week was only ever going to get worse for Ahmadinejad. On February 5 in Cairo, a shoe was flung at him in a mosque and one of Sunni Islam’s most senior clerics, Ahmed al-Tayyeb, publicly criticised Shia Islam, warning the Iranian president not to interfere in the internal affairs of Sunni states. The “spread of Shi’ism in Sunni lands” must be halted.8
Devastating
As the rival factions squabble about who has stolen what from state coffers, the Iranian working class is suffering unprecedented hardship. Iran imports most of its basic food items and this weekend the price of chicken rose by 23%, while rice and eggs were 37% and 23% higher than last week. There is no doubt that sanctions are biting hard and hitting workers and the poor. The minister of industry, mines and trade, Mehdi Ghazanfari, said the aim was “to paralyse our economy and to put people under pressure and in distress”.9 In early January, MP Gholam Reza Kateb, a leading member of the national planning and budget committee, admitted the whole economy was in trouble, as oil revenues have fallen around 45% in the last nine months because of western sanctions.10 Last month, Iran was forced to stop selling fuel to a number of airlines because of shortages.
This year, those lucky enough to have a full-time job will earn wages ranging between $240 and $320 a month, yet the official poverty line is set at $800. Many economists believe the recent monthly inflation rate is around 70%. So hyperinflation, mass unemployment and low wages for the employed and underemployed have created conditions where a majority of Iranians live in misery and have great difficulty putting food on the table. Iranian officials claim there has been an unprecedented increase in crime.
A recent report by the Majles Research Commission summarises the devastating situation: production fell by 40% between October 2011 and October 2012, while employment fell by 36% in the same period. The commission was set up to investigate the effects of sanctions and found that 566 industrial and service sector companies had closed down since March 2012. According to the executive secretary of Isfahan’s labour office, “Some employers, thinking that difficulties are short-lived and will be resolved in the near future, did wait for several months before cutting down their labour force. But now the continued chaos and fluctuations mean they have to either shut down their facilities completely or decrease their workforce considerably … the rate of lay-offs in production facilities will increase daily and [become] a worrying trend in the whole society.”11
Such an economic climate allows unscrupulous employers to factor in non-payment of wages as part of their economic calculations. Many Iranian workers have not been paid for months, but in several sectors they have started protesting. In January, factory workers in Saveh resumed their strike demanding back-payment of six months wages. Steel workers also went on strike, but ended their protest after management promised to pay one month of what they were owed. The following day, these workers took their protests to the offices of the local governor. In December, thousands of workers at the Fajr Petrochemical factory in Mahshahr were on strike in protest at the lack of job security. Their banner read: “We are hungry. We haven’t been paid for 22 months.” In the same province, hundreds of miners were facing job losses, as the government failed to pay for coal it had purchased.
The government’s response to the protests has been to increase repression. Labour activists arrested in July 2012 have just been handed long prison sentences, while at least 14 journalists were detained last week after security forces raided four newspapers. Several publications based in Tehran were closed down and the homes of individual journalists were searched, as authorities claimed they were working with spies based in the BBC’s Persian service. Leftwing students have also been arrested in Tabriz, while the January 20 public hanging of two petty criminals in a Tehran park was yet another attempt by the regime to impose an atmosphere of fear. The message is clear: no dissent will be tolerated. We don’t care about basic human rights and we care even less what others think. It has not escaped the attention of Iranians that, whereas the two executed men were guilty of stealing goods worth 70,000 tomans (less than £40), the former governor of Iran’s Central Bank, who had stolen millions, was free to leave the country with his €54 million cheque.
As plans for immediate military operations against Iran are put on hold, it is clear that the United States and Israel are relying on disintegration from within, in a country gripped by political infighting and facing economic meltdown. While rightwing opponents of the regime base their hopes on imperialist intervention, amongst all this chaos our solidarity remains with all those fighting for regime change from below – the Iranian working class, student and women activists – and with all those held in prison as a result.
In this respect, there is positive news: Fariborz Raisdana, a Marxist economist who has been held in Evin prison since early summer last year, has been sending out valuable material about the living conditions of imprisoned labour activists. He has set up a political economy study group, apparently very popular with young prisoners, much to the fury of ‘reformist’ politicians who are also being held in Evin.
Meanwhile, another working class prisoner, Shahrokh Zamani, a member of the Council of Representatives of Labour Organisations, has sent an optimistic letter from Gohardasht prison, entitled ‘It is now our turn – the turn of democratic governance and workers councils’. The letter explains how, in the face of a major economic crisis, capitalism has launched an attack on workers throughout the world, and Iran is no exception to this rule. Zamani points out that the Iranian working class should have no illusions about ‘reformists’ within the Islamic regime, nor should it seek alliances with ‘liberals’ outside it. Instead workers should rely on their own strength. He ends his letter with the clarion call: “Workers have no alternative but to unite and organise. Long live the political general strike. Long live the revolution.”
Although it is difficult to share Zamani’s optimism at a time when the Iranian working class is far from being politically and organisationally strong enough to fulfil such wishes, one must admire his courage and determination for issuing such a positive call in the midst of the chaos and despair that grips Iran.
Into space
It was amidst all this chaos that Iran’s space agency reported sending a monkey into space. The US and Israel were quick to point out that this represented a worrying extension of Iran’s missile technology: “Any space-launch vehicle capable of placing an object in orbit is directly relevant to the development of long-range ballistic missiles.”12
However, on the “darker side of the internet” (to quote the phrase of a certain London professor) users noticed that the photo of the monkey launched into space did not match that of the one returning. Some speculated that the rocket had left Earth, but failed to return, while others suggested that the first monkey must have sought political asylum in outer space. Ironically help came from the ‘great Satan’ in the shape of Harvard academic Jonathan McDowell, who identified the first monkey as one who died “during a failed space mission in 2011”.
Just to add to the tragicomic news coming form Iran, Ahmadinejad proposed on February 4 (the day after his humiliating exit from parliament) that he was willing to “risk his life” and become the first human to be sent into space as part of his country’s space programme.13 Returning again to the darker side of the internet, a Facebook page – ‘In support of sending Ahmadinejad into space’ – got over 1,000 ‘likes’ within minutes of being set up. Users have posted encouraging messages, such as: “We will accompany him to the launch platform. We will even pay for the shuttle’s fuel costs”.
On Wednesday January 9 three members of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), including Sakine Cansız, a founding member of the organisation, were murdered in Paris. There are many theories about who was behind the execution-style killings and most of them relate to conspiracies to derail the current talks between the PKK and Turkey.
It could be that hard-line nationalists or Islamists within the Turkish security forces were behind the murders, although it is far more likely that Iranian or Syrian security forces, anxious about recent progress in negotiations between the Kurdish group and the Turkish state, were responsible. Iran’s security forces have already killed a number of the regime’s opponents in France and got away with it. One thing is clear: whoever was responsible for the murder of the three Kurdish activists made it look like an internal execution. PKK supporters say that in death as in life. Sakine Cansız was an equal to any of the organisation’s men. Others might argue that the ‘macho militarist’ culture of the organisation had another victim.
Although she was a loyal supporter of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, she was no ‘yes woman’. There are unconfirmed reports that she had fallen out with the leadership in the past and that her partner, Mehmet Şener, was killed in the early 1990s as a result of PKK factional infighting. But she engaged in self-criticism and was rehabilitated. Former PKK members recount an incident in the 1990s when Öcalan made fun of prisoners who had just ended a hunger strike, saying: “They sold out the revolution for a bowl of shorba [soup]”. But Sakine, who had just been released from a 13-year prison sentence, stood up against the ‘leader’ and defended the prisoners. A courageous act that, according to the same reports, actually impressed Öcalan.
PKK supporters often claim that the large number of female fighters in their ranks is testimony to the group’s determination to fight patriarchy and Cansız is quoted as saying that that women’s participation in the PKK’s armed struggle was no “token gesture”.
Critics will point out that masculinisation of women in guerrilla organisations is no path to women’s liberation and in many ways I would not disagree with this view. Having said that, Sakine’s life and her commitment to socialism have lessons for all of us. I did not know her, but, reading about her life, I was struck by the similarities with the lives of so many of the Fedayeen women fighters in Kurdistan. I felt I had known her all my life. And in a week when British left politics has been dominated by allegations of sexism in the Socialist Workers Party, it could be that the successes and mistakes of some of the Middle East’s main radical left organisations have lessons for the challenges facing women activists in leftwing European organisations.
For all the PhD theses (usually written by men with little first-hand experience or knowledge of the Fedayeen) about the plight of women in the Organisation of the Iranian People’s Fedayeen, I maintain that my experience as a candidate member, member and full cadre of the OIPFG contradicts all the stereotypical accusations. I am not implying that a militarist organisation with confused politics had overcome sexism. However, given the patriarchal, religious backdrop of the first Islamic regime in the Middle East, or in the case of eastern Turkey, given the predominance of Islamic fundamentalism, the practises of the Fedayeen in the 1980s and the PKK reveal surprising achievements regarding women’s equality. I believe these advances were achieved because members of these organisations took their politics and their commitments to revolutionary change seriously and, despite the serious flaws in their political outlook, their organisational practice was superior to that of the radical left in Europe.
No amount of reading or quoting Engels or Kollontai, no repetition of standard texts about the dual exploitation of women, can help us deal with the current debate about sexism in the SWP. One can safely assume that left activists, and certainly members of the SWP central committee, are familiar with such texts – indeed they quote them regularly and, at least on paper, there is no major difference between the opponents of sexism on the left and those they accuse of sexism. That is why in trying to find answers we might do well by looking at the limited and indeed isolated achievements of the Fedayeen and PKK. Of course, it is perfectly legitimate to use the SWP fiasco to revisit the issue of sexism on the left, but the fact that this aspect has dominated internet discussions on the subject is regrettable – especially as we now have the Daily Mail lecturing us about ‘feminism’!
Of course, the specific conditions of leftwing military operations in the snowy mountains of Iran or Turkey cannot be duplicated. But it is important to establish what can be learnt from the positive and negative aspects of those experiences. This article is not concerned with the shambolic behaviour of the SWP’s CC in relation to allegations of rape (although I would say that sexism was not the cause of that particular problem – more the inevitable consequence of other shortcomings: a rudderless political outlook, lack of strategy, cronyism, and the absence of democracy). No, this article concerns the practices of the Middle Eastern left and the way those practices impact on women’s equality.
Membership
The Fedayeen imposed notoriously stringent membership conditions and, although these were often criticised by other groups, I do think the idea of recruiting ‘revolutionaries’ on the basis of a passing expression of sympathy on a demonstration or protest is far more ridiculous – unless one is only interested in membership quantity, as opposed to quality.
In order to become a member of the Fedayeen, a supporter with a reasonable understanding of its politics would have to pass one, preferably two, tests: emerging from jail with a ‘‘courageous prison record” and surviving a couple of cold winters in the battlegrounds of Kurdistan. These qualifications were obviously specific to a particular era in Iran. However, fighting capitalism in the 21st century is not a dinner party and it is certainly time for the organisations of the radical left to revisit their minimum conditions for membership. There must be happy medium between these two extremes.
Those that think they can build a serious organisation by distributing membership cards at various protests are badly mistaken. It is not surprising that members recruited on such a basis bring with them all sorts of retrograde predispositions or prejudices, including sexist attitudes. It is not surprising that such recruits are ‘impressed’ by the powerful men (or women) in the organisation they have joined.
The membership requirements of the SWP – and indeed many of the other organisations of the radical left – appear to me to be less demanding than those of a gym (you may not actually show up for a workout, but at least you have to pay your subscription). So why are we surprised when ‘yes men’ and indeed ‘yes women’ are the ones who get promoted in the SWP?
The other side of the coin is the cavalier attitude towards lethargy. For all the talk of action to bring about the overthrow of capitalism, we are not talking about a combatant membership: a large chunk of the 7,000-plus men and women who are supposed to be SWP members cannot be considered activists, let alone serious revolutionaries, so why should we expect them to have conquered sexism?
Sexist society
One reason why guerrilla organisations have a better record of combating sexism is because they are isolated from society. Their members do not interact within normal society. The claim that Fedayeen women activists of the 1980s were totally ‘liberated’ must be taken with a pinch of salt. However, there is no doubt that separation from day-to-day family tasks did present unparalleled ‘opportunities’ for women. We live in a patriarchal society and removal from it at least presents us with the possibility of creating conditions where sexism can be more easily combated.
By definition guerrilla women did not have household responsibilities. Either we were childless or those with children had their offspring looked after by parents or relatives in cities and villages far from the battlefield. We did not have any gender-specific duties, so, in that respect, living in a collective military base was to a very limited extent like living in post-revolutionary conditions. Female comrades in European leftwing organisations (maybe with the exception of a few full-timers) spend the majority of their time in a sexist environment – as wage-earners (often on lower wages than their male counterparts), as carers for children and the elderly, as unpaid workers doing housework (and, in the vast majority of cases, spending many more hours on housework than the men they live with). At the best of times it would be impossible to expect a political organisation to deal with the day-to-day discrimination women activists face in society – discrimination unrelated to party activity.
To overcome this situation there are difficult personal, social and political choices to be made and in my opinion those who put politics in command often come out of it stronger. As women, we may vent all our frustrations about sexual inequality within the political organisations to which we belong. It is certainly easy to play the role of the victim, but for a revolutionary such attitudes are cop-outs. If we are to combat sexism within our organisations, we must start by building female comrades’ self-confidence.
Women activists are often their own worst enemy when it comes to their own capabilities, organisationally and politically. On this issue we must rebel against stereotyped work. We need to consider the possibility of ditching housework and reducing care duties so that we have enough time to write articles, to participate in meetings, to organise. But many female comrades are not in a position to do so – who would look after their children? Who would care for their elderly parent? Some do not want to do so, yet all of us expect miracles from our political organisation.
Physical and mental
Even guerrilla organisations take note of the fact that there are physical differences between men and women, and some tasks are more suited to women’s physical capabilities.
However, life in a combat zone leaves little room for chivalry. Women might be issued with lighter guns and in the case of the Fedayeen, female combatants had to come to terms with the company of a dedicated male bodyguard, who would have his gun pointed to her head when they ventured into dangerous areas. This bizarre custom was meant to ensure that the organisation would never allow a female fighter to fall into the hands of the Islamic regime. Upon arrival in Kurdistan, my immediate reaction to this practice was to condemn it as an insult. But a few weeks into my stay, having heard about the kind of torture Islamic Guards reserved for communist women, I actually found it reassuring that my bodyguard would make sure I was dead rather than taken prisoner. It was a practical step taken to deal with a specific issue.
However, with the exception of this single practice, men and women wore the same uniform, performed the same tasks, were treated more or less equally in the camp, in battle and in the division of labour.
In Kurdistan, maybe because we lived so far from reality (away from capitalist commodity fetishism, away from the false modesty imposed by the Shia state) our appearance seemed to have no significance and this in itself had a liberating effect. Qualities such as the ability to debate, organise and, yes, shoot accurately, were considered far more important than looks – our military uniform did not leave much room for coquetry. Both in Kurdistan and later as the representative of the organisation abroad, I was well aware that using make-up and spending time on one’s appearance in other ways were considered serious flaws.
I know this will be frowned upon by modern feminists, but if revolutionary women are to be equal with men there must come a time when we stop becoming victims of commodity fetishism – a time when we refuse to be concerned about our appearance. Apart from anything else, this will leave us more time for politics, its theory and practice. Whether we like it or not, the inequality in terms of the time we spend on non-political tasks – be it family, housework , childcare or our appearance – does contribute to our lack of confidence. It does make us victims of a sexist culture, sexist society. It is up to us individually and collectively to change this – we cannot expect men to do it for us.
Power and sex
Throughout their clandestine life in Iranian cities, the Fedayeen banned sexual relations of any kind between members of the organisation. Both the pre-1979 Fedayeen and the PKK have been accused of executing comrades for breaking such rules, and the shah’s secret police and some on the Iranian left keep repeating the allegation that the Fedayeen would impose the death penalty for initiating a relationship with another member of the organisation. Although this allegation is completely false, the sex ban does reveal the kind of discipline considered necessary to confront the dangers presented by clandestine political activity in a police state.
Of course, such a ban would both be ridiculous and represent an interference in the private lives of comrades under any other circumstances, but there is no doubt that the left has to deal with the issue of the abuse of power by men, and occasionally women. However, the simple answer must be to combat bureaucracy, privilege and kowtowing to those in positions of power. It is wrong – and counterrevolutionary – to encourage an admiration of senior cadres simply because of the position they hold, or to promote myths about their intellectual or organisational capabilities to encourage respect for their rank. Such practices can result in a cult of personality – to the detriment of the building of a serious political organisation.
The issue is not one of sexual abuse, pure and simple (although elements of such abuse exist). It is one of unaccountable power. That is what the members and supporters of all working class organisations must constantly be on their guard against.
A Tehran restaurant owner recently told me the advice he’d been giving his friends for the last year: ‘Sell your car. Buy dollars.’ Sound counsel, I thought. Exchanging Iranian rials for dollars at the end of 2011 and converting them back nine months later would have yielded enough profit to buy two new cars. Waiting another month would have got you a cheap motorbike too. This sort of ‘street maths’ filters into every conversation. In September a waiter told me he had just sold his stash of $10,000 for a hefty profit. A young woman took her pay cheque to the bank every month and bought dollars with it. In this unofficial currency market the value of the rial dropped nearly 70 per cent in ten months. The frenzied speculation began early last year, after the EU announced it was going to restrict imports of Iranian oil. Government attempts to stem the flight only pushed the rial’s value down further. ‘The Central Bank governor promises on Tuesday to take action, and the dollar goes up on Wednesday,’ a businessman joked. ‘So he reverses his position on Saturday, and the dollar goes up on Sunday.’
Hands Off the People of Iran has been accused by some forces in the orbit of the Iran Tribunal of abandoning its central political slogans and effectively becoming an apologist for the Tehran regime. Hopi categorically rejects these accusations. Our opposition to the IT flows precisely from the principles embodied in our founding statement – principles that uphold implacable opposition to both imperialism and the theocratic regime. At the same time we were – and remain – crystal-clear about where change must come from: the struggles of the working class and the social movements.
Our criticism of the Iran Tribunal and the left organisations that have collaborated with it flows from this. The refusal of this body to stand against sanctions and the threat of war against Iran makes its condemnation of the regime’s crimes – accurate though they are in the abstract – an aid to imperialism’s plans and manoeuvres in the region. Quite apart from murky questions to do with the tainting of the IT through funding or indirect support, its silence on US threats and the possibility of an Israeli attack provide a damning indictment of the whole initiative.
Despite protestations to the contrary, some of those on the ‘left’ who have cooperated with the IT have effectively given up on the ability of the working class to win fundamental change in Iran. Their political decay and disorientation is illustrated by the agency they now look to in order to defeat the theocratic regime: the stance of the IT proves that, for these people, that force is now imperialism. Others who have given their support in hope of raising awareness of the crimes committed by the theocratic regime have done so at a political cost that is too high. Whatever media interest has been gained has been placed within the framework of strengthening the imperialist arguments for deeper sanctions and the possibility of a military strike.
In stark contrast, Hopi stands proudly by the founding principles we adopted at our first conference in 2007:
No to any imperialist intervention. The immediate and unconditional end to sanctions on Iran.
No to the theocratic regime.
Opposition to Israeli expansionism and aggression.
Support to all working class and progressive struggles in Iran against poverty and repression.
Support for socialism and democracy in Iran and therefore solidarity with all democratic, working class, socialist and secular movements in that country.
Opposition to Israeli, British and American nuclear weapons. For a Middle East free of nuclear weapons as a step towards worldwide nuclear disarmament.
When is a political tribunal ‘non-political’? Hands Off the People of Iran national secretary Mark Fischer responds to the latest salvo of pro-imperialist apologetics
Hyperinflation: a tool of war that enriches some
Hands Off the People of Iran and the Weekly Worker have been sent a document authored by Dariosh Afshar, associate member of the Iran Tribunal’s International Communications Work Group. The Iran Tribunal, set up by exiled anti-regime Iranians, was convened to investigate Tehran’s massacre of some 15,000 political prisoners in the 1980s, but has been shown by Hopi and this paper to be a body that objectively aids the US-led drive to impose – by military or other means – regime change from above on Iran.
The long, rambling and self-contradictory document, entitled ‘What the “friends of the people” are, and how they fight the social power of the people’, is presented as a response to a situation where allegedly “professor Norman Paech, a renowned and well respected German politician of Germany’s ‘Left’ party, who had earlier offered his support to Iran Tribunal, was compelled to withdraw his support …”1 Its stated aim is to refute the criticisms of the IT that soured comrade Paech’s attitude and – pursuing that – the document makes a whole series of counter-accusations against Hopi and one of its leading figures, Yassamine Mather, as well as the Weekly Worker.
We have been challenged to publish the 16,000-word document in our paper, which we have no intention of doing. However, Hopi has reproduced it on its website,2 so comrades can judge its quality for themselves, and we intend – in due course – to comprehensively unpick its amateurish dishonesty and clumsy apologetics. This article will confine itself to presenting some answers to the main political charges that Afshar – presumably with the tacit consent of other members of the IT – has laid against us.
There are other, more involved questions: for example, the funding links of individuals and organisations involved in the IT. These we will take up subsequently in a longer, more detailed reply. Here we will content ourselves with a few observations. For example, the web of influence through which imperialism pursues its global agenda is, naturally, not transparent. It is opaque, highly complex, subtle and circuitous: it is pushed forward financially, through academic patronage, personal pressure/inducement and the ideological cooption of useful dupes. Simply stating that there are no direct, bank-account-to-bank-account transactions that can be highlighted in yellow marker is an idiotic defence – or perhaps, more accurately, a defence that is designed to satisfy no-one but fools.
More often than not, the simplest questions are the most profound. So comrade Paech is to be congratulated for prompting the production of this long, self-contradictory screed with his plainly put request for clarification: “Can the tribunal take a clear position against war and sanctions?” he asked.
No it cannot, Afshar answers. More tellingly, this apologist suggests that its very nature dictates that it should not. This is because the Iran Tribunal is “non-political”, he insists. Comrades who plough through his document online will note that he returns repeatedly to this challenge and – interestingly – provides different definitions of “non-political”.
Non-political politics
Most absurdly, he actually suggests in one place that the IT is non-political because “upholding justice and human dignity and values doesn’t mix with politics. This is one of the main elements which Yassamine Mather cannot see or appreciate.”
On two levels, it is a little difficult to respond to something as silly as this. Historically, the notion that categories such as ‘justice’ and ‘human dignity’ have not been rather hotly contested political concepts should not really detain us too long – Liberté,égalité, fraternité anyone …?
The more pertinent point here is the way contemporary imperialism promotes its interventions as ‘humanitarian’ gestures – Afshar asks whether “any war between two or more reactionary forces” has “ever been motivated, or been used as a pretext, to defend or even pretend to defend or protect human rights”. A smarter question would perhaps be – particularly since Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and the second cold war – when have they not?
With this is mind, the recommendations of the IT’s second sitting (ending on October 29) make ominous reading. As others have pointed out, they sound very much like the conclusions reached by the kind of tribunals that preceded the ‘humanitarian’ intervention in the former Yugoslavia – conclusions that conveniently paved the way for the military intervention of Nato. In this context, there is an irony that this final session of the IT was staged in the Hague, where former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić is currently on trial.
Afshar’s insistence that “no-one’s political or ideological views play any role whatsoever” in the IT and that “this is absolute” assumes that his audience are morons. A tribunal – with, rather obviously, no powers whatsoever – is specifically set up to investigate the crimes of a particular regime and we are meant to believe that politics do not come into it?
What is more, the Iran Tribunal takes place against the background of sanctions, warmongering and attempts to impose regime change from above. Meanwhile, the international anti-war movement (for which Afshar consistently expresses contempt throughout his document) is very much weakened, compared to its zenith in 2003, and seems incapable of mounting a serious challenge to imperialism’s plans.
Then in this particular historical moment, the ‘non-political’ IT steps forward with its condemnation of the barbaric Tehran regime and its ear-splitting silence concerning the looming danger of another disastrous war in the region. It ignores the ongoing horror of ‘soft war’ sanctions that are fraying the fabric of Iran’s society and making life hell for ordinary people. The evasions of Afshar are worthless – it is clear whose interests are being served by his tribunal. The “absolute” ban on “political or ideological views” is meaningless: what other conclusion are we supposed to draw from the evidence than ‘something must be done’? Moreover, those participating in the stunt who supported sanctions and war had vast resources deployed daily outside the hall to make their case for them.3
The ban is exclusively directed against the left, against anti-imperialist forces – something that has been documented in some detail. For example, in two highly critical statements the Norwegian IT support committee describes how all tribunal witnesses who arrived in London on June 17 were taken to a briefing, where they were explicitly asked not to ‘raise any politics’ during their evidence. One witness wanted to challenge the tribunal and at the end of his 30-minute session made an anti-imperialist statement. Outrageously, his whole evidence was excluded from the record.
In the current world context, to remain silent on sanctions and the threat of war is to play the role of willing dupes; it is to constitute yourself as the ‘human rights’ wing of imperialism’s reactionary campaign.
Third force
Possibly the most absurd argument is Afshar’s attempt to prove that Hopi generally and Yassamine Mather specifically are in effect supporters of the Islamic regime. It is worthwhile examining his text here. A quote from comrade Mather is cited: “without clear opposition to war and sanctions, the tribunal effectively strengthens the hand of all those reactionary forces contemplating a military attack on Iran … I am a strong opponent of the regime in Tehran – but a war would be disastrous for the forces in Iran that have a real interest in democracy: the workers, women’s groups and social movements in that country.”
Absurdly this is taken to show that “Yassamine simply cannot see through her tunnel vision that there is a third force: ie, the people of Iran. They are the ultimate power who could stop any potential war by overthrowing the regime and establishing their own secular and democratic system. Being ‘a strong opponent of the regime in Tehran’ doesn’t mean that one should see the welfare and democratic aspirations of the people through maintaining the balance of power between two reactionary and warring states.”
At this point, some readers may start to doubt the man’s sanity. It is possible to fill a barn with Hopi and Mather quotes that exactly make the point that the working people of Iran are the focus of our work, our hopes for democracy and socialism – indeed the quote used by Afshar himselfdoes that. However, very quickly it becomes clear that what Afshar actually takes offence to is the anti-war component of Hopi’s work.
“Yassamine only sees the US and the rulers of IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran],” he writes, in contradiction to the words he is actually quoting. “She only worries about weakening or strengthening one or the other. People don’t come into Yassamine’s equation and have no place in her ‘anti-war’ politics. And when people do something collectively and form a social power institution such as Iran Tribunal, she smears it with lies and accusations.”
“[Mather] has focused the main part of her activism on ‘anti-war’ campaigning. Isn’t the balance of power between the USA and [Iran] the main issue with Yassamine? Doesn’t she just want to play ‘anti-war’ games within the ‘anti-imperialist camp’ of some of the mind-twisted so-called ‘Marxists’? Where do the people of Iran come into Yassamine’s active politics?”
Given world politics and relations between Israel, the US and Iran over the last few years, one might have expected that someone like Afshar (who self-defines himself as a ‘Marxist’ in the document) would see anti-war agitation and propaganda in a period like this as rather more than a ‘game’.
In truth, and despite his protestations otherwise, Afshar’s politics lend themselves to, if not active support for sanctions and the war drive, at least indifference. He imagines a scenario where “Yassamine Mather had a successful campaign and not only she prevented the war, but the sanctions were also lifted. Wouldn’t the best achieved outcome and scenario be similar to the time when Khatami or Rafsanjani had the upper hand within the Islamic Republican of Iran factions?”
In contrast, Afshar appears to see the present, dire situation in today’s Iran as preferable. The “country’s disastrous and catastrophic circumstances” mean that “all the right conditions for a revolutionary regime change are ready … The great majority of the Iranian population is faced with unprecedented harsh and unmanageable economic and living conditions, and as far as social unrest is concerned, Iran right now is a massive time bomb waiting to go off at any time …” An important source of the pressure that has produced these apparently propitious conditions for the struggle of the people of Iran is imperialism itself, of course – its vicious sanctions and the threats of a military strike.
In stark contrast, Hopi’s anti-war/anti-sanctions campaign has nothing whatsoever to do with restoring the hegemony of this or that faction in the theocracy, still less a “balance of power” between US-led imperialism and Tehran. (When on earth did that ever exist, by the way? The United States is the world’s policeman, massively more powerful militarily than its main imperialist rivals, let alone Iran). Our fight to remove the crippling sanctions (which disrupt and demoralise the working people primarily) and to stop the drive to war (which would be a disaster for ordinary people and which facilitate oppression in the here and now) is intended to give the working class and its allies the maximum space and opportunity to impose its own progressive democratic agenda.
Finally, Afshar reaches a truly bizarre conclusion about the motivations of Yassamine Mather and Hopi (comrade Mather has by now clearly become the personification of the campaign for him: any accusation he throws against her holds good for the organisation as a whole in his mind):
“Yassamine doesn’t want Iran Tribunal to succeed because she doesn’t want [Iran] to be exposed with yet another one of its horrific scandals on the international scene. The reason for this is that [Iran] has, of course, taken full advantage of the concept of being ‘anti-war’, and has marked its own devious influence by launching organisations … to act as impostors within [the anti-war movement] in order to steer and direct the whole of the ‘anti-war’ movement toward its own political advantage. As far as the ‘anti-war’ movements are concerned, the point to make should be that both the USA and Islamic Republic of Iran are reactionary forces who pursue their own agendas.”
Hopi has always said that Iran’s Islamic Republic must be held accountable for its crimes, including the massacre of political prisoners that the IT was convened to look into. Nor has Hopi ever argued that the threat of war means we should ignore or delay such investigations.4 However, to condemn the Iranian regime for its myriad crimes in the current political situation without making crystal-clear at the same time your implacable opposition to any external interference in the country, either in the form of ‘soft war’ sanctions or a military strike, is to effectively make yourself a dupe of imperialist reaction. There were plenty of them in the war in former Yugoslavia; plenty of them cheered on the assault on Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan. So, despite Afshar bleating about the unique and principled nature of the Iran Tribunal, it is actually joining a very long, very disreputable line.
Lastly, two points about the IT’s final report:
1. It seems that the gagging order on the left and anti-imperialists is to be applied retrospectively even to the victims of the Islamic regime’s executions in the 1980s. It is not mentioned that many (if not the majority) of the victims were socialists and communists who would have been appalled by the pro-imperialist use their sacrifice is being put to. Not even an echo of their voices is to be allowed; not even from beyond the grave.
2. The IT’s recommendation “that the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation mandate its Independent Permanent Commission of Human Rights to designate these violations a ‘priority human rights issue’ and ‘conduct studies and research’” into it is truly jaw-dropping. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is made up of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – they are being asked to monitor Iran’s human rights record!
Clearly, however, the deciding factor here is not these countries’ own democratic credentials. For example, Saudi Arabia is an undemocratic hell-hole, but it is one of the main allies of imperialism in the region. A coincidence? We think not …
Comrades in Hands Off the People of Iran do not take great pleasure in being proved right about the IT. We took a potentially controversial decision to oppose it so energetically. The only gratifying aspect of the whole affair has been that our stance has been vindicated so quickly and so completely – something rare in leftwing politics. However, the fact that important elements of the Iranian left chose to cooperate with it makes this a sad and worrying ‘victory’ for us.
3.The IT’s ‘chief prosecutor’, Payam Akhavan, is a keen supporter of sanctions on Iran. For many years, Akhavan has been pushing his sponsors’ agenda for ever harsher sanctions. He is one of the authors of the international report published by the Responsibility to Prevent Coalition, which calls for “a comprehensive set of generic remedies – smart sanctions – to combat the critical mass of threat, including threat-specific remedies for each of the nuclear, incitement, terrorist and rights-violating threats”. This 2010 report was, incidentally, also signed by Tory MP Michael Gove and Carl Gershman, president of the US-sponsored National Endowment for Democracy.
Sattar Beheshti, who ran a blog critical of the Iranian regime, was arrested on October 30 for comments made on Facebook, and handed over to the ‘cyber police’. After a night in Evin prison, where he complained about threats and beatings, he was moved to an unknown location. By November 3rd he was dead, with evidence of torture all over his body.
Beheshti was apparently not well known as an activist, showing how far-reaching the regime’s clampdown on dissent has become.
