2<\/a><\/sup> it would provide it with an opportunity to \u201cethnically cleanse\u201d the West Bank under cover of the crisis and chaos produced by war, as outlined in the \u2018Sharon plan\u2019 of 2002. In that sense the US war on Iraq was \u201cfinished too soon\u201d for Israel. From the US point of view, an attack on Iran would not only \u201cdeal with\u201d that country: it would \u201ctake the lid off\u201d the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\nComrade Machover noted that in Israel\u2019s negotiations with the Palestinians, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is not just demanding recognition of Israel: he is demanding recognition of its status as the \u201cnation-state of the entire Jewish people\u201d. In other words, endorsement of Israel\u2019s\u2019 racist immigration policy. However, as with Iran, we are very far from \u201ccomplete capitulation\u201d. So the situation could end in a new conflagration, involving Israel and both Iran and Palestine.<\/p>\n
During the debate, one comrade disagreed with the platform speakers on Iraq: the invasion had accomplished what the US wanted to achieve, she said. To which comrade Macnair replied that, yes, Saddam had been overthrown, but that had been followed by utter devastation; comrade Machover added that as a result the US had \u201clost control\u201d.<\/p>\n
There was also discussion about US motives for a possible attack. One comrade from the Iranian left group, Rahe Kargar, commented that it would be the \u201clast mistake of a declining hegemon\u201d. John Bridge from the CPGB pointed out that the US no longer has a \u201cgrand strategy\u201d. For example, having sought a rapprochement with the Muslim Brotherhood following the \u2018Arab spring\u2019, the US now seems to be operating in a strategic void.<\/p>\n
Charlie Pottins from the Jewish Socialists Group believed that Netanyahu\u2019s \u201cstate of all the Jews\u201d would require the help of anti-Semitic elements in the west – comrade Machover pointed out that Israel\u2019s immigration policy was actually a \u201climiting factor\u201d, meaning that the Zionist state could never pull in the necessary numbers: in fact the sources of potential immigration were \u201cnow exhausted\u201d – one reason why Zionism can never achieve complete victory.<\/p>\n
Working class<\/h4>\n
Opening the session on the struggles of workers in Iran, Hopi chair Yassamine Mather first of all looked at the effect of sanctions on the working class. They had adversely affected the everyday life of the mass of the people, producing mass unemployment and dire poverty. Recent figures show that Iran is registering -8% growth, combined with 40%-plus inflation.<\/p>\n
Of course, it is untrue to say, as regime propagandists claim, that all <\/em>Iran\u2019s ills result from sanctions. The economic hardship and the repressive apparatus can hardly be laid in their entirety at the door of the imperialists. Few buy into those claims and comrade Mather was sure that \u201cpeople will rebel\u201d. Nevertheless, it is clear that sanctions were aimed at the mass of ordinary people and it is they who have indeed suffered as a result.<\/p>\nComrade Mather pointed out that seven out of the eight candidates standing in last year\u2019s presidential elections favoured making a deal with the US. The supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had effectively accepted it as a necessary evil. So there can be no doubt that sanctions in the end forced change – not regime <\/em>change, but a government ready to concede on nuclear development. So now Iran has agreed to limit its uranium enrichment programme and destroy certain stockpiles – otherwise it will face the reimposition of the small proportion of sanctions that have been relaxed.<\/p>\nHowever, in parallel with the softening in relation to nuclear capability there has been a toughening of the regime\u2019s economic policy and its attitude to the working class. While previous president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was hardly the workers\u2019 friend, Rowhani had stepped up the regime\u2019s neoliberal policies: the aim is to eliminate \u201cresidual socialist practices\u201d. There is a drive to attract foreign investment on the basis of Iran\u2019s cheap labour. Repression in some ways is being stepped up too.<\/p>\n
Comrade Mather concluded her speech on an optimistic note: the regime \u201cstill fears the working class\u201d and she was sure those fears were justified.<\/p>\n
Next to speak was Torab Saleth, who was a socialist activist during the Iranian revolution of 1979. At that time there were limited numbers of workers, although the working class population was constantly being expanded, thanks to migration from rural areas – there were half a million people living in shanty towns in Tehran alone, he said. But by the late 70s working class confidence was rising, as was the number of strikes – the general strike at the end of 1978 was a key factor in the crumbling of the shah\u2019s regime, which finally fell in January 1979.<\/p>\n
Comrade Saleh talked about the creation of neighbourhood committees, which linked up with the strike committees to form a formidable component of the revolution. But, despite this, the working class suffered from a \u201clack of leadership\u201d resulting from the weakness of the organised left. It was little wonder that the committees often used mosques as their local bases from which to organise. However, at this time, he emphasised, the working class was \u201cnot <\/em>dominated by Islamic ideology\u201d.<\/p>\nDuring the course of the insurrection the strike committees, or shora<\/em>, took up arms. The workers took over the factories, as the owners fled. They began to take over the distribution of essential supplies – much to the consternation of the bazaaris. However, noted comrade Saleth, these shora <\/em>did not really link up beyond the individual workplace or district, which led him to conclude that the situation was \u201cnowhere near dual power\u201d.<\/p>\nIt was the Islamists who realised the potential – students \u201cfollowing the imam\u2019s line\u201d took up the idea of uniting the shora<\/em>, and the working class did not challenge the new regime. Islamic \u201cstorm troops\u201d were recruited from among the urban poor and within a year all the councils were in Islamic hands. The working class was facing not just defeat, but a long period of retreat.<\/p>\nComrade Saleth went on to talk about the debate on the left on the way forward. Should we attempt to reignite the factory committees? Should we just become trade union activists? His view had been that clandestine workers\u2019 committees and a clandestine national union should be set up, \u201calong the lines of the Polish Solidarity\u201d.<\/p>\n
Turning to the current period, he said that lately there has been a \u201chuge upsurge\u201d in working class struggles, but there is little to show from them organisationally, either in the shape of mass unions or a workers\u2019 party. Nevertheless, in the new period following the easing of relations with the west, there were possibilities for the workers\u2019 movement. Like comrade Mather he was \u201coptimistic\u201d – he was enthusiastic about \u201cnew elements\u201d in the class, and about the state \u201cbeing less able to repress\u201d.<\/p>\n
There were questions from the floor about old and new forms of oppression, about the role of the \u2018official communist\u2019 Tudeh party and about the influence of US-backed international union federations. On repression, comrade Saleth warned that we should not expect any weakening of the regime\u2019s apparatus – the \u2018legitimacy\u2019 endowed by imperialist recognition might actually strengthen it.<\/p>\n
On the Tudeh party, he said that fortunately it had lost almost all influence – but that did not mean other left organisations were making any kind of progress. Comrade Mather concurred: Tudeh had \u201ccalled Torab and me imperialist agents\u201d, but it had \u201clost all credibility\u201d in the eyes of a whole generation. You could be generous and say it had been \u201ca mistake\u201d to support the regime, as Tudeh did. But it had been quite another thing to actually collaborate with it in fingering left activists, many of whom were subsequently killed by the regime.<\/p>\n
On the question of the influence of pro-imperialist organisations such as the American Federation of Labor- Congress of Industrial Organizations, comrade Mather explained that some workers\u2019 leaders in Iran take the view that my enemy\u2019s enemy must be my friend. They have been prepared to collaborate with regime change projects. Fortunately most such \u2018leaders\u2019 quickly lose their rank and file base and become seen as mere imperialist stooges.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, both comrades were confident that it was only a matter of time before we would see real working class organisations getting off the ground.<\/p>\n
Nationalities<\/h4>\n
The final session in the school proper was opened by Nasrollah Ghazi of the Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran (Rahe Kargar), who discussed the question of Iran\u2019s national minorities. He pointed out that only 67% of the Iranian population have Farsi as their first language and there are many thousands of Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis. They suffer official discrimination, when it comes to language, traditional and religious rights, and, of course, they are denied any form of national representation.<\/p>\n
However, it is clear that the struggles of these minorities are entirely led by the various nationalists, who are not interested in linking up with each other, let alone in promoting an all-Iran struggle. As a result, many are easily courted by the imperialists, who have an interest in the breaking up of Iran. For comrade Ghazi the solution is not separation, but centralism. Yes, there must be the right to self-determination, but the influence of imperialism must be strongly resisted. He finished his contribution with the call to \u201cEnd the Islamic regime\u201d and \u201cFor a democratic republic\u201d.<\/p>\n
There were some useful points added from the floor. For example, comrade Mather pointed to the weaknesses of the national struggles: the Kurds in Iran, for instance, were \u2018served\u2019 by four main nationalist organisations – two close to the US, and one linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).<\/p>\n
Comrade Bridge thought we ought to say more than just \u201cself-determination\u201d. With the imperialists attempting to redraw the map of the Middle East, we should emphasise the necessity of working class leadership and the struggle for socialism.<\/p>\n
In summing up, comrade Ghazi said he was not for a federation. There was \u201cno solution without socialism after the demise of the Islamic republic\u201d.<\/p>\n
The day ended with a brief discussion on \u2018Building solidarity\u2019, introduced by comrade Mather. She reminded comrades that Hopi organised in Sweden and Germany as well as Britain, along with the charity set up by Hopi, Workers Fund Iran, which raised funds for those in struggle. She recommended that Hopi organise a campaign around political prisoners in particular. To this end Hopi would give greater priority to its website and Facebook page.<\/p>\n
\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How to meet the challenge presented by the US-Iran deal? Peter Manson reports on Hopi\u2019s day school Around 40 people attended the school organised by Hands Off the People of Iran on January 25. As Hopi secretary Mark Fischer explained in introducing the day, the election of a new Iranian president and the subsequent negotiations … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “HOPI: Grappling with the new situation”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-statements-positions","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopoi.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopoi.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopoi.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopoi.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopoi.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hopoi.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopoi.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopoi.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopoi.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>Around 40 people attended the school organised by Hands Off the People of Iran on January 25. As Hopi secretary Mark Fischer explained in introducing the day, the election of a new Iranian president and the subsequent negotiations on Tehran\u2019s nuclear capability had \u201cchanged the context of our work\u201d.<\/p>\n