이란( Iranian) 상황에 대한 자료

[자유로운 영혼]

이란 상황에 대한 좌익공산주의그룹과  관심그룹의 참고할만한 기사들입니다.

1.현재까지는 이란과 직접 교류가 있는듯한  IBRP그룹에서 가장 많은 자료와 기사를 내고있어서 순서대로 올립니다.

  (보수파이던 개혁파이던 모든 부르주아 당파들과의 단절만이 노동계급의 임무라는 원칙을 주장하고 있습니다.)

2.이란상황에 대해서는 특별히 Marxist Humanism 그룹에서 많은 관심을 갖고 있는데, 여성해방과 마르크스주의를

   결합시키려는 시도라서 관심을 가질 필요가 있을것 같습니다.

   아마도 Raya Dunayevskaya의 [On the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution:  Revolution and counter-revolution]

   에 영향을 받은듯 합니다.

<I B R P 1>

Iran at the crossroads - workers cannot support any faction of the ruling class

                                                                                   Leaflet for a demo in Sheffield, UK

Iranian ruling class splits

On the one side — those sectors which more or less look to the family of the Ayatollah Rafsanjani (one of the richest and most powerful in the country), who are tired of the limitations on economic activity imposed by international sanctions and want a greater opening towards outsiders. On the other side, those sectors of the bourgeoisie whose power has been strengthened in the last few years,favourable to the aggressive policy of Ahmadinejad. Their bastions are in the state bureaucracy, the Army and the Pasdaran.

Working class has nothing to gain from either side

This conflict is one played out within the Iranian bourgeoisie even if the “refomers” (in reality they have always been big players inside the clerico-fascist regime) represent the hopes of millions wanting a relaxation of the most vulgar forms of social control that have been in operation for the last thirty years.

And everything to gain from class struggle

Workers must break with all factions of the ruling class and fight for their own interests. In Iran, as elsewhere, capitalism offers no future. Strikes under the control of the workers themselves, and the building of the revolutionary organisation are our weapons. Above all workers must not be dragged into a bloodbath on behalf of any of their exploiters and the powerful imperialist interests seeking to gain from the situation. The stakes are high because, as is well-known, Iran is the fourth highest oil producer in the world, and it sits in the hottest zone for imperialist tensions on the planet.

Workers of the World, Unite!

Capitalism in Iran and everywhere is beyond reform — workers must defend themselves against attacks on their living standards and join the struggle to build the International Revolutionary Party. That is the mission of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party.

<I B R P 2> 

 The 10th Iranian Presidential Elections 2009

The following text was written a few days ago by an Iranian comrade of the IBRP to explain the origins of the current crisis, A further text is planned to explain the predicament of the working class in Iran today which will also include some indications on the way forward for workers in this crisis.

Following a few heated television debates involving the 4 candidates, millions of Iranians cast their votes in an exceptionally hyped up and engineered election on 14^th June 2009. This was the 10^th presidential election since the Iranian 1979 revolution. From the early hours of Friday, long queues formed and people participated in an unprecedented scale. All four candidates were endorsed by the Guardian Council a watchdog which bans un-Islamic candidates. There were four candidates including Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the Iranian president, Karroubi the former speaker of the parliament, Mir Hussain Moussavi, Prime Minister from 1982 to 1989, and Mohsen Rezai, the former head of the Revolutionary Guard.

But what made this election so exceptional? How could a state such as the Islamic Republic of Iran manage to engage so many Iranians in this election? Nearly 85% of eligible voters took part in the ballot according to official statements. To see how we need to go back a few years and look and see how it came about.

The 1979 Uprising and the War

In September 1980 when the war broke out between Iran and Iraq, the late Ayatollah Khomeini made an interesting comment. He said

War is a divine blessing, a gift bestowed upon us by God. The cannon’s thunder rejuvenates the soul

No one could see what this divine blessing would mean in the coming years. Yes it did indeed rejuvenate the soul, but not the people’s soul, just the heartless soul of capitalism. On the back of eight years of war with millions of dead and injured, industrialization grew like never before in Iranian history, to support the war. Under Mir Hussain Moussavi’s government, all opposition groups were severely oppressed, and all civil liberties were restricted. Thousands of militants were executed at home just because the country was at war and tens of thousands of young Iranians were massacred at the front, using the so called “human wave” military tactic. While all this was happening, a new reshaped and restructured ruling class was emerging on the scene and wasting no time on filling its pockets as they made plans for the post-war future.

Leftists, as usual, were arguing the toss, stating that the Islamic Republic was not a proper capitalist state, rather, it was reminiscent of an older mode of production and would be in power only temporarily and would soon be replaced! In opposition to their illusions, the subsequent years proved otherwise. Millions of workers and peasants were subject to a harsh exploitation for Islam and the fatherland to only give a birth to a ruthless new ruling class having a faction closely linked to the military, the Revolutionary Guards.

Commander of Development (Sardare Sazandegi)

On 20^th August 1988, the Islamic Republic of Iran, accepted the United Nation’s Peace Resolution and the eight years of war ended. On 3^rd June 1989, the founder of Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomeini died. Responding quickly, involving a lot of factional manoeuvres, Khameini who was the President at the time, assumed the position of Supreme Leader, with the help of Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani, the Speaker of the Parliament became President. Later, he refused to invite Moussavi to join his new government.

These moves were followed by an amendment to the constitution, extending the power of Supreme Leader and finally abolishing the post of Prime Minister. This was no surprise as this year coincided with the beginning of demise of Russia. The free market style economy was the flavour of the time, so Mir Moussavi and his entourage who favored an economy similar to that of the Russian type were no longer attractive to the newer capitalist class that emerged after 1979. Moussavi retired to a kind of private life for the next 20 years.

The next eight years were ones of celebration for the new ruling class. The 8 years of war had provided Iranian capitalism with a divine blessing. Rebuilding of destroyed cities and villages and development of an arms industry were conducted on the back of a shattered and defeated working class. A lavish life style was promoted that put the Shah’s to shame. On the other hand, the story for the working class was totally different. Most had to work two shifts to make ends meet, and were deprived of basic rights in a way never seen before. Meanwhile Rafsanjani received the title of Sardare Sazandegi, Commander of Development!

His election for a second term, however, took place with low public participation. According to official figures, only 53% took part in the election. Towards the end of his second term discontent amongst the public was clearly evident, in particular among the working class. The number of strikes started to grow, riots in poor areas erupted, sometimes with full force like the one in Islamshahr in April 2005, which was savagely put down. Along with the orgy of harsh exploitation, the ruling elite were realizing the need for the “Rule of Law” a legal basis for the regime and a better image on the international scene. So reform was necessary, and a reformist and moderate minister of culture at the time, Mohammad Khatami was the right candidate to fulfill this aim.

Khatami, the Reformist Champion

In May 1997, Iranians, with 80 percent participation, went to the polls and Khatami was elected by the 70 percent of voters. This provided him and his reform agenda with a resounding endorsement. During the next 8 years, the Islamic Republic managed to improve its relationship with the outside world. For the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic, the Iranian president made a few official visits to European countries.

Reformist theoreticians and the reformist movement had based their policy on the idea that political improvement was a precondition for economic improvement. Not much improvement was made inside the country, neither in the political aspect nor on the economic front as far as the working class was concerned. The student movement was harshly suppressed by the security forces, with many student being murdered. Workers as always were told they should wait!

However the reformists see themselves and understand their roles, it does not alter the fact that ever since 1997, when they took office in a landslide victory, they were the main reason for the diversion of the class struggle from the factories to universities and parliament. The second re-election of Khatami created a split within the reformist movement, most supporters by then were demoralized. His attempts at promoting dialogue between civilizations attracted no one. How could it, while both civilizations were demonstrating nothing but barbarism? One civilization was showing its power by announcing a war against the whole world and yet not able to provide the basic means of living for its citizens, and the other by showing its power through suicide bombing and only capable of offering a better world in heaven!

Meanwhile the two main arch foes of the Islamic Republic, Israel and the USA were adopting a more aggressive policy. The war criminal, Ariel Sharon, had assumed power in Israel. Neo-conservatives in the USA had rejected Iran’s offer of help in the Iraq war, and despite Iran’s two years of nuclear enrichment suspension, there was no relaxation of economic sanctions. As well as all these, Iran was included as the main part of the “axis of evil”. The conservatives headed by Khameini recognized the new challenges that they were facing, as well as seeing an opportunity to outmanoeuvre the reformists in the next election. Now they needed to display a different image, they needed a face who could match Ariel Sharon and they found him in a man in security and military circles, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. With this the first signs of a split in the ruling elite was also beginning to appear in the form of two main factions, one headed by Khameini, and the other by Rafsanjani.

The Triumph of Nationalism and the Emergence of Ahmedinejad

As political Islam within the country was losing its momentum, then the next card was nationalism. The US war against terror, its invasion of Iraq, the nuclear stand off with the West gave a golden opportunity to the regime to exploit nationalism to its core. Over the next few years this policy was followed.

Absolutely delighted by the failure of Bush’s new Middle East policy, and seeing that his two enemies Saddam and Taliban were out of power as well as the advances in nuclear enrichment and above all the high oil price, Ahmedinejad gained more confidence in implementing his policies especially with the cash that he had at his disposal. Furthermore the Lebanon 31 days war and the victory of Hezbollah increased his confidence. Towards the end of his first term, Kamenei /Ahmedinejad could see the possibility of getting the upper hand in negotiations with the incoming US President Barack Obama, with a view to Iran playing a dominant role in the region. Ahmedinejad sent the first signal by congratulating him, the first time ever by the Islamic Republic of Iran. One item for the negotiation bargaining table, was, however missing and it was an election with a huge participation, so it had to be engineered. The stage was set; social restrictions were relaxed, the streets of Tehran and major cities filled with thousands of supporters, and dancing in street was no longer un-Islamic! Heated debates were televised. But to Khameini’s surprise, Moussavi’s supporters grew rapidly and he got the feeling that he was about to be outmanoeuvred

A few days before the election the political chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned reformists in the country against seeking what he called a “velvet revolution”, vowing that it would be “nipped in the bud”. And reformists warned the Guardian Council of the Ahmedinejad government plan to interfere with the votes. And Rafsanjani wrote an open letter to Khameini as his “old comrade” just two days before the voting in which he said:

One expects your eminence, given your position, responsibility and personality, to take effective measures as you see fit to resolve this problem and eliminate dangerous plots.

Rafsanjani then wrote:

Put out the fire whose smoke is already visible and prevent its flames from rising and spreading through the elections and beyond.

Obviously a lot was happening behind the scenes. On the election day, both factions were showing signs of nerves. Both sides were worried about being outmanoeuvred by the other, so much so, it led to a point where both Ahmedinejad and Mir Moussavi both claimed victory before the completion of the counting of votes. Later, on that day, Ahmedinejad was officially announced the winner by having 63% of the votes. All the signs indicated a big fraud. Reformists talked of a coup d’état. Khameini congratulated Ahmedinejad even before the Guardian Council endorsed the election, which was a necessary legal step for that announcement. The rest is history… angry Moussavi supporters realized that they have been used in a most unfair and crude way.

Khameini called the election an “epic”, “a feast” and a “divine blessing” …. this time just a few days needed to pass for divine blessing to manifest itself by murdering unarmed people in street of Tehran who were only asking for their votes back.

This brought the situation to a precarious state. Following Khameini’s warning, the violence by the state was unleashed. Foreign journalists either have been restricted to their offices or have had to leave the country. The working class once again ended up at a crossroads with a minimum preparation, where the state has already released its thugs onto the streets to murder in broad daylight.

Comrades, workers

This vicious circle can only be broken by fighting for our class interests. It is a tragedy that, today, some of us have gathered around Khameini/Ahmadinejad and others of us around Moussavi/Khatami camp. The working class will be the main loser, whatever the outcome of this battle. We will gain nothing but more oppression, unless we start to fight back on our own terrain. Just as no army can fight and win a battle without a weapon, the working class can win no battle either without its true weapon, united class action. Our weapon lies in where we work, the whole society runs on our labour, we produce all the means of living. It is in our hands and we should use it. The oil factory strike in 1979 was a decisive blow to bring down the Shah regime. We should use it again. The irony is that those who were seeking to reform the regime have created a political condition for revolution. Workers in Irankhodro (the biggest car plant in Iran) and the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company are starting to go on strike.

The weight of an unfavorable situation on your shoulder is unbearable, the road to emancipation is a minefield. War, election, reforms, television debates … are all part and parcel of the capitalist tools for continuing their class domination. Your mind is engaged on all the misery that the barbaric regime has imposed on you, on the one hand job insecurity, unemployment, absolute lack of basic freedoms… and on the other hand on the dire state of the occupied neighbouring countries, and the threat of invasion and war. The path towards emancipation is not easy, nor clear. There exists no short cut, as you know having tried it through elections for so many years. If the war and invasion are a real threat against the workers movement then internationalism is the only real path against world capitalism. Workers have no country and socialism cannot be built in one country. International solidarity is the only way in which the global capitalist system can be overcome. This is a task to which we in the International Bureau for Revolutionary Party are dedicated. We invite you to join us.

Long Live Revolution, Long Live Internationalism, Long Live Communism!

<I B R P 3>

 Neither Ahmadinejad nor Moussavi - Long Live Class Struggle!

We received the following document from a courageous Iranian internationalist. As far as we understand he has sent it to a number of internationalist left communist organisations and his position is one we would fully endorse (even if we would have liked more on the concrete organisational issues such as existing class organisations and the need for an independent political organisation of the working class). Hopefully these will be forthcoming in future documents. We have taken the liberty of correcting the English without in the slightest altering the intentions of the author. IBRP 20 June 2009

After the election circus, Ahmadinejad was presented as winner and this resulted in the political confrontation and crisis between bourgeois gangs. The leader of one faction, Moussavi would not accept the result and mobilized protestors throughout the entire country which resulted in some demonstrators getting wounded or killed. The fact is that in our epoch, in the epoch of decadent capitalism, parliament and elections are not than a mystification and the main task of parliament is, legislate wage slavery.

Moussavi, with his green flag, presented himself as a reformist. What does it means to be reformist? It was during Moussavi’s time as a Prime Minster that hundreds of striking worker jailed or were beaten to death. Thousands of political prisoners were executed when Moussavi was Prime Minster. Mass grave of political prisoners (Khavaran) was created when Moussavi was Prime Minster. This list is very long. Moussavi is no less guilty than Ahmadinejad when it comes to workers right or other human right issues.

The green movement does not belong to workers and it belongs to one faction of the bourgeois. We must avoid acting as cannon fodder for any of the competing bourgeois gangs. Instead of a green flag, we must raise our flag, the flag of proletariat – the red flag.

Capitalism is the origin of all the misery and poverty in the world. Capitalism means, a real hell, not only for working class but also for all humanity. We must never forget that capitalist democracy and capitalist dictatorship are two sides of the same coin. Where the Goddess of Freedom stands, thousands of workers are unemployed and homeless. In the paradise of capitalism, where the social democratic governments have been in place for more than hundred years, unemployment has been a nightmare for the working class.

The future of our movement depends on our struggle alone. We must expand our struggle, independent of all bourgeois gangs, against capitalism. Our slogan must be against wage slavery, exploitation, unemployment, inflation and we must spread our struggle from streets to workplaces in all sectors and if it is possible to other countries as well. Internationalist positions are very weak in Iran and its militants very isolated. We must try to break down this isolation and establish connection and collaboration with other internationalists throughout the world.

The working class is the only social class that can put an end to capitalist barbarism and misery. This alternative that communists had proposed in the past is more valid today than ever:

Communist revolution or the destruction of humanity!

19 June 2009, Internationalist

< NEWS & LETTERS 1>

 Lead

Specter of revolution stalks Iran's theocratic rulers

by Gerry Emmett

A woman is clubbed to the ground by riot police, then stands up again to berate them as they walk away. A group of young women link arms to block a street against Basij militia thugs. A lone woman raises her fist against the approaching police--a moment reminiscent of Tiananmen Square's "Tank Man." These are scenes which have been repeated countless thousands of times in the mass demonstrations following Iran's disputed June 12 election. 

Tehran has seen massive outpourings, perhaps as many as three million June 15. Other cities, Isfahan, the Azeri city of Tabriz, Shiraz, and villages across Iran have also seen demonstrations and street fighting. In the wake of these demonstrations, the regime has blocked web and mobile phone services, and placed opposition political figures and journalists under arrest. Dozens have been killed, including students pulled from their dormitories after midnight. These youth are attacked because they are in the forefront of the mass movement. In spite of all, mass unrest has reached levels not seen since the Revolution of 1979. 

The claim that current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election with 62.6% of the vote to challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi's 33.7% was thoroughly rejected. It is just as likely that the real numbers could be the reverse, considering the massive level of discontent with the regime, the unprecedented mass demonstrations that broke out in the week before the election, and the massive voter turnout, on an order that was last seen when the "reformer" Khatami was elected.

WORKERS, WOMEN, YOUTH DISPUTE VOTE

Significantly, an Iranian Labor Union association poll taken in the week before the election showed Mousavi with 52% support among workers to Ahmadinejad's 36%, with 57.3% agreeing that labor's conditions have worsened under the current administration. One Iranian worker said after the results were announced, "Almost everybody I know voted for Mousavi but Ahmadinejad is being declared the winner. The government announcement is nothing but widespread fraud."

Mousavi was hardly an ideal figure. He was a prime minister during the 1980s, an era of harsh repression of all opposition to Ayatollah Khomeini's regime. Mousavi made the decision to serve that master, and it haunted him during the election campaign. Asked by a student at Babol University about his role during the massacre of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, he was unable to answer the question. Finally he said, "I was the head of the executive branch and not the judiciary."

Nevertheless, as one voter put it, "The fact is, there are vote counters out there who know very well exactly how we and millions of other Iranians voted. They know, and it terrifies them. If we had not participated, we would not have been able to send that message at all."

Mousavi's campaign was conceived as a way to deal with divisions among the ruling circles. It wasn't planned to go farther than that. The situation has gone much farther now.

Divisions among the rulers were exposed when Ahmadinejad attacked senior regime figures and clerics during the televised presidential debate. They were as apparent with the maneuvers by former president Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani and others to support Mousavi. (It is also significant that some members of the Revolutionary Guards have refused to attack demonstrators, and there have even been reports of police arresting violent members of the Basij.)

DIVISIONS AMONG RULERS

However, there was also enough content in Mousavi's criticisms of the Ahmadinejad administration that his campaign could be said to represent an "opening," not so much to "the West" as to the Iranian people themselves. While he rightly criticized Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial and military threats, Mousavi also said at the televised debate, "Wherever I go there is protest; wherever I go they say we have been humiliated, we have been arrested, we have been expelled from university and so on." The regime searched for itself in the people's eyes, but was horrified to see in them a vision of its ending.

Of course, the elections aren't the ultimate ground being contested. Women's determination to tear up their oppression by its root has been continuous. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 held promise of becoming the most profound social revolution since 1917. Women's liberation was a vital part of that revolutionary ferment, and a primary target of the clerical counter-revolution that came from the very innards of the revolution.

Women protesting today, asserting their drive to freedom in the most practical ways, are giving their answer to 30 years of escalating attacks upon them, and millions of incidents of brutality and degrading assault that often occurred in obscurity. They are writing their reply into history, on the world's stage.

TWO WORLDS IN EVERY COUNTRY

It is a revolt that was prefigured by the Million Signature Campaign and other protests against the worsening conditions for women under Ahmadinejad. The struggle to establish independent labor unions, as well as the massive defiance of the regime's religious decrees and policing, also were signs of things now arrived. That the regime itself had some awareness of this was shown in the last year, when the Revolutionary Guard began focusing on what tactics it would use to crush a popular internal rebellion, as opposed to any foreign threat. 

Iran's workers have also made their voices heard in this crisis. The Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Bus Company Workers released this statement: "We condemn the suppression of civic institutions. In recent days we have been witness to the presence and passionate activity of millions of women, men, old and young, national and religious minorities in Iran who are demanding that the government recognize their basic rights...the fact that the demands of [the] overwhelming majority of Iranian society go far beyond trade union demands is clear to all. And we have always stressed that unless the principles of the freedom of organization and free elections have been made real, realization of social freedoms and union rights is not possible. Therefore, the Vahed Workers trade union is an integral part of the overall struggles for [the] establishment of free and independent social institutions...That's why we ask that June 26, which has been declared to be the day of support for jailed workers and union organizing in Iran, be elevated to the day of human rights in Iran. We ask our coworkers all around the world to actively support the extinguished rights of the Iranian people." 

Workers at Khodro automobile company, Iran's largest, said this: "We declare our solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran. Autoworkers, Fellow Laborers: What we witness today is an insult to the intelligence of the people and disregard for their votes, the trampling of the principles of the Constitution by the government. It is our duty to join this people's movement. We the workers of Iran Khodro, Thursday [June 18], in each working shift will stop working for half an hour to protest the suppression of students, workers, women, and the Constitution and declare our solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran. The morning and afternoon shifts from 10 to 10:30. The night shift from 3 to 3:30."

With scenes reminiscent of the 1979 Revolution--and with many in the opposition trying to follow the forms of that era, as in the nightly rooftop chants of "Allahu Akbar!" and commemorations of martyrs--it is time to address the contradictory meaning of the 1979 Revolution as well. It has direct bearing for today.

As Raya Dunayevskaya pointed out at the time, the question of the ambivalent role of Shi'a clerics in the Iranian revolution goes back to Iran's Constitutional Revolution of 1906-11. They did support the first stage of that Revolution, but "...once a democratic Constitution was created, the clergy began burdening it with the type of amendments that restored most powers to the Shah once the foreign enemy was thrown out...The second chapter of that first revolution, as the second chapter of this era's 1979 Revolution, was begun by women liberationists" ("What Has Happened to the Iranian Revolution...?").

The 1979 Revolution was the first great social revolution to take place after Women's Liberation had moved from an idea whose time has come to a mass movement. For Marxist-Humanism it became an indispensable category of revolution, as seen in Dunayevskaya's Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Liberation, and Marx's Philosophy of Revolution. There for the first time Marx's Marxism stood clear, including the gulf between Marx and Engels on the "Woman Question." It was a question of total liberation for all.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR PHILOSOPHY

The great need of revolutionaries in Iran and elsewhere was to take responsibility for a philosophy of liberation that would brook no compromises with the clerics, or with any others who would limit the striving for full freedom. What was needed was that philosophy of revolution that would initiate the road to a classless society on truly new humanist beginnings. This is not merely an abstract question.

Today's mass movement is raising demands, from the end of the religious police and of "forced veiling," to even ending the position of Supreme Guide which Ayatollah Khamenei inherited from Ayatollah Khomeini. The kind of constitutional questions being raised by this new movement directly address central historic problems of the Iranian revolution. Just as the tendency of the masses has been to go beyond the issue of a stolen election among regime insiders, so it would be wrong to fetter our thought to the maneuvers of these insiders.

As much as any crisis of our time, today's events in Iran show the need for a return to the fullness of Marx's Marxism. History has brought Marx's philosophy of revolution together with Women's Liberation here. It is necessary to take responsibility for articulating this. To take any other ground would be to fall into the trap pointed to by the great Irish revolutionary James Connolly: "Don't be 'practical' in politics. To be practical in that sense means that you have schooled yourself to think along the lines, and in the grooves those who rob you would desire you to think."

LIBERATORY VISION OF THE FUTURE NEEDED

As of this moment, Iran's rulers will be likely to prefer Ahmadinejad. He represents all that they have left: the whip arm of the institutionalized counter-revolution. Ayatollah Khamenei affirmed this at Friday prayers June 19, threatening anti-Ahmadinejad demonstrators with more "blood and chaos" to come. The regime that can't deliver jobs, dignity, or peace can deliver oppression and murder well enough. Some demonstrators are now chanting "Death to Khamenei" in response. 

Ahmadinejad was also favored, in the early hours after his "re-election," by some hawkish elements in the U.S. and Israel who were using him as an excuse to prepare for possible military intervention in Iran.

At least some of that talk has been silenced, shamed by the heroism and creativity of the Iranian people. More than ever it will be necessary for revolutionaries to present a vision that is the absolute opposite of all this reaction which feeds upon reaction.

--June 21, 2009

As we go to press, many calls for a general strike have gone out on Twitter and Facebook, and Iran Focus reports that 80% of shops were closed in a bazaar strike in Iranian Kurdistan. The struggle continues and has our greatest solidarity.

 < NEWS & LETTERS 2>

 The irrepressible spirit of revolutionary Iran

Reminiscent of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, this mass movement has unleashed the fury of people who have endured 30 years of ruthless oppression. Many dissidents, who did not have the chance to show an independent voice, have gone far beyond reform. This feels like the same irrepressible spirit of the revolution 30 years ago--the same uncompromising will with full knowledge and acceptance of the bloody sacrifices that must be made in pursuit of freedom and justice.

Even the slogans, and actions--like the prank newspaper headline "Ahmadinejad is gone" held up by demonstrators--are an echo of the famous Keyhan newspaper headline when the revolution forced the Shah out of Iran: "The Shah is gone." The demonstrators know the thugs want to kill a few of them to scare them off, but they are ready, dressed all in green (like in the revolution days when they would dress all in white, and say they are ready to die in the name of freedom).

WOMEN IN THE LEADERSHIP

For the past few years the Islamic Republic has been steeped with widespread corruption, shameful foreign policy, inflation and a bleak job market for the youth. There have been sporadic protests by the women's and student movements, and workers' strikes in the last years met with bloody clampdowns. The movement was practicing for today's outpouring and has become wise, full of analysis, calls for unity, and advice on how to stay non-violent, as well as calls outside of Iran to make the world aware of what is going on.

The grassroots One Million Signature campaign (see April-May 2008 N&L "Million Signature Campaign in Iran"), and most other women's rights groups, have made it clear that their struggles for civil rights are inseparable from the rights of workers, students and others. Women campaigned vehemently for three election demands: for Iran to ratify the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; to eliminate discriminatory laws against women; and to grant women equality under the law, lifting repression against women, students, and workers. Women used the pre-election atmosphere to inject their agenda into the dialog with the public and candidates. The student movement and the women's rights movement reinforced each other.

The regime's responses to women's demands became the measure of how repressive it is in all spheres of life. Women are deeply involved in the struggle for change and their resistance has become emblematic. This is huge progress from the days of the revolution, a beacon of hope that we will not allow women's rights to be sacrificed. The One Million Signature campaign's style of grassroots activism and broad and horizontal movement, is a pioneering force. It's heartwarming to see women at the forefront of protests and sit-ins.

On June 17, Nobel Prize winner, civil rights attorney and feminist Shirin Ebadi was among those who called for a new election with the presence of international observers. She also called for immediate release of Zahra Rahnavard, Mousavi's wife, whose public presence as a spokesperson for Mousavi's campaign has been a source of inspiration for the more conservative of the reform. Rahnavard has been challenged for her limited vision and presumption of leadership by some of the more radical of the student movement. For example, when she tried to get students to peacefully leave one of their protests, they told her that her husband was "one" candidate, that their demands go far beyond the fraudulent election results, and that they will decide when and how they will leave their protest.

VIOLENCE WILL NOT STOP THE MOVEMENT

This government does not shy away from using instruments of extreme violence: Ansar Hezbollah, guardians of the revolution; and Basij, chock full of thugs with experience of savage war with Iraq and military attacks in Kurdistan. The emails, pictures, films streaming on the net are full of bloodied faces and bodies being dragged by the hair. Students are being attacked in their sleep in the dorms, some shot to death. It is horrific that the body of a young woman student movement leader was found on June 17, stabbed 25 times, her neck ripped open. And Neda Agha-Soltan, a young woman shot to death in the streets by a sniper, has galvanized women and youth the world over who vow that she will never be forgotton. Masses keep pouring into the streets, full of determination, hope, steadfastness and awesome force that only a people committed to their liberation can show.

--Nazanin Afarin

RAYA.hwp

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