Lenin’s Tomb
It seems obvious that what began as a protest against what was perceived to be a stolen election, has turned into a protest about the repressive nature of the regime. Your choices against this movement are to argue that it isn't repressive, or that it may be repressive, but that Iranians are going to have to put up with that because it stands as a bulwark against Western imperialism and Zionism. Gabriel disposes of both these arguments over at Jews Sans Frontieres.
What? Did you even read the post?
A useful discussion by Iranian philosophers here:
http://www.cinestatic.com/infini...-protest-
in.asp
Well, I am going to be gloomily pessimistic and say that I think the protests are going to fizzle out. They appear to have collapsed to a hardcore over the weekend, no doubt larger than 3,000 but still a hardcore and at present I am afraid it feels very much like a defeat. The Moussavi camp are now calling on people to dip their car headlights in protest at the repression, which as the Guardian blog notes, smacks of desperation. I really don't see this going anywhere and I'd be surprised if there was a massive popular resumption in the short term.
Of course, long term things are likely to be very different. The regime is on borrowed time now that this has happened. But I do think it likely that Aminajhed has won for now. So, there you go - downbeat as usual. Just call me Eeyore.
possibly (to rocobley) probably there has not been enough time for the strike component to become the bedrock. Khamenei has bluffed and Mousavi has blinked. But perhaps this feeds into a strengthening of the left on campus. I would think its not in the regime's interest to really crush everything to dust
You are Eeyore.
Lenin said it in the title. It really is a question of solidarity. Whatever the truth is about the elections being rigged or what you think about mousavi or ahmedinijad its clear that a lot of people are really pissed off and willing to do something about it. Surely this is where we start?
They appear to have collapsed to a hardcore over the weekend, no doubt larger than 3,000 but still a hardcore and at present I am afraid it feels very much like a defeat.
The protesters may well be defeated in the end; the organised ability of the state to dish out violence might drown the whole movement in blood. But the idea that the smaller numbers in Tehran over the weekend means that this is all over is just not a plausible assumption. Throughout the weekend, there was more than Tehran going on. We have seen basij storming Isfahan and other places, and sometimes actually being driven back. We have seen the protests spread to slowdowns by auto workers, and they have gained the support of the bus workers union. There are now calls for strikes across Iranian Kurdistan on Tuesday. The violence will undoubtedly have forced people to regroup and reconsider tactics, but that doesn't mean we are entitled to write it off as a defeat at this point.
no i think Lenin correctly emphasised its about the class and its economic interests. To the extent the protest movement enables the working class to move into struggle - thats the point. I'm not going to offer solidarity to Mousavi, but to the left students, bus drivers etc.
Sorry, when I said 'you' I didn't mean you Lenin. Yes, I did read it. It was excellent.
Excellent post. Well said.
I think its good that we continue this debate. Contrary to Yoshies blithe claims about the "western left" this is an argument going on all around the world, from Cairo to Calcutta. I do however want to reproduce an argument I had in the wee hours on Petras style assertions about the Gucci classes because I think it might be relevent.
Much of the argument relates to something real. This is the way in developing countries you find an overlap between class differentiation and culture, often connected to ideas about who is modern and who is traditional etc.
This explains a persistant connection between populism and communal, ethnic and linguistic in very many post-colonial countries. Much of the argument relates to the ability of Ahmadinajad to capitalise on these kinds of divisions and their relationship to social class (a relationship which in many case causes problems for traditional Marxist notions about the 'middle classness' of identity politics). In academic literature this relates to the widespread problem many had in 'slotting' the Iranian revolution and counter-revolution.
Some bitterly joked that in the one country in the world where you had a genuine popular revolution, very unfortunately for the left, it turned out to be led by the wrong people (Gellner in his critique of Marxism was to call this the 'wrong address theory').
Now I think there are important truths here about the particular form that social tensions often take in countries like Iran (although perhaps it dovetails rather too closely with middle class paranoia about the uneducated masses, a paranoia which can become an affirmation in a certain kind of middle class radicalism).
But rather oddly, as Lenin points out in the post above, if you look at voting patterns, historically one finds that these uneducated masses have often voted for the reform wing. Its also true, as one commentator above suggested, that the social classes are not as hermetically sealed as might be thought.
So it is that the bazaris have in the recent past actually gone on strike AGAINST Amadinajad's measures around taxation: this section of the middle class being an important bridge to the popular classes, whose culture is closer to them then the culture of many of the western educated middle class.
On top of this such accounts ignore the way in which often 'traditional' culture is more complicated then such analyses suggests.
In Iran for example large sections of the clerical class are really quite hostile to the regime. Qom has to be watched carefully by the regime. Amongst the religously devout, these currents also have an influence. All of this makes analysing the politics of the popular classes and their relationship to other social groups a very complicated business indeed: a few soundbites won't do.
Now the killings and repression of the last week will have had a huge impact right across Iranian society. Unlike bloggers in the west, ordinary people tend to become upset by these things. Its vile. Ordinary people also have experiance of the everyday corruption and venality of the regime, even if only at the hands of its local representatives as it where (because of the tensions mentioned there is often a large gap between the official rhetoric of politics and how it gets translated on the ground).
If Yoshie or some stalinist throwback thinks they have privilaged access to the consiousness of the popular masses, I would suggest they're somewhat mistaken.
But above all, understanding the material basis for the forms that politics take, doesn't mean accepting them. It means challenging them more effectively. In all this commentry from Yoshie and others I see nothing which involves any engagement with any ideas but comfortably familiar ones. In this deep crisis that is an extraordinary thing: for Marxists and otherwise.
Its very unlikely that ferment across society in Iran itself at the moment, this kind of complacency is a feature. One thing is ignored in all this talk of parrallels with Venezuela and colour revolutions. In the Friday sermon huge masses of people were told that the demonstrations were led by counter-revolutionaries and basically exhorted to stand by the regime. Where are they? Despite the fact that confrontations with the state have continued we do not see any popular mobilisation against these supposed 'Gucci protesters' whatsoever.
What we see are the forces of the state and its paramilitary wings. Given the kinds of quasi-cultural and sociological divides referred to, this is a vanishingly unlikely situation if the protesters were really isolated in Iranian society.
Sadly, its unlikely that there will be any kind of informed response to this post. Because those like Yoshi and others who think like her, have decided to avoid engagement, and bot-like, simply repeat standard regime propaganda over and over again. On the fraud issue, I would simply say this. One reason to think there might be something to it is because sufficiant numbers of Iranians believe this to risk their lives, that the Islamic Republic is experiancing the most serious political and social crisis of its long history.
I think that socialists should be really careful about assuming that this is all a kind of hysterical silliness. And I'm afraid the one thing I disagree with in Lenin's excellent post is the curious idea that we will only know the truth when the Islamic Republic conducts an enquiry. The only knowledge we would get from such a thing is the balence of forces inside the regime. I think the way we would find out would be rather different....
johng, did you notice the traffic flowing in Tehran, in those images from Saturday, almost as if life outside the student riots was continuing normally.
Generally speaking, whenever there are protests of any kind, large numbers of people continue to drive cars, go shopping, watch television, do the housework etc. This doesn't actually tell us anything about the level of sympathy with or support for the protesters.
Anon, revolutions don's necessarily stop traffic. Not unless the roads are being blocked.
Tehran yesterday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=D...player_embedded
Lenin wrote: "The truth is, almost everything we are hearing on this topic from either side of the argument is hearsay and speculation."
This problem can be actually solved by going among people, asking questions, and listening. Some of the protesters have spoken, through interviews, manifestos, and so on, so we know a little about small segments of protesters whose thoughts had a chance to reach other people, including us. But those who voted for Ahmadinejad have not been listened to. Few took interest in who they are. What were they thinking when they voted for him? What do they think of the protests? What do they want? It's clear that the protesters alone cannot win even their smallest demand. It's time to take interest in those who didn't protest to see any common ground can be found between them and the protesters.
pictures look the same as they did in 1953.
Yoshi and Anon again simply ignore all evidence and argument and continue to ask us why we don't listen to people who are NOT on the street, despite being appealed to by the regime in its moment of crisis, who are NOT issuing manifestos, etc, etc. Ever hear of the dog that did not bark Yoshie? If what you were saying had the smallest amount of truth to it, and this was a Venezuelan style attempted coup we would be hearing from them all right. Do you seriously think that the poorer sections of the urban population would be frightened of a bunch of Gucci protesters with the forces of the state on their side? What you are saying makes no logical sense.
We heard the same argument during the December events in Greece, coming from the Stalinist KKE who efectively supported the government by denouncing the protests as an anarchist or ultra-left or 'Taliban"?!? minority.
Of course the re will be a decline at some point in the demonstrations. The same happened here. The government didn't fall.
But the bitterness remains and it has broadened and deepened.
The same is bound to happen in Iran. Whether the Left willl gain from it depends on what the Left does. That would mean in Iran supporting the demonstrators, being on the streets with the demonstrators and arguing for a class solution. We had to do the same in Greece.
And Yoshie please respond to the points Lenin actually makes. You have completely failed to respond to a single argument.
Lenin,
great post!
BTW, are we going to see the full article on Cineastic or left with that 'preview'?
It's quite difficullt for the western press to go among the non protesting people and solicit their views since they are banned from doing so.
It's quite difficullt for the western press to go among the non protesting people and solicit their views since they are banned from doing so.
As of now, yes. But neither politics nor journalism is a momentary thing. When Ahmadi was first elected in 2005, it was also a surprise, even a shock, to many. It's been four years since then, and you'd think that journalists, social activists, sociologists, etc. would get around to asking a few questions systematically in the interval.
yes apollo. for those who followed the Israeli brutality in Gaza, there seem to be remarkable parrallels no? 'Why are'nt you reporting etc, etc'...'er, because we're banned'.
This from the bus workers, its reproduced on the HOPI site but unfortunately they don't have a mechanism for linking to particular stories. I'd suggest that comrades look at it regularly for updates though. Popular uprisings change everything. We are witnessing a recomposition of the left globally which is potentially as profound as that which occured after the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iran.
Vahed Syndicate – Any Suppression or threat of civil liberty condemned
18 June
In line with the recognition of the labour rights, we request that June 26 Action Day – Justice for Iranian workers – to include the human rights of all Iranians who have been deprived of their rights.
In recent days, we continue witnessing the magnificent demonstration of millions of people from all ages, genders, and national and religious minorities in Iran. They request that their basic human rights, particularly the right to freedom and to choose independently and without deception be recognized. These rights are not only constitutional in most of the countries, but also have been protected against all odds.
Amid such turmoil, one witnesses threats, arrests, murders and brutal suppression that one fears only to escalate on all its aspects, resulting in more innocent bloodshed, more protests, and certainly no retreats. Iranian society is facing a deep political-economical crisis. Million-strong silent protests, ironically loud with un-spoken words, have turned into iconic stature and are expanding from all sides. These protests demand reaction from each and every responsible individual and institution.
As previously expressed in a statement published on-line in May of this year, since the Vahead Syndicate does not view any of the candidates support the activities of the workers’ organizations in Iran, it would not endorse any presidential candidate in the election. Vahed members nevertheless have the right to participate or not to participate in the elections and vote for their individually selected candidate.
Moreover, the fact remains that demands of almost an absolute majority of the Iranians go far beyond the demands of a particular group. In the past, we have emphasized that until the freedom of choice and right to organize are not recognized, talk of any social or particular right would be more of a mockery than a reality.
The Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Bus Company fully supports this movement of Iranian people to build a free and independent civil society and condemns any violence and oppression.
In line with the recognition of the labour rights, the Syndicate requests that June 26 which has been called by the International Trade Unions Organization ‘Day of action’ for justice for Iranian workers to include the human rights of all Iranians who have been deprived of their rights.
With hope for freedom and equality
The Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Bus Company
i thought the western press were only banned from covering the illegal protests, the riots.
Nope. They're banned from doing any interviews. Keep up.
During the coup, Roosevelt and Wilber bribed Iranian government officials, reporters, and businessmen.
Some Iranian clerics cooperated with the western spy agencies because they were dissatisfied with Mossadegh's secular government.
CIA had agreed with Qashqai tribal leaders, in south Iran, to establish a clandestine safe haven from which US-funded guerrillas and spies could operate.
The BBC spearheaded Britain's propaganda campaign.
etc
BTW, are we going to see the full article on Cineastic or left with that 'preview'?
Sorry, which article is this?
Nope. They're banned from doing any interviews. Keep up.
sorry, i missed that. i heard yesterday that the bbc guy had been told to leave for his own safety. others remained and there was no restriction on what they say.
john simpson was out and about, but decided to try and cover the riots.
For his own safety? Who did the regime think might harm him and were they not able to offer any protection, given the size of their goon squad?
As for Simpson you note he only describes what he's seen, does no filming or interviews. That's the nature of the ban.
Though risking the inevitable reply of "well they would say that, wouldn't they?", it's worth pointing out that Press TV this morning featured interviews with two Tehran citizens who alleged that they had been approached by British agents, who had tried to recruit them as agitators during the protests.
all sounds very familiar, except maybe for the mass of "westernised" "reform" students
Rapid three-way communications were arranged through CIA facilities between Tehran, Cyprus, and Washington. ...
In Iran, CIA and SIS propaganda assets were to conduct an increasingly intensified propaganda effort through the press, handbills, and the Tehran clergy in a campaign designed to weaken the Mossadeq government in any way possible. ...
The Study indicated that a ... combination, supported by CIA... would have a good chance ... if this combination should be able to get the largest mobs in the streets and if a sizable portion of the Tehran garrison refused to carry out Mossadeq's orders.
For his own safety?
some iranian lady they had on the bbc said that, not the state.
and you should of seen the bbc's reaction, quite put out he was. but she mentioned just how much the british and the bbc have played a part in destabilising iran for 100s of years.
he didnt like that either, and moved swiftly on
Anybody who believes that the British state has the capacity to produce a revolutionary upheavel in the Islamic Republic today, has long since departed planet earth.
Yes it's all the fault of the all powerful MSM.
As for Simpson you note he only describes what he's seen, does no filming or interviews.
no, he was filming it (well not him exactly)
he was doing that illegaly, he was out on the steet illegally because covering the riots was banned. i havnt seen a report from him recently going to interview the other side, which i havnt heard he was banned from doing.
Yes it's all the fault of the all powerful MSM.
is it? i hadnt heard that one either.
i did read that the bbc was involved in 1953 though
Agreed, especially as the British state, Kermit Rooselvelt and the CIA didn't deliver anything like these numbers onto the streets in 1953 and what they did deliver did the beating - they weren't beaten as these have been.
You gotta wonder when some people see a popular uprising and see a conspiracy. 1956 anyone?
johng: "Yoshi and Anon again simply ignore all evidence and argument and continue to ask us why we don't listen to people who are NOT on the street, despite being appealed to by the regime in its moment of crisis, who are NOT issuing manifestos, etc, etc. Ever hear of the dog that did not bark Yoshie? If what you were saying had the smallest amount of truth to it, and this was a Venezuelan style attempted coup we would be hearing from them all right. Do you seriously think that the poorer sections of the urban population would be frightened of a bunch of Gucci protesters with the forces of the state on their side? What you are saying makes no logical sense."
Well, I'm not sure what point you are making, but unlike Chavez in 2002, nobody in power was overthrown in Iran in 2009, and all its normal policing functions are intact, so people have no need to come out and defend anything, unlike Chavistas did at that time.
Even the fact that we are all calling these disturbances "protests" speaks volumes about the power of this carefully orchestrated Western propaganda campaign. Do you think our media would be calling it "protests" if British police stations were attacked and set on fire? Well for one thing it wouldn't be +anything+ for long: the Met would open fire on them at the merest hint of a Molotov cocktail, and the media would be saturated for weeks after with stories of a terror attack narrowly averted by our brave Boys in Blue.
I haven't seen any footage taken by the BBC for some days. CNN has absolutely nothing just a woman in a studio.
Anybody who believes that the British state has the capacity to produce a revolutionary upheavel in the Islamic Republic today, has long since departed planet earth.
a revolutionary upheaval, eh.
... on its own, maybe not, after all, they relied on the US in 1953, they conspired with Israel and france for suez.
etc
I haven't seen any footage taken by the BBC for some days. CNN has absolutely nothing just a woman in a studio.
the lady did mention that US reporters were not welcome beforehand, understandably so.
i'm sorry you missed john simpsons report, on saturday i think. i'll see if i can find somethng for you
Absoluey right deformed worker. The thuggish rioters with their ak47s outnumbered the lovely police 10 to 1. That student shot herself just for propaganda.
Do you seriously think that the poorer sections of the urban population would be frightened of a bunch of Gucci protesters with the forces of the state on their side?
i dont what point he was trying to make either. judging by the traffic out on the streets the working people of tehran are not frightened of anybody and trying to go about their daily business.
john simpson could have done a piece on them but instead we get the rioters again, and he did that while he was banned, also not too frightened. certainly not too frightened to be out and about
Right. People are being beaten up and murdered on the streets and the normal journalistic imuulse is to do a to camera about people hanging out the washing.
Id this is the impoverished case you have, it really is not surprising that so few people even on the left supports your 'analysis.' It's feeble and its puerile.
Even the fact that we are all calling these disturbances "protests" ...
if you were just watching the bbc then you would have seen just how our impartial bbc treated the iranian wording of "rioters" with ridicule and disdain etc. both newscaster were the same, taking it in turns, going out of their way to do it.
What I saw on tv was a series of peaceful marches, which almost from day one were met with armed force. Four dead on Monday. On Friday Khameni threatened them with a crackdown. They got it. When did they turn to riots and er, why?
http://www.cinestatic.com/infini...-protest-
in.asp
seems to hold only the opening of an article
Id this is the impoverished case you have, it really is not surprising that so few people even on the left supports your 'analysis.' It's feeble and its puerile.
oh dear, the adhom reposte. right back at ya ;-)
look, i'm simply saying that despite being able to go out and about he AGAIN covered the rioters. even though he was banned. i have yet to see a report by the bbc on the other side, which i supposed to be the norm for unbiased journalism. CNN do a better job, and they are not even there.
seems to hold only the opening of an article
Oh, I see. Well, it does look a bit unfinished, admittedly. I wonder if there's a part II on the way.
What I saw on tv was a series of peaceful marches, which almost from day one were met with armed force. Four dead on Monday. On Friday Khameni threatened them with a crackdown. They got it. When did they turn to riots and er, why?
let me tell you, in all seriousness, thats what you were led to believe, and you are mistaken.
now hold fire, dont get too upset about it because it will close your mind even to the possibility you were wrong. keep an open mind and read this
http://members5.boardhost.com/
me...1245582257.html
I'll take this slowly.
The BBC is banned. It can't conduct interviews. If violent clashes are going on, the BBC can describe what it sees. We know, because the BBC told us, that only a small number of demonstrators made it through the cordons. So it's er, obvious that beyond the cordons life goes on. And since he's banned from interviewing anyone he can't do a vox pop saying what do you think of the protests. So all you can say is, beyond the barricades life goes on. Er, that was true on the day of the anti-Iraq march. 2 million on the streets 58 million were not. Which is the story?
Yes Yoshie everything is fine nothing to see here. Why oh why don't we have more GOOD NEWS on TV. A nice program about Iranian poetry might provide some distraction. Deformed worker is hysterically funny. Listen carefully. Iran is not in the Soviet bloc. OK? So when you told lies about Polish workers all being CIA agents that was a GOOD kind of lie. Saying the same thing about Iranian workers (well you have not done this yet but those nasty bus workers you better try and keep up) is not quite the same. In whose name are you saying this?
Oy, media lens. Which posts a link to filmed interview of 114 Iranian documentary makers condemning the national news coverage in Iran and is followed by no discussion of this at all but some chatter about embedding video and the BBC splicing together some footage. No. That place is a joke. By which I mean, not remotely of any serious value.
i'm not in anyway justifying the shooting of unarmed rioters, even if they are setting fire to the building with the gunmen inside. i'm not even saying this is where all the protesters were killed on monday.
this is one angle, there are others, this is the 15th
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V...h?
v=V9i18GEihsM
there are dozens of other videos and clips of riiots begining from day one
Er, that was true on the day of the anti-Iraq march. 2 million on the streets 58 million were not. Which is the story?
Both in that case, too. But at least no one tried to project a fantasy of social revolution on anti-Iraq war marches or any of the other recent big marches, strikes, riots, etc. in the North. We need the same realistic look at Iran.
The BBC is banned. It can't conduct interviews.
again i hadnt heard that, and it didnt stop simpson being out on the streets on saturday covering the rioters.
No. He could go out on the streets but he can't film and he can't interview. Nor can anyone else from the foreign press.
That place is a joke.
so you are dismissing the observations that unfortunately led you to say exactly what those observations predicted you would say?
strange that, not.
"General Ali Fazli, recently appointed as commander of Seiyed al-shohada of the Revolutionary Guards in Tehran province, has been arrested for refusing to carry Khamenei's order to use force against demonstrators"
From the Guardian... and it did look like the ordinary police were not that hostile to the protestors a few days ago... you know i dont think its necessarily over yet.
IMO it doesnt matter at all who got the votes, its now a challenge to the state, one which Mousavi will turn against at some stage
Press cards have been invalidated. They're basically confined to their offices and anyone who does go out takes his life in his own hands.
No. He could go out on the streets but he can't film and he can't interview.
he did go out and he did film.
Well, out I go. and I agree. I don't think it's over. The showdown though is taking place behind close doors between the clerics.
Yes, yes Yoshie no serious political crisis here, business as normal, lets get on with the important international questions of negotiations between Obama and the regime, I know, I know...
Yes, he went out, but if he did and he filmed it would have been in violation of the ban. So he was breaking - the - law. Do you understand?
Yes, he went out, but if he did and he filmed it would have been in violation of the ban. So he was breaking - the - law. Do you understand?
yes i do.
do you understand that riots and burning things down began on the first day?
"do you understand that riots and burning things down began on the first day?"
so what? It would only take one cop baton to make me pretty angry, i think the violence/non-violence thing is also a furphy. Its essentially a struggle for power.
Yes, yes Yoshie no serious political crisis here, business as normal
Really, I'd like to emphasize, taking an opportunity of this return of collective sobriety on this blog, that to win the allegiance of workers, what happens between demos and riots -- during ordinary days -- is more important than what's happening during them. This is so whether you aim for reform or revolution.
this really does sum it up
What I saw on tv was a series of peaceful marches, which almost from day one were met with armed force. Four dead on Monday. On Friday Khameni threatened them with a crackdown. They got it. When did they turn to riots and er, why?
you need to look beyond what the media would have believe.
yes thats what you saw, of course you did.
now search both flicker sites and you tube for the images of the riots going back to day one. burning buses, burning police cars, upturned cars, burning building, stone throwing and general mayhem.
then ask youself how you were so easily fooled.
riots? burning things?
how awful. Thank goodness they don't tolerate that sort of nonsense here. Its so restrained as well. Just a few Basij randomly shooting on-lookers and passers-by etc. Just a few hundred people kidnapped in hospitals and probably being tortured as we speak.
But the main thing comrades is to ensure that this in no way inteferes with prospective negotiations between the regime and Obama. THATS the important thing. Obama shares this goal as well. So everything is OK.
Yoshie what are you talking about?
Antonovich, what do you mean "so what?"
did you not see what comment i was responding to. i'm not saying it means anything beyond that the person who said
What I saw on tv was a series of peaceful marches, which almost from day one were met with armed force. Four dead on Monday. On Friday Khameni threatened them with a crackdown. They got it. When did they turn to riots and er, why?
has been fooled.
thats what.
try not to be so reactionary, eh
Yoshie what are you talking about?
Seriously, over the last couple of days, I though nearly everyone commenting here lost their marbles, with their excited chatters of "Iran on the Brink of Revolution," "Iran on the Precipice of Revolution," or whatever. If only revo were that easy!
Statement of the Tudeh party:
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4261
riots? burning things?
how awful. ...
oh dear, another knee jerk reactionary comment.
havnt you got over the "3 million" vote thing from last night ;-)
Yoshie give it a rest for gods sake.
didnt the February revolution happen in a week with the Bolsheviks tailing behind?
Yoshie thinks that everything was swell in the Iran only three weeks ago or so. All this youthful silliness has just come out of nowhere and therefore is neither serious nor is it a threat to politics as usual. What those silly, middle class youth need to do is go home and read some Marx and Lenin and understand the method of party building and long term propagandizing if they're really serious.
Otherwise, it's just better that the regime wins because it understands how to resist imperialism.
and if you can judge by the reactions of the US and Israel, they have pretty mixed feelings about the current movement
over the last few days i have a new found respect for Yoshie. she has taken nothing but abuse from everyone but hasn't moved an inch. that deserves credit; even if what she is arguing possibly shoudl have been expressed as a series of reservations about the movement, rather than open support for the regime.
in the words of sylvester stallone at the end of every episode of 'The Contender'--"Great heart kid, great heart"
lenin - a very good article but perhaps I misunderstood something. You seemed to imply that left wing ideas can only come from outside the movement when you say:
"There is no necessary reason why such a movement will take on a leftist hue. It hasn't so far. Only by engaging in the movement could the left hope to shift it in that direction."
That, I think, is patently wrong now as it was in 1979. The shoras were largely ignored by the Left but were obviously "leftist" in the sense of being forms of alternative, radical power - though they didn't fulfill their potential. Likewise, the development of the present movement, the dialectic of repression and escalation/deepening can lead people into more leftist directions. The job of the left is to collect those people who have moved most clearly in that direction in order to amplify their effect upon the movement. Or, perhaps, I have sorely misunderstood you...
Johng: Yoshie give it a rest for gods sake.
---
If she wrote this crap on her own blog (which I assume she is doing), nobody would pay it any attention. The other people at MRZine wouldn't permit her to post it there either--fortunately. The odd thing about this comrade is that most of her energy is devoted to bashing the "Western left" for not appreciating political Islam. I wonder if she spends any time on the rather copious political Islam forums on the Internet promoting Marxism. Nah.
over the last few days i have a new found respect for Yoshie. she has taken nothing but abuse from everyone but hasn't moved an inch. that deserves credit; even if what she is arguing possibly shoudl have been expressed as a series of reservations about the movement, rather than open support for the regime.
I knew I was being a wet blanket, but when everybody is feverish, maybe a wet blanket is necessary.
To repeat, though, the regime doesn't need my support. The regime has mass support. And I'll be able to tell you if and when when it ceases to enjoy mass support.
Due to your psychic tie to Iran.
Due to your psychic tie to Iran.
No. I just try to pay attention to what people are saying when nothing is happening.
Strange. You seemed fairly certain that you could analyse the class make-up of the protests without any need for external evidence.
I suspect that if you have been campaigning for a reproachment between the west and Iran the present is a rather confusing period. Oddly though, the response of the US and the west is rather similar to Yoshie's. Of course they'd love a colour revolution. But they're worried about instability and worried about the long term consequences. As with Yoshie its a much safer bet to be statesman like, cautious and reserved, and look to the future of settled negotiations with people you can do business with. On the other side are malcontents like ourselves who would like to see the world turned upside down. One see's the problem.
she has taken nothing but abuse from everyone
not everyone.
anyway, where would we be without the loud cry of "fraud!"
the system is a fraud. Everyone is entitled to cry it
she has taken nothing but abuse from everyone
---
Well, of course. That is how she feels vindicated. This sort of "shock jock/epater le bourgeoisie" Marxism was pioneered by Frank Furedi's sect in the 1980s. The criterion for success is not how many people you persuade but how many you piss off.
Of course they'd love a colour revolution. But they're worried about instability and worried about the long term consequences.
Whoa, we finally are in full agreement.
Firstly, johng is responding to the Iranian demonstrations as if they were Western demonstrations; that is, how can my party possibly benefit from these demonstrations? Taking this line necessarily entails exaggerating the potential of the demonstrations for transforming Iranian society, and saying things which he hopes are true but which he cannot possibly know to be true.
This is a little embarrassing, but it also entails asking the wrong questions. The first question to ask is: are these demonstrations likely to bring about change in the governing system of Iran? Yoshie is right; they are not likely to bring about change. The violence used against the Iranian demonstrators is actually trivial by the standards of the region, and represents only a small fraction of the violence which could be used without alienating the mass of the population. Once the government decided to stand by the President, the failure of the protests was more or less decided.
However, let's suppose that the Iranian theocracy were indeed overthrown and a democratic state installed. Who would benefit? Self-evidently, the government of the United States, which would almost certainly have immense influence over an Iranian government which was obliged to reject theocracy (and therefore would have to exist in constant fear of Islamic revolution, hence would have to have immense U.S. military support). Obviously this collapse would immensely strengthen Israel's position, the position of the Iraqi and Afghan puppet governments, and the position of the U.S. tools in Pakistan. It would also go a long way towards justifying the invasion of Iraq in the eyes of the American people, and last but not least, would bolster American conservatism by once again destroying a long-standing grievance.
Of course, it might also generate a better life for some people in Iran. Maybe the majority. On the other hand, neoliberal governments in that part of the world tend to be extremely repressive and corrupt, so the majority might well not benefit. In which case, this represents something of a problem for the analysis which holds that the left should stand with the protesters. It's entirely possible that, whatever the protesters actually want, the consequence of a victory of the protesters would be catastrophic for the left globally, and even in Iran.
On the other side are malcontents like ourselves who would like to see the world turned upside down.
People who want to overthrow the IRI should do everything they can to expedite normalization between the US and Iran. Once that happens, most probably, Iran's power elite will privatize faster, and abandon their Arab brothers, and do other things that piss off more workers than before, thus creating more dissatisfaction with the regime.
Yes, but of course anoymous comment posters and a few Spartacist imbeciles is the kind of support anyone would die for.
I echo Louis Proyect's comment. It's not just that I disagree with the articles, but they are short and not articulated well.
short and not articulated well.
Still and all, everyone seemed to get my message: the revo is not on. :->
The major conceit here on both sides is that the Western Left's position on this question has any material import whatsoever.
Picking a dog in this fight is a fool's errand. The only tenable position is:
a) to publicize any statements from the organized working class in Iran (which if I'm not mistaken have so far numbered two, both in support of the protestors),
and,
b) to resolutely use these events to oppose the War Machine's effort to initiate armed conflict with Iran.
Let's not make fools of ourselves by either wearing green like the fox news characters or descending into pro-IRGC cheerleading.
Sorry Slaney but thats not good enough. Its the duty of all socialists to show solidarity with those fighting the regime on the streets.
Still and all, everyone seemed to get my message: the revo is not on. :->
You are most likely correct. But the obvious glee with which you say it is disturbing. Not to mention, the situation on the ground is so poorly understood that this may not be the case in a few days or weeks.
The Creater makes a number of bold evidence supplying neither his secret reasoning or any evidence, either for his assumptions about my position, or his rather curious assumption that the crisis is over, a position which seems to be based on wish fulfillment and his rather silly idea that democracy in Iran would benefit the US. I suspect the US is much less sure of this then he is.
However, let's suppose that the Iranian theocracy were indeed overthrown and a democratic state installed. Who would benefit? Self-evidently, the government of the United States, which would almost certainly have immense influence over an Iranian government which was obliged to reject theocracy (and therefore would have to exist in constant fear of Islamic revolution, hence would have to have immense U.S. military support).
Precisely. Tens of millions of Iranians who give allegiance to the IRI today cannot be made to go away by just changing the make-up of the government.
No but in the process of social ferment going on now Yoshie you or I have no idea what tens of millions of Iranians are thinking today, will be thinking tommorrow or will be thinking next week, and its really foolish to pretend we do. I suspect there are thousands of constituencies but the danger the regime faces is some kind of combination of those it has let down (those presumed to have been Ahadinajad's natural base, but then again 'natural' bases occassionally behave in unnatural ways) and those who've always been a bit discontented. We shall see of course but the content of this crisis is largely to do with the possibility that this grinding of the regime from two sides might begin. In many ways Ahmadinajad's principilism was an attempt to make the ghost of the revolutionary republic get up and walk about again. Statistically as Richard demonstrates not with very impressive results.
However, let's suppose that the Iranian theocracy were indeed overthrown and a democratic state installed. Who would benefit?
There are a number of questionable assumptions here. The first is a hard distinction between a "democratic state" and "the Iranian theocracy". Like all constitutional states, the IRI has both democratic and un- or anti-democratic elements.
I suppose by "democratic state" you mean something like a Western one. I am not aware that a large number of the protesters are calling for that.
At least up until this weekend the demand of the protesters has been for a change in personnel and policy under the current IRI constitution. As tensions mount this may change, but so far there is no indication that demands have mounted beyond that.
Likewise, your assumption that a more "reformist" regime would automatically be more friendly to US interests is questionable as well. One of Mousavi's most prominent backers is Ali Mohtashamipour, one of the founding fathers of Lebanese Hezbollah.
And why does Israel want Ahmadinejad to win?
Statistically as Richard demonstrates not with very impressive results.
Stats can be spun many different ways. In any case, it's not our own evaluations of Ahmadi's program that count; it's voters' evaluations that matter: what they think about them, half full, half empty, etc., relative to what's presented by the other candidates' programs. I hope that in the next four years socialists -- especially Iranian socialists -- will make real attempts to find out, since we really have not in the last four years.
Over coffee with my Palestinian friend this afternoon he tells me that every year 70,000 students graduate from Iranian universities with jobs and no prospect of any jobs, forming an educated but unemployed layer of society which is not quite the gilded youth we've been led to believe.
Yoshie might that be because the socialists were locked up or being beaten? It does tend to intefere with research.
johg: you are desperately needed to organise the revolutionary Lindsey oil refinery construction staff!
Time we followed the brave Iranians and push forward the day when we will be free!
ofcourse the BBC is biased, ofcourse CNN is biased, ofcourse they wouldnt call similar protests in the west protests but riots. Point is, that's not the fucking point.
Props to those who burn down militia buildings, burn cop cars and risk their lives to do it, whether in Iran or in the west - that is the point.
now fuck off pseudo-leftists, go join the state.
Over coffee with my Palestinian friend this afternoon he tells me that every year 70,000 students graduate from Iranian universities with jobs and no prospect of any jobs, forming an educated but unemployed layer of society which is not quite the gilded youth we've been led to believe.
That is indeed a real problem, which leads to a huge brain drain every year. How to fix that should be a subject of discussion.
i hope they are discussing at the moment and making the link between clericalism and capitalism
I don't think it makes a brain drain, which implies that have degrees the west wants (medicine, engineering) and the money to start a new life elsewhere. What it creates is an impoverished frustrated class of people with nothing to do, but the brains to figure out that the government might be their problem.
Which is what we've been seeing over the past week.
Yoshie might that be because the socialists were locked up or being beaten? It does tend to intefere with research.
It does. But I read an estimate last year claiming that there exist about 500 Marxist students in Iran; presumably every year some of the new students become Marxists, replacing those who end up in prison or abandon Marxism in despair or otherwise become unavailable. That's not enough to overthrow the regime, but enough to do a research project.
Yoshie - Doesn't the fact that your sole allies here are a Stalinist, some Anonymouses (or one Anonymous, more likely) who sound an awful lot like Sparts & a white nationalist jew-hater who was just b& by Lenin strike you as sort of a bad thing?
the system is a fraud. Everyone is entitled to cry it
but where would we be without it?
Could Yoshie tell us how she sees the situation being resolved?
ofcourse the BBC is biased, ofcourse CNN is biased, ofcourse they wouldnt call similar protests in the west protests but riots. Point is, that's not the fucking point.
Props to those who burn down militia buildings, burn cop cars and risk their lives to do it, whether in Iran or in the west - that is the point.
now fuck off pseudo-leftists, go join the state.
oh dear, another one.
the point being made, was the rioting didnt start after the much publised "crackdown" by the state. the protest began with rioting
I don't think it makes a brain drain, which implies that have degrees the west wants (medicine, engineering) and the money to start a new life elsewhere. What it creates is an impoverished frustrated class of people with nothing to do, but the brains to figure out that the government might be their problem.
Click here to find articles of various qualities regarding Iran's brain drain.
So, some leave, others stay, and those who stay indeed suffer from relative deprivation (can't find jobs commensurate with their education, can't get married without jobs, have to live with parents, etc.). This is a common problem throughout the Middle East, including Iran. What's the socialist solution to this problem?
or you might say, after the loud cry of "rigged!", the rioting began.
where would we be without that cry?
What is the socialist solution to this question is a big question but the question: are the protesters all bourgeois haves and don't represent the poor of Iran, is already answered.
Could Yoshie tell us how she sees the situation being resolved?
The situation meaning the electoral conflict? Or Iran's economic problems? Discontent of college-educated youth?
"That's not enough to overthrow the regime, but enough to do a research project"
Yoshie is this some kind of dark humour or something?
whats a spart?
some of the anonymouses are from the uneducated class that mass movements ought to try and appeal to, imo.
Looks like the state security forces are increasingly able to crush these unprecedented protests by banning, kidnapping and arresting them. But what I want to know from those that opposed them, is it really credible that the brave million people or so who went to the unauthorised protests are just going to go away in political terms? Seems to me that this struggle has a great chance of producing strong changes from the regime over the medium term, if the regime wants survive, so the movements willingness to seize this opportunity will have been more than worth it. Your authoritarian instinct to smear these millions of ordinary people, the bus drivers and even the working class football players who are national heroes for wearing the green - and use terrible right wing propaganda about "students" as if this was a dirty word - was utterly wrong and should be self examined. You do this struggle and yourself a huge disservice by using primitive propaganda in this way.
Yes it's true that the protestors will probably make a tactical retreat in the coming days in the face of stepped up state repression, and won't achieve a sudden overnight style revolution - not that anyone said that was likely to happen - but something has now changed for the better. It has all been for a great and valid cause and will doubtless produce results to show for it. Never again will they be taken for granted. Good on them; they are on the right side of history.
good job the election was "rigged" then?
To johng
I have to say I never in my wildest dreams I would find myself on the same political page as you. I always thought you were a bit of a pillock, to be honest. But you have grown in my estimation enormously in the past few days. Some people have a heart or a brain, you seem to have both.
x apollo
ps Galloway was always a shyster you know. From WAY back.
What is the socialist solution to this question is a big question but the question: are the protesters all bourgeois haves and don't represent the poor of Iran, is already answered.
I myself put it as conflict of richer and poorer Iranians, rather than as bourgeois vs. proletarian, as you can see in my previous postings and comments on this question. Richer and poorer, upper and lower, are relative terms, as opposed to Marxist terms.
What's important is to debate what socialists would do to address this problem if socialists were in a position to define Iran's economic plan. If you want people to support something other than what exists, you have to give them a concrete alternative.
apollo this may be an asymmetrical relationship.
And if we come up with this plan will they stop imprisoning and shooting us?
Roland makes good points although I'm not sure he's right about the movement ending. It is true Yoshie that your arguments were ferociously right wing.
Lest all praise the god of "rigged" elections, where would we be without that.
Could try that here in the uk, just cry "rigged" loud enough and see if you can get rioters to be on the right side of history.
"right side of history"?
Yoshie; Call yourself a Marxist! Stop eliding and sliding all over the place. You know precisely what I mean: How do you see these riots being resolved? Are you a Stalinist, by the way?
Is a Spart a follower of Sparticus, as in that movie?
Ah, well. Love unrequited.
How do you see these riots being resolved?
They will end sometime soon: some get arrested*; others go home quietly.
* Those are the ones who need your solidarity if you are planning to continue to pay attention to Iran.
Life will go on as ever. Oh good, I won't have to worry about young girls being hung, or trade unionists blinded in gaol, or young boys being killed for 'sexual crimes' because I will know that this is the will of the Iranian people. That's a weight of my mind.
And if we come up with this plan will they stop imprisoning and shooting us?
One of the reasons why most Iranians are not interested in socialism is the old baggage of democratic centralism which presented no vision of freedom, thus hardly better than the IRI in this department; another reason is socialists don't seem to have a concrete economic program that would make Iran better than what it is. (As a matter of fact, these two reasons apply in most countries in the world.) So, fixing a little part of that should be helpful.
Life will go on as ever. Oh good, I won't have to worry about young girls being hung, or trade unionists blinded in gaol, or young boys being killed for 'sexual crimes' because I will know that this is the will of the Iranian people. That's a weight of my mind.
Most likely, most leftists as well as everyone else in the world will quit paying attention to Iran after the riots. People's attention is fickle. They just follow "crises" of the moment. Then, they'll come back to Iran again when something "exciting" happens and the mass media bring it to their attention.
Yoshie, I doubt very much that the reason why 'many Iranians' are not interested in socialism (although it should be noted that the regime invented Islamic forms of the same rhetorically to appeal to people so I don't really think you can be right about this) has the slightest thing to do with the organisational forms of partys which are banned and unseen in Iran itself. A case it seems to me of projection again. What exactly do you think the state is like? It ill-behoves a defender of that state to start lecturing leftists about democracy. Any kind of leftist.
Its the way of the world apollo tragically.
I think Louis has a point about the RCP style. Islamic Spiked?
Roland makes good points although I'm not sure he's right about the movement ending.
I don't think the movement is ending but there is naturally diminishing returns from attending a protest where you are likely to be arrested immediately or later tracked down and arrested at home, and thrown in jail. Only the bravest of the brave will still have the stomach for it. But unlike Yoshie, I don't think this in anyway invalidates the protests as a strategy. The millions of people cannot be wished away; the resistence has been an extremely important turning point for the country and will produce productive changes. Also, the people now know that they don't need leaders even from the establishment official opposition to help them organise themselves, which is very important. Officaldom has gotten a bloody nose.
oh i see, as in the spartacist league - splitters, like in that monty python film, i get it now :-)
Whatever happens now, and the truth is we just don't know, the knee jerk instincts of some people like Yoshie has been disturbing.
And I particualrly won't have to worry about the unelected Council of Experts or the Supreme Leader, as I will know that that is the democratic will of the Iranian people. Sorry, but I have to say this Yoshie, are they ready for self-government?
I've found out the correct term for the rule by Bearded Old Men, it's 'velayat e faiqh', 'the rule of the jurist'. Do you support it, Yoshie?
Do you think our media would be calling it "protests" if British police stations were attacked and set on fire?
This is close:
http://www.independent.co.uk/new...rus-
752828.html
And I particualrly won't have to worry about the unelected Council of Experts or the Supreme Leader, as I will know that that is the democratic will of the Iranian people. Sorry, but I have to say this Yoshie, are they ready for self-government?
They will be completely wiped off the mental map of people in the West soon. Maybe tomorrow.
Oh I certainly agree with the substance of what you say Roland. I suppose I should have said I hope you are wrong about this phase of the struggle being over. But then again I know you do too!
ive just read that Juan Cole, Noam Chomsky & Robert Fisk think that Ahmadinejad won, but that someone rigged the numbers anyway (because they were scared he would lose was the best excuse given, i think).
As ive read someone else ask, where would we be without that cry of fraud that went out?
But Yoshie the trouble is that they don't seem to exist for you either..other then a set of rather unpleasent stereotypes. You should ditch this nonsense about the 'western left' incidently. Particularly after making little jokes about socialists in jail. I don't think there is anything particularly western about the left in Iranian Jails.
Actually no Yoshie fan. There is a huge internal fight inside the Iranian state which has a long history and which sparked this fight. The question of the precise majority was therefore politically important.
So the Western left doesn't care about Iran when the cameras are turned away. You personally know the thoughts and feelings not only of the world's Muslims, but also the Western left. Awesome!
So the Western left doesn't care about Iran when the cameras are turned away.
Isn't that largely true? Yesterday Zimbabwe, today Iran, tomorrow who knows which country. . . .
Oh right. And what do you care about Yoshie?
Er, can you explain how you KNOW that the Western left doesn't care about Zimbabwe? Or Palestine? What's the basis for this assertion? Perhaps personal experience? You yourself have been posting solidly on this subject for several days. Or is there some other place where you are doing your Palestine solidarity work consecutively?
I just can't get over the fact that 'Yoshie' edits a Marxist journal!!! Heavens to Murgatroyd!
"This is a little embarrassing, but it also entails asking the wrong questions. The first question to ask is: are these demonstrations likely to bring about change in the governing system of Iran? Yoshie is right; they are not likely to bring about change. The violence used against the Iranian demonstrators is actually trivial by the standards of the region, and represents only a small fraction of the violence which could be used without alienating the mass of the population. Once the government decided to stand by the President, the failure of the protests was more or less decided."
As I have noted before, roughly equivalent levels of violence to demonstrators in Turkey don't get anything like the same degree of Western media attention. For example, not that long ago a Kurdish demonstrator was killed by Turkish police in Dogubeyazit, in the extreme eastern part of Turkey and not far from the Iranian frontier. It could be argued that he was killed on the "wrong" side of the frontier, in terms on getting media attention. If he had been killed on the Iranian side, by the Basij, he might have at least rated a mention on Fox News.
Here is a list - far from exhaustive - of repression by Turkish state forces involving demonstrators or protesters of various kinds, in most cases involving loss of life, over the past 17 years:
1. Kurdish New Year 1992 - heavy use of live ammunition by police and "special teams" against Kurds demonstrating on Newroz. Kurdish sources report over 100 deaths in various parts of Turkey, other sources report several dozen deaths.
2.1993: Police enter a café in Istanbul and spray it with gunfire, killing four people. They say it is an "anti-terrorist" operation but two of the four people have no connections to any political group. They seem to have been at an adjoining table in a public place to the actual targets, and were cut down as well. A fifth person arrested alive by the police disappears and has never been found to this day.
3. March 12-15, 1995, Istanbul: Unknown gunmen assumed to be far right-affiliated drive around a district inhabited by members of the Alevi minority, shooting at shops and cafés. They escape after killing one person. People riot, suspecting the police of collusion with the attackers. In the disturbances, 20+ deaths, some of them members of socialist groups.
4. September 1995: Attack on left-wing prisoners by guards in Buca Prison, Izmir. Three dead, many wounded.
5. January 1996: Attack on left-wing prisoners by guards, Umraniye Prison, Istanbul. Three prisoners killed, a fourth dies later. Many wounded.
6. May Day 1996: demonstrators and police clash in Istanbul. Three demonstrators killed.
7. September 1996: Ten Kurdish prisoners killed by guards in Diyarbakir Prison.
8. May Day 1998: police attack demonstrators. One man badly beaten in custody, then commits suicide on release.
9. September 1999: Ten left-wing prisoners killed by guards in Ankara Ulucanlar Prison.
10. December 19-22, 2000: to end a prison hunger strike aimed at opposing isolation cell prisons, thousands of troops and police attack 20 prisons where prisoners are on hunger strike. 28 prisoners are killed, many wounded, and systematic torture practised against prisoners before removing them to isolation cells. Long-running hunger strikes result in many more deaths.
11. November 5, 2001: Police in Istanbul attack solidarity hunger strikers. Four deaths.
12. November 2005: Bomb planted in Semdinli, extreme south-east of Turkey. Officially attributed to PKK guerrillas, but a few days later men arrested in the act of planting a second bomb turn out to be working for the Turkish state. Investigation of obvious "dirty tricks" brigade still ongoing.
How much of this actually makes it into the Western media, or attracts much notice among the Western left?
Faust, you're talking to the wrong people if you want to publicise the unequal treatment of Turkey and Iran. As far as I know, Mr Seymour and Mr Game and their friends are not responsible for what appears on British tv screeens. And neither am I. I think you are suggesting that it is a Yank inspired plot to interfere in Iran? Take it up with them. Write a letter to Fox News or something.
That's true, but consider the huge coverage of the Israeli attacks in Lebanon in 2007 and Gaza in 2008/9.
In part it is to do with there being a sudden flashpoint, and journalists gathering for a large event. Most news organisations just don't have anyone on the ground in the places you mention. Especially inside prisons which are very difficult to cover.
It's the politics of the spectacle, but also the sense that there might be a crisis and turning point.
From CNN:
Commentary: Iran conflict isn't class warfare
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/me...yths/
index.html
They could talk to relatives or friends of prisoners. Actually, they don't bother. Regurgitating the state version of events is so much simpler, especially if the state in question has been in NATO for 50 years and is not in the "axis of evil".
I don't think you have control over media, but the left, certainly the British left, is apathetic about Turkey, and when it does say something I find it rather naive on the question of its "moderate Islamist" PM Erdogan. Kurdish nationalists have sometimes referred to it as the "good Kurd bad Kurd" phenomenon. "Bad Kurds" are the ones in Turkey, resisting a NATO state armed with German rifles and machine-guns and American helicopters.
There is such spectacle in Turkey too, if you want to look. A famous TV clip from March 1995 was of youths in Gazi, Istanbul stoning riot police during the incident I mentioned and driving them back. Prominent among them was a youth in a light jacket who was later killed by the police. To a surprising degree, Turkish TV shows images of riots and police behaviour, including beating protestors, although in other ways the media is restricted - one theory is that the media want to frighten people about the possible consequences of demonstrating.
Faust - we don't choose how the world, the media and the state operates. We don't choose what becomes a crisis point - for instance whether it was the focus on trade agreements pre-9/11 or the decision of the US state to go after Iraq in 2003. We are forced to respond within a given context. The issue of Palestine has risen and fallen in public consciousness over the years, though the fundamental inhumanity of the situation hasn't changed, whether it was an issue of mass public consciousness or not. The truth is we can't force people to mobilize or show interest. It's a complex series of interwoven layers that determine what will be focal issues and mobilizing issues. The throw out moralistic homilies about how the Left ignores Turkey or Sri Lanka or Tibet or East Timor or the indigenous peoples of southern Chile, etc. etc. is just sectarian. We don't pick the crisis points but it is our job to take advantage of them as openings to mobilize people and introduce them to the broader injustices of the world and the kind of strategies and tactics needed to bring those injustices to an end.
johng - clearly you know nothing of history. the reason why the Tudeh party, the People's Fedayeen and the MEK are no longer mass parties in Iran is because they were democratic centralist and lacked a convincing economic program. It had nothing to do with the slaughter of their leaderships, the banning of their organizations, the closing down of their newspapers. It wasn't even because they wrongly estimated the importance of the shoras during the '79 revolution, allowing the Islamists to embed themselves deeply amongst the Iranian working class. It's because today they don't have a proper position on tax policy.
What academic silliness.
Mousavi tells his supporters that the basij militias are "brothers" and "protectors of the revolution":
http://apnews.myway.com/article/.../
D98VM5N80.html
He must be worried.
One reason why Iran is being discussed here is because its clear that over the last week that state has experianced the deepest political and social crisis for thirty years. And is still experiancing it despite Yoshie's bewildering attitude. Its not a question of the depth of repression. In some ways the incoherence of the state and its inability to get control of the situation speaks to a much deeper crisis.
Its also the case that for most of us that the sight of mass demonstrations and clashes on the streets of any middle eastern country is an exciting thing. Because its an exciting thing in a region were you have a collection of dictatorships which have faced much smaller, but nevertheless similar outbreaks over the last few years: and of course its a country at the centre of the wider crisis in the region.
Two possible paths here. One path says both to those taking part in the demonstrations and the millions more watching both inside and outside of the region, that there is no connection between these struggles and this wider political crisis. If anything its a bit of an embarressment.
The other path says that this is the way in which these wider crisis will be solved. If you argue the first you effectively set up an opposition between yourself and all those movements, both inside Iran and outside of it, which have taken to the streets, gone on strike, and struggled over the last decade. So its a vitally important question and no-one on the left should apologise for focusing on Iran. Socialists always focus on mass struggles and have things to say about them.
There is absolutely no reason for whataboutary in this case.
a bit from tiny revolution: http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt...ves/
002994.html
It would be nice in our schema if it (the uprising) happened first in Egypt and Jordan and then Iran, but the masses dont follow our prescriptions. We have to know what to say if the movement goes into hiatus now - something along the lines that it is right to struggle for freedom, but its wrong to think that Mousavi would deliver it. I mean freedom as I heard defined in interviews was as simple as being able to dance and drink. Not freedom to join forces with imperialism.
I know a lot of terrible things happen in the world, and I know CNN loves propaganda, but after watching that video of the young women being shot and dying, I dont know how anyone here cant know what side they are on
well i mean "can't be on the protestors side"
Late to the game, but here are a few random comments.
First, as much as I disagree with Yoshie's support for the government against the protestors, I don't think she deserves the ridicule to which she has been subjected by some here.
Much of the underlying basis for her position reflect legitimate concerns based upon recent history, as I discussed on my blog on Friday, while explaining why I support the protests.
As I said there, a even more ruthless neoliberal program is certainly a plausible outcome, and I think that we have an obligation that issue, as some here have already done.
She has also correctly observed that conditions in Iran are not pre-revolutionary, although she does appear to be too dismissive of the nuances of the arguments of people who are curious about the extent to which the power structure of the country has been damaged. Naturally, it's a speculative endeavor, but, of course it always is, recall the obvious, legendary example of how Zinoviev and Kalinin told Lenin in September and October of 1917 that the time was not right for taking power. Or, conversely, how the German revolutionaries came to the equally wrong opposite conclusion on a number of occasions.
My view, expressed here last Friday, parallels the small case lenin, militancy will persist, even if the protests are suppressed, taking the form of sporadic episodes of violence, and there will be passive resistance in the workplace as well.
Second, I find reports that many young people who are participating in the protests are doing so to challenge the legitimacy of theocratic rule under Green banner of Mosavi to be compelling. Ironically, Yoshie engages in the same practice that Dreyfuss did a week or so ago when he reviled Ahmanijedad supporters, that of conflating the agenda of the candidate with that of his supporters. People are seizing upon the weakness of the regime as displayed by its response to the election campaign and its result to press a more radical social agenda through protest.
It is a left program? No. But it is one worthy of support by the left, because they are making demands that the odious forms of social control imposed upon people by this regime be eliminated. The left is not only composed of workers, but also, young people, gays and lesbians, women and various groups of marginalized people. Hence, it is a proper left position to support people who are insisting upon their personal liberation from religiously imposed restrictions that make their daily lives oppressive.
But it also creates an opportunity for workers in Iran to intervene, perhaps decisively. Yoshie seems to believe that Iranian workers are best served by trying to empower themselves over time under the existing regime, while protecting their precarious standard of living, so as to seize a future opportunity for reform and possibly even the seizure of power.
I don't believe that, but there is factual support for this position. Certainly, as oppressive as this regime can be, it is much improved over the 1980s and early 1990s. In other words, it has evolved over time, and, one could argue that it will evolve going forward in ways that will create more space for the workers and the left.
But I don't believe that now. Regardless of what we would individually prefer, the fight is on today. If Khatami and Ahmanijedad prevail, the repression is going to be severe. Like lenin, I believe that the workers have an opportunity to seize a role for themselves in determining the policies of the state. But, ultimately, they will have to decide whether the path advocated by Yoshie or the one advocated by lenin makes the most sense for them.
"If we decline to join those who are absolutely convinced that fraud was perpetrated, until matters become far more clear than they presently are, we equally refuse to align with those who take the contrary position as an article of faith.
The truth is, almost everything we are hearing on this topic from either side of the argument is hearsay and speculation."
And the cause of this uncertainty lies with the regime, which refuses any sort of international observation of its "elections". How convenient.
But Yoshie is simply articulating the position of the regime. Its not as if its a position of even critical support for the people on the street. In other words this is no dispassionate discussion of whether or not its a pre-revolutionary situation (I think its way too premature to call that one either way).
In terms of the timing of the protests. They were driven by the deep seated divisions inside the ruling elite which, as is so often the case, created room for dissent. People take their chances when it happens. Thats how all mass struggles break out. We don't choose when they break out.
The election was important because in a desperate bid to outmaneuver other sections of the elite Ahmadinajad launched ferocious attacks on other sections of the elite for their corruption, whilst the other sections responded in kind.
This meant that for the first time in thirty years people heard, publicly debated, and 'authorised' as it were, grievances about the nature of the regime, politically, economically and socially going back all the way to the founding of the Islamic Republic.
This is tremendously exciting if you live in a society where any dissent at all can land you in jail or worse. Then Ahmadinajad's triumphant announcement of a result whose scale seemed implausible, promised the end of all this discussion. This was unbearable.
This co-incided with other sections of the elite desperately fighting for their political survival thus mantaining the atmosphere of political uncertainty and permissiveness with the ever present threat that it was all going to be taken away unless people acted. They did so act.
It is impossible to say what will happen over the next few weeks. But I believe the millions who taken part and witnessed the protests will never be the same again. And the elites who have been squabbling like rats in a sack have far from resolved their issues, will probably never be the same either.
Thats a historical shift inside Iranian society ultimately rooted in the coming togeather of particular dynamics in post-revolutionary Iran (in many ways Ahmedinajad's attempt to make the ghost of the Republic walk about again reflected a response to deeper and irresolvable social conflicts emerging from both the successes and the failures of post-revolutionary Iran) and the global crisis all the regimes in the region are enduring.
Its outcome is as yet uncertain but it will effect everything else in the region for the forseeable future (and I bet you Mubarak is not watching these scenes happily however much he hates Iran: its not a good sight for any ruler in the region to see the forces of repression being chased around the street by cheering people: although you can bet its a rather interesting sight for many others).
The notion that this was all orchestrated by Israeli tweets or is some kind of CIA mind control experiment is rooted in a profound lack of confidence in the forces of change inside the region itself. If this is true there is little point in remaining politically active on any of these questions so it hardly matters anyway.
Its not true.
I don't agree with you characterisation of Ahmadinejad orchestrating anything. From the reading and conversations I've done/had today, I'm now much clearer that he is a puppet of Khameni and in particular Khameni's son. A malleable nobody.
http://louisproyect.wordpress.co...lution-in-iran/
It does not seem to matter what the original tsimmus was: the toothpaste is out of the tube and neither of the political candidates stands to gain much from the unrest. Rather, it seems to be strengthening and giving solidarity to an as-yet politically unrepresented desire for greater freedom across the board. Unfortunately, various foreign intelligence services are gearing to take whatever advantage they can, with the usual unpleasant results.
johng: your reference to the "global crisis that all regimes in the region are facing" is an important one
it is something that is playing out globally
Well that was not always true from what I know, although it may be true now (I suspect those siding with him now are not best pleased with their boy).
"I know CNN loves propaganda, but after watching that video of the young women being shot and dying, I dont know how anyone here cant know what side they are on"
If I was the CIA, I couldn't have thought of any better plan than to shoot a telegenic woman. Not that I'm suggesting they did, but I'm certainly not "picking sides" because some guy shot some woman.
I think Richard and others need to stop arguing from the conclusion. It's a failing of you idealists: you always want to bend the world to your ideology, rather than allow your ideology to be shaped by the world. So you argue backward from what you want to be true, what you desire, instead of forward from the facts.
We don't have to side with anyone here. The Iranian people are well represented on both sides of this clash, and neither side is admirable to us politically. Yeah, Mousavi is willing to throw a few bones to the North Tehran yuppies, but the notion that he's the liberator of the Iranian people is completely laughable. He's a straw in the wind. He rode conservatism as far as it would take him, and now he's giving "reformism" a whirl. As with all politicans though, following the money reveals what they're really about. And I don't think Rafsanjani is into women's lib, tbh.
A neoliberal regime that is less repressive towards women and gays is preferable to a neoliberal regime that persecutes them. Plus Mousavi will be harder for Israel to demonise. Netanyahu needs Dinner Jacket. The more plausible the propaganda about an existential threat from Iran the easier it is for Netanyahu to prevent Obama from putting serious pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians. Ahmadinejad has been a wet dream for Zionist tyranny and that alone is a good enough reason for wanting him gone. On the other hand if the movement is crushed it will be that much easier for the USraelians to launce an attack on Iran.
"The Iranian people are well represented on both sides of the clash?"
This formula is usable whenever a people confront their masters. Any regime can mobilize those who depend on it for survival.
The crucial question is not whether Mr. Mussolini/Peron/Ahmadinejad can bring out a crowd. It is what that crowd represents, both in actuiality and in its potential.
new article on the situation from Naz Massoumi:
http://www.counterfire.org/featu...res/38/
239.html
It's incredible how many posters here have missed one of Yoshie's central points:
In debating Iran to the extent that we are, we are allowing ourselves to be commandeered by the Western establishment agenda. You don't need to look very far around the world for evidence of state repression FAR worse than that of the Iranian state. The Middle East is dotted with absolutist states where torture and repression far worse than anything seen in Iran since 1979, are the order of the day. Look at Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, the UAE; look at the apartheid state of Israel; look at the quasi-military dictatorship of Turkey with its bloody ongoing repression of the Kurds. A little further afield, the Tamils have only recently seen 20,000 of their number wiped out by the Sri Lankan state.
But we aren't talking about any of those countries; we're talking about Iran. Why?
Similarly, look at all the countries in the world with nuclear weapons: the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, India, Pakistan, Israel....
But the media aren't interested in any of those countries (even though one of them - the US - actually have a history of using nuclear weapons against concentrated civilian populations); the media are interested in North Korea and Iran. Why?
Look at all of the third world countries around the world, where the hyper-exploitation of land and people by Western big business means that 1 billion people are starving to death. Countless millions die preventable deaths from malnutrition and from treatable infectious diseases. But the West only seem interested in cholera deaths in Zimbabwe. Why might that be?
For frig's sake, look at Iraq and Afghanistan!
Doesn't look like either of those countries are likely to have a revolution any time soon...
MC - Thanks for that link. That's a really interesting and nuanced article. Massoumi is aware of all the complexities of the situation without capitulating into support for the regime or wishing the movement would go away so that things could return to the "normal" modus operandi of state relations in the region.
deformed worker - you're getting pretty desperate if all you can do is try to hand wave and get people to talk about somewhere else. As you well know Lenin has written extensively on most of those places at different times - when there were protests and strikes in Egypt, he wrote about that. When Israel invaded Gaza, he carried articles about that. There have been oodles of blogs about Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the UK, the BNP, etc. etc. etc.
It just so happens that right now Iran is in the midst of a major crisis, that there is a significant level of resistance, and Iran is a key country in the Middle East. What happens in Iran could shape the rest of the Middle East and, indeed, the world.
That's why we're talking about it.
You don't need to look very far around the world for evidence of state repression FAR worse than that of the Iranian state. The Middle East is dotted with absolutist states where torture and repression far worse than anything seen in Iran since 1979, are the order of the day. Look at Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, the UAE; look at the apartheid state of Israel; look at the quasi-military dictatorship of Turkey with its bloody ongoing repression of the Kurds. A little further afield, the Tamils have only recently seen 20,000 of their number wiped out by the Sri Lankan state.
But we aren't talking about any of those countries; we're talking about Iran. Why?
Actually, "we", and by that I mean lenin and the people who post here, talk about nearly all of these situations here. Do we do so simultaneously? No, but we do get around to them eventually.
I agree with As'ad Abukhalil on this, and I will post his perspective momentarily.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
20...egorically.html
Sunday, June 21, 2009
categorically
I can't support a movement that writes its signs in English, in order to please the White Man, and I can't be in the same trench with Fox News. Yet, I support the overthrow of a regime that fed its people foreign policy slogans and religious jargon and (along with Saudi Arabia) fought all manifestations of secularism, leftism, and feminism in the Middle East since 1979 (much earlier in the case of Saudi Arabia).
Posted by As'ad at 6:59 AM
spoken like the good anarchist that he is
and, worth noting that he recognizes, as many here do not, that the increasing identification of Palestine with religious fundamentalism, as given expression by Ahmanijedad, is not good for Palestine
We're talking about Iran because there is a huge mass movement there on the streets and it is one of the most critical and important things happening in the world today. Thats why we are talking about Iran.
And because we don't care about THEIR agenda. We care about OURS.
if the movement is crushed it will be that much easier for the USraelians to launce an attack on Iran.
Thats an interesting observation. Set them up, see them get knocked down with the worlds media watching, then move for a more overt attack to help them out. Nice.
What are the CIA et al doing in Iran anyway, didnt they get the go ahead to destablise the regime? What have they been doing in the last two years, or even the last month, are they meant to be on holiday or something?
Or are they pushing this confrontation for all its worth knowing it will fail, perhaps even preparing to make it fail if need be.
Just a thought. Would be a gift to them if the state had to get even more violent.
Does anybody seriously think these protesters are going to overthrow the regime? Would be an even bloodier mess if they keep trying, and play right into the hands of those that want to bomb iran.
We're talking about Iran because there is a huge mass movement there on the streets and it is one of the most critical and important things happening in the world today. Thats why we are talking about Iran.
So, JohnG, is that also why no one on this blog is talking about the more than three thousand construction workers who took illegal unofficial strike action today in sympathy with sacked workers in Lindsey?
Presumably they are not important or crucial enough, heh? And while bloggers based in Britain could actually do something to assist in this cae, you'd prefer to spend time discuss Iran, a case where you are ultimately impotent?
Anonymous - Get over yourself. There has been coverage on here of UK strikes in the past - along with many other struggles. But this is a blog written largely by one person. He's gotta eat and sleep and take a break from wankers like you every once in a while.
If you want a broader range of coverage, go to Socialist Worker - http://socialistworker.co.uk/art...rt.php?
id=18237
It's produced by lots of people.
YoshieFan - your obvious arousal at the thought of a big defeat for the movement is unseemly and, frankly, creepy.
think about it, these protesters have almost universl support and wall to wall coverage from the media, this isnt some sideshow happening in just any country. This is happening front and centre to enemy number one for some people, people with an agenda thats arguably far more significant than what the protesters have. Are we going to see them get crushed right before our eyes - some people are going to love that.
Whats better for the bomb iran crowd than having Ahmadinejad in power - having him in power after a bloody and violent crushing of "freedom craving" protesters, as one BBC headline put it. The same BBC that is responsible for such comments as 'there were no riots until the state clampdown, on Saturday'.
What if the protesters are being used as pawns and the world duped. How many will die as a result, will it be another Iraq!
Oh yes, i'm sure those interested are just sitting back and doing nothing, hoping Ahdmadinejad wins so they can go back to pointing out what a loon he is. Yeah, call of the CIA, dont get involved, lets just see what happens - yeah right.
A neoliberal regime that is less repressive towards women and gays is preferable to a neoliberal regime that persecutes them. Plus Mousavi will be harder for Israel to demonise.
Yes, a coherent case for Mousavi was made before the elections and many of his voters were probably thinking along the above line.
And yet the choices Mousavi made after the announcement of his rival's victory have been poor -- for himself, his constituency, and his country.
YoshieFan - your obvious arousal at the thought of a big defeat for the movement is unseemly and, frankly, creepy.
Thats not very nice is it, theres no need for that.
I should add that the poorest choice Mousavi made was actually his decision to make an unprecedented press conference announcing his victory before the counting stopped, prompting the Interior Ministry to release preliminary results earlier than anticipated. That started this whole process, which is damaging to both his constituency and the rest of his nation.
redbedhead - you do a good job of batting away comments directed at other posters! And at personal abuse. How clever!
I'm not trying to single out Richard per se. Of course he has limited time and can choose what he focuses and writes on. That's fair enough. What I was trying to point to, which I think was fairly well captured in Johng's comment, is a complete inbalance in the priorities of much of the left - something that generalises beyond any one blog.
Thanks for the link to socialist worker - I had a look at the paper nice front page splash on Iran and a good article on the massive wildcat strikes tucked away on one of the middle pages. Nice job at proving my point.
Yoshiefan if its really true that all these demonstraters are dupes of the CIA I think you can forget about Iran as a bulwark against Imperialism. Not a very good bulwark if thats true. The real irony of all this is that you are arguing like the old Stalinists did about eastern europe and russia. It is impossible to escape the parrallel and impossible not to see the same weaknesses in the argument. Which leads me to believe that the responsibility for this lies in social relations as much as in ideology.
Does Redbed, johng et al think the state will give-in to the protesters, and not continue to arrest and kill them. Wasnt that the position laid down by the supreme leader, has there been any real challenge to that? The movement will survive, i cant see how it can be killed off. But there's only going to be one grouping that will benefit from that, and its not the state of the protesters.
Yoshiefan if its really true that all these demonstraters are dupes of the CIA ...
They're not, you are, you ignorant fool! There, you've gone and made me angry now. :-)
The idea is that they're being used as the sacrificial pawn to dupe you (not you specifically, obviously, you wouldnt support an attack on iran anyway, but you get the idea that people would)
I think Richard and others need to stop arguing from the conclusion. It's a failing of you idealists: you always want to bend the world to your ideology, rather than allow your ideology to be shaped by the world. So you argue backward from what you want to be true, what you desire, instead of forward from the facts.
Basically, Richard, et al. want the protesters to become a movement of, by, and for the working class which then challenges the current figurehead and backer of the protests as well as the entire regime and the empire. So, they then try to find if there are any elements at all in these protests that could be used to sustain that dream. Hardly any can be found, though. The most you can say is that there are some leftists involved, and some protest participants aren't as rich as others.
And the protests, if anything, represent a great danger to the protesters with a little chance of obtaining any of what they want, while potentially weakening the nation. It's a tragedy.
They, the protesters, demonstrators, rioters, are doing the natural thing and fighting for their freedom. As expected the state will crush them, arrest them, kill them.
That is the sort of gift to the bomb iran crowd that i dont think they would or could ignore. As i said, what are they doing in iran, sitting around waiting to see what happens?
It might turn out that they couldnt have done a better job if they had planned it!
Yoshie, while the wishful thinking of many onthe left you describe is very true, it does seem that after some holding back and deliberation, workers/unions are starting to show support for the protesters....
workers/unions are starting to show support for the protesters...
Well lets hope there is more of that and less street protests.
Does Mousavi ever say anything about such things as workers/unions?
Dave Osler gets it:
http://www.davidosler.com/2009/
0...ejad_nor_m.html
Yoshie, while the wishful thinking of many onthe left you describe is very true, it does seem that after some holding back and deliberation, workers/unions are starting to show support for the protesters....
There are leftists involved in the protests, and some of them are labor activists. But the country doesn't seem to be feeling the impacts of big political strikes (at least not enough to get into financial newspapers), though I've seen several announcements of slowdowns and the like (which can be written by relatively small groups of people).
Needless to day, the dream Richard, et al. are dreaming is a very attractive dream. If one day it becomes a reality, I'll support it. I'm just saying that it doesn't reflect how things actually are right now.
Yoshie, YoshieFan, Anoymous etc - Is you sounding like Stalinists c. 1968 an accident? deformed worker is at least open about these things.
Yoshiefan your position is just insane. You believe that the protesters have been manipulated by someone or other (who? how?) and that we are being manipulated into supporting them (who? how?) and Yoshie believes its all a tragedy because it will "weaken the nation". And at the same time we are accused of being "idealists", bending stuff to fit our ideology. I think what you don't understand is that Iran is a capitalist state run by a government which has since the revolution osscilated between opposing and accomodating a hostile dominant imperialism. Its been relatively successful in this, but this success has bred problems. In particular a polarised society which has in turn led to polarisations at the top of society which are what unleashed the political crisis of the last couple of weeks. All this windy talk about the 'strength of the nation' is about as windy and abstract as its possible to get, and these abstractions are what lead to these appalling political positions which do not allow you to analyse what is actually going on. In any capitalist society (and Iran is one) where you see rapid economic development (and you have done) you see situations where dominant ideologies start to move into crisis, and different classes responding differently to that crisis. It happened to the Shah, it happened to the Arab Nationalists and now its happening in Iran and its happening inside the dominant ideology of Iran. Its really not that mysterious. Iran is not fundementally different to any other country in the world.
If you think that what's happening in Iran right now looks like May 68, Paris, you are dreaming that dream I just described. Wish it were true, but it just ain't so.
Yoshie believes its all a tragedy because it will "weaken the nation".
Too many people have already been killed. Many more have been arrested. That in itself is a big tragedy. And this tragedy will be used by the ill-wishers of the Iranian nation to try and isolate the country some more, to the detriment of all, including those who have protested against the election results.
"If you think that what's happening in Iran right now looks like May 68, Paris, you are dreaming that dream I just described. Wish it were true, but it just ain't so."
I wasn't talking about Paris.
It's possible I'm being too pessimistic, but the longer this goes on, the more pessimistic I get. By now you've all seen the video or photos of a young woman shot dead. The longer this goes on, the more innocent people like her will get killed. And nothing will be gained by their deaths.
She died trying to bring democracy to Iran. It's bizarre how averse you are to that idea. It's bizarre how you don't seem to loathe the bastards who shot her.
Yes, she was trying. But democracy is not coming as a result of her death and the deaths of others.
I just thought I should say what I think the US is up to. Here's the thing. I think they thought the so-called moderates would win, or at least hoped they would. They were then angling for some kind of 'dialogue'. I think so was the Iranian regime. And in fact had it not been for the Bush internegum this may well have happened earlier. Even if in a straight contest the hardliners had won, the smarter elements in the administration are well aware that you can play ball with them if you really want to. And they're right. The last thing in the world either side wanted was this. They wanted some kind of stable framework within which relations could be normalised. I think Yoshie, (and its the reason I keep using the term 'soft diplomacy') thats also how you saw things (beneath all the rhetoric). But the contradictions of the regime interacting with global crisis on top of the regional tensions created by imperialism has pushed everything into chaos. And thats what I think the situation is.
Isn't the fundamental problem here Yoshie, that although Mousavi may certainly be blamed for things like irresponsibly declaring that he'd won the election before the vote count was finished, the Supreme Leader has made things so much worse for himself and Ahmadinejad (as well as passing free ammunition to genuine ill-wishers of Iran) by a) ordering the shooting of unarmed demonstrators and b) being obdurate regarding a recount of the vote?
I mean one of the reasons why we in the Occident, and more importantly people in Iran, are arguing so feverishly about who won what, is the regime's blatant unwillingness to have a more than a partial re-count of the ballot (and not even that anymore!). I mean would it really have made things worse for Khamenei and the Islamic Republic to offer either a full recount with outside observers (NOT westerners but say representatives from allies like Russia or China or the OIC) present, or even a total re-run of the election (with observers from friendly countries)?
Yoshie: "Needless to day, the dream Richard, et al. are dreaming is a very attractive dream. If one day it becomes a reality, I'll support it. I'm just saying that it doesn't reflect how things actually are right now."
So let me get this straight. You currently deride the protesters as a bunch of wealthy gharbzadegan (despite that being a grossly unfair homogenization) and chastise them for putting their lives at risk when "nothing will be gained by their deaths," and "potentially weakening the nation" (your words). However, if the protest spreads further into the working class (as it has begun to do) and develops the kind of broad base that others are "dreaming" about, then by your logic wouldn't that weaken the country even more, since the whole point of massive strikes is to create political instability (with the goal of overthrowing the state or at least winning concessions from it)? You can't logically say that the protesters are weakening the country, but that if they were more successful then they wouldn't be.
FYI: Youtube just added the following to the top of EVERY page - Breaking News: For the latest videos from Iran, visit youtube.com/citizentube (The Red, White, and Blue is a nice touch)
Mr. Cohen, a Stanford University graduate who is the youngest member of the State Department’s policy planning staff, has been working with Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other services to harness their reach for diplomatic initiatives in Iraq and elsewhere.
Jared Cohen is also the author of "Iran's Young Opposition: Youth in Post-Revolutionary Iran"
Would be nice if the Left in the Empire actually spent some constructive time combating these efforts to destabilize Iran and other countries, rather than pontificating of what they think Iranians should do.
Yoshie: "The most you can say is that there are some leftists involved, and some protest participants aren't as rich as others."
A stunning slander based upon no evidence other than wishful thinking. It really is remarkable that when faced with the evidence of the beginnings of an intervention by the working class via union declarations, slowdowns, talk of a general strike in Iranian Kurdistan, etc. you still talk in this elitist, horrible way about the movement and dismiss the evidence of workers intervening.
Why do you want this movement to fail so badly? What emotional/political stake do you have in seeing this movement fail?
Anonymous - "Thanks for the link to socialist worker - I had a look at the paper nice front page splash on Iran and a good article on the massive wildcat strikes tucked away on one of the middle pages. Nice job at proving my point."
You'll have to try harder. The newspaper is a weekly. It came out before the wildcats took off but after there was the biggest demonstration in 30 years in Iran. Not an unreasonable choice of front page. You'll notice that there's plenty of online coverage and an online petition of support. I suspect there's a lot more happening on the ground. And look again tomorrow and see the headline of this week's edition. I suspect Lindsey will have a prominent place. You are nothing but a troll.
malangbaba - "Would be nice if the Left in the Empire actually spent some constructive time combating these efforts to destabilize Iran and other countries, rather than pontificating of what they think Iranians should do."
It's called the anti-war movement and it's been mobilizing and educating people since 2001 or so, including many demonstrations under the slogan "Don't Attack Iran", as well as others. It continues to do so as much as is possible. I know here in Toronto key anti-war activists were involved with the Tamil community around the recent protests. And the main organization was very involved with protests during the invasion of Gaza. So, I think what you've done is slander the hard work that people have done.
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
"What emotional/political stake do you have in seeing this movement fail?"
Something I've been wondering a lot lately...
How is that working out redheadbed?
I have been involved in the anti-war movement here in the US as well for the last 8 years. I am pretty much about to give up on it given the same ongoing struggles against bigoted views against Islam and Muslims, and insistence on "regime change...but from within," and marginalization of Muslims within the movement.
My point was that this is a case where practical work by the movement can be done to try to pry out and expose what activities our governments are engaged in...
Red Muslim - now that I see you posting here, if you get a chance check out the comments I made on the "What Western leftists lost" post concerning Dr. Shari'ati, if you haven't already. Would like to discuss his ideas vis-a-vis the current issues in Iran with you, if you're interested drop me a line at struggle at gmail dot com.
Eskandar: "However, if the protest spreads further into the working class (as it has begun to do) and develops the kind of broad base that others are 'dreaming' about, then by your logic wouldn't that weaken the country even more, since the whole point of massive strikes is to create political instability (with the goal of overthrowing the state or at least winning concessions from it)."
(a) If the protesters acquire what it takes to make a social revolution, in terms of popular class support, they themselves can take control of the country and eventually establish a new politico-economic order, stabilizing the nation, making it safer from the empire.
(b) But a minority causing instability can't do the same thing. Someone else will take control of the country: the forces of reaction by the state; or a dissident faction of the old regime elite supplanting the currently hegemonic faction; or the empire.
I'm saying that (a) is a dream, (b) is reality.
Malangbaba - I can't speak to the US movement but if there is marginalization of Muslims you can probably add it to the list of problems, starting with the Left's utter subordination to the Democrats, the kinder-gentler imperialist party. But, notwithstanding its weaknesses and divisions (at least two national anti-war coalitions), it still has mobilized hundreds and hundreds of thousands over the last several years against the Iraq war and against attacking Iran.
Yoshie - "(b) But a minority causing instability can't do the same thing."
And does a majority simply appear out of the air? It is won through a process of mobilization and education - sometimes quickly but very rarely in the space of one week. Up until a revolution takes place the mobilized section of the population is - by definition - a minority. Otherwise it would be a revolution already.
What's more every single movement from the Civil Rights Movement in the US, to the anti-war movement, to the anti-Nazi movement, to the trade union movement - is a minority movement. And all of them, if they are successful, to some degree destabilize the country in which they operate. It is the job of socialists to maximize that destabilization, which makes it more difficult for the ruling class to implement their agenda in a united way.
You want the ruling class of Iran to be united, it seems. You want them to implement their (capitalist, imperialist) agenda against their population - hopefully with enough hegemony that the population accepts it willingly.
It's a shocking sort of Stalinism, as johng has noted. And last time around in Iran it led to the slaughter of the Left - both secular and Muslim. That you are making the same arguments as were made then is a remarkable blindness.
Yoshie: "(a) If the protesters acquire what it takes to make a social revolution, in terms of popular class support, they themselves can take control of the country and eventually establish a new politico-economic order, stabilizing the nation, making it safer from the empire.
(b) But a minority causing instability can't do the same thing. Someone else will take control of the country: the forces of reaction by the state; or a dissident faction of the old regime elite supplanting the currently hegemonic faction; or the empire."
How do you expect a movement to reach the level of social revolution if, according to your terms, it must skip the stage at which it is a minority (because this stage weakens the nation) and emerge from thin air as a fully-formed mass movement that can immediately have a successful revolution before reactionaries or imperialists can take over? When has that ever happened in a country threatened by imperialism? You can keep writing it off as an impossible dream, but don't forget the 1979 revolution was called the "unthinkable" or "impossible" revolution because no one--neither leftists nor imperialists--believed it could be successful against such a deeply fortified, powerful state. But I guess the auto workers, bus workers, and teachers should go back to their jobs, rather than risk weakening the country. Now's not the time to be demanding a minimum wage, comrades! Save your demands for when the movement has magically grown stronger and larger without taking action!
redbedhead - seems we are on the same page!
I can't speak to the US movement but if there is marginalization of Muslims you can probably add it to the list of problems
While I agree with most of your other points, the marginalization of Muslims (or tokenized use) from within the anti-war movement at a time when multiple Muslim countries are under attack abroad, and Muslim communities under attack at home warrants more than just a problem "being added to the list."
It reflects a view that "we believe in self-determination but only if it accords with our notions of it," in which case the Left is no different than the Right.
How do you expect a movement to reach the level of social revolution if, according to your terms, it must skip the stage at which it is a minority (because this stage weakens the nation) and emerge from thin air as a fully-formed mass movement that can immediately have a successful revolution before reactionaries or imperialists can take over? When has that ever happened in a country threatened by imperialism? You can keep writing it off as an impossible dream, but don't forget the 1979 revolution was called the "unthinkable" or "impossible" revolution because no one--neither leftists nor imperialists--believed it could be successful against such a deeply fortified, powerful state.
The Shah was easier to topple than the regime in power today, for the Shah didn't have any strong social foundation at all. Not only is the social makeup of the protesters today not the same as those of the bulk of people who fought against the Shah (the latter was far broader than the former); the regime today is not the same as the Shah's regime. The regime now in power is stronger, because it is far more entrenched in society than the Shah's.
Yoshie: "Not only is the social makeup of the protesters today not the same as those of the bulk of people who fought against the Shah (the latter was far broader than the former)"
You are missing the point. The social makeup of the protesters today may be smaller because it is barely over a week old. The '79 revolution did not begin and end in a week, and I would say its origin was a middle-class student movement far narrower in size and scope than the current protest movement. It began with dissident intellectuals like Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Ali Shari'ati, whose writings were mostly read by radical students. The protest movement today already has a broader base than the '79 revolution had at its very beginning.
"Not only is the social makeup of the protesters today not the same as those of the bulk of people who fought against the Shah (the latter was far broader than the former);"
Strikes/slow-downs are in the works. No doubt you'll find a way of squirming out of that one, as well, rather than admit the IRI leadership are a foul pack of murderous thugs. You truly are indefatigable in your Stalinoid apologeticas.
Yoshie, I think Eskandar's point of how a movement builds still stands. The early resistance against the Shah was among the more priviledged Leftists and Nationalists and slowly made its way to workers and mass bases, and then later towards the religious bases...
And initially much of the Iranian 'ulema opposed the revolution, especially because of the privileged (at times) position they enjoyed under the Pahlavi regime.
Would be nice if the Left in the Empire actually spent some constructive time combating these efforts to destabilize Iran and other countries, rather than pontificating of what they think Iranians should do.
You think the left should be campaigning for Iranians not to be allowed to post videos of police brutality on youtube and twitter? When youtube videos were used to show police actions at the G8 protests, was youtube trying to destabilise the UK then?
Youtube obviously know they are in the news at the moment and are trying to milk it - "the home of 21st century citizen journalism that get the news straight from the eye witness" and all that. They are owned by google and they have been happy to help the Chinese government censor their content so I don't think they really see this type of event in a deeply political way. It's just an opportunity to promote themselves. The state department official working on "diplomatic initiatives" likely just means those lame question and answer sessions they sometimes have with Hillary Clinton and the foreign minister or another country with general the public. I wouldn't crap your pants about it.
No, the point was that the State Department is undertaking actions that would further promote chaos and instability within Iran as a means of regime change. The article highlights that people within the State Dept have been allocated to determine how to utilize social networking for foreign policy objectives. Obviously trying to prevent youtube from publishing videos in Iran is absurd. But it is much more absurd that more of the Left has been concerned about whats going on within Iran, or which side to support, than trying to combat what their own governments are doing.
Anti-war efforts cannot be limited to opposing hard-imperialism (war, invasions, etc) and ignore soft-imperialism (destabilization tactics, funding saboteurs, "color" revolutions, "freedom" tv and radio stations, etc)
"Some bitterly joked that in the one country in the world where you had a genuine popular revolution, very unfortunately for the left, it turned out to be led by the wrong people"
This would be the trouble with conflating a "popular revolution" with a proletarian revolution. No wonder the sections of the left which did this have and still do find themselves completely disorientated in the face of phenomenon like the Iranian revolution.
Yoshie, I think Eskandar's point of how a movement builds still stands. The early resistance against the Shah was among the more priviledged Leftists and Nationalists and slowly made its way to workers and mass bases, and then later towards the religious bases...
malangbaba
And initially much of the Iranian 'ulema opposed the revolution, especially because of the privileged (at times) position they enjoyed under the Pahlavi regime.
Eskandar
This gets deeper into the history of the Iranian revolution than I intended, but the Iranian revolution, too, is a good example of how and why groups of brave young revolutionaries, coming from relatively privileged backgrounds, end up failing to take control of the forces that their sacrifices helped to unleash.
Eskandar,
I think you hit it on the head with your remark about Jalal-ale-Ahmad and Shariati. If I'm not mistaken, Ahle-Ahmad started his important writings in the 50's, and Shariati since at least the sixties. I'd be suprised if you could draw a line of direct unrest from that time to 79. These political projects take decades, not weeks. The chance that this particular action will snowball into anything of significance in the near future is vanishingly small, there is no insult meant to anyone by that.
The Regime has already shown it can handle strikes when the only thing on the table was hihger wages and better working conditions. It will only be more determined when it's very legitimacy is on the line.
The 79 Revolution was successful because it appealed to Everyone. This movement doesn't and won't. I'm sure we probably won't come to an agreement about this, but I don't understand why we need to.
Yoshie makes a valid point about the tendency of some leftist's tendencies to try and project their own tendencies, values, organizational principles, demands and mythologies on to this situation. This hurts their analysis, and it's a habit they should be coaxed out of.
Masoud
Eskandar,
You mentioned Westoxification offhandly(sort of invoking it as a cliche) in an earlier post, and I'd actually like to have your actual opinion on that issue.
I don't think it's at all fair to stereotype the recent protests as being chronically striken by it, but I do think it's a serious problem for Iran. I think Khatami for example suffered chronically from it, as do plenty of youth who for example call up CNN and beg Obama not to reocgnize Ahmadinejad.
I would strongly agree with Masoud on the Gharbzadegi strickeness of not only this current movement, but of many of the Reformists as a whole. This is why a better understanding of both scholars who formed the foundations of the IRI is helpful, as well as understanding the large amounts of scholarly work being produced within Iran now from all the trends including the Principalists. And I think Shariati would agree, though how much weight he would give to it versus the other issues we discussed is debatable.
Wa'Salaam
malangbaba,
easy, now.
I think if we keep on Wa'Salaaming one another on a blog called Lenin's Tomb, Louis Proyect's head is going to explode.
(Possibly Richard Seymour's as well)
Masoud
Masoud: "Yoshie makes a valid point about the tendency of some leftist's tendencies to try and project their own tendencies, values, organizational principles, demands and mythologies on to this situation. This hurts their analysis, and it's a habit they should be coaxed out of."
By the same token, I think Yoshie does a fair bit of projecting as well, when she discusses the makeup of the pro-Ahmadinejad camp and the opposition, as well as when she discusses the Islamic Republic and the 'ideals of the Revolution.' I commented on another post (I think) that I feel she is being a "kase daghtar az ash" here.
With regards to your comments on Westoxification, I agree that it is an unfair stereotype inaccurately applied to the protesters, and I also agree that it is a serious problem for Iran. I found parts of "Gharbzadegi" to be problematically paranoid (in a reactionary and unhelpful way) but it still contains some crucial lessons and insight and is overall important. I struggle to de-colonize my own mind, and I think this inferiority complex has affected us at every level, from politics right down to our clothes (at least in Tehran). Look at the supposedly anti-Western rallies of Ahmadinejad's supporters; nearly all the men wear Western clothing, and I've seen some young Ahmadinejad supporters looking every bit as fashionable as their equivalents in the opposition. I don't mean to go off on a tangent about clothing--it's just one, admittedly minor, part of a very broad problem. Ideally, I think the best environment in which to deal with it would be one where we don't have a regime that forces/inclines some people (especially the young) to equate the West with freedom, at least social freedom. I recognize that this regime will most likely stick around for quite some time, unfortunately. I'm somewhat at a loss for ideas on how to combat gharbzadegi in Iran while the regime exists, though maybe it's a moot point since I am not in Iran and can't do much about it. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that and on the issue in general. I'm going to sleep, will read your response tomorrow.
I don't think the protestors will be able to pull this off, not now, at least. But that is because of the overwheleming brutal crushing power of the state, and the inability to oragnise and expand internally because of the state's total lockdown of the media, including mobile phonmes and texts, which most of the country, even the poorest, now have, and which is characterising the protesters as terrorists and CIA/Mossad funded counter-revolutionaries (aided and abetted by little bits of the Western 'left').
However the protests can't be crushed even if they can be driven off the streets.
The world is watching, and taking note of those who support the protest and those who support the thugs and murderers who are doing the crushing. Time is not on your side. Twenty-five years ago you would have been bigging up Ceaucescu and Enver Hoxha. Who remembers them now?
Has anyone read Olivier Roy's the failure of Political Islam? Written in the late 90's he was reflecting on the decline of this model (this is obviously before the events of the last decade changed everything). He argues that central to Political Islam was an idea of Virtue Politics. Drawing on Hegels discussions of the French Jacobins he suggests that because they did not understand capitalism and social relations they thought that developing the virtues of community would cancel out the ill effects of capitalism (which they might use language like westoxification to describe). Almost immediately these movements would take power (as with the Jacobins) these problems (and others like corruption) would become worse and worse. Hence there would be a split between moderates prepared to accomodate these trends who eventually just became what they combatted and those who went further and further in promoting virtue and became more and more sectarian and more and more isolated. Which was also, he argued, the pattern of the French Jacobin's who seriously believed that it would be possible to build a Republic of small property owners not realising that the very principle of private property they had championed undermined this project at every turn.
I think it was an interesting argument and at least attempted to provide an explanatory framework for the trajectory of the movement since the revolution. I think Eskander's point that the association of 'the west' with 'social freedom' is as much a product of the regime as anything else is a good one. But the idea that wearing jeans or not wearing jeans is particularly key is I think the real mistake. Its not these things that are the problem.
Its also why I think Red Muslim's point about Shariati's inadequate focus on social relations is absolutely key.
Interestingly, Mousavi asks on his facebook page how to organise a general strike. So he dimly senses what is needed to fight back, but has no natural affinity for it. He ought to give union leaders a central role and eschew neoliberalism for starters
also the Guardian says (unconfirmed) that 30% of workers are taking part in a general strike - I presume thats right now
I thought Ahmadinejad was the darling of the working class, elected on a class vote and a longstanding enemy of imperialism who must be defended? Oh silly me, that was last week. Ancient history.
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2...inejad-
won.html
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2...0-
approval.html
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2...-their-
own.html
"a longstanding enemy of imperialism who must be defended"
No, thats the Iranian people who must be defended from imperialism. To the extent they put their faith in Ahmadinejad thats a case in point. But you know, noone likes to see cop batons and bullets used against protestors. Even if you didnt agree with them in the first place - maybe thats why there's persistent reports of spreading strikes
Didn't take long. Netanyahoo is calling for stricter sanctions against Iran because of all the instability taking place there. Will Fox News be far behind? Watch this space.
I thought Ahmadinejad was the darling of the working class, elected on a class vote and a longstanding enemy of imperialism who must be defended? Oh silly me, that was last week. Ancient history.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?
>>> When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?
Facts are facts, they don't change.
On the other hand, if events prove me wrong, I admit I was wrong.
What do you do, Sir?
Reason for asking: less than a week ago Comrade Lenin was telling us that Ahmadinejad was elected by the working class and that the election result was legitimate.
You can't have it both ways.
"But you know, noone likes to see cop batons and bullets used against protestors."
Agreed, but that does not mean we have to support every protest, regardless of its political orientation or leadership.
Sorry, but this is an opportunistic U-turn by Lenin's Tomb, presumably ordered by the SWP Central Committee.
Facts are facts, they don't change.
If you want to discuss the Tractatus Logico-philospohicus, don't waste our time.
Never mind that. What 'Anonymous' troll is saying isn't even true. He/she/it is clearly referring to a post written by Yoshie. And even since then I haven't ruled out the possibility of Ahmadinejad having won. The whole effort to confect a supposed U-turn is laboured.
What has Ahmadinejad said or done in the past week to cause you to change your mind, evildoer? (Your post on JSF was superb by the way, but I thought he was a scumbag the day before the election.)
According to the Guardian website, the Iranian parliamentary speaker, Larijani, a leading conservative, is about to switch sides to the protesters.
Well the Tomb never saw Ahmadinajad as a great guy. Just had cause to write the following:
Well I think the comparisons with the Nazies falls down on the basis of the last few weeks. What you have is a crisis driven initially by deepseated disagreements within the regime itself, which are in turn driven by both the successes and the failures of the clerical regime installed on the back of the counter-revolution carried through in a number of stages after the revolutionary overthrow of the Shah. Ironically the crisis faced by the regime resembles quite closely the crisis faced by the Shah. Two kinds of discontent: on the one side those who had benifitted from a lopsided modernisation package on the other those who had been left behind.
The cliched understanding is that the protests were motivated entirely by those who had benefitted wanting more whilst those who had been left behind were backing the regime. I think this is simply a rehearsal of Ahmadinajad’s populist response to the crisis (the attempt over the period of his office to make the ghost of the revolutionary republic get up and walk about) rather then any analyses of it.
In fact those who have benefitted are split (scenes of ahmedajad’’s victory rallies are as well heeled as scenes of the initial rallies called by the opposition, and this reflects the reality that this classes relationship to the regime is in fact ambiguous) whilst those alluded to in populist speeches have yet to make their presence felt in the situation (although there are growing reports that this is changing).
There were, as I noted, zero mass mobilisations against the protests. I I think its unlikely that the mass of the population view the killing of university students with equinamity. I think they are much more likely to think ‘why are they killing our children?’. Killing students, even privilaged ones, is not generally speaking popular.
However this whole picture does not resemble at all the picture of a Nazi or a Fascist regime. It resembles far more the picture of a developmental regime going into meltdown as its developmental process simultaniously bears fruit and fails. We’ve been here before. In 1978.
You can call people who disagree with you "trolls" all you like Mr Seymour. But I have been following this website for a couple of years now and until a few days ago you consistently defended the Ahmadinejad regime.
There is no need to "confect" anything.
This site opposed US intervention against Iran, and opposed the wilder tales told to justify that intervention. This remains the case. There is no change in the position. The only change is the social and political crisis in Tehran itself.
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2...0-
approval.html
the Iranian president is enjoying a wave of popularity due to: his reputed incorruptibility; his anti-imperialist stance; his attacks on the Iranian ruling elite; and the fact that he has proven less socially conservative than some would think. Aside from domestic popularity, I'd be willing to bet that Iran's profile in the Middle East has substantially raised partly because of the war that eliminated their local rival, but also because the Iranian president's attacks on Zionism and the Bush administration. Now, this is unlikely to be altered in the immediate future because the leading critics are the so-called 'Modern Right', the neoliberals who supported Rafsanjani - such as Mohammad Atrianfar,
(etc)
apollo,
First, Thanks!
He may have been a scumbag all his life, or not. I don't know and don't really care. I criticized him for what he did in Geneva some time ago. But I never criticized him for his internal politics because a) I did not know much. and b) he was fairly uncontested and it isn't my role to instigate revolution in Iran (and there is an obvious link between a. and b.)
The burst out of dissent changes the situation completely. First, it provides an incentive to actually educate oneself. And second, expressing support for people who decided to risk their life in the street is very different than egging people to risk their lives in the street according to my own judgment from afar of the President's shortcomings. The latter seems to me irresponsible and unacceptable.
so whats your point anonymoron? Are you unable to distinguish between different sets of arguments?
"White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Iran has begun to "change" because of the protests but cautioned that Barack Obama would not back calls for a general strike there, according to Reuters."
oops there you go, Obama knows where his class interests lie
Anonybore - a little help for you.
1) That was in 2006.
2) The analysis was largely correct.
3) Nowhere in that post do I endorse Ahmadinejad. On the contrary I say, just as I'm saying now, that there needs to be "a strong and independent workers movement, with an appropriately critical attitude to the state".
How difficult was that?
YoshieFan ... Is you sounding like Stalinists c. 1968 an accident?
a figment of your imagination, i have no idea what you are refering to.
Didn't take long. Netanyahoo is calling for stricter sanctions against Iran because of all the instability taking place there. Will Fox News be far behind? Watch this space.
ahmadinejad was always going to win, the best they could hope for was that it would look like he cheated. better still that any dissent was brutaly and violently crushed, which seemed to be a given in iran.
couldnt have done a better job if they had planned it all.
Anon how was anything in that quote wrong when it was written?
Just had cause to further elaborate:
http://splinteredsunrise.wordpre...n/#comment-
9216
From lenin to Fisk to Cole to Chomsky ....
No we didnt think mousavi would win.
No we dont have proof it was rigged.
No, presumably, we are not calling for a rerun.
Yes we support Iranians to have the same freedoms we have.
The thing is, thats the left's view, how many answer yes to all of those points, i know how the propaganda of the msm has it. and anything less than a complete capitulation of the state is going to play into the hands of imperialism, isnt it?
How did it all come together so well, with bbc persia, twitter, the colour green, mousavi, the orchestrated cry of fraud, the media campaign that makes viewers believe the protsters only became rioters after the much publicised state crack down.
i hope the iranians can improve things internally, without making things worse internationally, but i'm worried.
time will tell
YoshieFan - you're a laugh.
The funny thing about all this is if the Iranian state had just said, "fine, we'll hold a full recount" or a revote - and assuming as Yoshie and her sidekick YoshieFan do that Ahmadinejad actually won the election - then the movement wouldn't have gotten anywhere. Their refusal has escalated the movement and raised suspicions of a cover-up.
And, regardless if Mousavi is paid by the CIA, along with the wing of the clerical establishment who support him, his accusations hit upon fertile ground because of the everyday experience of corruption and repression.
Frankly, I think theories about this being a CIA funded revolt or a colour-coded revolution are just paranoia and/or bad politics (a la stalinism w/o stalinism). But even if the CIA threw the match, the gasoline was already there and they don't control the fire.
A politics which believes that a popular revolt in Iran undermines the struggle against Imperialism doesn't understand what Imperialism is.
Here's another good one praising Ahmadinejad, this time from April 2008:
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2...-their-
own.html
which is still 2 months before the beginning of the present crisis
make that 1 year 2 months
Here's another good one praising Ahmadinejad, this time from April 2008:
Not only does it not 'praise' Ahmadinejad, it was written by someone else. You're now inventing straws to clutch at.
In the short run Netanyahu and the AIPAC lobby will make hay with this to undermine Obama's attempt at detente with Iran and make it that much harder for him to put pressure on Israel to stop colonising the West Bank. But it will only be a short term tactical victory for the Ziocons. A move towards democracy in the Muslim world would be a colossal strategic defeat for apartheid Zion.
South Africa used to claim they were the only rule of law state in Africa facing an existential threat from black communism. Apartheid Zion plays the same game making the absurd claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East facing an existential threat from fundamentalist Islam. Ignorant Westerners are being brainwashed into believing that Islam is their enemy and that Islam is incompatible with demcoracy. When the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe collapsed the Afrikaners lost their last hope of being propped up by the West.
The road to Jerusalem leads through Cairo and Tehran. A victory for human rights in Muslim countries and an end the the pathetic collection of princes and dictators should be the top priority of revolutionaries, whether socialist or Islamist.
"The throw out moralistic homilies about how the Left ignores Turkey or Sri Lanka or Tibet or East Timor or the indigenous peoples of southern Chile, etc. etc. is just sectarian."
1. When you start to say a point whose validity you are not actually contesting is "moralistic", you obviously have no better arguments. It could also be an admission that your own approach is an amoral one. Unfortunately, when approaches to Iran from the Western left aren't neo-conservatism with a left face, there seems to be a touch of "chase the movement".
2. I also suspect you don't home in on Turkey etc., because the international media don't. But why don't they? Turkey isn't a "rogue state" to London or Washington (how could a NATO member be?) and some of its worst repression, like the 1980 coup, was at Western instigation. I suggest that this affects how Western media report it.
chasing the movement. how terrible. faust there are clearly deep social and political changes going on that will effect us all. I couldn't give a bears belch how the 'western media' are reporting it. what i care about is how activists are going to respond to a changed situation both here and there. the belief that we have to line up with the various regimes in the middle east that have some tensions with US imperialism is a disaster for the struggle against imperialism. remember where the PLO came from.
Anon, you keep pointing to perfectly factual reports on the tomb and claiming that they represent cheerleading. This is because all you ever read is cheerleading. for the other side.
The funny thing about all this is if the Iranian state had just said, "fine, we'll hold a full recount" or a revote ...
Right, but there was no proof anyway, and no chance. The onus was on the state to do something no other would have done - a quite ridiculas notion. Which rather backs up my argument. See?
The result would have been the same anyway, if they fiddled it they would again, if they didnt they wouldnt need to, so there was no point. There was no time to consider just saying anything before Mousavi claimed victory and cried fraud.
Yoshiefan can you really not see that things have moved beyond the question of the vote? Look at Iran. Not the western media.
A politics which believes that a popular revolt in Iran undermines the struggle against Imperialism doesn't understand what Imperialism is.
I'm glad i didnt say that then. And i dont pretend to understand what imperialism is.
I asked - and anything less than a complete capitulation of the state [over the election] is going to play into the hands of imperialism, isnt it?
Perhaps i should have said imperialists, or at least those that want to bomb iran etc. Perhaps they arent imperialists, perhaps that isnt a sign of imperialism. Sorry if i used confusing terms.
johng: "But the idea that wearing jeans or not wearing jeans is particularly key is I think the real mistake. Its not these things that are the problem."
To clarify my above comments: I did say that clothing is a minor issue. And I don't think that wearing (or not wearing) jeans is the problem, nor necessarily a problem. But I do think that in urban centers like Tehran, large swathes of the population are so alienated from their own culture that the only time they wear indigenous clothing is at their wedding--and even then you'll often find weddings with men in suits and women in Western dresses. I think these things are mere symptoms of much larger problems, and that for the most part the roots lie in economic issues and power imbalances. But I do think that they are important in and of themselves, too.
Yoshiefan can you really not see that things have moved beyond the question of the vote? Look at Iran. Not the western media.
The iranians are not the ones wanting to destabalise and bomb iran though are they. I dont think they have "moved beyond" destabilisation and bombing iran. Well i'm not convinced just because of what Obama has said or not said.
But it will only be a short term tactical victory for the Ziocons. A move towards democracy in the Muslim world would be a colossal strategic defeat for apartheid Zion.
Irans elections are such a move towards democracy, yet this latest one has gone so wrong it couldnt been better for the Ziocons if they had planned the whole thing!
"This is because all you ever read is cheerleading. for the other side."
Could you define "other side"?
I thought I had made it clear I am against both sides - Moussavi AND Ahmadinejad.
tehran 2009 = florida 2000
Anon I take it you are some kind of right winger. on the other hand you might be someone who believes the CIA runs the world. Same difference really.
Yoshiefan I don't really understand you're points. I hope the state does give into the movement yes. It would be a good thing.
Eskender I just used the term 'wearing jeans' as a metaphor obviously (one might think of issues connected to corruption, consumption, capitalism etc). And my point was'nt to claim to solve all issues connected with the intersection of politics and culture. I thought his central argument about the limitations of virtue, and the parrallel he drew between the Jacobins and the Islamists was food for thought though. In particular the suggestion that it is possible to misunderstand why what you do doesn't work, and that it has something to do precisely with what you are doing rather then a recalcitrant world. Your own suggestion that the association of the west with freedom may have more to do with the behaviour of the regime then anything else for example. The power of the Jacobin example: being the firmest proponents of private property because they believed it would lead to a small property owners democracy, but finding out that once you introduce private property small property owners lose power may have its analogue in other movements. Roy suggests that in both the Jacobin and the Islamist cases a powerful and in the end distorted emphasis on virtue politics was the result.
So we march with the Priest Gapon, albeit, in separate ranks. Thanks for a useful and truly informative post!
I don't really get how one could be for the Islamic Republic. It's a represseive regime built on a repressive interpretation of a religion. There is no sacularisation (don't know if you can say that in english) and any oppositon (left or whatsover) is opressed.
I'm german and the only ones who support Ahmadinejad are the NeoNazis because he is against zionism, the jews and the former Allies (who liberated Germany, which I am very glad for). That's your side too?
Or what reasons are there to support him?
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