|
| |
March 2001
Passion for change runs deep in Iran
On the 22nd anniversary of the fall of the monarchy in Iran hundreds of
opposition rallies were held Feb. 22 throughout the country protesting the
lack of freedoms. The recent conservative backlash against the reformist
movement, its newspapers, and its spokespeople, seems to have only helped
intensify the protest movements.
In January hardline judges handed down a series of harsh jail sentences to
ten writers, feminists, journalists, and student leaders who had
participated in a conference in Berlin last year. The conference
organizers, the German Green Party and a liberal research institute, had
invited independent human rights activists as well as government-connected
reformists to discuss recent developments in the country.
But protests by Iranian exiles and vehement denunciations of the regime
for its inhuman policies and practices turned the conference into an
international public relations disaster for the government. Ten conference
participants were arrested upon return and were charged with "threatening
national security." A major media campaign to incriminate them was also
unleashed. These developments have coincided with an all-out war atmosphere
created by the regime in its supposed "defense" of the Palestinian Intifada.
One of those arrested was Mehrangiz Kar, an articulate feminist jurist and
legal scholar who has written several major popular works critical of the
inhumanity of Islamic legal codes and norms practiced in Iran, used by
women in daily legal battles.
Other defendants include Shahla Lahiji, the editor of a feminist women's
magazine, and Akbar Ganji, a former insider turned investigative journalist
who has exposed government assassination squads. The sentences seemed to
have only backfired because the accused have now become major opposition
figures with widespread support at home and abroad.
In one of her moving speeches in Berlin, Kar remarked that the reformist
majority in the parliament elected last year can not do otherwise but to
decisively move to dismantle the oppressive political and legal system set
in place by the Islamic constitution. Anything short of that, she warned,
will quickly bring the movement to a dead-end and lead to a strengthening
of the conservatives.
She was not optimistic that such a decisive move by the reformists would
actually take place. The present constitution was first shoved down the
throat of Iranians by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1980 during the hostage crisis,
and was specifically designed to frustrate any future attempts to
democratize.
The Islamic reformists have thus far had to submit to the powers of the
Faqih--the supreme leader--and the judiciary, but tensions are beginning to
split this movement. On the one hand, in February a reformist--Islamic
student group staged a sit-in in front of the Majlis (parliament) and
issued an open letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, obliquely accusing him of
ordering the killing of opposition figures, attacking the university dorms,
and covering up the affair. On the other hand, Khatami and other executive
branch officials are condemning anyone who questions the constitution.
Both outside the country, where millions of Iranians live in exile, and
inside, a growing number yearn for the overthrow of both the rule of the
clergy and an end to the involvement of religion in state affairs. The
reformists do not speak for this large segment.
The major political shift, up to this moment, has been that some "true
believers," once supporters of the Islamic Republic, have been moving away
from demagoguery and towards becoming serious freedom fighters.
Reform ideologists, however, have also sown many illusions about the
possibilities of achieving freedom within the present framework. They have
exerted their influence on more radical elements such as during the summer
1999 student protests.
Unfortunately many Iranian Marxists consider the reformists to be a greater
threat than the hardline conservatives, blinding them to the important
developments of the present moment.
The closure of 30 or more newspapers last year has not stemmed the tidal
wave of ideas and struggles coming. Serious debates are taking place in
smaller papers, in more radical circles, and in undergound groups on the
relationship of revolutionary theory, Marx's ideas, and the process of
struggle for freedom.
Iran is awash in talk and protests by students, by workers, by national and
ethnic minorities, and by women's liberationists. How can we ensure that
these voices of revolt can be heard unseparated from the articulation of a
philosophy of revolution?
--Cyrus Noveen
For more on Marxist-Humanism in the Iranian revolution, see "Women and
revolution in Iran," From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya:
Marxist-Humanist Archives in NEWS & LETTERS, March 2001.
--Editor
--Editor
** The letter, "Iran: Unfoldment of, and Contradiction in, Revolution,"
can be found in THE RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA COLLECTION, 6019 (English) and 6066
(Farsi).-Editor
PERSIAN TRANSLATIONS OF RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA'S WORKS PUBLISHED BY ANJOMAN
AZADI, IRANIAN MARXIST-HUMANIST ORGANIZATION FROM 1979 TO TODAY
"Iran: Unfoldment of, and Contradictions in, Revolution." (1979)
"Worker and Intellectual at a Turning Point in History." From Chapter 4 of
MARXISM AND FREEDOM. On the 1848 Revolutions and Marx's critique of
Ferdinand Lassalle. (1979, 1989)
"The Two Russian Revolutions and Once Again, The Theory of Permanent
Revolution." (1979)
Woman as Reason and as Force of Revolution. From PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTION
and other works. Published on the first anniversary of the 1979
International Women's Day protests in Iran. (1980)
Special Introduction to the First Persian Translation of Marx's 1844
ECONOMIC AND PHILOSOPHY MANUSCRIPTS. (1980)
REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN IRAN: POLITICAL AND PHILOSOPHIC
LETTERS. (1982)
"Intellectuals in the Age of State-Capitalism: A Critique of Herbert
Marcuse." (1982)
NATIONALISM, COMMUNISM, MARXIST-HUMANISM AND THE AFR0-ASIAN REVOLUTIONS.
Translated by Nahal. Preface to the Farsi edition by the author. (1983)
"The Paris Commune Illuminates and Deepens the Content of Capital." From
chapter 5 of MARXISM AND FREEDOM. Includes an unpublished essay by Karl
Marx on the Paris Commune. (1984)
"The Last Writings of Marx Point a Trail to the 1980s." From ROSA
LUXEMBURG, WOMEN'S LIBERATION, AND MARX'S PHILOSOPHY OF REVOLUTION. (1989)
"The Shock of Recognition and the Philosophic Ambivalence of Lenin."
Translation of essay in TELOS, Spring 1970. (1992)
ENGELAB VA AZADI (Revolution and Freedom). Newspaper includes
Dunayevskaya's lecture on the Marx Centenary in 1983 to Center for Iranian
Research and Analysis. (1981-1984)
SOKHAN AZADI (Freedom Forum). Journal includes Dunayevskaya on Hegel's
Absolutes and on Marx's CAPITAL. (1992-1994)
For more information, contact AnjomanAzadi@aol.com or News & Letters, 36
South Wabash, Room 1440, Chicago IL 60603.
|
|
