Many people across the world know about the kind of regime that rules Iran: one of the most criminal, reactionary and repressive regimes in the world. However, not many know about the extent of the struggle in Iran against the Islamic Republic. Governments, ruling parties and the mainstream media in the West and elsewhere have no desire to reflect this important fact, and despite being aware of the widespread rejection of this regime by the people, recognise it as worthy of the people in Iran, making use of all sorts of justifications and deceptions.
We have continuously tried to echo the voice of the people of Iran, the workers, women and other parts of society, who are against this vile capitalist and religious regime. We hereby want to draw the attention of international workers’ organisations, political parties, human rights organisations and the international public to the vast ongoing struggle in Iran and its historical and global significance.
An extreme right-wing, capitalist regime rules Iran that uses draconian laws, repression, execution, torture and prison to deny workers the right to organise and strike so that they can be brutally exploited. The ideological superstructure of this regime is Islam and it imposes laws from 1400 years ago. In the past 40 years, the regime has systematically tried to force Islam upon society. It has denied women any rights, including the right to choose one’s clothing, and has denied society the freedom of belief, assembly, organisation and many other basic rights. The list is endless.
While people around the world may be aware of some of these facts, less is known about the powerful, modern, radical and progressive fight that is being waged by the workers, teachers, retirees, women, students and other sections of the people, which has already forced the regime into important retreats; a historical battle that is about to fundamentally transform the fate of 80 million people of Iran.
Right from the beginning of the Islamic regime’s rule, workers held powerful mass strikes and protests, formed their councils in many workplaces and voiced their demands. The Islamic Republic imprisoned over 100,000 of its political opponents, executed more than 30,000 of them, including communist activists and workers’ leaders, expelled tens of thousands of leftist and radical university students and academics and thus managed to limit the strikes and protests for a while. However, since around two decades ago there has been a new resurgence in the struggles.
Industrial workers, teachers and retirees have broken through many restrictions and banned activities by organising thousands of strikes, assemblies and marches every year and have played a crucial role in the political atmosphere of Iran. In 2018, the workers’ movement came to the fore, stronger than ever, and the alternative it presented, the rule of councils, drew people’s solidarity across the society. The strikes included the long, national strike by truck drivers, the strike by ten thousand steelworkers of Ahvaz, the Haft Tapeh sugar cane workers’ strike, teachers’ strikes and thousands of other strikes and assemblies in different parts of the country. The presence of women and the families of workers on the front line of the Haft Tapeh sugar cane workers’ marches, the active involvement of the people of Haft Tapeh and Shush in the workers’ protests, as well as powerful speeches by workers’ leaders, were some new aspects of the advance made by the workers’ movement.
The powerful women’s struggle against the reactionary Islamic laws has been another important front of confrontation with the Islamic Republic. This battle also started right from the beginning of the Islamic regime’s rule. It began only three weeks after the Islamic Republic had taken power, through the march on International Women’s Day, 8th March, by tens of thousands of women and protesting people with such slogans as “Women’s rights are universal” and “We didn’t make the revolution to go backwards”. Since then, the streets of Iran, universities, schools and offices have been the scenes of millions of women’s courageous struggle against the Islamic regime, its laws and repressive forces. Women have practically defeated the Islamic Republic on that front, have transformed the atmosphere in favour of women, have pushed back the hijab and have defied the laws on Islamic marriage, divorce and gender segregation. In January 2018, the ‘Girls of Revolution Street’ took off their hijabs and put them on poles whilst standing on cable boxes or other raised platforms in the street. This was another advance in the women’s struggle. Prior to that, strong campaigns against execution and stoning forced the Islamic regime to stop stoning and reduce the number of executions to the extent that it finds it very difficult to execute political activists and knows that it will pay a heavy price for carrying out such sentences.
Another highly social and profound battle has been with regard to religion and Islamic laws. Currently, a mass, powerful and radical movement against religion is in progress in Iran. According to a census published by the regime’s officials, 91.4% of unmarried girls and boys have relationships, which includes the children of Ayatollahs. This statistic alone clearly demonstrates the bankruptcy of religion and backward and misogynistic laws. Religion in Iran is a discredited and defeated phenomenon. A massive cultural revolution against religious values and norms is in progress in Iran, and indeed has happened, which shows its presence in slogans against the religious regime and the Ayatollahs in the protests. Every year, the regime spends billions of dollars and mobilises many of its organisations for the propagation of religion and for preventing people, especially the youth, from turning their backs on religion. They dispatch tens of thousands of mullahs to different parts of the country, but they have lost this battle. Religion is being rejected on a massive scale. Iranian society is not only not Islamic, it’s one of the most anti-religious societies in the world today. It will not accept a religious or even a partly religious regime.
Without going into details about the widespread student protests or the people’s dissent against the regime’s neglect of earthquake victims in western Iran and the victims of the recent floods, it’s still important to mention the scale and impact of these protests which have forced the regime to retreat.
Thousands of strikes and assemblies take place every year despite the fact that they are considered illegal by the regime. Women in their millions have brought the government to its knees by breaking hijab and sacred Islamic rules. To some degree, people have practically won freedom of speech and belief, and performed a cultural revolution against Islamic morals regarding marriage, relations between men and women and other cultural issues.
The Islamic regime’s overthrow has become the demand of the vast majority of the people in Iran. It was because of these conditions and this atmosphere that in January 2018 people in 100 cities came out for the overthrow of the regime, attacked the regime’s repressive forces and the offices of the Friday prayers’ imams (the representatives of the head of state, Khamenei), chanting slogans against both the ‘reformist’ and the ‘hard-line’ wings of the Islamic regime (‘Reformist, hard-line, the game is up’). The people thus inflicted a big defeat on the so-called reformists and the government as a whole. Over 5000 people were arrested and a number of people were murdered by the regime’s security forces. The uprising was temporarily halted, but the people continued to protest with powerful national strikes and the emergence of the ‘Girls of Revolution Street’.
The key point in this context is the leftward turn in society and the ascendance of radical and left slogans in the protests by workers, teachers, retirees, students and other sections of society. A widespread solidarity has formed in Iran; workers, students and various sections of society support each other’s struggles. Despite legal limitations and bans, workers’ organisations and children’s, women’s and students’ associations have imposed themselves on the regime and are defending the demands of the whole society in their statements and resolutions. Today, demands such as political freedoms, the release of political prisoners, the abolition of the death penalty, banning flogging and torture, equality of women and men, abolition of all discriminatory and misogynistic laws, free education and healthcare for all, and many more, are heard across the country. In their assemblies, people demand a humane society and chant slogans against corruption, discrimination, inequality, and against capitalism as a whole.
The workers’ movement has made significant strides over the last year by relying on these struggles. Last year, workers’ leaders put forward the slogan ‘Council Rule’, which attracted the attention of a significant part of society, including students, who highlighted the slogan in their protests. “We are the children of workers and stand by them” soon became a common refrain among the students. It is now clear that workers are an independent political force, who have entered the stage to take charge with the alternative of ‘Council Rule’. Today, a powerful left and radical political climate has taken over the workers’ protests and protests by other sections of society. The rise of the working class promises a bright future.
The downfall of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the head of political Islam and Islamic terrorism in the region, will be a fatal blow to political Islam in the Middle East and the rest of the world. The workers in Iran, in the frontline of the struggle of the people as a whole, openly chant slogans in their public protests against the involvement of Iran’s regime in Syria, Palestine and Iraq. The freedom of hundreds of millions of people in the Middle East and North Africa from the hellish conditions they live in will be achieved not through the reactionary alternatives of the Western governments but by forming an international movement against, and bringing down, these despotic, Islamic, as well as non-Islamic, misogynistic, inhumane, corrupt and criminal regimes.
The freedom of society is possible by forming a government based on secularism, equality of women and men, freedom, equality, prosperity and social justice, through the rule of people’s councils. The overthrow of the Islamic Republic and the establishment of a humane system in Iran, which is on the horizon, will be the beginning of a new and magnificent history in the Middle East and the rest of the world.
This is the important reality to bring to the attention of the people of the world so a powerful solidarity with the working class and all the people of Iran in their fight for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic and creation of a humane society may be built. The support of the people of the world for the struggle of workers, women and the people in Iran will play a major role in hastening the downfall of the Islamic Republic, political Islam and Islamic terrorism in the region and the world. It will be a historic progress for everyone, and the world will be a safer place.
Asqar Karimi
For the Executive Committee of the Worker-communist Party of Iran
2 May 2019
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