More thought needed on Iran

Submitted by Anon on 16 July, 2006 - 10:55

A recent book popular among Iranians propounds an obscure conspiracy theory. Written by a former British intelligence officer (we are told) called John Coleman, it says the world is run by a committee of 300 whose “past and former members” include Queen Elizabeth II, François Mitterand and one Anthony Wedgwood Benn! Many Iranians are taken in by conspiracy theories: England is at the back of many of the conspiracies they believe in. A look at Iranian history makes it hard to scoff at them.

Throughout modern Iranian history foreign powers, mainly Russia, Britain and the US, have interfered in Iranian affairs and never to support democracy, only their own imperial interests. For example, in 1921 British diplomats supported the coup of Reza Khan, an army officer who had recently suppressed a Soviet-style republic in the northern province of Gilan; Reza Khan made himself Reza Shah (king) Pahlavi in 1925.

In 1941, the Allies forced Reza Shah, who was too pro-German, to abdicate in favour of his son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. In 1953 the US and UK collaborated in the coup that toppled a nationalist prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. Democracy became a façade in Iran, and Mohammad Reza Shah ruled, increasingly arbitrarily and brutally, until the revolution of 1979.

Given this history of foreign interference, when Iranians see the US at the back of some of the internal opposition in Iran they are not crazy. Amina Saddiq writing in Solidarity 3/95 (“With the Iranian workers – against war, against the Islamic Republic”) is right when she says: “Our attitude to [US-backed internal opposition groups] has to be nuanced, particularly when it comes to US sponsorship of revolts by Iran’s oppressed national minorities. Such movements may be manipulated for imperialist purposes, and have reactionary and chauvinist leaderships: but this does not change the oppressed nations’ right to self-determination…”

Where I disagree with her, perhaps, is in speaking in terms of oppressed nations – exaggeration? - and, for now, in referring to “Iran’s internal empire”. The last is not a phrase I would use. I might be wrong about that but I think it’s seeing Iran as too much like Tsarist Russia, “the prison house of nations”, and I don’t think that describes Iran well.

Iran is a very heterogeneous society with many linguistic or cultural (or national) minorities, some of them very large. At least 25% (probably) are Azeris, who speak, in addition to the official national language, Farsi, a Turkic language Azeri. There are also Kurdish, Arab, Turkomen, Baluchi and other minorities. All of these currently suffer in some way because they don’t belong to the dominant minority, Farsi (Persian). But the degree of suffering varies, and how Persian came to dominate is a complicated history. Arguably, Turkish not Persian dynasties were the foundation of modern Iran. Azeris were the backbone of the 1906 Constitutional Revolution and they waged a national-democratic, not an Azeri-democratic struggle, even though the constitution provided for greater regional autonomy within Iran.

The various peoples of Iran, for the most part, consider themselves Iranian, and there is a high degree of mixing. I think we must argue against the chauvinisms in Iran – there are plenty, particuarly Persian chauvinism against Arabs (which is often racism pure and simple) and Azeris (called Turks, and regarded as stupid, like British people have regarded Irish people as stupid). We ought to support autonomy and the right to self-determination, but not the disintegration of Iran. I think we should say that we want a united struggle of all the different peoples of Iran for their liberation.

Another topic on which I think much more care is needed than Amina takes over it is “Islamic democracy”. Different people mean different things by this, from ludicrously pretending that the Islamic Republic of Iran is some kind of adequate democracy, to constructing a model of democracy using parts of Islamic texts, to ditching the Islamic texts altogether and arguing for a secular regime in a society that has a predominantly, more or less devout, Muslim population. Your attitude to the various forms of “Islamic democracy” is important in determining your politics on Iran.

The SWP has been much better on Iran than it is on Iraq, where it ludicrously denies there is a “third camp” – of democrats, feminists, trade unionists, lesbian and gay activists - against both the US/UK occupation and the Bath’ist/Islamist resistance. Frankly, too many of the SWP’s own members are Iranian and involved in struggles against the Islamic Republic for them to pretend that there is not a third camp in Iran.

Where we might argue with them (and each other), however, is over who is in that third camp. In Iran a large part of the opposition to the current Islamic Republic regime is itself Islamist. The SWP can find the same kind of allies there in Iran that it courts here in the UK: soft Islamists. The SWP teeters back and forth over just how criticial of the Islamic Republic it dare be, and is in public far softer on the regime than someone like Shirin Ebadi, who is also nonetheless, like the SWP, extremely adamant that the US should not interfere in Iran.

Teetering and mealy-mouthed though the SWP are in their criticisms of the Iranian regime, I wouldn’t, however, count Action Iran as “pro-Islamic Republic”, as Amina does.

As for solidarity, the initiative that seems to offer most promise is the International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran, which began in Canada but has autonomous branches in many countries, including the UK. It has plans to produce an English language news bulletin in the UK. Its main website is www.workers-iran.org

Joan Trevor, London

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