About three hundred people marched through central London on Sunday 7 October as part of the âAl Quds Dayâ march organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission.
In fact, the IHRC has nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with rabidly right-wing political Islam. As the Awaaz/South Asia Watch group, which campaigns against all varieties of religious fundamentalist politics originating in South Asia, puts it, the IHRC is one of a number of UK Islamist organisations which âadhere to the ideology of the âabsolute rulership of the clericsâ and âIslamic governmentâ advocated by Khomeini and developed by other representatives of political Shiâism.â
Similarly, Al Quds Day has very little to do with âsolidarity with the Palestiniansâ, as its organisers claim, and a great deal to do with support for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian state. It was invented by Ayatollah Khomeini as a way of mobilising the people of Iran in an orgy of rabid chauvinism against Israel (al Quds is the Arabic, and by extension the Farsi, for Jerusalem) and, of course, support for their âownâ government.
The 7 October demonstration in London was openly and proudly in support of the Iranian regime and its clients. Disgraceful, then, that it received official support from Respect, with George Galloway speaking at the closing rally. (Though, interestingly, there very few if any SWPers there: is asking your members to participate in that would be an embarrassment too far?)
Workersâ Liberty members took part in a small counter-demonstration which was initiated by David T from the website Harryâs Place, but also included contingents from Outrage!, the Worker-Communist Party of Iran and Class War. (Unfortunately, it also included two Iranian nationalists waving the shah-era flag.) As the Al Quds demo went past, the counter-demo chanted: âSupport the Iranian peopleâs fight / for workersâ, studentsâ, womenâs rightsâ; and âWe support the Palestinians / not Ahmedinejadâs opinionsâ.
In addition to participating in the counter-demo, some of us joined Peter Tatchell on the main demo, to try to intervene and talk to people. As you can imagine, we didnât get a very positive response: we were accused of being âZionist agentsâ, âspawn of Satanâ (yes!) and so on. One female comrade had a group of women spit at her, demanding to know what she knew about womenâs rights in Iran. Moreover, a crowd of young men started shouting âPaedophileâ and âChild-killerâ as soon as they recognised Tatchell.
However, a small group of hijab-wearing women did approach him and say they were glad that we were there: hope for the future, I suppose...