In this text we want to put a spotlight on the events that shaking Iran last couple of weeks, events that go far beyond that, in the context of a region that consistently and for a long time stands on the forefront of the global class struggle...
Class War 06/2018: From Gaza to Iran to the whole World… Down with the exploiters!
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” (1)
Since the suppression and co-optation of the last global revolutionary attempt in the 60’s and the 70’s of the last century, the ideological dominance of the bourgeoisie is almost total in the most of the world: the level of the organized class activity is very low and its daily expression is limited to acts of individual subversion or at best localized sectional strikes and riots. In this text we want to put a spotlight on the events that shaking Iran last couple of weeks, events that go far beyond that, in the context of a region that consistently and for a long time stands on the forefront of the global class struggle, despite (and against) an enormous concentration of capitalist murderous capacity being unleashed there. We want to stress the class nature of these struggles and importance of the ruptures with the capitalist order that our comrades in Iran express!
While the big imperialist conflict, that the global and regional superpowers are waging for several years in Iraq and Syria (2) through their local proxies, is currently entering a state of temporary limbo, while the bourgeois factions and the armies and the militias serving their interests are licking their wounds, preparing and arming for the next round of carnage of the proletarian cannon fodder and their politicians and media are busy re-interpreting it as an image of victory, in order to sell it to “their citizens”, and reaffirm and fasten the leashes that bind our class to the democratic spectacle, the proletariat in the region is starting to raise its head again.
In December thousands of angry proles had taken to the streets all across the Iraqi Kurdistan and clashed with cops and Peshmerga units. In Sulaymaniyah province, protesters burned to the ground the Peshmerga headquarters as well as those of the main political parties (both of the government and the opposition side). (3) The parties’ offices were burned also in the town of Koye in Erbil province. The immediate reasons for their rage was a disastrous state of the basic services, like interrupted or inadequate supplies of clean water and electricity and several months of unpaid wages, especially in public sector. During the riots at least five of the protesters had been murdered by the repressive forces of the State and hundreds had been injured or arrested. (4)
On 28th of December, in Mashhad and Northern Iran, protests against the high cost of basic necessities and hungry riots had erupted, what will later turn into the biggest wave of class struggle in Iran since the movement of 2009.
Like any proletarian movement, this revolt didn’t just appear from nowhere, but it is an expression of months of anger and intensifying struggle against the living conditions in Capitalism. (5) Just like its Kurdish counterpart, the Iranian State’s involvement in the capitalist war in Iraq and Syria is starting to cripple its ability to appease the proletariat by throwing it breadcrumbs from the bourgeois table.
Spending on the Iranian military budget has been increasing over the last few years, with the army deployment, with the acquisition of modern Russian weapons to facilitate the massacre of the proletariat of the territories under the administration of the opposing factions of the global bourgeoisie (the role played by Daesh and the “Syrian opposition” for the moment), propping-up its allies of Assad’s regime, Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite militias, as well as the investments in the oil, gas and other natural resources extraction and the transport infrastructure on the “liberated” territories (those projects are managed and realized by companies often directly owned by the Iranian Army or “Revolutionary Guards”).
This entanglement of the interests of the “Revolutionary Guards” represents a very explicit expression (it may appear more subtle or hidden in other cases, but it’s still there) of the fundamental role of the cycle of war and peace for the modus operandi of global Capital. On the one hand, both war itself and the subsequent scramble for reconstruction and investment in the peaceful period are nothing else than a concrete form of competition between capitalist factions. It is nothing else than the expression of the underlying need of the various factions of global Capital to expand their market in order to make for the decreasing rate of profit. At the same time, war serves a purpose to divide the class into categories along the national, regional, religious, political, etc. lines in order to suppress the class struggle and break the international solidarity of the proletariat. This is exactly what happened in Syria in 2011, when the local expression of the proletarian uprising against the misery of live in capitalist society and the State terror that swept the countries of Maghreb and Mashreq and beyond (labelled as “Arab Spring” by the bourgeois media in order to disguise its class character and prevent the solidarity from the proletariat in “non-Arab countries”), had been co-opted and channelled into the bloody inter-bourgeois war, by concerted effort of Assad’s regime, bourgeois-military leadership imposed on the FSA militants (6) and various foreign sponsors. Ultimately war serves as a mean to physically dispose of the redundant labour force, which is very relevant for the capitalist faction of the region with a huge unemployment, and in the near future will become more and more relevant globally.
Along with the continuing international sanctions, the war related costs convinced the bourgeoisie in Iran and administrators of its State, that it is the time to once again push for cuts to the aforementioned breadcrumbs in the form of benefits for 12 % of the workers who are officially unemployed (and as everywhere in this part of the world, much more, about 40 %, of the young workers), pensions and oil subsidies.
A massive wave of demonstrations and riots accompanied by collective expropriation of property had later spread to the cities all around the country, including the capital Tehran, where a pro-government rally coincided with the riots at the university and on the slum periphery.
As the protests spread more and more to include Tabriz, Qom, Isfahan, Rasht, Ahvaz, Sari, Zahedan, Qazvin as well as many smaller provincial cities and towns, their confrontational nature and the practical critique of property, commodity, misery of life in the capitalist society becomes more prominent. The administrative buildings of many public institutions, including the offices of the mullahs, police stations and Basij militia headquarters were burned to the ground. Looting of shops is widespread. In some cases, like in Kadharidzhan, groups of militant proles attacked the police station with the goal to loot the weapon cache and arm themselves for the continuation of the struggle! And indeed, on several occasions (in Nadzafabad in Central Provinces), the cops, the “Revolutionary Guards” and Basij militia members, besides being pelted with stones and Molotov cocktails like everywhere, were also been shot at with guns. (7) Other favourite targets are the banks (both those owned by the military-industrial conglomerate of the “Revolutionary Guards” and those owned by their multinational mothers). South Pars Oil and Gas workers went on strike over unpaid wages, as did workers in Tabriz tractor factory, bus drivers in Tehran, teachers, factory drivers and farm workers.
Protesters grasp the relation between the involvement of the Iranian State in the war in Iraq and Syria and its imperialist meddling in the politics of Mashriqi countries on the one hand and the current deepening of their misery on the other hand. They express it in their slogans – although in the majority in a contradictory and limited way, poisoned by nationalist and patriotic ideology – like “Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, I will die only for Iran!”. This partial critique of war expresses the demand of the majority of this movement for the money flowing into the war industry to be redirected to social services, job creation for the youth, food and oil subsidies. Limitation of these demands is that they follow and consolidate the false dichotomy between the satisfaction of the “immediate” human needs of the proletariat, of the means of physical survival (food, shelter, etc.) and its “historical” need to destroy the class system. Only the existence of the unified humanity, through the centralized revolutionary action of the global proletariat, will be really able to satisfy our “immediate” needs as well as our “historical” needs which form an indissociable whole. These programmatical weaknesses are then being exploited by Social Democracy in the form of several Islamic factions, who pose themselves as protectors of the nation against the “western influence” as well as calling for the principles of the “Islamic social solidarity”, which means a refusal of capitalist war in favour of capitalist peace and national protectionism. The most advanced sectors of the proletariat oppose this with the firmly revolutionary defeatist motto “From Gaza to Iran, down with the exploiters!”
One of these radical minorities are definitely the revolting students in Tehran University, formulating also fundamental class positions against the attempts of the bourgeoisie and the various iterations of the historical Social Democracy (“Islamist” or “secular”) to divide the struggling proletariat along the gender lines, as well as along the lines of bourgeois political currents of “moderate” or “fundamentalist” politicians; and for the class associations outside and against the Social Democratic structures in the form of Shoras (worker’s councils). (8) Our class enemy has very well understood the leading programatical role that these comrades play in the movement and the State repressive forces are targeting them with an extraordinary ferocity.
Of course, not only Iranian religious hierarchy, various other local and global bourgeois factions do what they always do in the face of the proletarian class struggle, they unite in their efforts to divide and co-opt the movement and channel its energy away from its subversive class roots, attacking the material base of the capitalist society, to yet another democratic theatre with slightly reconfigured scenery. Thus Rouhani’s government, while claiming support for the “democratic right of the citizens to protest” denounced the violence against the State repressive forces and especially the attack against the private and State property and the expropriation of commodities, while Khamenei and “Revolutionary Guards” leadership is playing the nationalist chord, blaming the movement on work of “the foreign agents and the enemies of the republic”. Trump and Netanyahu, pretending to care about the lives of the “ordinary Iranian people”, called the regime a dictatorship, while Putin and Erdoğan, in the spirit of national self-determination, stressed the undeniable right of each and every bourgeois national State to discipline its “own” proletariat and suppress its struggle. (9)
This is in fact a fundamental and indivisible characteristic of the class struggle waged by the ruling class – the bourgeoisie – against our class. Enforcing and reproducing the false separations in our class along the lines of the factions of bourgeois interests expressed politically by myriads of categories (nation, race, gender, sexuality, religion, local patriotism, economic sector, political party, etc.) (10) is its central and only feasible strategy as unified global proletariat, that tends towards organizing itself in an autonomous and centralized way for its own class interests, is its mortal enemy and the harbinger of doom for the whole capitalist system.
While it seems that the social explosion, that we’ve seen in past several weeks in Iran is over, brutally repressed by the forces of the capitalist order, dulled by the selective promises of new social benefits and diluted in masses of loyal citizens mobilized by the State, the underlying material conditions that had caused it haven’t disappeared, and the ground in Iran is still very hot and fertile.
We want to stress and embrace again the most advanced moments of this wave of class struggle, despite being expressed only by a small minority of militants:
# Uncompromising revolutionary defeatist positions, clearly anti-posing the needs of the national factions of Capital to fight each other in the inherent cycle of competition for the market to realize the exchange value of their commodities, for the natural resources and for the imposition of its particular economic and political model of exploitation, as well as the needs of global Capital to keep our class divided in order to counter our proletarian interests to fight against our exploitation and miserable living conditions.
# Affirmation of the necessity to prepare and organize the violent uprising against Capital and its State including obtaining weapons, attacking key points of the State infrastructure, demoralizing the forces of repression.
# Attack on bourgeois morality that keeps our class atomized as obedient workers, church or mosque goers, wives and husbands, soldiers, voters.
All these tasks play an important role in the process of our class organizing itself as a global force that will destroy and overcome the last class society based on the exploitation of human labour and the exchange of commodities, in and through the global communist revolution. Therefore it is a duty for all communist militants to organize these tasks in the place where they live in, as well as globally, and to attack all the bourgeois falsifications that stand in the way of direct solidarity with our class brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. As the proletariat in the part of the world that the bourgeois media and geopolitical strategists call “the Middle East”, “the Muslim World”, “the Arab Countries”, etc. continues to represent one of the most intensive poles of the global class struggle, with almost daily wildcat strikes, riots, looting and myriads of attempts of class organizing outside and against Social Democracy, it is crucial for the global communist movement to stress the real character of these struggles against all the prejudice internalized by the proletariat in the rest of the world as well as against all the attempts of the local Social Democracy (Islamist, Islamic left, Leninist, “Libertarian Municipalist”, Nationalist, Liberal, etc.) to exploit the contradictions in those struggles, to co-opt and channel them into democratic, reformist, pro-capitalist movement.
We expect this text to be a contribution to assume and take on these tasks.
# The capitalistic economy is in crisis, may it die!
# The enemy is capitalism and the dictatorship of world market!
# The objective is everywhere the same: social revolution!
# Destruction of capitalism and the State!
* Class War – winter 2017/18 *
Notes:
1. “[…] labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it.” (Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844)
“Instead of the conservative motto: ‘A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!’ they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: ‘Abolition of the wages system!’” (Karl Marx, Value, Price and Profit, 1865)
2. Or rather should we say the regional expression of its openly militaristic face, with others, less intensive for the moment, “theatres” being Ukraine, Yemen and soon possibly South China Sea.
3. Government parties Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) as well as opposition parties Gorran and Kurdistan Islamic Union.
4. Similar causes fuel also the class struggle in Tunisia, where months of street protests and worker’s strikes against the lack of jobs, rising prices of food, gasoline and cuts in social benefits are culminating into yet another wave of widespread riots – the “proletarian celebration” of the 2011 uprising anniversary – biggest since May of 2017 (when police stations and oil and gas pumping stations of ENI, OMV and Perenco burned like candles). The protests scared the ruling class into quickly backpedalling and announcing new form of the social benefits and State guaranteed mortgages, while simultaneously cracking down on the protesters and arresting hundreds.
5. “This has resulted in a year of diffuse but contiguous rallies, demonstrations, and sit-ins: The students opposing the privatization and commodification of education; the retired opposing the bankrupt retirement accounts; Teachers and nurses protesting against inhuman living conditions, the bus drivers supporting their syndicate members; and innumerable strikes in various sectors, from miners to sugarcane workers.” http://libcom.org/news/iran-bread-jobs-freedom-05012018
6. As a distant echo to the process of militarization of the “Red Guards” during the Revolution in Russia in 1917 or of the “workers militias” in Spain in 1936 (for taking only two known and revealing historical examples), the different “liwas” (brigades) and “katibas” (battalions) that emerged in the revolutionary dynamics in Syria as from 2011 expressed and materialized at a given moment the contradictions of the current social movement. Created by and initially constituted of “deserter soldiers” and “civil proletarians” to protect the movement from the terror exerted by government repressive forces, these grassroots organizations and other armed militias (not very clear as for their political and social program, just as the “Red Guards” and “workers’ militias” were not clear in their time) will be framed by political forces of the bourgeois opposition while therefore being known under the generic name of the “Free Syrian Army”, and will rapidly and inevitably transform themselves into armies serving different factions of the bourgeoisie through their own weaknesses and lack of rupture on one hand, and through deceit, violence and nationalist and Islamist propaganda on the other hand.
7. Unfortunately, we have to say that the capitalist forces of repression are having the upper hand and they are doing all things possible to once again drown the class movement in blood. At least one hundred (by the time of writing) of our class brothers and sisters had been massacred by them with thousands seriously injured or arrested. We would like to appeal to our comrades all around the world and in the region neighbouring Iran in particular, to express the class solidarity with these militants also practically, to shelter and hide them from the State terror, to help them to re-group, to demand their release from prison, to directly attack the representatives of Iranian faction of the global bourgeoisie and its interests (along with their “own” bourgeoisie of course).
8. Let’s remind that neither workers’ councils nor soviets or any other form of proletarian organization is in itself a guarantee of the content of the revolution.
9. Other Social Democratic false friends of the class vomited their statements of “support” of the movement including Daesh, PYD/PKK (and their militias) and of course MEK. All of them have been showing for many years that they are experts in extinguishing by embracing any spark of class anger they can lay their hands on and turning the struggling proletarians into their supporters and cannon-fodder in the inter-bourgeois bloodshed.
10. We salute all our class brothers and sisters in Iran, who spitted in the face of Mullahs and their cops, flavoured by the deadly fairy tales of Islam, version of the capitalist morality, with rules like separation of sexes in public or stupid dress codes forcing the women to wear some kind of rag on their head. But even more, we salute those of the proletarian women, who in the act of the practical detournement turned those rags into weapon against the State, as makeshift balaclavas, slingshots, etc.
Guerre de Classe 06/2018 : De Gaza à l’Iran et au monde entier… À bas les exploiteurs !
Dans ce texte, nous voulons mettre en lumière les événements qui ont secoué l’Iran au cours des dernières semaines, et qui vont d’ailleurs bien au-delà, dans le contexte d’une région qui, depuis longtemps et de façon constante, se trouve au premier plan de la lutte de classe mondiale...
« L’histoire de toute société jusqu’à nos jours n’a été que l’histoire des luttes de classes. » (1)
Depuis la répression et la cooptation de la dernière tentative révolutionnaire mondiale dans les années 60 et 70 du siècle dernier, la domination idéologique de la bourgeoisie est presque totale dans la majeure partie du monde : le niveau d’activité organisée de notre classe est très bas et son expression quotidienne se limite à des actes de subversion individuelle ou, au mieux, à des grèves sectorielles localisées et des émeutes. Dans ce texte, nous voulons mettre en lumière les événements qui ont secoué l’Iran au cours des dernières semaines, et qui vont d’ailleurs bien au-delà, dans le contexte d’une région qui, depuis longtemps et de façon constante, se trouve au premier plan de la lutte de classe mondiale, malgré (et contre) une énorme concentration de la capacité meurtrière capitaliste qui s’y déchaîne. Nous voulons souligner la nature de classe de ces luttes et l’importance des ruptures avec l’ordre capitaliste que nos camarades en Iran expriment !
Alors que le grand conflit impérialiste, que les superpuissances mondiales et régionales mènent par procuration depuis plusieurs années en Irak et en Syrie, (2) entre dans un état d’incertitude temporaire, alors que les fractions bourgeoises, ainsi que les armées et les milices au service de leurs intérêts lèchent leurs plaies, se préparant et s’armant pour le prochain round de carnage de la chair à canon prolétarienne, et que leurs politiciens et leurs médias sont occupés à donner une nouvelle interprétation de tout cela comme étant un signe de victoire, afin de la vendre à « leurs citoyens », et qu’ils réaffirment et tiennent fermement la laisse qui attache notre classe au spectacle démocratique, le prolétariat dans cette région relève à nouveau la tête.
En décembre, des milliers de prolétaires en colère dans tout le Kurdistan irakien sont descendus dans les rues et se sont affrontés aux flics et aux unités de Peshmergas. Dans la province de Sulaymaniyah, des manifestants ont réduit en cendres le quartier général des Peshmergas ainsi que ceux des principaux partis politiques (tant du gouvernement que de l’opposition). (3) Les bureaux de ces partis ont également été incendiés dans la ville de Koye, dans la province d’Erbil. Les raisons immédiates de cette rage se trouvent dans l’état désastreux des services de base, comme l’interruption ou l’insuffisance de l’approvisionnement en eau potable et en électricité et plusieurs mois de salaires impayés, en particulier dans le secteur public. Au cours des émeutes, au moins cinq manifestants ont été assassinés par les forces répressives de l’État et des centaines ont été blessés ou arrêtés. (4)
Le 28 décembre, à Machhad et dans le nord de l’Iran, des manifestations contre le coût élevé des produits de première nécessité et des émeutes de la faim ont éclaté, qui se transformeront rapidement en une vague de lutte de classe, la plus grande en Iran depuis le mouvement de 2009.
Comme tout mouvement prolétarien, cette révolte ne tombe pas du ciel, mais elle est l’expression de mois de colère et de l’intensification de la lutte contre les conditions de vie dans le capitalisme. (5) Tout comme son homologue kurde, l’implication de l’Etat iranien dans la guerre capitaliste en Irak et en Syrie commence à paralyser sa capacité d’apaiser le prolétariat en lui jetant des miettes provenant du festin de la bourgeoisie.
Au cours des dernières années, les dépenses du budget militaire iranien ont augmenté avec le déploiement de l’armée, avec l’acquisition d’armes russes modernes pour faciliter le massacre du prolétariat dans les territoires sous administration de fractions opposées de la bourgeoisie mondiale (rôle joué par Daech et l’« opposition syrienne » pour l’instant), avec le soutien de ses alliés du régime d’Assad, le Hezbollah et les milices chiites irakiennes, ainsi qu’avec les investissements dans l’extraction pétrolière, gazière et d’autres ressources naturelles et enfin les infrastructures de transport dans les « territoires libérés » (ces projets sont gérés et réalisés par des entreprises qui souvent appartiennent directement à l’Armée iranienne ou aux « Gardiens de la Révolution »).
Cet enchevêtrement des intérêts des « Gardiens de la Révolution » représente une expression très explicite (elle peut paraître plus subtile ou cachée dans d’autres cas, mais elle est toujours là) du rôle fondamental du cycle de la guerre et de la paix pour le modus operandi du Capital mondial. D’une part, tant la guerre elle-même que la ruée ultérieure pour la reconstruction et l’investissement dans la période de paix ne sont rien d’autre qu’une forme concrète de compétition entre fractions capitalistes. Ce n’est rien d’autre que l’expression du profond besoin des différentes fractions du Capital mondial d’élargir leur marché afin de faire face à la baisse du taux de profit. En même temps, la guerre a pour but de diviser la classe en catégories selon des critères nationaux, régionaux, religieux, politiques, etc. afin de réprimer la lutte des classes et de briser la solidarité internationale du prolétariat. C’est exactement ce qui s’est passé en Syrie en 2011, lorsque l’expression locale du soulèvement prolétarien contre la vie de misère dans la société capitaliste et contre la terreur de l’Etat qui a balayé les pays du Maghreb et du Machrek et au-delà (désigné comme le « Printemps arabe » par les médias bourgeois pour déguiser son caractère de classe et empêcher la solidarité du prolétariat dans les « pays non-arabes ») a été cooptée et canalisée dans la sanglante guerre inter-bourgeoise, grâce à l’effort concerté du régime d’Assad, du leadership bourgeois-militaire imposé aux militants de l’ASL (6) et aux divers commanditaires étrangers. En fin de compte, la guerre sert de moyen pour disposer physiquement de la main-d’œuvre surnuméraire, ce qui est très pertinent pour la fraction capitaliste de cette région qui connaît un chômage énorme, et ce qui deviendra de plus en plus pertinent à l’échelle mondiale, dans un avenir proche.
En plus de la poursuite des sanctions internationales, les coûts liés à la guerre ont convaincu la bourgeoisie en Iran et les administrateurs de son Etat, que c’est le moment de faire pression encore une fois pour diminuer les miettes dont nous parlions plus haut, à savoir les allocations perçues par 12 % des travailleurs qui sont officiellement au chômage (et comme partout dans cette partie du monde, il y en a bien plus : environ 40 % des jeunes travailleurs), les pensions et les subventions sur les carburants.
Une vague massive de manifestations et d’émeutes accompagnées d’expropriations collectives de diverses propriétés s’est ensuite répandue dans toutes les villes du pays, y compris la capitale Téhéran, où un rassemblement pro-gouvernemental a coïncidé avec les émeutes à l’université et dans les bidonvilles de la périphérie.
Au fur et à mesure que les manifestations s’étendent pour inclure Tabriz, Qom, Isfahan, Rasht, Ahvaz, Sari, Zahedan, Qazvin ainsi que de nombreuses villes et villages plus petits en province, leur nature conflictuelle et la critique pratique de la propriété, de la marchandise, de la vie de misère dans la société capitaliste, deviennent plus claires. Les bâtiments administratifs de nombreuses institutions publiques, y compris les bureaux des mollahs, les postes de police et le quartier général de la milice basidj, ont été réduits en cendres. Les pillages de magasins sont très répandus. Dans certains cas, comme dans le Kadharidzhan, des groupes de militants prolétaires ont attaqué le commissariat de police dans le but de piller le dépôt d’armes et de s’armer pour la poursuite de la lutte ! Et en effet, à plusieurs reprises (à Nadzafabad dans les Provinces centrales), les flics, les « Gardiens de la Révolution » et les miliciens basidjis, en plus d’être bombardés de pierres et de cocktails Molotov comme partout, ont aussi essuyé des coups de feu. (7) Les banques sont aussi des cibles privilégiées, tant celles appartenant au conglomérat militaro-industriel des « Gardiens de la Révolution » que les filiales de grands groupes bancaires multinationaux. Les travailleurs de South Pars Oil and Gas se sont mis en grève pour des salaires impayés, tout comme les travailleurs de l’usine de tracteurs de Tabriz, les chauffeurs d’autobus de Téhéran, les enseignants, des chauffeurs d’usine et des ouvriers agricoles.
Les manifestants saisissent le rapport entre l’implication de l’État iranien dans la guerre en Irak et en Syrie, son ingérence impérialiste dans la politique des pays du Machrek, d’une part, et l’approfondissement actuel de leur misère, d’autre part. Ils l’expriment dans leurs slogans – bien que la plupart de manière très contradictoire et limitée, empoisonnés par l’idéologie nationaliste et patriotique – comme « Ni Gaza, ni Liban, je ne mourrai que pour l’Iran ! ». Cette critique partielle de la guerre exprime la revendication de la majorité de ce mouvement pour que l’argent injecté dans l’industrie de guerre soit redirigé vers les services sociaux, la création d’emplois pour les jeunes, les subventions des denrées alimentaires et sur les carburants. La limite de ces revendications, c’est qu’elles s’inscrivent dans, et renforcent, la fausse dichotomie entre la satisfaction des besoins humains « immédiats » du prolétariat, de ses moyens de survie physique (nourriture, abri, etc.), et son besoin « historique » de détruire le système de classes. Seule l’existence d’une humanité unifiée, à travers l’action révolutionnaire centralisée du prolétariat mondial, pourra réellement satisfaire nos besoins « immédiats » ainsi que nos besoins « historiques » qui sont indissociables. Ces faiblesses programmatiques sont ensuite exploitées par la social-démocratie sous la forme de plusieurs fractions islamiques, qui se présentent comme des protecteurs de la nation contre l’« influence occidentale » et en appellent aux principes de la « solidarité sociale islamique », ce qui signifie un refus de la guerre capitaliste en faveur de la paix capitaliste et d’un protectionnisme national. Les secteurs les plus avancés du prolétariat s’y opposent avec la consigne résolument défaitiste révolutionnaire « De Gaza à l’Iran, à bas les exploiteurs ! »
Parmi ces minorités radicales, pointons les étudiants révoltés à l’université de Téhéran qui ont aussi formulé des positions de classe fondamentales contre les tentatives répétées de la bourgeoisie et de la social-démocratie historique (« islamiste » ou « laïque ») pour diviser le prolétariat en lutte selon des critères de genre, ainsi que selon les critères des courants politiques bourgeois des politiciens « modérés » ou « fondamentalistes » ; ces minorités se sont aussi prononcées en faveur de l’associationnisme de classe en-dehors et contre les structures de la social-démocratie, sous forme de Shoras (conseils ouvriers). (8) Notre ennemi de classe a très bien compris le rôle programmatique de premier plan que jouent ces camarades dans le mouvement et les forces répressives de l’Etat les prennent pour cible avec une férocité extraordinaire.
Bien sûr, non seulement la hiérarchie religieuse iranienne mais aussi diverses autres fractions bourgeoises locales et mondiales font ce qu’elles ont toujours fait face à la lutte de classe prolétarienne : elles unissent leurs efforts pour diviser et coopter le mouvement, et pour détourner son énergie de ses racines de classe subversives qui s’attaquent aux bases matérielles de la société capitaliste, vers un autre théâtre démocratique au décor légèrement reconfiguré. Ainsi, le gouvernement de Rouhani, tout en revendiquant qu’il soutient le « droit démocratique des citoyens à manifester », dénonce la violence contre les forces répressives de l’Etat et surtout les attaques contre la propriété privée et publique et l’expropriation de marchandises, tandis que Khamenei et les dirigeants des « Gardiens de la Révolution » jouent de la corde sensible du nationalisme, tout en mettant les événements sur le dos « des agents étrangers et des ennemis de la république ». Trump et Netanyahou prétendent se soucier de la vie des « gens ordinaires iraniens » et ont qualifié le régime de dictature, tandis que Poutine et Erdoğan, dans un esprit d’autodétermination nationale, ont souligné le droit indéniable de chaque État national bourgeois sans exception à discipliner son « propre » prolétariat et à réprimer sa lutte. (9)
C’est en fait une caractéristique fondamentale et indivisible de la lutte de classe menée par la classe dirigeante – la bourgeoisie – contre notre classe. Appliquer et reproduire les fausses séparations dans notre classe selon les critères des intérêts des fractions bourgeoises qui s’expriment politiquement dans des myriades de catégories (nation, race, genre, sexualité, religion, patriotisme local, secteur économique, parti politique, etc.), (10) constitue sa stratégie centrale et la seule réalisable, étant donné que le prolétariat mondial unifié, qui tend à s’organiser de manière autonome et centralisée pour ses propres intérêts de classe, est son ennemi mortel et le signe annonciateur de la fin du système capitaliste dans son ensemble.
Bien qu’il semble que l’explosion sociale de ces dernières semaines en Iran soit derrière nous maintenant, brutalement réprimée par les forces de l’ordre capitaliste, déforcée par les promesses limitées de nouveaux avantages sociaux et diluée par la mobilisation de masses de citoyens loyaux à l’État, les conditions matérielles de fond qui l’avaient causée n’ont pas disparu, et le terrain en Iran est encore très chaud et fertile.
Nous voulons souligner et faire nôtre à nouveau les moments les plus avancés de cette vague de lutte de classe, bien qu’ils ne fussent exprimés que par une petite minorité de militants :
# Développement de positions défaitistes révolutionnaires sans compromis qui se situent clairement aux antipodes des besoins des fractions nationales du Capital de se battre les unes contre les autres dans le cycle inhérent de la concurrence pour que le marché réalise la valeur d’échange de leurs marchandises, pour s’accaparer les ressources naturelles et pour imposer un modèle économique et politique particulier d’exploitation ; ces positions se situent également en tant que négation des besoins du Capital mondial de maintenir notre classe divisée pour contrer nos intérêts prolétariens de lutter contre l’exploitation et contre nos misérables conditions d’existence.
# Affirmation de la nécessité de préparer et d’organiser le soulèvement violent contre le Capital et son Etat, y compris le fait de se procurer des armes, d’attaquer des points clés de l’infrastructure de l’Etat, de démoraliser les forces de répression.
# Attaque contre la morale bourgeoise qui maintient notre classe atomisée en tant qu’ouvriers obéissants, adeptes des églises ou des mosquées, épouses et maris, soldats, électeurs.
Toutes ces tâches jouent un rôle important dans le processus de notre classe s’organisant en une force globale, qui détruira et vaincra la dernière société de classe, basée sur l’exploitation du travail humain et sur l’échange marchand, dans et par la révolution communiste mondiale. Par conséquent, il est du devoir de tous les militants communistes d’organiser ces tâches là où ils vivent, ainsi que dans le monde entier, et de s’attaquer à toutes les falsifications bourgeoises qui font obstacle à la solidarité directe avec nos frères et sœurs de classe dans d’autres parties du monde. Etant donné que le prolétariat dans la partie du monde que les médias bourgeois et les stratèges géopolitiques appellent « le Moyen-Orient », « le monde musulman », « les pays arabes », etc. continue de représenter l’un des pôles les plus intensifs de la lutte de classe mondiale, avec des grèves sauvages presque quotidiennes, des émeutes, des pillages et des myriades de tentatives de classe de s’organiser en-dehors et contre la social-démocratie, il est crucial pour le mouvement communiste mondial de souligner le caractère réel de ces luttes contre tous les préjugés intériorisés par le prolétariat dans le reste du monde ainsi que contre toutes les tentatives de la social-démocratie locale (islamiste, islamique de gauche, léniniste, « municipaliste libertaire », nationaliste, libérale, etc.) d’exploiter les contradictions dans ces luttes, de les coopter et de les canaliser en un mouvement démocratique, réformiste, pro-capitaliste.
Nous espérons que ce texte contribuera à la prise en charge de ces tâches.
# L’économie capitaliste est en crise, qu’elle crève !
# L’ennemi, c’est le capitalisme et la dictature du marché mondial !
# L’objectif est le même partout : la révolution sociale !
# Destruction du capitalisme et de l’État !
* Guerre de Classe – hiver 2017/18 *
Notes :
1. « […] le travail est extérieur à l’ouvrier, c’est-à-dire qu’il n’appartient pas à son essence, que donc, dans son travail, celui-ci ne s’affirme pas mais se nie, ne se sent pas à l’aise, mais malheureux, ne déploie pas une libre activité physique et intellectuelle, mais mortifie son corps et ruine son esprit. En conséquence, l’ouvrier n’a le sentiment d’être auprès de lui-même qu’en dehors du travail et, dans le travail, il se sent en dehors de soi. Il est comme chez lui quand il ne travaille pas et, quand il travaille, il ne se sent pas chez lui. Son travail n’est donc pas volontaire, mais contraint, c’est du travail forcé. Il n’est donc pas la satisfaction d’un besoin, mais seulement un moyen de satisfaire des besoins en dehors du travail. » (Karl Marx, Manuscrits parisiens, 1844)
« Au lieu du mot d’ordre conservateur : ‘Un salaire équitable pour une journée de travail équitable’, ils doivent inscrire sur leur drapeau le mot d’ordre révolutionnaire : ‘Abolition du salariat’. » (Karl Marx, Salaire, prix et profit, 1865)
2. Ou plutôt devrions-nous dire l’expression régionale de son visage ouvertement militariste, avec d’autres « théâtres d’opérations », moins intensifs pour le moment, comme l’Ukraine, le Yémen et bientôt peut-être la Mer de Chine méridionale.
3. Les partis gouvernementaux, le Parti démocratique du Kurdistan (PDK), l’Union patriotique du Kurdistan (UPK), ainsi que les partis d’opposition Gorran et l’Union islamique du Kurdistan.
4. Des causes similaires alimentent aussi la lutte des classes en Tunisie, où des mois de manifestations de rue et des grèves des travailleurs contre le manque d’emplois, la hausse des prix des denrées alimentaires, de l’essence et la réduction des prestations sociales culminent dans une nouvelle vague d’émeutes généralisées – la « célébration prolétarienne » de l’anniversaire du soulèvement de 2011 – la plus grande depuis le mois de mai 2017 (lorsque des postes de police et des stations de pompage de pétrole et de gaz d’ENI, OMV et Perenco s’embrasèrent tels des feux de joie). Les manifestations ont effrayé la classe dirigeante et l’ont incitée à faire rapidement marche arrière et à annoncer une nouvelle forme de prestations sociales et d’hypothèques garanties par l’État, tout en sévissant contre les manifestants et en arrêtant des centaines d’entre eux.
5. « Il en a résulté des rassemblements, des manifestations et des sit-ins diffus mais contigus. Les étudiants s’opposant à la privatisation et la marchandisation de l’économie ; les retraités s’opposant à la banqueroute des caisses de retraite ; les profs et les infirmières protestant contre leur conditions de vie inhumaines ; les chauffeurs de bus supportant les membres de leur syndicat ; et d’innombrables grèves dans de nombreux secteurs, des mineurs aux travailleurs du secteur de la canne à sucre. » http://libcom.org/news/iran-bread-jobs-freedom-05012018 [disponible en français sur le blog Des Nouvelles Du Front : https://dndf.org/?p=16575]
6. Comme en écho lointain au processus de militarisation des « gardes rouges » durant la Révolution en Russie en 1917 ou encore des « milices ouvrières » en Espagne en 1936 (pour ne prendre que deux exemples historiques connus et révélateurs), les différentes « liwas » (brigades) et « katibas » (bataillons) qui émergèrent dans la dynamique révolutionnaire en Syrie dès 2011 ont exprimé et matérialisé à un moment donné les contradictions du mouvement social en cours. Créée par et constituée au départ de « soldats déserteurs » et de « prolétaires civils » pour protéger le mouvement de la terreur exercée par les forces répressives gouvernementales, ces organisations de base et autres milices armées (peu claires quant à leur programme politique et social, tout comme l’ont été à leur époque les « gardes rouges » et les « milices ouvrières ») seront encadrées par des forces politiques de l’opposition bourgeoise en se faisant dès lors connaître sous le nom générique de l’« Armée syrienne libre », et se transformeront rapidement et inévitablement en armée au service de différentes fractions de la bourgeoise, par leurs propres faiblesses et leur manque de rupture d’une part, ainsi que par la tromperie, la violence et la propagande nationaliste et islamiste d’autre part.
7. Malheureusement, nous devons dire que les forces de répression capitalistes ont le dessus et qu’elles font tout ce qui est en leur pouvoir pour noyer à nouveau le mouvement de classe dans le sang. Au moins une centaine (au moment d’écrire ces lignes) de nos frères et sœurs de classe ont été massacrés, et des milliers d’autres ont été grièvement blessés ou arrêtés. Nous voudrions lancer un appel à nos camarades du monde entier et de la région voisine de l’Iran en particulier, pour exprimer aussi concrètement la solidarité de classe avec ces militants, pour les abriter et les cacher de la terreur d’Etat, pour les aider à se regrouper, pour revendiquer leur libération de prison, pour attaquer directement les représentants de la faction iranienne de la bourgeoisie mondiale et ses intérêts (ainsi que leur « propre » bourgeoisie bien sûr).
8. Rappelons que ni les conseils ouvriers, ni les soviets ou toute autre forme d’organisation prolétarienne ne constitue en soi une garantie du contenu de la révolution.
9. Parmi les autres faux amis sociale-démocrates de la classe qui ont vomi leurs déclarations de « soutien » au mouvement, il y a Daesh, le PYD/PKK (et leurs milices) et bien sûr le MEK. Tous ont montré depuis de nombreuses années qu’ils sont experts dans l’action d’éteindre toute étincelle de la colère de notre classe, en mettant la main dessus, en l’étreignant et en transformant les prolétaires en lutte en leurs partisans et en chair à canon dans le carnage inter-bourgeois.
10. Nous saluons tous nos frères et sœurs de classe en Iran, qui ont craché au visage des mollahs et de leurs flics, parfumés par les contes de fées meurtriers de l’islam, une version de la morale capitaliste, avec des règles comme la séparation des sexes en public ou des codes vestimentaires stupides forçant les femmes à porter un chiffon sur la tête. Mais plus encore, nous saluons les femmes prolétaires qui dans l’action d’un détournement pratique ont transformé ces chiffons en une arme contre l’Etat, comme des cagoules de fortune, des lance-pierres, etc.
Comments
Information from a Leftist
Information from a Leftist website:
Iran: Protests Continue Across the Country
https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/iran-protests/24968-iran-protests-continue-across-the-country
https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/iran-protests/24968-iran-protests-continue-across-the-country
http://dialectical-delinquent
http://dialectical-delinquents.com/iran/
3/8/18:
Iran, Karaj: 500 attack religious brainwashing factory-school “At 9 pm (1530 GMT on Friday) they attacked the school and tried to break the doors down and burn things… They were about 500 people and they chanted against the system but they were dispersed by the riot police and some have been arrested… These people came with rocks and broke the sign and all the windows of the prayer house and they were chanting against the system.”
2/8/18:
Iran: clashes with state on 3rd consecutive day as protests spread over high cost of living and inflation More here “… demonstrators chanting slogans against the dictatorship, clerical rule, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei… also called for the release of political prisoners. Reports from Iran on August 2 said protests in Isfahan continued for the third day, while the unrest had spread to other major cities… In Shahinshahr, near Isfahan, women were demonstrating against economic hardships and compulsory hijab, and called on Iranians in other cities to support them. In Karaj, a densely populated city near Tehran, demonstrators gathered around the notorious Rajaishahr Prison, where political prisoners are kept next to criminals, chanting slogans about the people’s will to open the gates of the prison and free political prisoners. Later reports said police had dispersed demonstrators and were guarding the prison. Elsewhere in Karaj, demonstrators attacked the IRGC-linked militia dispatched to suppress demonstrations and set fire to a militiaman’s motorbike.” And here “… protests took place on Thursday in the capital, Tehran, and nine other cities: Ahvaz, Hamedan, Isfahan, Karaj, Kermanshah, Mashhad, Shiraz, Urmia and Varamin…On Tehran’s Valiasr Street, a main thoroughfare bisecting the capital’s eastern and western sectors, protesters set a large container on fire and chanted: “Mullahs, get lost.”… a video clip showed protesters in Karaj, on Tehran’s western outskirts, apparently throwing small objects toward security forces, as a man shouted that protesters were under attack… security forces in some areas used social media to find out where protests were being planned and then deployed to those locations ahead of time as a way of deterring demonstrators from showing up.” And here “In videos circulated on social media and purporting to have been taken in the town of Gohardasht, a suburb of Karaj, dozens of demonstrators can be seen in the streets, setting fire to police vehicles and shouting “death to the dictator.” Police respond with tear gas… Earlier, Iranian protesters had clashed with police outside parliament as the plunging rial triggered three days of protests last month in Tehran.”
31/7/18:
Iran, Tehran: barricades and clashes as demos against inflation etc. spread
19/7/18:
Iran, Tabriz: railway workers occupy railway building “Maintenance workers in Azerbaijan province, who have not been paid since April, refused to start work on Thursday, having stayed in the railway’s offices overnight. They continued their protest yesterday against non-payment of wages, the lowering of the skill index rating for their work and a lack of effective mechanisms to respond to their workplace concerns and demands.”
1/7/18:
Iran, Abadan: 2nd night of clashes over water scarcity “… protesters threw stones and debris at police and set a car on fire in a protest that began late Sunday in the city of Abadan. The report says police blocked roads near the protest and that the situation is “under control.” Similar clashes over water scarcity broke out in the nearby city of Khorramshahr late Saturday. … Abadan is home to Iran’s biggest oil refinery. The two cities are in the oil-rich Khuzestan province, which borders Iraq and is home to a large Arab community” …More here “Reports and video posted on social media indicated rallies elsewhere in Khuzestan Province, including in the provincial capital, Ahvaz. In Mahshahr, local media reported that demonstrators took to the streets to express support for the residents of nearby Khorramshahr who have been protesting shortages of drinking water over the past days… State television showed banks with broken windows, and reported in the afternoon of July 1 that “peace had returned” to the city… ”In Khuzestan we have oil, water, petrochemical [industry], steel, ports, agriculture, date palms, and a common border with Iraq, but people do not benefit from these blessings and all they get is pollution and rivers that have dried,” Kazem Nasab told the semiofficial news agency ISNA on July 2… The latest protests in southwestern Iran came after three days of demonstrations in Tehran starting from June 24 over the country’s troubled economy. The rallies included protesters confronting police outside parliament and officers firing tear gas at the demonstrators. They also led to the temporary closure of the city’s Grand Bazaar, where shopkeepers denounced a sharp fall in the value of the national currency, the rial.”
30/6/18:
Iran, Khorramshahr: heavy clashes between state and protesters against water shortages … This reports solidarity demos in 5 towns … More here … This says crowds have armed themselves with captured assault rifles … though this says just one rifle with a few bullets was captured … and this says 4 were killed
26/6/18:
href="https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1313221/several-protesters-arrested-amid-clashes-police-tehran">Iran, Tehran: 3rd day of angry protests (see entry for 24/6) “Demonstrators had taken to the streets of Tehran on Tuesday for the third day to protest against the country’s deteriorating economy and sharp fall in the value of the national currency. Online videos showed demonstrators again confronting police on Tehran’s streets and alleyways. Similar confrontations had taken place on Monday where police fired tear gas at protesters near the parliament building. Video footage posted on social media Tuesday showed protesters setting fire to garbage dumpsters in Tehran streets to block riot police from attacking them. Other videos showed riot police breaking windows of closed shops and striking parked motorcycles with batons. The police has accused protesters in recent days of causing damage to public property. Metro stations near the bazaar were closed for hours as the result of protests, state media reported. Pictures also showed shopkeepers were on strike in other cities including Arak, Shiraz, Tabriz and Kermanshah. The protesters chanted anti-government slogans in various commercial centers in the capital”
24/6/18:
Iran, Tehran: large spontaneous demos against fall in value of rial… more here “The Iranian rial has lost nearly 50% of its value in six months … Traditionally conservative, the mighty “bazaar”, as the traders are known in Iran, backed the Islamic revolution of 1979, but has used its influence several times since then to push back political plans that it considered going against his interests… In the covered streets of the Grand Bazaar near the Place aux Herbes (Meidoun-e Sabzeh), there is no open shop. Passersby
walk along a succession of closed metal curtains. “It’s like that in the whole bazaar,” says a 45-year-old carpet merchant who grew up in the family shop before taking it back, “it’s the first time in my life I’ve seen this.” … “The riot police intervened in the morning” against a bazaar demonstration,
“arrested two men and calm returned.“
31/5/18:
Iran, Babol: villagers block roads in protest against road insecurity causing high accident rate Also has reports on 10th day of truckers strike and steelworkers’ strike
28/5/18:
Iran, Tehran: workers at Tehran Terminal Barracks strike in solidarity with nationwide truckdrivers’ strike now in its 7th day “In solidarity with the strike of truck drivers in 257 cities, on Monday, Tehran Terminal Barracks workers and staffs joined the truck drivers strike with slogans.: Do not be afraid, Do not be afraid, We are all together; They have called on marketers and businessmen in Tehran to join the strike as well. … The clerical regime in fear of a united and powerful nationwide truckers strike in Sanandaj sent in a hurry his special forces to the gathering of protesters. In the city of Kangavar (in the province of Kermanshah), also the clerical regime has sent its agents and has deceived truck drivers that the strike is over. But vigilant drivers did not believe in the deception of the regime and continued their strike. Following the drivers and truckers strike, there were long lines at gas stations in the city of Sardasht (West Azarbaijan province). The regime’s governor in the city called for people’s calm in a statement in panic about the formation of protests and falsely declared that there is no gas shortage in fuel stations. Also on the sixth day of truckers strike, oil tankers from the Sanandaj Oil Company (West Iran) expanded their empty food spread to protest lack of their livelihood. The clerical regime sent its law enforcement officers to the site, in fear of spreading this move to general public. The drivers of oil tankers in Kerman also stopped working. Following the strike of truckers, fresh vegetable whole seller market in Kerman was closed as well. Iranian drivers in Georgia, in a symbolic act, in solidarity with the striking of Iranian truckers also refused to load their trucks.” See also entries for 27/5 & 26/5/18.
27/5/18:
href="https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/iran-protests/24814-iran-nationwide-truck-drivers-strike-continues-for-6th-day">
Iran: truckdrivers’ strike continues
“In spite of the repressive measures, the
freight terminals in various cities remain half-closed. Striking drivers refuse
to load and are lining up their trucks along the roads. … In Ardabil, truckers
prevented passage of loaded vehicles….In solidarity with striking truck
drivers, taxi drivers and taxi owners in Tehran, protested against low fares
and expensive spare parts on Sunday. In the city of Yazd, minibus owners
gathered outside the city’s municipality to protest high costs of spare parts,
and to express solidarity with striking truckers.”
26/5/18:
href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-truck-drivers-continue-strike/29253039.html">
Iran: report on 5th day of nationwide truckdrivers’ strike
“…the truckers are protesting high commissions charged
by transport companies, highly expensive road tolls and government’s recent
decision to stop paying them social insurance subsidies. Truck drivers are also
unhappy for being forced to install tracker devices on their vehicles and pay
for the related expenses, while “only security forces, intelligence agents and
the National Oil Company benefit from them”. There are three types of truckers
in Iran; those who fully own their vehicles and others who still have to pay
for their trucks to government-controlled companies in installments for years.
Still others, a minority, work for truck owners. Most of the time, truck
drivers find themselves working for the government, the biggest importer and
distributor of strategic commodities, particularly fuel and foodstuff, based on
a daily wage, or fee per kilometer.”
17/5/18:
href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/one-dead-after-protesters-set-fire-police-station-southern-iran-1667202381">
Iran, Kazerun: people killed as demonstrators burn police station
and chant “subversive slogans” during protest against plans to divide city in
two More here, href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/703262/iran-protest-kazeroon-tehran-mullah-middle-east-politics-nuclear-deal-united-states"> here, and here “Despite pleas
from provincial officials and the Friday Prayers Leader, and in apparent
defiance of an increased police presence on the streets, on Friday April 20,
demonstrators unexpectedly occupied the site for the city’s Friday Prayers.
They chanted in protest against prayer leader Mohammad Khorsand and called for
his resignation. They also chanted political slogans against the government,
the Islamic Republic and their representative to the parliament. The protests
caught the attention of the media and social networking sites because some of
the protesters’ chants were very similar to those used in the demonstrations
that spread across the country in early January 2018 — suggesting a deeper,
more widespread malaise. Some people shouted: “Our enemy is right here; liars
say it is America,” but there were other, more shocking slogans too, including
“Be afraid when we get guns”
and “We will kill the traitors.” This
readiness for violent confrontation is new, and had not been a feature of
earlier rallies.”
15/5/18:
href="https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/iran-protests/24748-workers-block-iran-s-north-south-railway">
Iran, Arak: workers block railway in protest over unpaid wages and
lousy conditions
1/5/18:
href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iranworkers-protest-labor-day/29204553.html">
Iran: workers defy state ban on marches
…
href="https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/iran-protests/iran-may-day-protests-developing-report-on-01-05-2018">
reports on anti-government mayday demos in at least 8 towns &
cities
“They chanted: “Arrested workers should be
freed,” “Bread, housing, freedom, are our inalienable rights,” “Astronomical
wages (for senior officials), public misery”, “Worker, teacher, student,
solidarity, solidarity.” Placards carried by the workers read: “Our dinner
table is still empty”. One of the workers carried a large placard which read:
“Hey, You, billionaire minister, I haven’t been able to buy meat for the past
40 months”. The security forces attacked this protest rally and arrested a
number of protesters. The identity of seven of those arrested has been
ascertained so far. At the same time a large crowd marched towards the regime’s
“Worker’s House” and protested in front of it. They were chanting: “Death to
oppressor, hail to the workers….”
… href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/iranians-respond-regime-leave-syria-180501081025309.html">
report on growing public opposition towards
Iran’s involvement in Syrian war
See also href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/iran-fighting-terror-publicly-mourning-dead-secretly-180430140249437.html">
this
24/4/18:
href="https://english.mojahedin.org/i/clashes-in-marivan-strikes-and-protests-of-farmers-workers-and-the-looted-in-different-cities">
Iran, Marivan: houses of 2 of the states’ counter-“revolutionary”
guards torched after they murder a local villager
“The clash took place when Pasdar-Colonel (IRGC
colonel) Kaveh Kohneh-Poushi along with another Pasdar, Latif Nikpay, murdered
an inhabitant from one of the villages of Marivan. The people burnt down the
houses of the two criminals in protest of this crime. The anti-riot unit
started attacking and beating these people in support of the two criminals. The
clashes, which lasted for hours, continued up to the Bu’ali Hospital in
Marivan. …In Baneh and Javanrood, the strike of the merchants and
shopkeepers continued for the eleventh day. The intelligence agents arrested a
protesting woman who was calling on people in the Baneh main street to continue
the strike, and transferred her to a police station. The people of Baneh,
having gathered outside the police station, forced the mercenaries to release
her. …The poor farmers in the east of Isfahan continued their protests
by staging a sit-in in front of the governorate building….”
This report continues, providing
interesting information which the racket behind this site would suppress
themselves if they ever achieved any similar position to the scumbags presently
in power, because this opportunist gang would obviously be forced to be as
brutal in the unlikely event of assuming control of Iran’s specific capitalist
interests.
20/4/18:
Iran, Kazerun: “Beware of the day when we arm ourselves” chanted on 5th day of anti-government protests (video) See entry for 19/4/18
19/4/18:
href="https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/iran-protests/iran-anti-riot-forces-take-up-positions-in-kazerun-to-quell-major-protest">
Iran, Kazerun: heavily armed riot cops surround demo on 4th day of
protests against state plans to divide city
14/4/18:
href="https://www.voanews.com/a/iranian-police-crackdown-water-shortage-protests/4348441.html">
Iran, Isfahan: cops crack down on 5th consecutive day of illegal
protests against water shortages following day on which large amounts of women
joined demonstrations
“The protest movement expanded on Friday, with conservative women
from area farms seen marching in Isfahan for the first time in a social media
video identified as having been filmed that day. The Iranian government’s
Shi’ite prayer leader in Isfahan, Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabaye-nejad, lost
patience with the protesters on Friday, accusing them of seeking to cause
“riots and sedition.”
16/3/18:
href="https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/iran-protests/24509-continued-protests-by-workers-farmers-teachers-and-looted-people-in-various-cities-of-iran">
Iran: list of mainy proletarian protests going on over last 2 days
(from a repulsive pro-Western “demockracy”
site, which nevertheless has interesting information, even if published for
utterly opportunist reasons)
Protests, clashes, riots
Protests, clashes, riots broke out once again in Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad, Tehran, and even in Karaj where a Mullah’s Seminary has been attacked and ransacked last Friday night by 500 protesters…
Let’s recall that on the other side of the border, in Iraq, protesters burned down banners with the picture of Ayatollah Khomeini… which indeed express a relative disdain if not directly against religion and religiosity but at least against representatives and beneficiaries of religious opium…
Some of the more radical mottos seem to be:
• “Down with high prices”,
• “Death to the Dictator”,
• “Mullahs live like gods, while the people live in poverty”,
• “Cannon, tank, firecracker, Bassijis must be killed”,
• “Our enemy is right here, liars say it is America”,
and also a motto that emerged it seems in the struggles in Kazeroon in April and May this year:
• “Beware of the day when we arm ourselves”…
Thanks for the updates,
Thanks for the updates, Blesk.