The Iranian People’s Just Demands
The powder keg has been lit once again as the Iranian people’s rage boils over. However, all the TV reports and publications I’ve read written about the recent events in Iran, focus on women’s rights. Take for example, The Guardian’s opinion piece written by Azadeh Akbari titled “Shutting down the internet is another brutal blow against women by the Iranian regime”. She writes: “Amini’s death has given momentum to Iranian women’s fight against discrimination, state control and patriarchy… Activists have seized the possibilities that digital technologies offer in recent years, with campaigns not only for changing laws and policies but also to bring to light more taboo issues such as the policing of the female body, domestic violence, violence in the workplace, sexual harassment and the Iranian #MeToo movement.”
By focusing on and only on Iranian women’s just demands for civil liberties which have been trampled upon by the Islamic regime’s brutal repression for more than four decades is ignoring the economic reality for most Iranian women and men; namely the lack of the basic necessities of life. The degree of extreme impoverishment of most Iranians brought about by the decades of this regime sucking dry the very fabric for a decent life is not being brought to the forefront. And for a good reason. It is intentional because by centering on the issue of civic oppression of women by journalists is evading the fact that socio-economic inequality brought about by this socio-economic system is at the center of all injustices. These publications are not interested in analyzing or informing the public that the Islamic regime’s ongoing war against the Iranian people is first and foremost a class war and the oppression is first and foremost class oppression. Criticizing the system is an unspoken taboo in most publications worldwide. Thus, the harsh unspeakable reality of the cruel impoverishment of the Iranian people is virtually ignored. The many women who are forced to prostitute themselves in order to feed their children…are not focused on the Iranian #MeToo movement. That is not to say that a woman’s autonomy over her own body is not extremely important- just ask all the American women whose states have criminalized abortions, even in the case of rape or incest.
My hope is for a revolutionary movement that enlightens the people to what must be destroyed: capitalism. It is this socio-economic system that holds Iranian society tightly in its vampire grip. One can justifiably rage against the trampling of women’s rights, the trampling of journalistic freedom, the trampling of cultural freedom and the trampling of political freedom. However, it is imperative to understand that only socialism can rid Iran of class oppression and inequality. And until the Iranian people are able to organize themselves under a socialist leadership, they will not be able to wage a class war against their exploiters and their suffering under capitalism’s crippling cruelty will continue.
Rachel
Sept. 27. 2022
