What Iranian Dissidents Need
And why they deserve more from North America's left.
Her placard reads: "What are we asking for, except for freedom?" Photo by Ameriza Tabrizi, Iranews.
"I've been called an orientalist and a neo-con," the Iranian-Canadian writer, feminist and human rights activist Samira Mohyeddin told me the other day. "Isn't that funny? Can you believe it?"
Sadly, yes, I can.
Recently graduated with a master's degree in Middle Eastern and Women's Studies from the University of Toronto, Mohyeddin, 32, is an especially fierce and articulate left-wing voice among Iranian-Canadians. She's the last person you'd expect to see accused of neo-conservative thoughtcrime.
But Mohyeddin demands a militant response to the vile degeneracy of the Tehran regime. She refuses to settle for what she calls the "insipid and vacuous" reflexes a large chunk of the North American left exhibits on the subject of Iran. And so she runs the risk of being condemned as a tool of the United States and its corporate warmongering hegemony, no matter how left-wing she may be.
We all know the reflexes Mohyeddin is talking about. Don't attack Iran. No to war. No to sanctions.
You can fervently agree that war would be the worst possible eventuality in the rising-stakes standoff between United States President George Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. You can argue that sanctions will only cause harm to the Iranian people, too -- as you also should. That's allowed.
But beyond that -- no matter how many dozens of newspapers are shuttered in Iran, no matter how many hundreds of Iranian student activists, union leaders and gay people are jailed and tortured, no matter how many hundreds of thousands of Iranian women are detained by the morality police for wearing clothes the mullahs don't like -- it's best to hold your tongue.
Bush's terrifying bellicosity
Against a terrifying backdrop of rising bellicosity in the White House -- which says it won't rule out bombing Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons -- and the increasingly unhinged Ahmadinejad regime -- which responds to Washington with ever more violent threats, usually against Israel -- stand the Iranian people.
Scores of brave Iranian liberals and academics have made it plain that ordinary Iranians are caught between the Bush-Ahmadinejad grindstones and want nothing more than peace and the promise of human rights. But when they look to the West for moral support, it's rarely forthcoming. On the left, perhaps especially in Canada, it's almost never there.
"How did this happen?" Mohyeddin asked me.
That's the question I'd called to ask you, I said.
A shallow anti-imperialism
Here are some of Mohyeddin's answers.
There's a 1960s-era protest culture of "placards and megaphones" that lingers on the left, and it expects nothing more of its cadres than opposition to America. The prevailing leftist mindset continues to "exoticize" Iranian culture and clings to a naive and mistaken assumption that the Islamic Republic is somehow "culturally authentic." Many liberals and leftists tend to be infatuated with a shallow anti-imperialism that wrongly equates human rights and freedom with "western" values.
The result is a narrative that strengthens the hand of the Islamist reactionaries arrayed against Iranian democrats, and it's everywhere, from the smartly-designed pages of Adbusters magazine to the tracts that appear in The Nation. It's a narrative that conspicuously ignores Iranian totalitarianism except when its attributes might be employed for cheap rhetorical comparisons with the adversaries of the North American left.
"I think it's also simply because so many people think that fascism is dead, that it's over with," said Mohyeddin. "But it's not. In Iran, fascism is not dead."
Ahmadinejad crushing dissent
Just a few weeks ago, two Iranian journalists were sentenced to death for the crime of "enmity with God." On July 31, the prominent journalist Emadoldin Baghi was sentenced to three years in jail for writing articles the regime didn't like. Around the same time, Ahmadinejad's regime shut down one of Iran's most popular daily newspapers for the offence of having quoted the Iranian-Canadian poet Saghi Ghahraman, who also happens to be a lesbian.
Iranian dissidents say more than 1,000 journalists have been sacked this year, and more than 150 publications have been shuttered. What appears certain is that at least 150 people have been executed in Iran over the past 12 months. Iranian authorities themselves report that they detained more than half a million people over the summer for wearing clothes the mullahs don't like.
What, then, does one do?
"I think we need to start by being a lot more vocal about this," Mohyeddin said. "But it is difficult, because we don't really know what to do."
Acts of solidarity would help, Mohyeddin said. She applauded the Canadian Labour Congress for its recent demonstrations at the Iranian embassy in Ottawa in support of Mansour Osanloo, the routinely jailed and beaten president of the Tehran bus drivers' union. But a demand that the Iranian embassy in Ottawa be shut down would be a much more effective course of action, she added.
Iranian-Canadians divided
Part of the problem is the fractiousness of the Iranian-Canadian community itself. The "Third Camp" position ("Against U.S. Imperialism and Islamist Terrorism") has gained some encouraging traction, but left sectarianism is a persistent problem.
"A lot of it is the older generation," said Mohyeddin. "In Canada, you can't criticize what is happening in Iran without being told you're helping the White House, and there is all this silly identification with the 1960s. The left-intellectual support for the 1979 revolution, from Michel Foucault on down -- it was pro-Khomeini. And there is still this strange, Left-Orientalist exoticization of the Iranian regime."
Mohyeddin said she was particularly dismayed last year by the widespread criticism that greeted University of Toronto professors Amir Hassanpour and Shahrzad Mojab after they wrote an essay for the Toronto Star damning Ahmadinejad's lurid preoccupation with Holocaust denial.
What got Hassanpour and Mojab into particularly hot water in the U of T's "anti-imperialist" crowd was their insistence that the Iranian regime is guilty of its own genocidal conduct towards Iran's Baha'i minority and has also ruthlessly persecuted other non-Persian groups, including Arabs, Baluchis, Kurds and Turkmen.
After their article appeared, it became commonplace to hear that Hassanpour and Mojab were playing into the hands of American neo-conservatives, Mohyeddin said. Meanwhile, criticism of Shiraz Dossa, the St. Francis Xavier professor who participated in Ahmadinejad's obscene Holocaust-denial conference in Iran, was muted, when there was criticism at all.
Quiet reception for Yvonne Ridley
The broader Muslim community in Canada is by no means immune to the dysfunction that has beset the left on the question of Iran.
In September, the Canadian Islamic Congress -- the scourge of Canada's progressive Muslims -- convened a series of "Say No to Islamophobia" fund-raising lectures by Yvonne Ridley, a disgraced British journalist who serves as the London correspondent for the Iranian regime's newly-launched English-language news channel, Press TV.
Press TV made its debut July 2 with a report that the car-bomb attacks in a London nightclub district and at Glasgow Airport were part of a "threadbare propaganda" operation staged by the British government to make Muslims look bad.
Ridley, a former Sunday school teacher who turned heads when she converted to Islam after having been detained for a few days by the "likeable" Taliban while on assignment in Afghanistan for the Sunday Express in 2001, happily asserts that she has experienced no editorial interference at Press TV.
What she doesn't talk about is how her Press TV overseers back in Tehran are on a rampage, muzzling journalists, threatening them, jailing them and executing them. Her free-speech liberties, in other words, are coming at their expense, which makes Ridley not just a hypocrite but also that class of person trade unionists call a "scab."
Ridley's first stop in Canada was in Montreal, the hometown of the photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who was tortured and beaten to death in Tehran's Evin Prison in 2003. Ridley's lecture coincided with an international day of protest on behalf of 26 death-row political prisoners in Iran. But there were no progressives with placards and megaphones to greet Ridley. On the left, all was quiet.
Iran's pro-democracy movement
Danny Postel, a senior editor with Open Democracy -- an innovative, UK-based online journal that covers global issues from a liberal-left perspective -- finds this a remarkable state of affairs.
An American, Postel has written extensively on Iran's vibrant and multi-faceted pro-democracy movement. In his book Reading "Legitimation Crisis" in Tehran, Postel pointedly observes that unlike the international solidarity campaigns that North American leftists once waged in solidarity with the people of Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and so on, there is practically no such movement in solidarity with Iranians today.
The title of Postel's book is a play on the philosopher Jurgen Habermas's notion of the "legitimation crisis" that befalls a regime founded upon ideas that cannot resolve problems that threaten its existence, and also on Afar Nafisi's 2003 memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran. In it, Postel argues that Iranian progressives are engaged in life-and-death political and philosophical struggles, and their "western" counterparts would greatly benefit by learning from them.
Charles Taylor in Tehran
But the conversations, debates and controversies among pro-democracy Iranians are almost unknown to the left in the west. Part of the reason is the western thinkers that now most obviously animate pro-democracy Iranians are not left-wing icons such as Karl Marx, Paolo Friere or Foucault, but rather such thinkers as Habermas, Hannah Arendt, Karl Popper, Isaiah Berlin, and Canada's Charles Taylor.
Further still, Iran is an ancient, diverse and astonishingly rich civilization, with a long tradition of its own liberal-left thinking to draw from. The Third Worldist, anti-imperialist paradigm that's commonplace in North America doesn't speak directly to the challenges Iranian dissidents face. So not much speaking goes on at all.
"Let's face it," writes Postel, "it's just plain uncomfortable for leftists to say anything that sounds like it could also come out of the mouth of George Bush or Paul Wolfowitz."
But that's a pretty lame reason to ignore Iranians when they call on us, as they do, for demonstrations of solidarity. Postel writes: "We should not allow Washington's rhetoric to have a silencing effect on us. To do so is to let Bush and the neo-cons do our thinking for us. We should express solidarity with our Iranian comrades regardless of the Empire's pronouncements."
Recruiting Che Guevara
Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is engaged in a strategy that aims to appropriate the western left's own pieties and neutralize progressives, and it's hard to gauge its success because the ball is still very much in play.
One of Tehran's moves in this game was its 70-page pot-kettle-black booklet published and distributed in September at the United Nations in New York, titled "Report on Human Rights Situation in Canada." Another is the Iranian regime's cartoonish "global progressive front," co-sponsored by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.
The front suffered an embarrassing bimbo eruption at a Tehran conference earlier this month, which purported to be a celebration of the legacy of Ernesto "Che" Guevara Lynch. Attended by the Argentinian revolutionary's two children, Aleida and son Camilo, the conference quickly went downhill when the Guevaras impolitely disputed the claims of a prominent conference speaker, Hajj Saeed Qassemi.
Qassemi, the Iranian regime's coordinator of the Association of Volunteers for Suicide-Martyrdom, asserted that both Che and Cuban president Fidel Castro were really closeted God-worshippers who wore atheists' masks only to secure Soviet support for their revolution.
Language barrier hurts support
The question Mohyeddin is grappling with -- how to demonstrate solidarity with Iranian dissidents -- is complicated by a factor that would have been almost prohibitively daunting to the 1980s' Latin American solidarity campaigns: It's much harder to come by a fluency in Persian than a working familiarity with Spanish. There's also the Perso-Arabic script, which relies upon a distinct Iranian alphabet.
But the language barrier has been broken, or at least breached, by the diffusion of the Internet, which wasn't around in the 1980s. Tehran has attempted a crackdown on blogging and has jailed people for writing posts that offend the regime, but the Internet persists as a largely-unregulated subaltern space where Iranians routinely elude the regime's press restrictions.
The phenomenon has put Iran in the top ten of the world's blogging countries (it was an Iranian-Canadian who found an efficient way to adapt Blogger.com to the Persian language). Many Iranians also blog in English, and émigré bloggers often keep in close contact with bloggers back in Iran.
One of Canada's most eagle-eyed Iranian émigré bloggers, Arash Kamangir, tracks dozens of Persian-language blogs, translates his findings and posts regularly at his English-language site, Kamangir.net. A 28-year-old University of Manitoba electrical-engineering student who moved to Canada only two years ago, Kamangir says Canadians are in a unique position to help pro-democracy Iranians.
Should U.S. fund Iranian resistance?
In the United States, a debate is raging over whether dissidents in Iran should accept U.S. State Department funds aimed at assisting the regime's adversaries (Kamangir says it's foolish to take money from Americans; it just provides the theocracy with another pretext to criminalize dissent).
In Canada, the issues are uncomplicated. Ottawa has taken a leading role at the UN in the focus on Iranian human rights, and after Kazemi's murder in 2003, diplomatic engagement with Tehran was confined to human-rights questions. Canadians are well placed, then, to focus on shaming the regime and exposing its tyrannical violence, simply by helping pro-democracy forces tell their stories to the outside world.
"It makes a lot of difference to people in Iran when they see that people outside Iran are trying to help with protests and demonstrations," Kamangir told me, "but there is also a lot of text and lots of images coming out of Iran every day. I just observe, and then I post things. I don't really engage in theoretical debates. I just observe."
This is something that used to be called "bearing witness."
'Everyone is afraid to criticize religion'
Last May, Kamangir managed to get some photographs and video of an Iranian woman being beaten by the regime's morality police into the hands of a British journalist. The incident was widely broadcast, and the coverage cast a cold, hard light on the regime's repressive idiocy.
"It's important for people outside Iran to know what ordinary Iranians think," Kamangir said.
"When a student leader gets sentenced to jail, I'd say 99 per cent of the people are against that. The people are against the closing of newspapers, too. Gays are not having a good time in Iran. Everyone is very afraid to criticize religion," he said.
"People don't understand the twisted mentality that Ahmadinejad and the religious people have," he said. "It's very dangerous."
Related Tyee stories
- Target Iran: Where's Harper?
PM silent as White House edges toward attack. - 'We Are Iran'
Blogging, where the act can be a 'cyber crime'. - Why US Can't Buy Dissent in Iran
Flood of dollars only taints regime's opponents.
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jcolvin
22-10-2007
Typical Terry
A decent article, ruined by the uncritical parroting of the conventional propaganda surrounding Iran. What "violent threats" has Iran made against Israel or the USA? Ahminadejad calling for "regime change" in Israel is a good deal less violent than the threats of bombing emanating from the USA.
As for the "despicable holocaust denial conference", it was nothing of the sort. Dossa replies to the smears here, in the Literary Review of Canada: http://lrc.reviewcanada.ca/index.php?page=the-explanation-we-never-heard
Truman Green
22-10-2007
Congratulations, (sort of) to Terry Glavin.
His description of tyranny in Iran is mostly--maybe wholly--a perfect dipiction of the truth.
But here's the rub:
We'd rather not kill another million or so people in Iran (the American army kills 10,000 Iraquis a month while chasing "insurgents"), and permanently destroy any chance of peace between Jews and Arabs, because they've got a despotic government. What's new? Every country in the middle east is a totalitarian state--even Israel if you happen to live in a refugee camp.
That's why we in the left in the West didn't figure it was a good idea to attack Iraq.
But then of course Glavin already knows this.
So yeah, we lefties don't want a world war over Iran.
Anybody got a problem with that?
anarcho
22-10-2007
More neocon propaganda
More neocon propaganda from Glavin, per usual. Everyone I know is sympathetic to the Worker Communist Party of Iran (Google it!) and has gone to bat for the persecured Iranian trade unionists - see Labour Start http://www.labourstart.org/en/ We actually look forward to a revolution in Iran since Iran has a history of Workers Councils...
biscotti
22-10-2007
Amnesty's latest bulletin
Iran: Amnesty International condemns new wave of executions (18 October 2007)
Part of this bulletin says, "The victims of the latest executions include a woman who was apparently convicted for a murder which took place as she sought to protect herself from an attempted rape..."
This woman's fate reminds me of the powerful song by Sweet Honey in the Rock from many years ago, "Joanne Little":
"Joanne is you, Joanne is me,
Her prison is the whole society."
Are Samira Mohyeddin and Terry Glavin really "neocons" to yearn for the same kind of identification, solidarity and understanding towards Iranians in this time of complex historical, political and economic - even linguistic - conditions?
Is Amnesty a "neocon" organization for protesting human rights abuses in Iran? If so, then how come they also call for action to stop secret CIA detentions and close Guantanamo Bay?
How about less name-calling and labelling, and more responses to what Samira Mohyeddin is actually saying?
p.s. for IAMC:
I remember living in Sandinista Nicaragua when Reagan's "freedom fighters" were busy torturing and killing teachers, health care workers, and innocent civilians in an obscene war of terror. He had Ollie North help organize the movement of drugs, guns and money - hey, with Iran! - to help finance the operations. The only award I can imagine for Reagan is as one of the many war criminals of the 20th century.
Ian King
22-10-2007
Do read the piece before spouting off
Jcolvin: Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be wiped off the map. Can you get any more threatening than that?
Truman Green: Read the damned article. Where is Glavin advocating a war against Iran? He's pointing out that Canadian lefties have been almost silent on Iran's ongoing abuses of human rights, labour rights, and anything approacing sanity. They've also failed to show support for their supposed comrades in the country. Truth hurts, doesn't it?
I know that Kamangir is against a war on Iran; so is Mohyeddin. Just read their own writings. If you're looking for a supporter of a war against Iran, Danny Postel ain't your man. From an interview with Inside Higher Ed earlier this year:
Pretty clear, that. Three items, then:
Islamic Republic: Jails union leaders, academics and journalists, killing them on occasion. Shuts down opposition media, creates own propaganda channel. Executes gays, then denies they exist. One of the world most enthusiastic practitioners of capital punishment. Threatens to attack other countries including Israel. President calls Holocaust a hoax. Do not support.
Iranian pro-democracy activists, intellectuals, unions and womens' rights groups: Fighting to free their own people. Risking their lives -- literally. Support wholeheartedly.
American-led invasion: Would cause large loss of Iranian life and infrastructure, most likely strengthen the mullahs and set back the push for democracy be decades. Do not support.
It is possible to hold all three views at once, rather than simply defaulting to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". This is not rocket science.
Ian King
22-10-2007
The CLC's two-facedness on Iran
The Canadian Labour Congress was rightly involved in the August protests against Mansour Osanloo's imprisonment. Unfortunately, the CLC -- like too many labour groups -- is also part of the Canadian Peace Alliance despite its 2006 resolution that opposes all sanctions against Iran.
What on earth is this country's national labour organisation doing opposing sanctions against a government that jails unionists? Iran's treatment of labour (not to mention women, homosexuals, and on and on) was well known when this resolution was passed. That the Islamic Republic was being demonised by some American officials is irrelevant. What was the CLC's delegate to the CPA thinking?
The CLC should have opposed the resolution and withdrawn from the Canadian Peace Alliance when it passed. Solidarity should not weaken when the country in question wraps itself in anti-imperialist (and anti-American) rhetoric. Unfortunately, it did.
Truman Green
23-10-2007
Let's stop being cute. We all know that
there are no democracies in Muslim countries. There's not a single lefty who thinks Iran's religious leaders are interested in the sanctity of individual expression.
I'd be a bit more confident about Glavin's activism if he whined as much about Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria, as he does about Iran. Any of these places will get you murdered by the government for speaking out against them too stridently.
If the left hasn't been as vocal in condemning the tyranny in Iran as it might have been we all know it's because we fear playing into the hands of the Israelis, neocons and militarists who would like to attack it, possibly with nuclear weapons and throw the entire middle east into another stupid war like the one in Iraq--possibly drawing in Iran's neighbours, even Russia.
This is just Glavin with his insidious "naughty lefties" routine all over again, pretending that he doesn't know what's happening.
Unfortunately the question today is not whether Iran is a nice place to live, but whether George Bush is going to be allowed to attack Iran and slaughter another several million people for exactly zero gain to every country in the world, except Israel.
So, yes Glavin, your "naughty lefties" routine is cute, but stupid and transparent.
dirk
23-10-2007
The "left" again,,,,,for
The "left" again,,,,,for once I wish you would articulate exactly what "left" you are always talking about,and accusing of being insufficiently militant or vocal.Who,what orgs represent this "left"???
And instead of belly aching about the supposed silence of the "left"on Iran,what are you doing?
If you believe not enough is being done on a particular issue,well organize do something constructive.But for gods sake will you stop with the naughty "left",who ever the hell they are.
And who accused Samira Mohyeddin of being a neo-con,the "left" ? I don't understand what this has to do with anything,at least explain the relevance.
G West
23-10-2007
NO Muslim democracies? Really
What about: Mali, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Turkey and Morocco?
Booker
23-10-2007
Good point
Truman Green wrote:
I actually agree that this is part of the reason for many on the left not being as vocal as they normally would be. It's not an excuse, but it's an explanation. It's difficult to know how to address the situation in Iran when the people in power in the U.S. and Canada will co-op ones efforts and use them as a justification for militarism. It's not just Iranian liberals who are caught between a rock and a hard place. Nevertheless, I think that the Canadian left does need to find a way to be more forceful in helping Iranians defeat the theocrats. The NDP has made statements against the human rights abuses in Iran, but it needs to do more.
biscotti
23-10-2007
A resource for asssessing human rights & democracies
G West, you can download the Amnesty International Report 2007 - The State of the World’s Human Rights here in PDF version (3 downloads)
People’s Republic of Bangladesh p 61
Republic of Indonesia p 136
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan p 154
State of Kuwait p 162
Republic of Mali p 179
Kingdom of Morocco p 188
Turkey p 261
The Islamic Republic of Iran is on page 139.
Canada is on page 80.
G West
23-10-2007
The idea that condeming the left
The idea of condemning the left in Canada for tolerating a situation they neither created nor agreed with is nonsense. The left is hardly monolithic and many elements of the 'left' actually deplore and have been very vocal about their objections to Iran and its president.
On the other hand the argument could certainly be made that Canada's Liberal and Conservative governments have not done enough to protest the situation in Iran - but that's hardly something new.
We sat on our hands when the British and the Americans overthrew the government of Mohammed Mossadegh, Iran's elected prime minister, and installed the Shah in 1953.
When the Shah was overthrown in 1979, there were hundreds of Canadians working in Iran for foreign owned oil outfits. Canada didn't like that very much and closed its embassy in 1980 and did not reopen it until 1988.
As far as nuclear power is concerned that's nonsense too because Canada was at or near the head of the line to sell nuclear technology to Iran when the Shah (a notable 'democrat') was still in power.
As far as the left is concerned, it protested all these things, just as it is protesting the current human rights abuses and the treatment of journalists. I think if you look to Canadian PEN's (a notorious leftist organization) record you'll find they've been leading that campaign from the beginning.
Anyone who really thinks shutting down the Iraq Embassy (which is not a full diplomatic mission anyway) is going to help is whistling in the wind. All that will accomplish is the shutting down of our embassy in Tehran; as anyone with any diplomatic knowledge knows. Better to keep talking and avoid shooting
ouhite
23-10-2007
Ian King
what jcolving is saying is that the comment about Israel being wiped off the map IS the mistranslation, and many sources have said this, its the mainstream media that is not reporting this. People who know it use the statement despite it because they know it helps to further their side.
See his link. I've found this elsewhere:
http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html
"Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope-- that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah's government.
Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that "Israel must be wiped off the map" with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people. He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time. "
as well, cited by Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-scher/the-importance-of-cole-v_b_20350.html
Whenever I come back to the Tyee, I can't help but feel that many people here seem to be clueless about what's happening internationally.
The only local publication that does any job of addressing what's happening outside of Harper, our city councils, and little entertainment bits about food or books etc is the Republic of East Vancouver.
Problem is people seems to think knowing Bush = bad is enough. The problem is you need to know the details.
G West
23-10-2007
errata
Embassy reference above is to IRAN, not Iraq, sorry. The risks of 'not talking' should already have been amply demonstrated in both IRAQ and North Korea.
James Burns
23-10-2007
Same ol' same ol'
Progressives, or to be more precise, anti-imperialists, are less prone to criticizing the current Iranian government because they fear the murderous Bush Administration will use that as part of a pretext for war on Iran. The conflagration that would result would be far more horrendous than the current oppression that is taking place in Iran.
In fact, it is the very actions of the United States that have sustained tyranny. If the US had promoted real democracy instead of using the guise of freedom to enforce US corporate interests around the world, Iran would likely be a secular social democratic state. It was, after all, the Americans who engineered the overthrow of the democratically elected Mossadegh government in Iran in the 1950s. That model of overthrow was perfected and repeated again and again in different nations around the world by successive American governments. All the tyranny of current world regimes is either of direct American manufacture, or it is in reaction to the threat of American belligerence.
If the US was no longer a threat, if it no longer supported repressive regimes, if it was clear it wasn't out to enslave third world populations and steal their resources, then those tyrannies would be forced by their own populations to change.
In fact, I merely point to the reaction of Americans to the minuscule threat of terrorism, as an example of relinquishing freedom for security. Americans are willing to sacrifice all manner of freedoms for a terrorist threat so tiny for most Americans as to be almost laughable if it didn't involve loss of life. Compare that tiny terrorist threat to the simply massive danger posed to any population governed by politics that doesn't promote, or worse, actively oppose American corporate interests. The US has demonstrated time and time again throughout its recent history, and particularly with its invasion of Iraq and the ongoing slaughter of the Iraqi population, that it is ready and willing to destroy societies and murder vast numbers of innocent civilians if they don't submit to American interests.
The primary role of progressives here should be to get our governments to change their behavior toward the rest of the world. Yes we can criticize and protest other repressive regimes, provided we acknowledge the context they were created within. But it is our primary responsibility to change our governments first, because it is their actions and the actions of our corporations that have led to current state of the world, and the dangers we face. Until we come to terms with that reality, its ludicruous to pretend we have any kind of moral high ground.
David Leslie
23-10-2007
Ian King
Ian King must have real contempt for Tyee readers - pompously chiding readers on accuracy while floating a few howlers in the process. The Israel "wiped of the map" bit is a canard that has been debunked countless times. An astute Grade 11 history paper would note that.
Then King asks "What on earth is this country's national labour organisation doing opposing sanctions against a government that jails unionists?" Simple reflection would remind one of one Saddam Hussein: strengthened by sanctions against Iraq which succeeded in killing 500,000 children. A modicum of research on top of that might reveal a statement by CASMII which notes "any kind of sanctions, including the so-called targeted or smart sanctions, are viewed by the Iranian people as the West's punishment for Iran's scientific progress (uranium enrichment for reactor fuel). As sanctions tighten, nationalist fervour will strengthen the resolve of Iranians to defend the country's civilian nuclear programme."
Further research, if Mr King is capable of it, would reveal the IAEA's El Baradei's comments: "I have major concerns about relying on sanctions alone. Our experience without exception is that sanctions alone do not work and in most cases radicalise the regime and hurt the people who are not supposed to be hurt."
Perhaps Ian King could turn his - ahem - formidable intellect toward the real issues, rather than petty and unhelpful insults.
jcolvin
23-10-2007
Wiped off the map?
Ian King wrote: "Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be wiped off the map. Can you get any more threatening than that?"
No, he didn't say that, and anyone who thinks he did is, as I wrote, either an uncritical/ignorant parrot of the conventional propaganda, or intellectually dishonest (they know he didn't say that, but repeat the lie endlessly). Ahminadejad called for "Israel to disappear from the pages of history"; much as the Soviet Union has disappeared. A comment deliberately mistranslated and then repeated endlessly by those who should know better, for maximum propaganda value.
Ian King
23-10-2007
And the crowd reacts as expected!
Colvin et al: "Wiped off the map" is the interpretation routinely used by the Beeb and the New York Times, neither of which are favourites of the bomb-Iran squad. I suppose that I should rely on the Islamic Republic's apologists, or maybe the judgment of the Chomskyites. But hey, wiping Israel from the pages of history is so much better -- it'd be like the Joooz never had that nasty little state.
In fact, it's a distinction without a difference. Ahmadinejad wants a world without Israel.
Leslie: Yes, I do think very little of Tyee commenters, and of the counterculture left to which the Tyee caters. You might not believe in sanctions, but the execrable Canadian "Peace" Alliance sure does. Matter of fact, the CPA passed no less than three resolutions that singled out Israel, including one calling for an embargo on exporting them anything that could be used by the IDF. So that's three declarations against Israel (a country where trade union rights are enjoyed by Israeli and, finally, Palestinian workers), and on the other hand unconditional support for Iran.
Green, Burns, West and others: Nice to see that your judgments are influenced solely by whether support for Iranian dissidents might be used by the "neocons" or (ghod forbid) Israel, rather than whether the dissidents are themselves worthy of support. The masks are coming off, I see.
Consider this: if the "neocons" are the only ones backing Iran's pro-democracy forces, guess who gets to have the biggest influence on them?
You can rabbit on about every misstep taken by the United States, but that is not what the article is about. It's about Iran's treatment of its citizens and the near-silence from Canada's self-styled progressives -- and all we hear from most people in this space is "Yeah, but..." followed by some ancient tangentially related grievance against some Western country.
At some point you have to come down on one side or another. If it's a choice between turning a blind eye to Iran like a good "anti-imperialist", and the Iranian opposition, I know which side I'll take.
naddude
23-10-2007
misunderstood mistranslation
Yep....poor misunderstood mistranslated Ahmadinejad is really a friend of Israel's. And his Holocaust "convention" to examine the "truth " about the Holocaust to which he invited such scholars as David Duke illustrates his sincerity and how his comments have been "deliberately" mistranslated.
G West
23-10-2007
Ian
That's not at all an accurate representation of the range of views represented here - and mostly presented without the kind of ad hominem characterizations YOU effect in your comments at Transmontanus. Proud of that too are you?
I have nothing good to say about Ahmadinejad and not a word about Israel and I don't see anyone else really running his flag up the pole either. There may be legitimate questions about the translation and meaning of some of his remarks – but that doesn’t mean they weren’t offensive and stupid – just as the remarks of the president of Columbia University when he welcomed his ‘guest’ were offensive and stupid. I don’t speak or read either Arabic or Farsi – do YOU?
As for the so-called silence of Canada's so-called progressives, that's just nonsense.
PEN Canada has been protesting ever since Zahra Kazemi was imprisoned and continues to support her son's effort to find justice - a lot more, in fact than the lip service the Canadian Government provided at the time. You might have forgotten that the NDP joined the Alliance party at the time to attack the Liberals' soft-power approach.
Even Glavin notes the recent action of the Canadian Labour Congress. I assume you joined him at the protest mounted at the Iranian Embassy with placards unfurled.
The point is that there is plenty of nuance and subtlety and occasionally some purblindness on the left – I haven’t noticed much difference on the right. Except of course for the sleazy way they engage in discussions. Rather than actually debate a point they prefer to make their nasty comments on the side. To even suggest that there is such a thing as a counter-culture left that the Tyee caters to is such utter nonsense it isn’t even worthy of addressing.
And, by the way, I'll take Chomsky over Horowitz any time.
Moreover, I've written numerous letters to my MP about the Canadian policy towards Iran and Afghanistan and I don’t need you of Terry Glavin to understand the kind of world the Iranians live in – I’m just not blind to the excesses and faults of the system that allowed these things to happen. In addition, I know, as sure as anything, that if the west undertakes military action against Iran that the consequences will be – just as they have been in Iraq – a disaster for the Iranian people.
Ian King
23-10-2007
I'll argue and insult, thank you
G West: I'm quite proud to use a mixture of argument and disparagement here and elsewhere. Can't be bothered to hide my contempt for the anti-imperialists and faux-socialists. To do otherwise would be dishonest. Being insulting, though, is not the same as argumentum ad hominem.
I made it clear in my first comment that an attack on Iran would lead to disaster. I can't think of anything wildly out of line in Lee Bollinger's introduction of Ahmadinejad. Some people who are paranoid that any criticism of the man is more fuel for Bush didn't like it; neither did some prof who called it "racist", but merely being critical of Ahmadinejad and his bluster doesn't imply that you're pumping bush or that you're a racist.
PEN, like Amnesty and Reporters Without Border, are consistent in opposing censorious regimes -- as they should be. (Nor are they exclusively lefty organizations; any decent liberal or conservative could get behind them, and many do.) Doesn't matter whether it's Iran, the former Yugoslavia under Milosevic, or Cuba. Counterculture organs such as Znet and Counterpunch were and are not so consistent in defending human rights, being as the abusers were rebelling against The Empire. Same goes for the Chomskys and Tariq Alis of this world. I'll take the likes of Todd Gitlin and Marc Cooper over them, thanks.
Earnest canuck
24-10-2007
Ain't a canard; it's a threat
If I called for jcolvin to "disappear from the pages of history," I suppose a hair-splitting debate could ensue about whether I *intended* jcolvin's erasure, or only advocated it. Pedants could also torture the meaning of "disappear" -- "Did Earnest mean jcolvin should vanish much as the Betamax standard has vanished, or that jcolvin should get disappeared like a gay prof at UQom?"
I'd be *menacing* you, is the point, friend jcolvin. To use such language would be to loom in your face and chest-bump you. To knock over your drink and cheer for your extinction. Would you pause to *parse* my Ahmadinejad-style trash-talking?
What if I added "Anyone who recognizes jcolvin will burn in the fire of the Earnestic nation's fury"? Or "The Earnestic world will not let its historic enemy -- jcolvin -- live in its heartland"?
OK, to drop the analogy, the flowery-talkin' Prez of Persia is *shakin' his willie* at Israel. The Jewish state is Mahmoud's "historic enemy" and shall not be suffered to live; his Islam will unleash fiery "fury" at those who befriend Israel by "recognizing" that nation, which he hopes will "disappear" (much as Egyptian Jewry has disappeared, maybe?)
Such spittle-flecked barking usually precedes a scrap, in my experience, even if gentle souls, like the anti-Glavin mob here, try to avert violence by pretending the instigator doesn't mean what he says.
Ahmad means it. The despots of the Islamic Republic mean it too. Tehran's wish and policy is to attack and destroy Israel, my Tyeena friends. No amount of interpretive quibbling or deference to Farsi rhetorical ambiguity can change that. So why pretend? The POTIROI under discussion may want to wipe Mid-East democracy out of the history books, or just disappear Israel out of the atlas; but what's the semantic difference, when the thesis is, relentlessly, erasure and obliteration?
Sorry, jcolvin, to have used you as a metaphor here. You're welcome to appear in the pages of history, in my book anyway; and if any map helps you join me next year in Jerusalem, I'll stand you a slivovitz there, chum.
PS, between Hitchens and Cole in translation controversies, I vote for Fitzgerald: "Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum..."
naddude
24-10-2007
Dinner Jacket really a moderate
Terry;
Get with the program will ya?
The only real danger in the world today is Bush right?
Ah Ma Dinnerjacket is "harmless." He has been misquoted. He really meant Israel should exist somewhere else....like Alaska, Edmonton, Germany or as dust.
His Holocaust "convention" which was a "scientific exploration" of the event attended by such renown "experts" as David Duke is another example of his benign nature.
Iran wants nukes for peaceful reasons and I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
hotdog
24-10-2007
point lost
while this article may make a few good points, the points are lost by the bald faced hypocrisy of criticising 'name calling' and 'dysfunction' while at the same time doing basically just that. What would be better would be some better examples of iranian blogs and how to engage with them. Iran is far away and there isn't a lot of direct reason why we should be active about something we are far away from - therefore, ignorant of (as with afganistan). Thus, the onus is on you to tie the issue to us here and how we can help. That the left isn't that active is no conspiracy. I think the article outlines many ways in which this situation has happened. But those in the know need to lead, not just criticise us. It is very healthy for us to be skeptical of claims that ally with American interests. Also, tragedies and injustice is far, far too common. Iran is not unique in that. So the real question isn't about proving it but finding inspiring responses. Freedom and human rights are not simplistic black and white issue. The right to wear a certain type of clothing is not the most important (but if applied only to one gender...) Anyways, I just wish that the usual bashing of the left were to end. We need to support each other in this and offer voices to help. I think Samira Mohyeddin and Terry Glavin know a lot more about this far away land than me and have a lot to offer in helping solidarity start to happen. But the sensationalist bashing of the left (and what about the rest of the people who maybe vote differently) does no help. Should we be as unreasonably angry as New Yorkers, frothing for war when that Iranian guy visits? Your article needs to suggest something else.
lynn
24-10-2007
A good cover
Glavin can set the bowling pins up how ever he wants...but Ahminadejad is not the real target of the US but he definitely has to be set up as such...he's just presents a good cover, a necessary demonization, for why they are really soooo concerned about Iran:
This is a fine piece of analysis (which I've excerpted) by Stephen Gowans (2006):
"Iran prohibits private ownership of power generation, postal services, telecommunications and large-scale industry – hardly an inviting place for a foreign investor looking to expand his capital. Add to that the fact that Iran’s constitution severely restricts foreign ownership in the petroleum sector and mandates that the banking sector be state-owned. There’s also the reality that the government uses its ownership stake in over 1,500 companies to influence pricing to meet social policy (not trans-national profit-making) goals. Top these multiple crimes against the potential for fat profits with a trade policy that fosters the development of domestic industry by discouraging imports, and the conclusion is clear: Iran isn’t the kind of place a capitalist scouring the globe for markets and investment opportunities is going to warm up to...
...rebellion ...not out of hostility to the West as a policy, but out of commitment to their own independent development and sovereignty. State-ownership of key, and in some cases, all economic sectors; intervention in internal markets in pursuit of social policy objectives; control of, or influence over, pricing, including the price of labor; and the use of barriers to trade to foster internal industrial development; these are policies that may significantly improve the living conditions of domestic populations, but they, of necessity, impede the pursuit by Western investors and trans-nationals of activities related to capital accumulation. Since the same investors and trans-nationals hold almost exclusive sway over the policies of Western states, they are able to press the apparatus of the state into service to unblock pathways to foreign investment and export. Subversion, destabilization, economic strangulation and war are used to establish political and military control over economically renegade states, to define a space wherein investors and trans-nationals of whichever alliance of advanced, industrialized countries has undertaken the intervention are free to move about economically, to sell products and services without restriction, to own industry and infrastructure, to accumulate capital, and to do so without constraint, free from performance conditions, with profit senior to all other considerations.
lynn
24-10-2007
a good cover...contd.
Why Iran? (1) To stifle the country’s economic development by depriving it of nuclear power; (2) To prevent it from acquiring a nuclear deterrent to Western aggression; (3) To keep it from becoming powerful enough to challenge the US attack dog in the region, Israel; and the reason to which the preceding three are subordinate: (4) To put an end to Iran’s assertion of economic sovereignty, which conflicts with the profit-making interests of US investors and trans-nationals.
Achieving these goals is a multi-phase project. The project has now moved into the phase of preparing public opinion.
So, is alarm over Iran acquiring the means to develop nuclear weapons, and Ahmadinejad’s reputed “violent anti-Semitism,” a cover for an effort to pry open the Iranian economy to move it up the Index of (so-called) Economic "Freedom?"
Canis Latrans
25-10-2007
Quote:Why Iran? (1) To
Excellent set of observations re this discussion, Lynn. Which underscores the main point that has to be made here, that what the US Empire and its European/other Western "camp followers" are more afraid of here than anything else is, that Iran will actually succeed at its own independant economic and political development. The fear being that they will thereby create an actual model of Arab creation to the entire Middle East, in part demonstrating that it no longer need follow the US economic beholden, and feudal (Saudi Arabia and Jordan) or secular dictatorship (Egypt) models, all militarily protected and propped up by the US Empire. (With the onsite grafted assistance of again Western underwritten and assisted Israeli state terror, of course.)
This is Amerika's and Europes's true "oil starved" nightmare.
And Putin too recently, on a historic first visit to Iran, seeing this danger not only to their southern neighbourhood but also to themselves down the road, issued but a thinly veiled warning to those "outside" powers who are gathering to invade Iran, that Russia in fact sees its independent interest in that Western ambition NOT succeeding. And anyone who is paying attention here to the lie that Russia and China stand with the US Empire and Israeli interest on Iran, cannot but quickly see the danger of World War III in these events-, which Bush himself alluded to recently as well.
The US Empire needs to be forced to withdraw all its foreign based forces in the Middle East and everywhere else, and close all its offshore military bases, returning their troops back to their homeland. (And a US with its tail between its legs would be good for the independent development of Canada.) Israel then on its own, no longer being artificially propped up in its Arab neighbourhood as a source of never ending tension, needs to finally get down to making a serious and just peace with the Arab populations of the Middle East. (And indeed there is the danger that it has already, or by then, will have dithered too long and lost every shred of goodwill it might have had.)
We need, from here in time, to as quickly as possible get to a place of non-Big Power interfence in the internal affairs of other countries, allowing all countries over time thereafter to find their own independent development paths and solutions.
It is time to finally and completely end all imperialisms, and the danger they pose to the peace and wellbeing of all of us.
Earnest canuck
25-10-2007
'Cos foreign investment would be *oppressive*?
Re these last couple of posts, and the giggliciously convoluted thesis advanced therein by Lynn, this Gowans chump, and the thinly-disguised Coyote - lemme see if I can't boil it down a bit here, as a public service.
1) Iran's economy is as closed, centralized and state-operated as every other aspect of life under the imams' sandals; it may appear to be some farcical Shia-Stalinist tyrants' construct which would immediately collapse absent oil revenue;
2) But actually it's a "model of Arab creation," huzzah! Other mid-East nations should scrap their own totalitarianisms in favour of this one, h'ray! Iranians should be happy to sacrifice their social, political, legal and religious freedoms for this Tehran-driven economy, for it is Zakatism With A Human Face, and one hunnert percent non-American, yay! Yay! SAY YAY NOW OR THE REPUBLICAN GUARD WILL HANG YOUR FAMILY FROM A CRANE.
Oops, must've read a titch too keenly between the lines with that last bit... A pretty accurate synopsis anyway, if I say so myself.
(And necessary; you always need to edit and summarize speech that defends tyranny, dontcha find, to discover apologist authors' real meaning? Me, if I wanted to say "Well done, firing squads!" I'd just say it, but then again maybe I lack "nuance"...)
lynn
25-10-2007
Letting things be
Canis Latrans, didnt' see your first post when I posted above as I was busily trying over and over to reduce the word limit on Gowan's piece in order to post it - in doing so I kinda butchered an exceptionally good article for which he deserves all the credit of those observations. Here's the link to the whole article:
http://gowans.blogspot.com/2006/01/why-iran.html
Canis Latrans wrote:
Exactly, and the pivotal point about which all this global "interfering" madness revolves....and a pathetic, cruel and controlling madness it is - an insecurity, really, and a weakness that fuels this kind of grand global theft and fraud that destroys so many lives. Definitely a kind of psychology at work here..and very warped.
Madly at work here in this province and country as well...and the greedy twits just as warped.
And from Ed Deak, on another thread, but certainly relevant here:
Gray
25-10-2007
So then no problem with the repression of Iranians?
Canis
Based on your comment it seems you don't have an issue with, or take exception to how Iran mistreats some of its citizens?
That was the point of the article afterall.
lynn
25-10-2007
Tyranny near and far
It's always a good day when you make a man giggle, a premise I live by, btw ;-) and I worked sooo hard cutting and pasting that giggliciously convoluted thesis, too.
Actually, as I explained above, in trying to reduce the word limit, I butchered a brilliant piece of writing by Stephen Gowans for which I apologize - you should read the whole article, Earnest Canuck....enjoy...(giggle, giggle).
Earnest Canuck wrote:
'Course, you could say, "Mission Accomplished" before you fire.... or "Here comes Guantanomo-style democracy - duck" ...or just call me "The Torture President" 'cause we got our fun amusement camps in Poland and Romania, too...almost 35,000 world-wide served....just hold the pickles and onions...and bring on the waterboarding. Yeee-haaay!
Talk about "foreign investment"...but then again maybe I lack "nuance".....
Gray
25-10-2007
It is pretty simple . . .
Can you condemn this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4118727.stm
or this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4295111.stm
or this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jqQVqsOw4U&mode=related&search
or not without checking to see what Bush or Horowitz thinks or what the "anti-imperialism" line is.
Either it is despicable or it is not.
G West
25-10-2007
Gray
I don’t think anyone agrees or supports what’s going on in Iran, Gray. That’s hardly earth-shattering news.
The problem is this, as I see it: Glavin, supporting his heroine (who happens to be here in Canada and not fighting the demons in Iran) writes:
The rest of his essay is about:
a) contradictions between various elements within the Iranian Canadian community;
b) a few thoughts about Ahmadinejad and Holocaust denial (which, if you're read much Glavin is old hat);
c) a few words about Danny Postel - another of Glavin's heroes who says we shouldn't hesitate to agree with George Bush about Iraq at the same time saying that he doesn't really agree with George Bush; and
d) some thoughts about Iranian bloggers.
At the same time he ignores the recent report of Mohammed El Baradei and the 'real' problems of the Bush policy relative to Iran's nuclear programme.
See: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,503841,00.html
The point is that Glavin's article is confused and discursive. He, and his doppelganger (Ms Mohyeddin), applaud the Canadian Labour Congress for protesting the Iranian human rights record but, because the CLC and the 'nebulous left' has failed to call on Ottawa to shut down the Iranian Embassy they are worthy of condemnation!
Really. Apart from another facile reference to some criticism, arising out of an article in the Toronto Star and some yelling on campus about all he really says is this:
I mean really, this started out as a screed against Canadian leftists and now it's 'everywhere'. Moreover, everywhere for Terry Glavin equals ADBUSTERS and The NATION.
The sad part about this is that anyone who considers him or herself a real progressive bothered to read this from someone who appears to be more interested the attention of the little group he’s collected round him at Transmontanus.
Was he ever a radical? I wonder.
Pick up a copy of Reading Lolita in Tehran and forget Glavin. And don’t shut down the limited diplomatic relations Canada maintains with the place – that would be absolutely the LAST thing we should do.
Canis Latrans
25-10-2007
Taking exception...
Actually, that is nowhere said or implied in any of my comments above. Quite the opposite if you actually read anything.
I take as much issue with Neoconazi attacks on trade unionism and working class rights in this country or Iran as I do say, Zionist terror on the Palestinian people in Israel. Though this latter, as a peace threatening priority, is infinitely right now far more important. (And priorities are a regrettable and practical necessity.)
And what is most important as a precondition for first peace, and eventual justice and progressive development in all countries, is that all countries be free from the threats of imperialist/empire interventions and terror into their internal affairs. In this instance of Iran and the larger Middle East, it is necessary to take into account US Empire terror there along its borders, as well as that other artificial European/US sponsored creation which is much at the heart of the problem as well, Zionist Israel.
Europe eventually dealt with its religious loony fundamentalist theocracies and despots from its Dark Ages. As well will the rest of the world, including the Middle East, if now we can get the violent intrusions of the New US Christian/Capitalist Fundamentalist Empire out of their countries, their economies, control of their local despots, and send them back where they belong, in their own US Empire homeland-, which is itself much suffering from its own neoconazi and conservative Christian religious fundamentalist excesses. (The US ruling Christian theocracy has much more in common with the Islamic fundamentalist state of Iran than most now understand or are prepared to admit, in my view.)
Continued next post...
Canis Latrans
25-10-2007
Taking exception II
Continued from previous post...
In the order of battle as now exists for "the Left" in the world, it is a simple matter of there practically being lesser and greater important strategic objectives-, the first order of which has to be to deal with US Empire terror everywhere. Iran is objectively some considerable way further down on this order of battle list as, in and of itself, it is largely only a threat to the imperial ambitions of the US Empire in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. It is certainly no threat to Europe or Canada, at least not nearly so much as a nuclear armed and increasingly unstable US.
The Iranians will, being as much a democracy as the US, which is not much I confess, in the fullness of time, deal with any excesses and injustices of their own government-, as will the people of the US. The Iranians are an educated and sophisticated people, as desirous of progress and real democracy as any in the world, including the US or Canada. A real and vibrant economic and political democracy is as much an unfinished work for them as it is us-, and they are hampered by far greater threats to their well being and security than are we, from the most powerful Terror State in the world right now.
ME2
25-10-2007
Sauce for the Gander..........?
I have found myself favourably impressed by the arguments of Lynn and Canis Latrans, in particular Lynn's excellent highlited paragraph.
Like the rest of us here, I'm no supporter of the mullahs and their tyrannical laws, but I think that if it make sense to invade Iran in order to rid Iran of these people, then it should also make sense to invade the US to rid that country of the Southern Crackers who have taken control of its Executive Branch, and who are busy turning it into a Police State and a Rogue Nation to boot.
Canis Latrans
26-10-2007
New Slogan/ Battle Cry
ME 2, I think, raises the very important need for a new battle cry for the world's, but especially the Western Hemispheric Left.
"Time for regime change in the USA!"
Welll... Canada too. But that's another story. :-)