Topic
Growing revolt should topple some easy assumptions here.
Protester in Tehran.
The uprising changes everything.
That's what you will hear these days across the spectrum of the Iranian diaspora, from exiled intellectuals, trade unionists, student activists, Marxists, and liberals. The uprising changes everything, and not just inside Iran. No matter what happens next, the uprising will cause convulsions in contested fields of struggle from Afghanistan to Palestine.
Already, the spectacle of angry masses thronging the streets of Iranians cities is holding out the promise of a great awakening in "progressive" politics from Berlin to Seattle. In Canada, what was once unspeakable is now unavoidably central to any serious discussion of the Iranian cause and what it demands of us.
Mehdi Kouhestaninejad, a senior Canadian Labour Congress officer who has spent more than a decade waging a tireless and often lonely struggle to forge effective links between Canadian and Iranian trade unions, says he can't remember the last time he was so filled with hope.
"In the West, the Left sees only the Ahmadinejad propaganda -- death to the U.S., death to imperialism. It claims it is anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, but the people in Iran know that this is baloney," Kouhestaninejad told me. "We have to challenge our attitudes. We have to recognize that there is no connection between the Left in the West and the Left in Iran."
For years, Kouhestaninejad and his CLC colleagues have tried to change all that, but they've been up against a politics that divides the world into two camps, with American-Israeli imperialists on one side and a "resistance" of plucky Islamists on the other. It's politics that divides the world's workers against themselves, and absurdly situates Ahmadinejad in the same camp where the western "Left" pitches its tent.
Canadian Labour Congress sent appeal
In Canada, the result has been a kind of stupefaction that has rendered the Left practically useless to the life-and-death struggles that have been underway in Iran for years, and which have now reached a crisis.
Only last month, the CLC was trying to rouse its affiliates to an urgent appeal from an international labour coalition representing 170 million workers, calling for a global day of protest in solidarity with Iran's persecuted trade unionists. There were protests planned from Wellington, New Zealand to Lagos, Nigeria, but in the days before Iran erupted, there was still no sign of any Canadian response.
Then, suddenly, more than a million protesters were marching in the streets of Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan and other cities. Even as the Iranian theocracy responded with tear gas, bullets, and mass arrests, Kouhestaninejad, 44, could still see cause for hope. "Finally, everyone is beginning to wake up to Ahmadinejad and his phony slogans of anti-imperialism," Kouhestaninejad told me.
But history turns on a dime. Iran's brave trade unionists, student leaders, and pro-democracy activists are now facing their darkest hour since 1981. Back then, the good guys lost.
That was when Khomeinist reactionaries seized the helm of the 1979 revolution, turned on the country's republican forces, and carried out mass executions of secularists, socialists, feminists, and liberals. Back then, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's deranged, ruthless and antisemitic president, was one of ayatollahs' most loyal and enthusiastic torturers.
An invitation to lend support
Now, Iran's military-clerical caste is facing its most serious challenge ever, and one of the few cards left in Ahmadinejad's hand is the free pass he gets from "anti-imperialists" outside Iran.
It's what has made Kouhestaninejad's work such a desperate, uphill battle. It's also isolated the younger generation of Iranian-Canadian activists who have sprung into action in direct support of Iran's pro-democracy movement. It's kept their activism mainly confined to the Iranian-Canadian community, and reduced the mobilization to a mainly ethnic phenomenon.
It's all a bit of a mystery to Mohsen Amiri, a 28-year-old engineering science student at Simon Fraser University. Amiri was a key organizer of one of the first Canadian rallies, a June 14 event at Canada Place on the Vancouver waterfront. Amiri has been pulling together friends to attend rallies ever since, but he says many of his non-Iranian fellow students, even the ones he most expected to show up, have simply stayed away.
"All of them are fans of Ahmadinejad," Amiri said. "I think they are confused."
The confusion is especially pronounced in the case of students recently arrived from Arab countries, North Africa and Asia. "They like Ahmadinejad, and I can understand that, because in these countries the government wants somebody to blame for their situation. So they say, 'I don’t like the U.S. and I don't like Israel.' And so they become fans of Ahmadinejad."
As for the confusion among otherwise intelligent and literate Canadian leftists who don't have the excuse of having been tutored by authoritarian propaganda all their lives, Amiri says he can't explain it.
But the confusion is no mystery to Arash Abadpour, a 30-year-old computer science student at the University of Toronto and a keen observer of the Iranian pro-democracy movement. Abadpour's website, a key source of news for Iranian reformers, is now one of the most popular websites in Iran.
"Ahmadinejad has been very successful in selling himself as an anti-imperialist in the West," Abadpour said. "The way he opposes the U.S. and Israel, he has been able to present himself as a voice of the anti-imperialist movement."
A fat lot of good it was doing him as the uprising ended its first week, though. Thousands of ordinary Canadians were showing up at Iranian-led demonstrations and candle-light vigils across the country.
Rallying solidarity in Canada
As the uprising staggered into its second week, bloodied but still alive, Kouhestaninejad remained upbeat about everything. By mid-week, Canada's labour unions were starting to show signs of life. Some unions were starting to show an interest in the long-planned Friday, June 26 international day of solidarity after all. The Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and other unions were gearing up for last-minute rallies in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto.
Then it looked liked the old stupefaction was setting in again. The Iranian regime's propaganda line -- the pro-democracy protesters are merely disaffected upper middle-class "rioters" and the uprising is the work the CIA spies, Zionist plotters and British agents -- was starting to show up in "left-wing" circles everywhere.
After Venezuela's president and left-wing icon Hugo Chavez rushed to Ahmadinejad's side with regurgitations of the ayatollahs' claims about shadowy imperialists, the pile-on was in full swing.
James Petras, a senior member of the Canadian Dimension editorial collective, jumped to the regime's defence, dismissing reports of widespread Iranian outrage as a fabrication of the "Zionist-mass media line."
Zafar Bangash, a Khomeinist fanatic who doubles as the director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought and a spokesman for the Toronto's Stop the War Coalition, weighed in. To Bangash, Ahmadinejad's woes were all the fault of "the Muslim-hating West" and its agents in the mansions of North Tehran.
On Canada's west coast, the Mobilization Against War and Occupation issued a statement sneering at the "crocodile tears" being shed for the Iranian protesters and declared: "Iran's elections and disputes are an internal matter."
Tool of US imperialists?
Kouhestaninejad soon found himself back to fending off the persistent complaint that has so confounded efforts to build bridges between Iran's unions, feminists and student activists and their estranged Canadian counterparts: he was just playing into the hands of the American imperialists.
Then he had to field questions from "progressive" journalists about American and Israeli spies behind Iran's young activists. "I tell them, 'they are not puppets of any agency, don't insult their intelligence.' You should see the attacks I'm getting now from the anti-imperialists in Toronto," he said.
The rot runs deep.
It's commonplace on the Left to pretend that the rot is confined to marginal pseudo-left groupuscules, and that it's no big deal that a Left-Islamist alliance has captured the key posts in Canada's "anti-war" movement. But if you keep your eye on what Kouhestaninejad calls the broken connections between the Left in the West and the Left in Iran, you'll notice that it matters.
In March, following shocking reports that Afghan president Hamid Karzai had approved a "rape law" to appease Afghanistan's Shia minority, anti-imperialist groups claimed a stunning propaganda coup. Their argument went like this: It just goes to show, Canada's role in Afghanistan has nothing to do with protecting women's rights, it's just like the Taliban days, we're just propping up these horrible government, and it's all just a U.S.-run military occupation. Troops out.
That soon became the received wisdom.
But if Canadians had been paying attention to what the Left in Iran has been saying they would have known that it was all rubbish.
Where the rape law was written
The Afghan "rape law" was written in Tehran. It drew directly from the "Law Supporting the Family," which stalled in the Iranian parliament in 2008 following an open revolt led by Iranian women. The law was brought to Afghanistan by its Afghan proxy, the hated Afghan cleric Mohammed Asif Mosehni. In Kabul, Mosehni does Tehran's dirty work from his own opulent mosque, with his own madrassa, television station and radio station. He even runs an Afghan version of Iran's "morality police" to harass and terrorize Afghanistan's Shia minority.
"So long as we don't change the regime in Tehran, we will continue to have terrible problems, and not just in Iran," Kouhestaninejad said. "We will have problems in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan. The regime has its fingers in everything. For as long as the regime is there, we will have these problems, and they will not go away."
And so long as the Left in Canada pretends that this is just somebody else's business, the rot will not go away. It's done enough damage already.
It is our business.
Defending a dictatorship
It was only a few weeks ago that NDP MP Olivia Chow, Toronto Star columnist Linda McQuaig and CBC pundit Heather Mallick were all rushing to the defence of the renegade British MP George Galloway, the Iranian regime's most brazen and slobbering apologist in the English-speaking world. They happily parroted Galloway's false claim that Ottawa wouldn't let him keep his "anti-war" speaking engagements in Canada for fear of what he might say about Canada's role in Afghanistan. McQuaig went so far as to praise Galloway for possessing "the mental toughness of Noam Chomsky and the showmanship of Mick Jagger."
As soon as Tehran's streets began filling with masses of protesters two weeks ago, Galloway declared himself against the Iranian uprising and for the regime's ruling Guardian Council. Galloway issued his verdict from the platform of his own long-running, regular program on Press TV, the regime's English-language propaganda network.
It is not that Galloway has changed. Iran is the same totalitarian state he and his supporters were defending last year and the year before that. Neither did Iran’s farcical June 12 election change anything.
Tehran's ayatollahs still run a blood-stained, belligerent and authoritarian theocracy where all non-Islamist political parties are banned, semi-literate clerics choose who can run for office and who cannot, and independent trade unions are banned. The clerics control the news media, foreign policy, and the army. Their morality police roam the streets arresting women if they look too "western" and their Basiji militiamen roam the campuses looking for pamphleteers to beat up. None of that has changed.
A revolt gaining traction
What's changed is that the long campaign for Iranian democracy, for workers' rights, and for the hundreds of union leaders, journalists and human rights activists in Iranian prisons, has at last started to gain some global traction. What's changed is that the tireless efforts of Kouhestaninejad and his colleagues at the CLC, the International Trade Union Confederation, the International Transport Workers Federation and Educational International are starting to pay off.
"We are in good shape," Kouhestaninejad told me last Thursday. "We are in very good shape."
But mainly, what has changed is this business about Ahmadinejad's free pass, and the cynical, stupid politics that allow him to have it. What's changed is that the leaders of the uprising are demanding the regime's isolation, and they mean it. What's changed is that now, anyone who excuses or accommodates the regime's propagandists, agents and apologists in Canada’s trade unions, social-justice networks, anti-racism campaigns or student organizations, is an enemy of the Iranian uprising.
The uprising changes everything.
Related Tyee stories:
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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ME2
3 years ago
I guess we'll have to just wait and see.
Not being a lover of American foreign policy, I have to admit I was impressed by Ahmadinejad's railing against the US' meddling in Mideastern and Iranian politics on behalf of itself and Israel. Adding currency to this view was their well documented support of the corrupt Shah in return for access to oil. Since Ahmadinejad's gov't was born out of a people's revolution, it was safe to assume, I've thought, it represented the people and the Left.
Over the years, however, we've been made fully aware of Ayatollah Khomeini's tyrannical maintainance of Sharia law, but however odious that situation, I've always thought that was something Muslims had to sort out for themselves.
But then, since throughout time Right-wingers have always allied with theocracies, it makes sense that that the revolution may have succeeded only in replacing a corrupt secular Right-wing gov't with a differently corrupt religious but still Right-wing one. As Glavin notes, perhaps we have been totally misled in thinking the Iranian gov't is Leftist instead of just being anti-US and anti-Israel.
I've read a bit about the past history of various Islamic states, and it has been a surprise for me to learn that in the past they have had strong Socialist policies, Iran included, based upon the teachings of Islam, which stress concern for one's neighbour.
So to what, I've wondered, do we ascribe this relatively recent arising to power of these virulently anti-people, pro-"God" and completely politicised Ayatollas. My guess is that meddling in the affairs of these states by Western nations intent upon securing commercial interests has deliberately aided greatly in their predominance.
And viewing the success of past alliances with theists in Western nations, and the contemporary example in the US with Fundamentalists of both Catholic and Protestant faiths, the template is easy to copy - just add money.
For good political reasons oil has been called "The Devil's Excrement"
Fiat lux
3 years ago
Having lived under and
Having lived under and survived all the sick ideological systems burped up by the 20th century, the most important thing I've learned was: Never trust any politician, no matter what flag they're waving.
I've known some really decent people who went into politics to change things, but it changed them into opportunists.
Real democracy never existed and probably never will. What we now have is nothing more than a bad joke, with the strings pulled from behind the scenes by some of the biggest criminals in history, wearing fancy business suits and admired as VIPs.
Ed Deak.
dorothy
3 years ago
The only thing
that surprises me is, that this is a surprise to anyone. Anyone rubbing shoulders with the Canadian Labor Movement knows that if it hates America and America's 'pandering' to Israel (read: closet anti-semitism), then it is my friend. Not to mention if it smells of 'intellectualism'. The big figures in Canadian Labor usually stays teflon-like noncomittal on these issues, but they all know they have this vocal, 'anti-whatever' contingency to contend with and so tiptoe around its idiosyncrasies. The lame responses we have seen are thus easily explained.
It is indeed too bad we are shafting a genuine grassroots mevement by a people genuinely suffering under a regime that is up to its eyeballs in imperialistic aspirations. The hypocrisy stinks, but what else is new? In these columns, some months or years ago, there was a blunt writer , from whom a fragment of a sentence has stuck in my brain:"...while they slash your throat, you moron."
I guess there are a lot of morons out there, ah, Jord, Jord!
G West
3 years ago
So let me get this straight
Terry Glavin can excuse the behavior and the record of Hamid Karzai and his warlord allies in Afghanistan by simply claiming that he's in the pocket of Iranian clerics?
My reading of the Afghan situation is that things aren't getting better there either. IN fact, the latest stirrings I've heard from our erstwhile allies there is that they're more or less prepared to give the Afghan Taliban a lot more power in the run up to the Presidential elections.
Clinging to power by fair means or foul isn't something unique to Iran.
I don't much like Ahmadinejad and his band of thugs in Tehran either, but knowing what he is and who he represents doesn't blind me to the true nature of the thugs we're working with in Afghanistan.
Somehow it seems to have blinded you.
For all the lives we've lost in that bloody dance, the Taliban are far stronger now than they were in 2005, and they are active in more areas.
Some success story.
spartikus
3 years ago
Who cares what James Petras thinks?
Terry Glavin is engaging in classic nutpicking. Why, for example, did he choose Petras's article in Canadian Dimension over other more favourable articles as representitive?
Alas, that would disrupt the narrative. Thus Marxist dinosaur James Petras IS the Canadian Labour movement.
Name
3 years ago
Glavin's parallel universe...
I used to think Glavin had to be an intelligent fellow, or else why would he be a Tyee columnist. So I keep trying to wade through the hissing and spitting in the hope of discovering some original insights. But I have to admit I'm confounded.
Who is this stupid, blind, misguided Canadian Left that he keeps railing about? Who are these people? Is it Olivia Chow, Heather Mallick and Linda McQuaig and if so, where did they actually defend Ahmedinejad or the mullahs? Did I and all the other millions who consider ourselves left-leaning Canadians unknowingly become party to this great travesty by appointing Khomeinist fanatic Zafar Bangash as national spokesman for the Canadian Left? How is it that none of the lefties I know actually go around saying the things that Glavin's loves to hold up as proof of The Canadian Left's depth of ignorance (and his superior intelligence)? Why do we never read these leftist morons actually making all the outrageous misassumptions in person? Is he privy to the inner rantings of some private club of elite union fools, some secret journal of daft leftie punditry that's only accessible to Glavin and the daft ones?
Sorry, but I've come to wonder if his sole reference point for "The Canadian Left" might not actually be an annoying brother-in-law or some idiot who rubs him the wrong way at the office.
If someone's made statements or claims that Glavin finds dumb and offensive, fundamental principles of good journalism require that he cite a specific source and stick to addressing that individual specifically, instead of issuing entirely unsupported attacks against a great swath of innocent Canadians. His tilting at straw dogs and sterotypes is no less foolish, no more grounded in reality, than tilting at windmills.
Vancouver Liz
3 years ago
Silly me ...
I didn't even know the "Left" was supporting the theocratic regime in Iran. That sure is bad politics -- my enemy's enemy isn't always your enemy too!
It brings to mind the confused support of Uncle Joe Stalin in the 1950s.
The "Left" -- and I assume Terry means the organized left -- have a lot to learn about basic human rights!
I have always counted myself a person of the left, but we certainly part ways here.
Yammer
3 years ago
Left supporters of the Islamic Republic of Iran
This is not a Canadian writer, being a member of the Respect Party of the UK, but it was published locally, and I think it may stand for a certain viewpoint among the left, whatever that really means:
http://www.straight.com/article-236244/yvonne-ridley-selfserving-west-has-no-right-throw-stones-irans-elections?#
spartikus
3 years ago
I'm sure you could find lots of viewpoints
and I think it may stand for a certain viewpoint among the left
I'm sure it does, but does it stand for a pervasive viewpoint - that's the matter at hand, and it's one that is completely unsupported.
And the funny thing is it's all so besides the point. Whether the June 26 rally attracts 1000 "labour-members" or 100,000 - it won't affect events in Iran one whit. Indeed, almost every credible observer advocates that the West keeps a low profile so as not to give the Iranian authorities the excuse of "foreign meddling" to crack down even harder.
This is an Iranian story and Iranians will tell it. No matter how much Terry Glavin feels otherwise, it's simply not about us.
Glen Murtz
3 years ago
Thanks
Thank you Spartikus for telling Terry Glavin that his piehole is meant to be filled with pie, not disgorging s***.
True, it's curious and nauseating smell that draws lots of attention (and commentary) - but ultimately, it's a pile of s***.
anarcho
3 years ago
More Glavin Slanders
Which leftists are against the movement in Iran? Certainly not these:
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/
http://www.marxist.ca/
http://www.socialist.ca/En/SW2009/SocialistWorker507/04-Iran.htm
http://www.socialistvoice.ca/
http://mollymew.blogspot.com/
anarcho
3 years ago
The Iranian Left in Exile
For anyone interested in what the Iranian left has to say, I recommend the following:
http://maryamnamazie.blogspot.com/
http://socialist-blogs-news.blogspot.com/
The Workers Communist Party of Iran has branches, or at least members in Canada.
doggone
3 years ago
Since Thetyee is also ignoring this story
Check this out:
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/news/art0021.html
Fidel seems to be quite well informed. Can't wait for his take on Iran.
Just me
3 years ago
It IS about us
1) Generally, it is gratifying to see that when "they" (Chinese at Tienanmen, resisting Iranians today) take to the street our MSM see it as heroic (which it is). What happens when we take to the streets is another story. Then it is the "Riot at the Hyatt," etc. and, as in Iran, they call for law and order.
2) Iran today IS about us (the West, not so much the paltry Left in the West) because the West (CIA) installed the Shah in the first place to halt a popular political shift to the left. A half century later, and a generation after the Shah's ouster, that still justifies the paranoia of Iran's ruling clerics, just as Western meddling in the USSR after the Russian Revolution (including Germany's invasion at the outset of WW2) justified Stalin and the 50-year trade embargo of Cuba justifies the Castros.
This is what we get for being the cops of the world. Too bad it is ordinary Iranians (and Russians and Cubans - and Hondurans most recently) who pay for it with their lives.
Canadian so-called Leftists sympathetic to Ahmadinejad and the mullahs might remember what Emma Goldman said: “If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution.” Dance? Iranian women would be making progress if they even could go out in public.
What kind of patsy allows for fascism just because it comes cloaked in the rhetoric of anti-Zionism and/or anti-imperialism? I guess the kind of patsy Glavin has identified here. Shame on the apologists. Let's get real about Iran.
anarcho
3 years ago
Who are thee leftists?
Once again who are these leftists who support the Mullafkers? Let us not have nameless accusations. Name them, please. I just gave a list of the main groups of the far left - anarchists and 3 varieties of Trotskyists and they plainly support the movement in the streets.
anarcho
3 years ago
And the CPC too is on side
The Communist Party also supports the people's movement against the Mullahs See
http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/Pv01ju09.html#10_REPRESSION_AND_LIES_WILL_NOT_STOP
RickW
3 years ago
The Concensus Among Current Global Governments...
...today is to retain the status quo. They are generally against anything other than incremental changes. Why this is, is certainly fertile grounds for speculation.
My suspicion however, is that most existing governments today fear their subjects much more than they fear some external enemy. Therefore, they do not want some "foreign" affair to be giving people at home any dangerous notions. So the situation in Iran is given the "pablum" treatment from western governments, as is the recent coup in Honduras.
straightshooter
3 years ago
Your hypocrisy is overwhelming.
You support the Iranian uprising against the mullahs, but look the other way, indeed support Israel as it imprisons, occupies, murders en masse, humiliates and disposesses the native Palestininian/Canaanites. I can also assure you that like their elders, young Iranians stand shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinians in their just struggle against Israel. Iran has also accepted the 2002 Arab League's Beirut Summit Inititative which calls for full diplomatic relations with Israel if it complies with international law and binding Security Council resolutions by withdrawing from all Palestinian and other Arab lands it invaded after launching the June 1967 war and has occupied since.
doggone
3 years ago
Good luck running a world full of Spoiled Brats
I've given up trying to control my Grandchildren - they do not respond to
"Because I say so" - in fact they are likely to give me a "raspberry" and carry on missbehaving. So I'm assuming that the next generation will be somewhat less "governable" than we were: I was trained to trust government and big business and police (and banks) because they "Hired the best".
That notion just flew out my window.
taimei
3 years ago
Bad Reporting
Glavin, shame on you. An award-winning journalist and you have no desire to show the other side to this?
You mention one of your Iranian-Canadian sources was puzzled by his friends staying away from the rallies because they support Ahmadinejad -- well, couldn't you have contacted one or two of them and found out why they like him? Instead, they are dismissed as disillusioned.
I think some balance is in order.
Fish-counter
3 years ago
Who needs to pick sides?
First, every time The West picks sides in these arguments, we invariably regret it.
Second, I am curious. Is democracy sustainable or not? Let's watch nthe people of Iran as they find out.
Third. Pass the popcorn.
zalm
3 years ago
People? Like...one?
There's no monolithic bloc of "people" in Iran. There's the same as in every country. There's a large bloc (though no majority) of wealthier better-educated in some main cities like Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad and Tabriz, who tend to be liberal and vote that way. There's a large underclass in those same cities, more poorly educated, often superstitious, tending to be conservative in their view and behaviours, who are generally voiceless, as they elect no people of power, and are reduced in their representation to whoever will speak to views they hew to, from outside their region.
And then you have a large class from the smaller towns and the country, often poorly educated, orthodox in behaviour and outlook, often religious, and definitely conservative. Oh, and easily manipulated.
Add to that, the national fervor in the country, well-supported by the same kind of illegitimate press as we have here in Canada, is rallied by frequent appeals to the population that Iran is being dissed by the big bad West, and national pride requires you stand up for the government.
Remind you of any particular country in recent history? Closer to home?
I agree that the citizens of Tehran are marching for change, as well as in a few other cities. But I have my distinct doubts that there was a stolen election, or that the progressives are anywhere close to even making it a horse race. The silent, traditional, uneducated majority remains supicious, quiet, narrowly focussed on its own concerns, and seeks the support of its own prejudices wherever it finds them.
Which is how the BC Fiberals got back in. Are some of you so deaf to the history of a month ago?
Which makes Glavin's screed a stalking horse for his favourite bugbear - the mythical fascist leftist. I'm tired of it. Come back to reality, Terry.
jimmy_laroux
3 years ago
TERRIBLE ARTICLE!
Surely a “28-year-old engineering science student at Simon Fraser University” has his finger on the pulse of the entire Canadian progressive community, and can speak to their interest on the issue of the Iranian elections.
So on the one hand “the Left” doesn’t care about the Iranian protesters, but on the other hand many of them showed up to vigils opposing government violence. Uh…
Cherry picking. Glavin does this a lot. Oh, and generalization too. In fact these two fallacies, used in no small quantity, usually form the basis of every one of Glavin’s essays I’ve had the misfortune to (partially) read. Well, two can play at that game. Pick the lunatic ravings of some mentally negligible literary hack. Have him represent “the Right”. Thus “the Right”, and by extension every right-wing individual, is a mentally negligible raving lunatic. Ta da!
jimmy_laroux
3 years ago
@ David Beers
I hope you are not paying Glavin for his contributions to the Tyee.
A serious article addressing the recent Iranian elections and the violence surrounding them would have discussed, for example, the structure and historical development of the Iranian government, the evidence of electoral fraud (if any), power struggles between factions within the Iranian government, evidence of foreign interference (if any), and so on. This article, is neither informative nor has even the slightest pretence of being objective. Glavin’s only purpose in writing this article is to try to score a few cheap political points against some of his ideological opponents at home using human suffering in a distant country. It is disgusting. The Tyee is better than this.
Yammer
3 years ago
Heh heh, great article
It is getting some excellent reactions.
jimmy_laroux
3 years ago
@ David Beers
Maybe I misunderstand you. Perhaps all along you are just playing Glavin, using him to make “the Right” look foolish the way he uses James Petras in this essay, or Simon Capet in the following:
http://thetyee.ca/Entertainment/2007/04/06/Samson/
dorothy
3 years ago
Whose history? Whose hero?
Samson is not an example of what happened 'down through history' as far as we in Canada are concerned. He belongs in the same corner of the world as most of today's suicide bombers, the Middle East. Our history should be tracked back through Celtic, Frankish and Anglo-saxon roots, as well as the red-paint people and whoever came all those years ago and entered North America in four or five 'waves'. But we cannot count them, as we know too little. It is quite clear that among our known ancestry, revenge and 'insurgency' did not include their owen demise in order to be counted as successful. They would ususally wait it out till circumstances were such that, using clever subterfuge, they could get their enemies without sacrificing themselves into the bargain. Hamlet's story, for instance, has been warped in the making of William Shakespeare's commercial success. Hamlet did not die tragically in taking his revenge for his father, but were around to gloat that he 'got' this enemies all at once. Recall, please, the English proverb 'He who runs away will be around to fight another day'.
As far as the leftist people who are not with the Iranian protesters, that would be those who lament about Israeli cruelty and barbarism at every turn of the road, but are wilfully blind to the number of rockets lobbed into Israel from the surrounding land, and the number of ordinary civilians they kill, including children. You hear them in these columns, and you certainly hear them at union gatherings. Have you ever been marching at a union rally downtown in our fair city and been handed any number of pamphlets to the effect that Israelis should 'pack up and go home'. That must certainly be because the people who hand them out believe that in the marching 'leftists', they are seeing a receptive customer base for their ideology.
Pragmatically, now, as one of those facetious Scandinavians, I would say these zealots have never considered that in case the haters of all kinds should succed in wiping the State of Israel off the map, some of those 'hard-line Israeli militants' might just come and live in their own neighborhood. Here's to hoping they would not then forget their creed of brotherhood of all men. Ya think?
spartikus
3 years ago
Libel
Dorothy writes: "You hear them in these columns, and you certainly hear them at union gatherings."
As a union member for 15+ years I can state unequivocally that no one from our local's leadership, nor from the provincial level, nor from the national level has ever once, NOT ONCE, said anything of the kind at a union gathering in an official or unofficial way.
Dorothy's is a libelous statement. If she wishes to contest that, then she can produce evidence that union leadership, and not some lonely Marxist who shows up uninvited at rallies attempting to distribute leaflets, has done so.
spartikus
3 years ago
Hmmm...
...upon reflection, I recall the CUPE local representing university workers organizing a boycott of Israeli academics.
I will withdraw the accusation of libel, with apologies.
But I stand by the account of my personal experience.
mijnheer
3 years ago
Ghosts and demons
Like some others, I'm becoming rather tired of Terry Glavin's highly selective idea of who constitutes "the left". He seems to have found a comfortable little journalistic niche where he can fight the same battle over and over against ghosts and demons.
Bustagrill
3 years ago
Anarcho: You should re-read Glavin's column
"Once again who are these leftists who support the Mullafkers? Let us not have nameless accusations. Name them, please."
If you read his column you will see several names listed. Glavin specifically references Vancouver's own hyperventilating posse Mobilization Against War and Occupation (read their statement that Glavin references here: http://www.mawovancouver.org/). And here's another (British) wing-nut "anti-imperialist" that was recently given a stump to shout from in our very own Georgia Straight: http://www.straight.com/article-236244/yvonne-ridley-selfserving-west-has-no-right-throw-stones-irans-elections.
Glavin also rightly pointed out that many groups (like that ones you just linked to) are in fact standing with the uprisers in Iran.
Like I said, maybe you should take a few deep breaths and re-read his column.
Janie Jones
3 years ago
What colour is your (CIA sponsored) revolution?
Hmm. The people of BC re-elected Campbell. The people of Canada re-elected Harper. Think there's any chance that the people of Iran re-elected Ahmadinejad?
dorothy
3 years ago
Spartikus
“Dorothy's is a libelous statement. If she wishes to contest that, then she can produce evidence that union leadership, and not some lonely Marxist who shows up uninvited at rallies attempting to distribute leaflets, has done so.”
Hello! You did not read my previous post:
“The big figures in Canadian Labor usually stays teflon-like noncomittal on these issues, but they all know they have this vocal, 'anti-whatever' contingency to contend with and so tiptoe around its idiosyncrasies.”
These are, yes., probably ‘lonely Marxists’, it just sometimes seems you cannot spit for them. But I certainly never said union LEADERSHIP were not seeing straight on this. So pack up your libel suit, and don’t be so ready to stick heavy-duty labels on in order to intimidate.
About the ‘Marxism’, you may certainly wonder how these people figure to get into the political bed with theocracies, but that is another discussion…
mikev
3 years ago
Iran
I'm no big fan of Ahmadinejad, but it seems like this is the same old story all over again. Some foreign leader doesn't follow orders from Washington, so there are sanctions and all kinds of strong arming, the National Endowment for Democracy starts dropping bales of money on every dissident group they can identify, anyone who can pull a few people together for a march against whatever the government happens to be doing is given prime time news coverage, and the "movement" becomes a self fulfilling prophecy from there on in as every person in the country who has ever been annoyed by anything the government has ever done practically trips over themselves to get in on the action. Then it's damned if you do and damned if you don't - let the mob rule, or maintain control and let the "Tyrant!"'s and "Despot!"'s fly.
I mean really, if the democrats in the USA in 2000 had inexplicably grown some balls and launched mass protests before the kangaroo court cases had even gotten underway, do you really think they wouldn't have been crushed just like every other protest in North America? With prime time coverage of anarchists smashing windows and thank goodness for our paramilitary riot control squads who can hit hippies with rubber bullets and bean bags just as accurately as any in the world.
I don't want to hear our hypocritical leaders even open their mouths about the Iranian elections and whatever internal unrest they may be going through.
I especially don't want to hear "enlightened" leftist wannabe mouth pieces spout off about how ignorant everyone is who doesn't agree with them. Yuck.
"What's changed is that now, anyone who excuses or accommodates the regime's propagandists, agents and apologists in Canada’s trade unions, social-justice networks, anti-racism campaigns or student organizations, is an enemy of the Iranian uprising."
And good day to you too, Terry. I'm neutral to the Iranian uprising. And to me Ahmadinejad can't be any worse than whoever the USA would install if given half a chance. And I don't believe for a second that replacing him will flip the switch and turn Iran into one of the "good guys", or even be a guaranteed step in that direction. Or that the opinion of any of us foreigners on which direction Iran should choose should matter even slightly to any Iranian.
I'm sick of all these revolutions, revoltingly they're even branding them now, I guess to keep them all "differentiated" on the evening news (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_revolution). As long as you're not a "developed" "western" nation, then whoever can gather the biggest mob in the streets deserves to take over the government I guess. Some world we've got here, eh?
anarcho
3 years ago
Fine, one group.
OK Bustagrill, He did mention the Mobe, but the other reference is to a Brit. One group out of many, and I suspect an unrepresentative controlling clique within that group. As I showed, the left in general supports the struggle in Iran. Glavin once more is making a mountain out of a mole hill.
spartikus
3 years ago
Dorothy
Dorothy writes: "So pack up your libel suit, and don’t be so ready to stick heavy-duty labels on in order to intimidate."
Given that I withdrew the charge without prompting, this seems without merit.
dorothy
3 years ago
You are so right
"Given that I withdrew the charge without prompting, this seems without merit."
And I was in too much of a hurry. My apologies for the unwarranted belligerence.
But I am still wondering about the proclaimed marxists who feel comfy with theocracy. Go figure.
Macb423
3 years ago
Just sayiing...
This whole blog, from the article through all the responses, is so bizarre and so irrelevant that it only reassures me that I did the right thing dropping out of 'the Left" some time around 1975. I'm a real activist now, mostly with my union -- way way more fun here in the real world. Y'all oughta try it.
ME2
3 years ago
Wrong perspective?
Janie Jones wrote above :
"Hmm. The people of BC re-elected Campbell. The people of Canada re-elected Harper. Think there's any chance that the people of Iran re-elected Ahmadinejad?"
Now now, Janie, what could possibly prompt thougts like those?:-)
zalm
3 years ago
Dorothy
"As far as the leftist people who are not with the Iranian protesters, that would be those who lament about Israeli cruelty and barbarism at every turn of the road, but are wilfully blind to the number of rockets lobbed into Israel from the surrounding land, and the number of ordinary civilians they kill, including children."
Where on EARTH does this come from? This is not a fire you want to light here.
"But I am still wondering about the proclaimed marxists who feel comfy with theocracy. Go figure."
And go figure on the number of poverty-stricken right wingers who felt comfortable with a presidential theocracy in 2004. 49% of Americans, as I recall....
Snide comments don't become you.
RickW
3 years ago
dorothy
According to Harper's Magazine:
Number of people killed by Hamas rocket attacks since 2001: 28
ME2
3 years ago
RickW
Hey Rick. Does Harper's have the stats for the number of Israelis killed by Hezbollah rockets versus the number of Lebanese killed by Israeli rockets?
Pretty good kindling for Dorothy's fire, I think.
Lefty
3 years ago
It's now July 2
What has the colour coded uprising accomplished? Over a million people? I think not, I remember seeing the crowd shots when the peacock Shah was deposed, there were millions on the street then. As the reality of how they were duped set in people stayed away in droves.
And as it turns out, there was four hundred million dollars of American agitation present.
The election stands and the results reflect the poll sample taken a few weeks before the election.
Anybody who buys into this story is full of beans.
zalm
3 years ago
ME2
Yer slip is showing... and it ain't pretty.
http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0255.htm#Top
zalm
3 years ago
And just in case...
...you think the Arabs are the only one to use human shields....
http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0261.htm#Top