international section
Who
is
Moussavi?
by: Pedram Mossallanejad
June 12th marked Iran’s tenth presidential election. Incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was declared victorious by a wide margin over his three competitors including, one, MirHossein Mousavi. Soon after the election results were made public, many Iranians felt that the results were tampered with. This feeling was soon accompanied by grievances and massive protests, both in Iran and around the globe. Though Mousavi is currently the face of reform in Iran, and though he is favored by certain parts of the population, his struggle for presidency must be contextualized to see exactly why the latter is the case. Mousavi’s relationship to Iranian reformists dialectically caused what Prof. Hamid Dabashi coined the “new civil rights movement in Iran”. Not only did Mousavi affect the people of Iran, but the people of Iran affected Mousavi. And, the two hefty political forces effectively culminated into the street protests we see today. The climax of this was recently manifested in Mousavi becoming critical of the Islamic Republic. He obviously does not go as far as
A
advocating for the desecration and dismantling of the Republic; a position that many Iranians, at least in the diaspora, support. Yet, however superficial his criticisms may be, they are historically remarkable: significant criticisms are, for the first time, coming from inside the systems itself - not outside.
Anti-Islamic Republic sentiments are not baseless. They began to take shape very soon after the revolution, resulting dually from the
look at the Iranian protests in
systemically flawed government removing the most basic of rights and freedoms while massacring voices of opposition. The problems are not from mere “lies and fraud” from the Islamic leadership as Mousavi claims, but go far deeper. Mousavi’s assertion that he wants “a reform with a return to the pure principles of the Islamic Revolution” breeds the unfortunate illusion that the Islamic Republic had some fabled golden era. Mousavi will always moderate his criticisms of the Islamic Republic. After all, for him to do so only makes political sense as it was the undemocratic body of the Guardian Council which gave Mousavi the very opportunity to run for president in the first place. We need not let our views on whether or not to support Mousavi be divisive of our spirits. Instead, lest us recognize that it was the restless generation of young Iranians that started the current movements. Only if driven by the collective spirit of the masses will the movements succeed in bringing down the tyrannical Islamic Regime, allowing the country to move towards a real golden era.
Toronto by: Rashin Alizadeh
After the June 14th elections many concerned Iranians in the diaspora marched onto the streets of major cities in the world to show their discontent with the Islamic Republic and the illegitimate government of Ahmadinejad. The demonstrations outside Iran were aimed at showing solidarity and support for those inside Iran’s borders—both on the streets and within the prison walls—however there was a lot of confusion on how to connect the different trends within the protests and what the aims of our movement in Toronto should be. “Where is my vote”, a slogan that was prevalent in the early stages of protests in Toronto and across the world, is interpreted very differently by different people: while some tried to limit it to a protest against “electoral fraud”, for many others it was an indication of not having a real “vote” not only in the last elections but in the last three decades of Islamic rule. The people inside the borders of the Iran are much more daring in their criticisms of the government despite the threats they face to their lives. Aside from basic democratic rights, the Iranian people were protesting the lack of basic human rights such as the equality for women and minority groups. The theocracy of the past three decades has given
the people the choice to vote from a list modified and selected by the Guardian Council—a mere sham of an election. Iranians have to choose between establishment candidates and even the will of the elected doesn’t count for much compared to that of the Supreme Leader. Every vote for change counts for nothing when a single man’s voice resonates above 70 million of his kin. As the protests went on, many people became more aware of who Mousavi really is and what he represents: including his history, and the basic fact that he is part of the establishment, that is, the ruling elite. Despite him being branded as a “reformist” he is part of the same Islamic regime that justifies its actions, no matter how notorious, by hiding behind the veil of religion. Many people started arguing that a basic principle for democracy is for it to be independent of any religious associations because state religious ideology is inherently oppressive. The cry for a secular republic may perhaps be a logical first step. Among the top demands from our movement in Toronto, to the Islamic Government, should be the freeing of all political prisoners and labour activists; people must have the right to voice their opinion, to be organized (politically and in
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their workplace), and to choose (without foreign influence) the type of government they desire. Meanwhile, the government of Canada along with other Western governments, who claim to be “fair and peaceful”, must allow all Iranians who are fleeing repression to seek refuge in their countries.
Western Baluchistan
All in all, Toronto protests not only proved to the Islamic regime that their actions wouldn’t be unseen by millions of Iranians and world citizens but it also gave a real meaning to a slogan that was used by the revolutionary movement in Iran: “Don’t be afraid, we are all in this together”.
by: Alborz Atashband
Part 1 of Series: Iranian National Chauvinism
Roya Sarani was an ordinary 12 year-old Balochi girl from Dozaap (Zahedan), being driven back home from school by her father. The police pulled their car over, questioned the father and asked him to step out of his vehicle. He tried explaining to the officers that he was only driving his daughter home from school, but they paid no heed to him and opened fire onto both him and his car. His daughter was killed right in front of his eyes in cold blood. To this day, there has been no formal investigation of the incident. This sounds extreme even for Iran’s government, but events like these are part of everyday life for the Baloch in Iranian Balochistan. With 76% of Baloch living under the poverty line, they have been discriminated against for being both an ethnic minority and Sunni by the Iranian government ever since the nation of Balochistan was invaded and split between Iran and what is now Pakistan in the 19th century. The Iranian government is seeking to make Sunni majority provinces into Shi’a majority provinces as to limit the power and representation Sunni’s have in Iran’s government. Sunni mosques and Balochi villages are demolished across Balochistan under the guise of land development. Villages have been attacked by the army with rockets under the pretence of hunting down terrorists.
The Baloch who have been forcefully evicted from their homes thus seek refuge in the desert, and have been offered no compensation. Due to their ethnicity and religion, the Baloch are often denied access to higher education and employment. The Iranian government intentionally isolates them by not developing the vast mineral resources available in the province and limiting the amount of food to be imported. Thus, they are forced into illegally smuggling goods such as drugs and foodstuff across the border with Pakistan for income. Many are killed for merely smuggling much needed food, like rice, into the province. The drug trade has helped Balochistan become the most lawless area in Iran. Considering all this, it’s no surprise that many, if not most, Baloch feel a strong sense of alienation. Balochistan is an important province with a significant amount of potential, but it is being ignored by the central Iranian state which has thus far disregarded the development and infrastructure needs of that area. Racism is a tool of the elite, but sadly, many average working class Iranians have bought into this racism and, themselves, have played a role in the alienation of the Baluch in Iran. All people living in Iran, irrespective of nationality, must struggle against chauvinism and racism.
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