[lbo-talk] Can Leftists in the Iranian Diaspora Come to Terms with Iran?

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 10/5/07, KJ <kjinkhoo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 05/10/2007, Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
> > <http://montages.blogspot.com/2007/10/can-leftists-in-iranian-diaspora-come.html>
> > Can Leftists in the Iranian Diaspora Come to Terms with Iran?
>
> Sorry, but this is almost breath-taking in its arrogance. Besides --
>
> > That is the most important message
> > they can communicate to the only people -- working people in the USA,
> > Europe, and Japan -- who can pressure the empire to let the Iranian
> > people live.
>
> That Iranians in the diaspora can convince working -- or whatever
> people -- in the USA, Europe and Japan of anything that "native"
> USAians, Europeans and Japanese can't seems to be quite a make-believe
> world. [In a different arena, all of the former co-prosperity sphere
> can't even convince Japan to apologise for the horrors of the
> occupation -- and that's without any significant cost to current
> interests, rather the opposite, as most of the former co-prosperity
> sphere, ex-China, would like Japan to take a greater Asian leadership
> role and be less of a US lackey.]
>
> Don't have to go far to see how much of a make-believe this is. There
> are, today, plenty of American Jews critical of Israel and of American
> policy towards Israel/Palestine. Yet, if anything, matters seem more
> dismal today, at least from a distant perch. How much worse can it get
> when someone like Desmond Tutu can be prevented from speaking in a
> Catholic college in Minneapolis?

It's a long shot, to be sure.  But if left-wing Jews, left-wing
Japanese, etc. thought that their respective causes were hopeless
anyway and therefore a waste of time, they wouldn't be doing the kind
of political activism they do, seeking to change US policy toward
Israel/Palestine, writing history books and holding public forums to
reveal the facts of Japanese imperialism, etc.

As far as Iranian leftists are concerned, they don't even need to
discuss the overall history and present state of the Islamic Republic
if they feel ambivalent about them.  They can begin by speaking up
about their families and friends who still live in Iran, reminding
Americans that human beings with complicated lives and hopes for a
better future live there (unlike the infamous cartoon in the Columbus
Dispatch would have us believe).
-- 
Yoshie