[lbo-talk] Monthly Review on Iran (2001)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 10/29/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> [Would MR publish an article like this today?]
>
> Monthly Review - March 2001
> <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_10_52/ai_72704337/print>
>
> Clerical Oligarchy and the Question of "Democracy" in Iran
> Saeed Rahnema
<snip>
> For the workers' movement
> in particular, nothing is more crucial than an opportunity to form
> independent trade union organizations, and this cannot be achieved
> without weakening the power of the present autocratic clerical regime.
>
> Such developments will create real possibilities for the century-old
> movements for democracy, freedom of conscience, freedom of assembly,
> freedom of the press, respect for minority rights, women's rights,
> economic development, and social justice to succeed. Such objective
> circumstances favoring action by the secular left will almost
> inevitably arise, if the existing equilibrium, or "the balance of
> fear"--a popular term used to define the hesitation of various
> factions within the ruling bloc to strike the final blow--continues.
> This impasse within the Islamic reform movement will undoubtedly
> intensify the push for radical change and will give the secular
> opposition a chance to actively participate in the struggle for
> establishing--as a first step--a secular democratic state in place of
> the existing clerical oligarchy.
>
> Saeed Rahnema teaches political science at York University, Toronto,
> Canada. His recent books include Rebirth of Social Democracy in Iran?
> (Baran Publishers, 1996) and Iran After the Revolution: Crisis in an
> Islamic State, co-edited with Sohrab Behdad (I.B. Tauris, 1992.)
>
> Haideh Moghissi teaches sociology at Atkinson College, York
> University. She is the author of Populism and Feminism in Iran
> (MacMillan, 1994) and Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism (Zed Press
> and Oxford University Press, 1999.)

I'm afraid things didn't turn out the way Saeed Rahnema and Haideh
Moghissi hoped.  Among the candidates of the 2005 Presidential
Elections in Iran, there was one who came out for the right to
organize an independent labor union -- Mostafa Moin, "the candidate
representing 'progressive reformists'":

     Moin's backers also reached out to workers by

     acknowledging their rights to strike and to

     establish independent unions. Since the revolution,

     all unions have been organized under the auspices

     of the Labor Ministry. If it is not just a symbolic

     statement, this acknowledgement would signal a

     change in orientation by the reformist politicians

     toward the reality that Iranians will not simply trust

     them to be wiser and more just stewards of the

     Islamic Republic than the conservatives.  (Arang

     Keshavarzian and Mohammad Maljoo, "Paradox and

     Possibility in Iran's Presidential Election," 17 June

     2005, <http://www.merip.org/mero/mero061705.html>)

Moin received only 14% of the vote:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_presidential_election,_2005#Results>.

Iran's labor activists will have to first get their fellow Iranians
interested in trade union rights.  Unfortunately for them, the ardent
support of the labor wing of the empire will likely be a minus, not a
plus, for their cause in the eyes of a majority of Iranians.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>