Islam And Class War

Political Islam’s relation to Capital and Class

Ardeshir Mehrdad and Yassamine Mather


Statement by the activists of Workers Left Unity Iran
to International anti imperialist, anti war forces

In the last three months of 2005 alone, the Iranian press has reported over 2000 workers protests. In most cases the workers were protesting at lack of job security, temporary contracts, factory closures, non payment of wages...To all this one should add the fact that Iranian workers are deprived of the right to strike, the right to set up their independent workers organisations, the right to gather in meetings.

According to the Iranian press the World Bank is predicting that over the next 5 years the rate of unemployment in Iran will increase even further. And given the fact that the current average age in Iran is 12 years old, the rate of unemployment will reach 23 percent by the year 2010. Of course the real unemployment figure is much higher and with the coming to power of a new president, many even in low ranking government posts, university jobs. have been sacked to be replaced by elements loyal to the new administration. All this has created a level of instability.

Selling War Against Iran

Submitted by editor4 on February 22, 2006 - 3:41pm.

By Ghali Hassan, Center for Research on Globalization
Source: Center for Research on Globalization

While U.S. forces and their allies are continuing the destruction of Iraq and sadistic torture of Iraqi civilians, the phantom of Iran “threat” is being amplified across the world. Speculations about possible U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran have reached a stage of war propaganda by Western media and Western pundits. The aims are: to demonise Iran and keep the public in state of war, and create a smokescreen to divert the public from greater war crimes in Iraq and Palestine.

The ongoing fabricated Iran “crisis” is nothing more and nothing less than a “collection of misinformation, disinformation, misunderstanding, miscalculation, egregious prognostications, boo-boos, and the occasional just plain lies”, wrote Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky. This has allowed the U.S. and Israel to “mobilize the UN and NATO allies to focus on, browbeat, and threaten Iran to abandon its [peaceful] nuclear activities or face some kind of retaliation”, wrote Edward Herman and David Peterson.

Three years into a pointless, deceitful war

AFTER the initial massive demonstrations against the Iraq invasion, the anti-war movement in Europe appeared to have lost its momentum. It seemed that, disillusioned at their failure to have any impact on leaders like Britain’s Tony Blair, all those ordinary people who had felt that the war had been foisted upon them with trumped-up justification, retired hurt. This turns out not to be so.

A huge demonstration is being planned for Saturday 18 March in protest against the US / UK continued occupation of Iraq. Protests are already planned in over 40 towns and cities across the world and they will be joined by mass demonstrations in Baghdad and in Basra, all calling for "Troops Out of Iraq". The Iraqis marching in Baghdad and Basra will be uniting with protesters in Amsterdam, Ankara, Athens, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Boston, Copenhagen, Denver, Dublin, Geneva, Helsinki, Istanbul, Jakarta, Karachi, Lisbon, Ljubljana, London, Madrid, Managua, Manila, Melbourne, Memphis, Minneapolis, Montreal, New York, Odense, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Seoul, Stockholm, Sydney, Tarragona, Toronto, Vancouver, Vienna, Warsaw, and many other towns and cities. (see http://www.stopwar.org.uk). Across Britain, meetings, street stalls, film shows and other events are being organised to help build support for the London demonstration.

March 18 is the third anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, which has been opposed consistently by the majority of British people, millions of whom over the past four years have been involved in what is the biggest protest movement in British history. Close to 15,000 leaflets publicising the March 18 international day of protest against the Iraq occupation and threat of war against Iran, have been distributed at the large anti-Islamophobia demonstrations held in London over the past two weekends, with many of the demonstrators saying they would be in London for the third anniversary of the attack on Iraq.

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