Socialist Alliance supports the current inspiring uprising across Iran, led by young women.
The movement is an attempt by Iranians to reclaim their self-determination from an oppressive regime. From the Shah to the Islamic Republic, the regimes have never delivered for ordinary working people.
The United States and Britain have long played a role in destabilising Iran to advance their imperialist interests.
They helped drive the 1953 coup, in which Iran’s democratically elected government was overthrown when it moved to nationalise the country’s vast oil wealth.
Debated by the Iranian community organising the protests right now is the role of sanctions on the regime, and whether they should be harsher.
This is because the US economic sanctions over the past 30 years has helped strengthen the regime, and disproportionately badly impacted ordinary people.
Iranians’ active resistance has been inspiring. Iranian writer Suzan Azadi described the significance of the protests in Green Left.
“For the first time since the Islamic revolution. Iranians are united are targeting the central pillars of the Islamic republic, including the concentration of power and authority in the hands of the ruling clergy.”
In many ways this movement continues on from the unfinished revolution in 1979. Despite it ending with the Islamic Republic gaining power, the revolution did demonstrate the possibilities of a new society organised by ordinary people taking control of their workplaces.
Read the article by Jacob Andrewartha on Green Left.