Yesterday I came across an article at Harry's Place relating an incident in which a pro-Iranian London lecturer, Elaheh Rostami, addressed a Stop the War meeting along with Haifa Zangana (an Iraqi author whose articles are occasionally printed in the Guardian, and who addressed a rally in Hyde Park a few months ago), "a couple of Trade Unionists" and "a mother from Military Families Against War". You can read the full story here on a blog run by an Iranian exile called Azarmehr entitled "For a democratic secular Iran. For peace and prosperity in the Middle East.". That site drew attention to another meeting at which Rostami was supposed to speak: tonight, at a Respect meeting at Imperial College. So I went along.
When I got there, I somehow thought it was in meeting room 6, which is in the locked West Wing of the Beit Quadrangle. In fact, it was in room 3, something I found out only when I got to the security lodge to find the security guard discussing the invasion of the meeting with someone from the Union. It turned out that the meeting was only meant to be for students at the college, and that outsiders were not welcome. A number of known wreckers were present, and the union guy wanted Security to throw them out.
The union guy and the security guard took the lift, so I headed up the stairs to the third floor, where all the meeting rooms at the Imperial College union are. When I got there, it appeared that Iranians were the majority of those present. Despite it being a Respect meeting, it seemed that none of the group's MAB wing were there. There were hardly any beards and no hijabs, for one thing. The two men I met at the security lodge explained to everyone that the meeting was only for students, and that if non-students did not leave, the speaker would not appear - it was that simple. It was also suggested that other security people could come along and "help" the unwelcome guests out.
I sat about two rows from the back, next to a young white woman who was next to a guy who looked middle-eastern and middle age, who was Imperial College staff. He said he didn't know who the people were. The Iranians insisted that the only reason the speaker did not want to address them as well as the students was that she had something to hide. They also protested that they had been invited by student friends, and that some of them had come a long way.
The upshot was that the organisers said they would go and see Rostami and try and find some compromise. While all this was going on, the visitors argued very loudly, mostly in their own language (Persian, probably) but with bits of English thrown in. Bits of paper were passed around detailing various atrocities by the Iranian régime, in particular, against the Ahwazi Arabs; there was a picture of two men hanging, named as Ali Afrawi and Mahdi Nawaseri. The flyer alleges that the régime "treats Ahwazi women as less than dogs". But I can recognise Arabic, though not understand it, and the language they were speaking wasn't Arabic. They alleged that Rostami wanted to tell lies and to brainwash the students.
I turned round and asked a few of the students behind me if they knew who the visitors were. I asked if they were the Worker-Communist Party of Iran and if the woman two rows in front of me was indeed Maryam Namazie. I explained that I wanted to know for my own purposes and wasn't working for anyone's secret service, and got the reply that if I was, I'd know who they were. I also explained that certain Iranian communists had a habit of passing themselves off as secular liberals and are fêted even by American neo-cons. One of them claimed that the US government would only support fundamentalist mullahs, not communists, but then, I wasn't talking about the government, but about a certain neo-con website. He wasn't in any mood to hear any defence of "the mullahs", not that I had one to offer.
I tried to suggest a compromise of my own: that the group might get hold of a PA system of some sort, so that Rostami could speak into a mike in that room and the guests she did not want to meet could hear it in another room. Trouble was, I had to speak across one of the noisy Iranians, who proceeded to show me some of his pictures of people hanging and to tell me that they weren't barbaric, like the mullahs. (Not until they get to power, at least.) When I tried talking personally to one of the organisers, she explained that it was late and that the room where they might get such equipment was locked.
Anyway, by about 7:30pm, the organisers (I didn't get any names the whole evening) came back in and told everyone that Rostami had gone home, so there was going to be no meeting and they might as well all go home now. So that was that. I had seen pretty much all I had come to see, anyway. Some people I spoke to as I made my way down the stairs said that the Iranian guests talked much of democracy, but their behaviour was not really consistent with that. I replied that democracy, in any case, is for members of a group, not outsiders; in the same way as non-citizens of a country cannot vote in its elections, people outside a union can't dictate to it who it invites, or doesn't invite, to its meetings. Myself, I've a world of disagreements with the Iranian régime, from a Muslim perspective, but would this rabble be any better if they were in power? Absolutely not!
I wish I was an Iranian dissident. That way I wouldnt have to work for a living.
"Myself, I've a world of disagreements with the Iranian régime, from a Muslim perspective, but would this rabble be any better if they were in power? Absolutely not!"
They haven't actually judicially murdered anyone yet, which is a point in their favour. So it isn't the actions of the Iranian government you disapprove of but the religious persective that inspired them?
"democracy... is for members of a group, not outsiders; in the same way as non-citizens of a country cannot vote in its elections"
What of those muslims- like Yvonne Ridley- who announce that islam is their nationality? Should they be forbidden- or forbid themselves- from taking part in democratic politics in a nonmuslim country?
Regarding the argument among those present, which you referred to, it was an argument between Ahwazi Arab rights activists and anti-Arab monarchists.
An Ahwazi delegation had hoped to raise the Ahwaz issue with the panel, but it appeared the monarchists were intent on stopping them.
One delegate wrote to me saying: "We have prepared a small statement which pointed the recent execution and arrest of women, children (Sakina, Masoume) with website references. We have been told by the organizers (students??) that this meeting is open for Imperial College students only and when we asked them how you can prove this, they said we can not do that. She does not want you to be here. Some monarchies when they saw the fly shouted why you campaigning for Ahwaz you should say just Iran. Can you believe it they still sleeping or dreaming and they refuse our exist. We campaign very wisely and peacefully. We speak with them but they loudly saying that you are not Arab you are became Arab. But anyway we won the campaign (i think), We were there (only Ahwazis) when the students were curios about our matter and we did great. We told them we are not supporting war on Iran anymore, we fight for our right as human being."
So, you see, parts of the Iranian opposition are intent on silencing others.
*They haven't actually judicially murdered anyone yet, which is a point in their favour.*
Well, that's only because they've yet to come to power. That's the thing with communists - they talk about liberty and so on, but they mean by it something entirely different, rather like in Alice in Wonderland, where the guy (I forget which character) pays the words to mean what he wants them to. They talk about workers, but when in power, they deny people free trade unions. They talk about women's rights, but they exclude religious rights, and even then, women generally end up with a double burden of housework and outside work. They talk about liberty, and set up police states. They talk about democracy, and set up the election in such a way that if you actually fill in your ballot paper, you stand to lose your job. And so on.
*So it isn't the actions of the Iranian government you disapprove of but the religious persective that inspired them?*
No - I mean both. They are religious deviants and also murderers who run a régime with a police state and some of the trappings of fascism. The fact is, however, that Marxist régimes have never behaved much better.
Regarding Yvonne Ridley, well, someone saying their nationality is their religion is currently not enough to nullify someone's birthright if they are British citizens from birth: in fact, nothing is, at the moment. If that is to change in the Blair era, as so much else seems to be changing, so be it.
I agree the past record of communists- like the past record of muslim governments- makes their possible future behaviour if they should ever gain power very likely not to be what they say it would be, but both will explain, equally convincingly, that their supposed predecessors weren't actually communists [or muslims] at all. The fact remains, the Iranian CP is not tuilty of mass murder or oppression yet.
"They are religious deviants and also murderers"
That's an example of what I meant. Most of us regard religious deviation as a harmless quirk, unless it leads to murder, whereas we don't approve of murder at all.
"As for...someone saying their nationality is their religion is currently not enough to nullify someone's birthright if they are British citizens from birth"
I agree about entitlement to those rights. Nor do I think it should be possible to deprive people of tose rights. All the same, there is a certain hypocrisy in people both claiming the rights of a British citizen and disclaiming their obligations.
*"They are religious deviants and also murderers" That's an example of what I meant.*
No, it's an example of you reading what you want into what I wrote.
In any case, the foundations of the Iranian "Islamic Republic" are based on ideas Khomeini concocted and derive from Shi'ism, and not mainstream Islam. So many of the trappings of fascism which appear in the Iranian régime, such as referring to Khomeini as "the Imam" and the general personality cult surrounding him, are Shi'a based. The propaganda they produce, for example, would not get past the injunction against picture-making in Sunni Islam; I've seen pictures of Khomeini with a superimposed crowd with their hands reaching up to him.
" it's an example of you reading what you want into what I wrote."
Your choice of words made it easy to do so:
"I've a world of disagreements with the Iranian régime, from a Muslim perspective, but would this rabble be any better if they were in power?"
" They are religious deviants and also murderers."
The question is whether the murderousness of the Iranian regime is a consequence of its specifically shia roots or its general muslim roots.