Who ever said anti-imperialist solidarity means solidarity with progressives only?
By Saleh Waziruddin
(Discussion contribution to 2007 35th Communist Party of Canada Central Convention, this was held back from being printed in the discussion bulletin by the Central Executive until a response was prepared to print side-by-side. Also the footnotes were omitted.)
You can choose your friends but not family. You can't choose who your ruling class invades, yet you still owe them anti-imperialist solidarity. This is like how we can't choose who our boss attacks at work, it might be a Tory or someone bad at their job but we still have to defend their rights because if we let the boss win everyone else is next. This simple idea is Lenin's concept of anti-imperialist solidarity in “Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism,” solidarity is NOT just with workers and progressives but with all forces targeted by imperialism abroad. Otherwise we and they will be a reserve for the boss in going after one and then the other. This is not because imperialism's targets are automatically progressive, but because of how imperialism works in pitting us against each other.
The Main Political Resolution (see Bulletin #1) is dogmatic about anti-imperialist solidarity, especially point #21 where it not only opposes solidarity with Iran's government just because it is targeted by imperialism (not reason enough?!) but puts words in the mouths of people like me saying we must think the Iranian government is pro-worker or progressive since we are calling for support with it, as if anti-imperialist solidarity is only for progressives! The Resolution rightfully declares solidarity with Latin American countries opposing imperialism, who themselves publicly support Iran's government, but conspicuously leaves out forces in Iraq and Afghanistan in hot battles with imperialism and giving it a run for its money.
This confusion about imperialism is part of a growing divide in the communist and progressive movement. The Lebanese CP recognizes Hezbollah and the Palestine People's Party recognizes Hamas as part of the anti-imperialist resistance and give it armed support even though Hezbollah and Hamas are not progressive1, and the Syrian CP2 called the Iranian election a victory for anti-imperialist resistance3. Not just communists: the ALBA countries (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, Honduras under Zelaya, Nicaragua, and three Caribbean countries) who the Political Resolution is in solidarity with, and Brazil, have publicly supported Ahmadinejad and the Iranian government for being in imperialism's cross-hairs4.
On the other hand, some other communist parties have called these anti-imperialist forces a threat to the working class5. Recently People's Voice carried an interview by Junge Welt with CC First Secretary of the Tudeh Party6 where he correctly pointed out it is dogmatic to criticize the Iranian opposition for not being purely working class, but why shouldn't the same anti-dogmatism not apply to the Iranian government's anti-imperialism? In the interview the Tudeh leader denigrates Iran's refusal to give in to imperialism by comparing it with the Taliban's combat against imperialism, without giving a reason for why this isn't anti-imperialism. Isn't it objectively anti-imperialist (and natural!) when you are actually fighting armies occupying your country, or are under threat of invasion but hold on to sovereignty anyway? Yes, there are limitations to these forces, but who can deny that they are not surrendering to imperialism?
Iran's government and its President Ahmadinejad in particular are being viciously attacked in a propaganda campaign like the Iraq WMD claims. Even some communists have swallowed the lie that Ahmadinejad is a holocaust denier despite him protesting “I'm not saying it didn't happen”,7 or that he has threatened Israel, even though leftists unsympathatic to Ahmadinejad such as professor Juan Cole have refuted the latter as groundless8. In the recent interview Tudeh's leader was asked point-blank about these accusations but he didn't refute them. Tudeh Party's 2005 statement repeats the canard that Ahamdinejad called for “wiping Israel off the map.”9
At the Mexico-Canada-US Peace trilateral in October the Tudeh representative said that Iran wants to conquer the Islamic world. This is not something the Iranian government has said and simply doesn't have the means to do, although anyone concerned about someone conquering the Islamic word should look no further than the US which not only has the means but is occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, bombing Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan, declaring Syria and Iran to be next, and threatened Pakistan's government with being “bombed into the stone age!”10 Let's get realistic about who is a threat to the Islamic world let alone the whole world.
In Canada we're not only subject to anti-Iranian war propaganda that it's our duty to counter, but Canada has exceeded the UN's sanctions against Iran despite Iran's compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Canada has banned direct air links with Iran and forbidden Iranian Cultural Centres11, which has nothing to do with nuclear weapons but isolates our peoples from each other. As Leninists it's our duty to break open this blockade, instead of joining our ruling class in condemning Iran's government.
Anti-imperialist solidarity is being counter-posed to solidarity with workers. British labour unions backed out of a resolution for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, a turn-around they credited solely to Abdullah Muhsin of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions who is also of the Iraqi CP, whose open letter said withdrawal would be “bad for my country, bad for emerging progress forces, a terrible blow for trade unionism....”12. We should reject this kind of “solidarity”.
I propose that we replace point 21 of the Main Political Resolution (see Bulletin #1) with:
“We also express our solidarity with Iran which is the target of a campaign of slander and misinformation portraying it as a threat to other countries, as well as under UN sanctions despite complying with international treaties, and additional sanctions by the Government of Canada that make travel and contact between peoples of the two countries difficult.
We convey our revolutionary solidarity with the anti-imperialists in Iraq and Afghanistan resisting direct occupations by NATO countries including Canada, some of the most powerful and vicious military forces in human history. The successes of the resistance are a crisis for for the same ruling class we struggle against.”
1For LCP see “Amid the bombs, unity is forged”, Herbert Docena, Asia Times Online, Aug. 17, 2006 (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH17Ak02.html); for PPP see “Deluge de feu sur le people de Gaza”, Pierre Barbancay, L'Humanite, Jan. 7 2009 (http://www.humanite.fr/2009-01-07_International_Deluge-de-feu-sur-le-peuple-de-Gaza)
2Lead by Wis'al Farha Bagdash
3 “Victory for Ahmadi-Nejad, a victory for the resistance option”, Peoples Voice issue 214, Jun. 18 to 24, 2009 (http://www.syriancp.org/ara/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1245259778&archive=&cnshow=news&start_from= )
4See for example Extraordinary ALBA-TCP statement of Jun. 24 2009 reaffirming “its support for the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and rejected foreign interference and the smear campaign waged against that sister nation”, available on the Venezuela CP web site http://www.pcv-venezuela.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5119&Itemid=98
5See for example South African CP's 10th Congress Resolution calling for struggle against “backward, xenophobic, and fundamentalist ideologies” (http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?include=10thcongress/res.html)
6“Trust in Iranian Government Shattered”, interview with Ali Khavari, People's Voice Sept. 16-30, 2009
7“Iran's President: I don't deny holocaust”, New York Daily News, Sept. 24, 2007
8See blog posting at http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/ahmadinejad-i-am-not-anti-semitic.html (June 26, 2007)
9“Iranian Regime's Adventurism Gives Imperialists an Excuse to Intervene in Iran”, International Bulletin of the Tudeh Party of Iran, #230 Nov. 2005 (http://www.tudehpartyiran.org/TN_230_Nov05.pdf)
10“We'll bomb you to Stone Age, US told Pakistan”, The Times (UK), Sept. 22, 2006 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article647188.ece)
11 “Canada-Iran Relations”, Government of Canada, Aug. 2008 (http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/iran/bilateral_relations_bilaterales/canada-iran.aspx?lang=eng&menu_id=8&menu=L)
12See Steve Warwick's, chair of UNISON Labour Link committee, report to the Labour Party conference of 2004 which includes the letter from Muhsin, available online at http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/B1608.pdf, the open letter is also available separately at http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/B1571.pdf
