Statement of the Communist Party of Iran (MLM) on March 8, International Women’s Day

A World Swollen with misogyny, poverty, wars and human displacement... ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

March 9, 2020 | revcom.us

 

If you want to talk about a group in society whose fundamental need to be able to breathe, and to live as human beings, cannot be met other than through the communist revolution, there’s no group for whom that’s more true than the masses of women. (Bob Avakian, The New Communism, p. 227)

Four decades have passed since the resistance of women in Iran erupted against the forced Hijab and anti-women laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since then, this resistance has been the biggest challenge to the fundamentalists of integrating state and religion in the structures of the fascist theocratic regime of Iran. But women’s struggles have gone beyond this resistance as they have played significant role in all of the anti-regime popular uprisings, including what is known as “The November Uprising of 2019.”

Therefore, this regime considers suppression of women as a requirement for its existence, resorting to heavy prison sentences and torture chambers for women who have persevered in their resistance to forced Hijab and to squashing their basic rights and equality and freedom. Add to this, vast propaganda and agitation machine of the Islamic Republic regime in enforcing traditional roles of women (based on Sharia laws), polygamy for men, Islamic concubine and normalizing degradation of women in society. A glaring example of this is continuous hate mongering of the “Leader” (Khamenei) against women and his adulation for “motherhood,” “hijab and chastity.”

The oppression of women is neither a matter of identity nor is fighting against it is the responsibility of women alone. Therefore, we call on the rebellious youth who are fighting against poverty and deprivation, the militants of labor movement, the activists in the teachers movement, environmentalists, students and the whole society to condemn all forms of women’s oppression in Iran and around the globe and join women in the battle to uproot male supremacy all over the world. And we call on women fighters to widen their battle lines against oppression of women to a war against the totality of capitalism and for emancipation of humanity.

In order to understand the complex reality of thousands years old oppression of women, in order to grasp its relation with all other unnecessary sufferings that humanity endures, and in order to be able to penetrate deep down to see the source of its endurance in the dynamics of the capitalist system and thereby discover the solution for transforming all oppressive relations and chart the path for achieving this transformation, we need science and that science is communism.

The science of communism shows that the oppression of women is one of the social contradictions which has deep roots in class society and has been woven into its fabric since the emergence of private property and formation of classes in the epoch of slavery all the way up to era of capitalism-imperialism. This science shows that the oppression of women plays an important role in the underlying base of capitalist mode of production and exploitation, in reproduction of class divisions as well as having a decisive role in the political and ideological superstructure of this system, helping its coherence and endurance. This science shows how the world is divided into oppressor and oppressed and it is not possible to break out of this contradiction under this system and to do so we need a revolution—the kind of revolution which according to Marx succeeds in abolition of “Four Alls”: abolition of all class distinctions, abolition of all production relations which produce the class distinctions, abolition of all oppressive social relations corresponding to these production relations, and finally abolition of all old ideas and values and cultures arising corresponding to these divisions and oppressive and exploitative relations and help to guard and strengthen them. To put it succinctly: it requires a communist revolution.

Look at the world and the miserable conditions of billions of people! Look how in the U.S. a fascist regime has come to power and is consolidating its base, its chief (Trump) calling the Congress in his annual address to pass a legislation banning “late-term” abortion. Look how the Middle East has been burning in the fight between two reactionary outmoded poles of Imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism. Look at Afghanistan how several decades of imperialist invasion has torn it apart—18 years ago the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan under the guise of “liberating Afghan women from Taliban” and now under the guise of bringing “peace and tranquility” to that country it is coming to “terms” with the Taliban! Look at what the world imperialist capitalist system has dished out to humanity: It has not only torn apart the absolute majority of our people around the globe with poverty, hunger, unemployment, war and displacement, migration, fascism, racism, and religious fundamentalism; it is now threatening the very survival of human species and life in general on the Earth by environmental destruction.

To stop the oppression of women—whether nakedly enforced by the Islamic reactionaries and the Christian fascists, or more covertly imposed by the various types of liberal and neo-liberal policies in western bourgeois democracies, we need to get with the science of communism and the most advanced synthesis of this science brought forth by Bob Avakian. For women’s emancipation and emancipation of whole humanity, the only solution is to overthrow the system in its totality through a communist revolution and nothing less and this must be based on the science of the New Communism and not this or that “narrative” or other kinds of illusions. This is a difficult goal to take on and victory is not predetermined. But it has material basis in the real world, which makes it possible as well as necessary.

On the eve of March 8, we declare that we, the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) are determined to put an end to thousands years old patriarchy; we are determined to establish the alternative of the New Socialist Republic of Iran through a communist revolution by relying on the masses of people and the powerful potential of women in order to build a radically different world free from oppression and exploitation and in this we will fight against all false roads which depict themselves as viable alternatives.

We are determined to link the struggle to eradicate the oppression of women and to stop misogynist Sharia laws and forced Hijab in Iran to struggle to stop poverty and unemployment, fascist and police repression, theocratic regime, environmental destruction, national oppression and wars waged by the Islamic Republic in the region, and will lead and navigate this whole struggle and its dynamism towards the Communist revolution.

Women, as intensely as they are subjected to all forms of oppression and discrimination and violence, are just as intensely capable and must be at the forefront of this revolution, and be a vanguard of the struggle for emancipation of humanity. Therefore, we call on all advanced and revolutionary women and men to join our party in the fight against the horrors overwhelming the world and on the path towards building a radically new world.

The Draft Constitution of the New Socialist Republic of Iran on Fundamental Rights of the People states that the New Socialist Republic in Iran will guarantee:

Full Equal rights for all citizens, regardless of their beliefs, religion, nationality, gender, sexuality and sexual orientation. Full equality in all political and cultural spheres, of rights for education, employment, health care and housing. Unconditional and full equality of men and women in all aspects of political, economic and social and family life. Prostitution and pornography will be prohibited. Abortion will be free and there will be equality and freedom in matters of marriage, divorce and love and LGBT. All kinds of bride price and dowry, etc. will be prohibited and women will have social guarantees to maintain their lives. (page 54 of the Constitution, which is in Farsi)

To achieve these rights as the most basic human rights and to go beyond that and build a world in which no inequality is produced in it, in order to establish laws for enforcing equality... we need an increasing number of men and women—starting now and all the way—to join our party and become the vanguard of fight for human emancipation. The fight against women’s oppression is a decisive front of this great battle and

...in a fundamental sense, as a crucial part of the revolution whose ultimate goal is a communist world without any form of oppression or exploitation. (Bob Avakian, The New Communism, p.225)

Communist Party of Iran (MLM)

March 2020

www.cpimlm.org

Iranian women protest Islamic dress code, 2018. Photo: Farhad Rajabali

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