Marxists for Freedom?

In response to Azar Majedi

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Marxists for Freedom?
by Azada
17-Oct-2010
 

This is a response to an article by Azar Majidi about Shirin Ebadi and Akbar Ganji walking out on the Mohammad cartoonist's free speech award ceremony.

"اتحاد کمونیسم کارگری این شعبده بازی رد و بدل جایزه به جنبش ملی – اسلامی و مدافعین علنی و خجول رژیم اسلامی را افشاء خواهد کرد و قاطعانه از آزادی بی قید و شرط بیان، ابراز وجود، تشکل، تحزب، نقد، اعتراض و اعتصاب دفاع خواهد کرد."

Are these words a joke or I am dreaming … since when are communists turning into supporters of unconditional freedom of speech and democracy? Is not this notion a betrayal to and or dismay to the principals of CPs – of lost cause of 19th century mentality of dictatorship of one form or another, of the “proletariat”? What have communists brought to humanity in practice? Considering the many atrocities by communists, from Stalin to Khmer Rouge, and half a century of Castro and North Korea,… what record can they brag ever?  In our country, little dictators like Bijan Jazani, the Tudeh Party, Islamic Marxists... all are nourished from communist ideas.

I thought the battle was lost once and for all after the fall of the Berlin Wall not knowing there are still folks out there who look with nostalgia toward this very bankrupt ideology.

While rare, human nature has that capacity too to overlook historical pain with a very creative absentmindedness – and that is one rare case whereby animals are superior for being innocent for lack of intellect.

Being a communist in 1979 Iran, as immature as it was back then, was at least under pressure and persuasive influence of the Soviet socialist block. But being communist in 2010 in the comfort of English democracy, if not naïve, is certainly a poor justification for intellectual inferiority and nihilism. This is one more disgrace to the Islamic Republic, due to lack of freedom at home in Iran, for being the cause of this poverty of thought among the last remnants of the politics of the last century in our country.

Living in democracies, communists can always be used as an instrument to balance the emergence of fascism. That is the only tactical use I can imagine of each, i.e., in business to checkmate the other at street showcases guarded by none but a cheerful democracy. To extend its hegemony and superiority, only democracies can contain its rivals via politics of balancing them under banner of freedom and rights - at zero cost to it.

If anyone should be credited for honoring freedom of speech here, it should be Iranina.com and not an absentminded communist who sounds increasingly like a hypocrite in defending freedom. A democratic Iran will reserve the right for all to express themselves, even communists. The pinnacle of achievement by communists in human history is only comparable to that of fascists. They have never been a viable threat to democracy due to their very oppressive record.

Mr. Ganiji and Ms. Ebadi both have much in their credit in real the struggle inside Iran against Islamist radicals. The hunger strike pictures of Ganji in Velayt-e-Jahl cells in this very website will not be forgotten by us. We can not discount the man for his religious beliefs just because the very religion is hijacked by oppressive opportunists.

There are over a billion Muslims in the world and leveling the fight against the faith is totally a distraction. The war is between those who stand for human rights and freedom of expression and rule of law and those who do not. And I am very skeptical of any hardcore ideologues, be it Islamists or communists, can play a useful role while dragging a repressive past.

Incidentally, the radicalism of Azar Majidi represented in her article is not far from those of Hezboallah and Hamas – only in different terms but surly with same wholeness in soul and language. In fact, this author believes that post-revolution Iran was a victim of very distasteful and unfortunate competition between Marxists who criticized Islamists for not being anti-west enough. They were foolish enough not to know that the death of liberalism was set the stage for uncompromising elimination of leftists first and foremost.

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Niloufar Parsi

S555

by Niloufar Parsi on

hate pours out of every word you usually write. so what's new?!

and the answer to your 'question' (?!) is simple: it's nothing personal. you don't leave your brain behind when you migrate. 

stop being so emotional and open your eyes to all sides. you sound so young and naive. 


Simorgh5555

After reading the comments

by Simorgh5555 on

After reading the comments from Sargord the American Socialist to Niloufar the 'democratic' Marxist, I am dumbfounded by the brazen stupidity of the Iranian Left.

For a start why do most of them chose to live in Western Europe, especially the United Kingdom, the bastion of world imperialism. They do nothing but find fault with the free market economy but when they were forced to go into exile the preferred country of choice is the one whose system they have spent most of their lives denouncing. 

The reason for their decision? Economic posperity created by capitalism underpinned by a welfare state they can fall back on. Even these Iranians have a price when it comes to their beliefs and when they are asked to chose between their own self preservation and their ideologies they are more than ready to sacrifice the former.

In Nahid Parvestani's revealing documentary Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi asks the same question of the communist director to whch she had no answer to give.

However, it isn't just their business where they live. It is the business of every new Iranian of the West to ask these Left wing hypcrites live why they recked their nation because of their Lefty beliefs and then bask inthe sun of Western liberalism and capitalism which they denounced.

I can honestly say that I have come to hate the Iranian Left. Hate is a powerful word but their hypocricy and their refusal to acknowledge their share of  responsibility in the fateful year of 1979 makes me resent them.   


Darius Kadivar

R.G Jaan Not my Fault if Solzhenitsyn Happend to be Tzarist ;0)

by Darius Kadivar on

I certainly cannot speak on behalf of Marx, Lenin or Stalin were they alive today or speak on behalf of their Supporters and there were and are many for good or wrong reasons that concern them and for which they are accountable to no one but their own conscience not mine. Nor can I speak for genuine believers in communism to which they are entitled to believe in anyways like anyone should be allowed to believe in whichever ideology they see fit.

However merely for the anecdote ... (and should I say Ironic pleasure of sharing it with you and others in this thread ... ;0) ... )

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn called for a restoration of the Russian monarchy. After returning to Russia in 1994, (Source Here)

Read Excerpt Here

After the implosion of the Soviet Union, after his illegal exile, Solzhenitsyn returned to

Russia and lost his audience. His recommendation of a constitutional monarchy was ignored, and he died not exactly forgotten but with a much diminished presence. Though the West was not the centre of his interest, and he of course saw the West as a Russian, he was as true a critic of

Western decadence as of the Gulag system: which is not what the newly freed ex-Soviets wanted to hear.

So Was playwrite Eugene Ionesco ( See Speach here) author of the famous play Exit the King ( whose title Ironically would make one think that he was hostile to the monarchy) who famously said:

"On finira bien par restaurer la Monarchie, un jour, contre la dictature et l'anarchie " (*) - Eugène Ionesco 

(*)English Translation:  "We will probably restore the Monarchy in my country to put an end to dictatorship and anarchy" - Eugène Ionesco 

Recommended Blog:

KING OF ABSURD: Eugène Ionesco 100th Anniversary (1909-2009)

 

 


Needless to say that In Both Cases that was not to be the case neither in Russia nor Rumania although I think in both cases these countries would greatly benefit from Restoring their Monarchies in a Constitutional Form ...

But that proves if needed that Republicans aka Jomhurykhah's don't have the Monopoly of the Heart Or what they like to call Utopia ..

Democracy is after all nothing but the outcome of Mankinds Utopian Needs and Ideals ...

As Such ... As a Constitutional Monarchist that is ... I cannot blame the Communists no more than I can blame the Jomhurykhah's for believing in their Ideals for We ALL ( including our clueless household Islamist here) share in common something known as Utopia after all ...

They often end up in Reality ...

May the Best Win !

That is precisely why I remain an Optimist on the long Run ! ...

LOL


Roozbeh_Gilani

Interesting reading here

by Roozbeh_Gilani on

Not the blog itself which was obviously written at a particularly confused state of mind. But the comments, ranging from Sahar's excelent brief on Marxims, To Comrade's Rhetoric question on "Islamic_Marxim", down to the usual irrelevant comments of the islamists, one going on about the ukranian girl friend, the other cursing the "proletariat" while praising "Democratic Marxims"!!!. In between, of course the monarchists.

I Do wonder though:

1)What Marx or Lenin or maybe Even Stalin  would think of this blog?

2) What  The average unemployed or underpaid or jailed  Iranain working man/woman would think of Marxism_Leninism and the prospect of peace, Justice,  Job security,  health care,  Education, roof over his/her head and food in return for his/her Labour?  

The"Personal business must yield to collective interest."


Niloufar Parsi

the labour movement

by Niloufar Parsi on

the labour movement and the social democratic parties across democratic western europe are and have been full of marxists. pls do a little reading on the social struggles democratic marxists have been involved in for the longest time.

some of the most valuable achievements in the west - universal health, education, weekends, paid leave from work, freedom of speech etc. - have been won by democratic marxists.

you owe your comfortable life in democratic countries to them. see Eric Hobsbawm's short history of the 20th century.

talk of the dictatorship of the proletariat was plain wrong and it never happened, and has no chance of happening.

democratic marxists do not support such approaches.

Peace


Farah Rusta

Marxists for freedom?!!

by Farah Rusta on

Is this an upgrade of Jews for Jesus?

 

FR


comrade

Howzeh 101

by comrade on

 

 

One day I will ask our learned friends to describe Islamic-Marxism.

Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.

 


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by Sahar Naaz on

  Dear Azada,  

 

I want to bring the following to your attention.

1. I guess you have not read enough of Marx to learn that Marxist theory is in essence a philosophy of liberation; it is about bringing forth the conditions for the rise of “free individuals”. The dreadful example of the Soviet style communism has blinded many, including you, to the truth at the heart of Marxism. As Herbert Marcuse puts it in his Reason and Revolution, 

 

"It is...the free individuals, and not a new system of production, that exemplify the fact that the particular and the common interest have been emerged. The individual is the goal. This ‘individualistic’ trend is fundamental as an interest of the Marxian theory."  

 

2. If you want to hold Marx or Marxism responsible for the monster of Stalinism that rose in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, then by the force of your logic, you must also hold Jesus Christ and Christianity responsible for the crimes inflicted on humanity by Christians for two thousand years (including Crusaders, Popes, and Hitler) be it in the name of Christianity or not.  

 

3. The idea of socialism predates Marxism. Socialism represents the longing of modern humanity for equality and justice. The Soviet Marxism represented a degenerate and “statist” (state-centered/state-run) type of socialism which disempowered the people, and used them as cogs in the machinery of a commandist economy. This was not what Marx and Engels (and Lenin) had imagined, designed, or advocated. Their vision of socialism was citizen-centered, and was supposed to be run and administered by direct participation of citizens. They would have been appalled at what rose in their name in former Soviet Union. [The idea of socialism took a statist and despotic form in Russia mainly because of the following factors: the decimation of Russia’s economy and resources during WWI and the Civil War, the historical backwardness of Russia, and most importantly, the despotic political culture of Russia which lacked all elements of democratic thinking and behaving.] 

 

4. Capitalism is not the end of history. It is a destructive and self-destructing mode of social formation, and is faltering right in front of your eyes. You seem to have been bought into the ideology of “freedom and democracy” that Western capitalism (especially its American brand) propagates aggressively through millions of political channels and media sources on a grand scale on a daily basis. This is but the ideology and propaganda of capitalism. (We have been conditioned to think that capitalism does not have “ideology” or “propaganda”, as these terms have been exclusively reserved for the “bad guys”, you know, communists, fascists, and now the “Islamists”.)  One cannot deny that in North America and Western Europe there exist formal (i.e., insubstantive) rights and freedoms; and a form of democracy that is derived from classical liberalism (i.e., liberal democracy) is in control. However, most of the world populations who live in capitalist countries are outside of these two regions, and for the overwhelming majority of them freedom, individual rights, and liberal democracy have no use value. Any day of the week, they would gladly exchange these empty concepts for equality, social safety nets, universal heathcare and education, and quality of life that even a pseudo-socialist system such as Sweden’s offers. (Think of the misery of the majority of the populations in countries in Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Middle-East, and South Asia. In case you have forgotten, these countries also have capitalist systems.)    

 

5. Again, capitalism is not the end of history, and if we want to save the human race and the planet, we need to adopt a different social system that measures life not by its quantity but by its quality; spreads equality; shows respect for human dignity; plans for the future; and values life and environment—and is not driven by a blind, unbridled, and short-sighted desire for greed and profit. This different social system has a name; it is called “socialism”.  

 

6. In case you have not noticed, since the 1980s, capitalism has been gradually degenerating into barbarism (more inequalities, more propensity to resort to violence, rise of hyper-individualism, rise of cruelty and indifference to the plight of the less-fortunate, waning of interest in the common good,…). As Rosa Luxemburg (a German Marxist) argued about 95 years ago, beyond capitalism, humanity has two choices: socialism or barbarism. I hope we choose the former.  


AMIR1973

I just gave a urine sample to a lovely North Korean lab tech

by AMIR1973 on

And she told me that Seoul cannot hold a candle to the beauty and wondrous romance of Pyongyang. I also went on three delightful dates with a cutie from the Stasi during the tenure of that wonderful fellow Erich Honecker (democratically elected leader of East Germany from 1971-1989 -- such a wonderful man that one, that he was elected over and over again and served for 18 years before being ousted by the anti-revolutionary fall of the Antifascist Wall of Defense, the so-called "Berlin Wall"). She told me that life in East Germany was indeed far freer and more prosperous than West Germany. 


11mashty

Always Interesting

by 11mashty on

It is always interesting to read and observe the ideological arguments which are made here.  It is not for me to defend or or reject any, just an observer.  The article has some good points, but misses a critical one and that is if we were to use the same analogy employed here; we'd have to do away with Islam now, Christianity because of the Inquisition, Jewish because of ME issues and so forth, all because of the leaders who have hijacked the ideology.  In other words, discuss the merits of any idea without emphasizing how one group or another happen to have implemented it and failed miserably as a result....but again these are just my thoughts.


Darius Kadivar

Indeed For SP the Gulag must have been an attractive alternative

by Darius Kadivar on

To What Exists Now eversince the Velvet Revolutions blew over the Iron Curtain. I suppose For the likes of SPink and his east European commie girlfriends of the time it must have been painful to see an end to such sufferings ...

I wonder what your commie girlfriend would have thought about the 


Jacuzzis in Kharizak' ?:

The Shah was right about you Folks :Marxism and Islamism make excellent bedfellows ...

Even When the honeymoon is Over you can always copy from eachother in terms of how to deal with your opposition ... 

What Now My Love ? ... 

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG6WQwdobLk&feature...

Khob Hadeh Aghal Keifetoh Kardi SPink Jaan ?

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQZ4nIJUTqI

 

 

 

 

 


Sargord Pirouz

I just had blood drawn at

by Sargord Pirouz on

I just had blood drawn at the hospital by a very pleasant nurse from Ukraine. She was my age. I told her how I toured Soviet republics in the 1970s. She responded by saying how she lamented the loss of those days, when there was full employment, free healthcare, society was clean and orderly. 

In the early 90s, I had a girlfriend from East Germany. She was a believer in the socialist system. Same story.

Honestly, I don't see how anyone credible can criticize socialist republics without ever living in one or touring through one by car. 

Now I'm not saying those socialist republics were perfect, but before their economies tanked (partly due to the cold war), they did provide an attractive alternative to what exists now in many of these former socialist countries. 


Tavana

Sargord

by Tavana on

You are absolutely right. First time ever though.


Sargord Pirouz

What about the socialists'

by Sargord Pirouz on

What about the socialists' contribution to Great Britain: national healthcare.

And the socialists' contribution to Germany: trade unions essential to the rise of German industry, such as number 1 carmaker in the world Volkswagon. 

etc., etc... 

These blanket statements by inadequately educated, wannabe pundits on iranian.com are really becoming a bore.