My friends,
I stand here as the daughter of an Iranian communist. My mother, a revolutionary, fought to bring down the Shah in 1979. She was one of the first, along with my aunt, to take to the streets in the historic mass demonstration against the new regime on March 8th 1979. My mother has fought relentlessly against the bloody regime for 46 years, and she has paid a heavy price for it: life underground, imprisonment, having to flee, and the trauma of these experiences. In 1988 she survived Saddam Hussein’s mustard gas attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja, which was made possible by German weapons. Her then husband, the love of her life, did not survive the armed resistance in the mountains. I’ve never even been able to visit my parent’s homeland. Our lives, our stories, are defined by this socialist fight against the regime and for a better world.
In the last 3 weeks we have seen, once again, how people take to the streets to protest the regime–millions of people are out there! It is the biggest revolution in the history of the Islamic Republic! These protestors have our full solidarity! We recognise ourselves in their struggle for freedom and equality, for a life of self-determination and dignity. We see that the struggles in Iran, Kurdistan, and Palestine, and the struggles here in Germany against war, rearmament, welfare cuts, racism, and genocide are one and the same fight!
A worker in Iran who can no longer afford potatoes has more in common with a worker here, who has to choose between paying for heating or food in the winter. We can’t sit idly by, watching our siblings in Iran, in Gaza, in Kurdistan, being massacred. It’s also not enough to simply commend the bravery of Iranians who risk their lives to fight the system: we must be ready to take up this struggle against our ruling classes! For this, we need revolutionary leadership, a socialism from below!
We say clearly: no to regime change! No to Pahlavi, a billionaire’s son who has never had to work a day in his life. They are not our allies, they are our class enemies! They promise freedom, but what they really mean is freedom for the rich to exploit the people of Iran as THEY see fit–the turban will be replaced by the crown and by the tie. We reject that completely! We don’t trust Pahlavi, Trump, or Netanyahu–we see their so-called democracy in Palestine! We explicitly reject Zionist “dirty work” in Iran–we say no to bombs, no to sanctions, liberation comes from below, not outside!
We fight for a free Iran, for an Iran controlled by the working classes themselves! The people whose labour power keeps society going should be able to freely and autonomously make decisions about their collective lives. The rich who profit from their labour shouldn’t be making these decisions! In Iran, there is a long tradition of workers’ councils. Time and again we see the power of the working people: in 1979 it was the workers in the oil industry who brought the Shah down. Therefore we also fully back the Tehran bus drivers’ statement, which clearly calls for an anti-capitalist alternative and stands against foreign intervention, and the Haft Tapeh workers, who demanded workers’ councils and the confiscation of state property back in 2017. Down with capitalist barbarism, long live socialism!
The workers united will never be defeated! Jin Jiyan Azadi! Marg bar dictator! Palestine Kurdistan, Intifada Serhildan!
Translated by Ciara Bowen
