Long Live 8th March, the International Women’s Day!

Ashraf Dehghani

“We, the men and women of Iran, are ready for the final battle!“

Thousands of greetings and salutations to the struggling and freedom-seeking women of Iran who are fighting the anti-woman Islamic Regime in order to materialise the above slogan.

This year, the heroic women of Iran, welcoming their International Day at a time, when the whole world has been witness to their gallant confrontation with the lackeys of the Imperialist dependent Islamic Republic of Iran. This is a brilliant reality, as the proof of all the struggles and resistance of the majority of the oppressed women in our society against the oppressions and brutality of the regime, following 30 years of non-stop battles against the regime. 

It has been said, and truly so, that the oppression of women is the oppression of the society. During the past 30 year rule of the Islamic Republic, our people have experienced this fact in reality. They have clearly seen that, whenever the rulers want to cause fear and terror amongst the people and increase the tempo of suppression, in the first step, they increase the tempo of suppression of women. Therefore, it is no surprise that women from all walks life, from the young students to the ordinary housewives, are fighting selflessly and valiantly in the forefront of all others to put an end to the Islamic Republic. The courageous struggle of these women for the overthrow of this notorious and criminal regime has also defeated the attempts of those reformers who try to limit their struggle to repealing or amending the reactionary Islamic laws against women. Following this path, the women reformers who benefit from saving the Islamic Republic Regime, even disregard one of the most important demands of the Iranian women: right to wear what they want. 

The reality in Iran is such that the anti-woman laws of the Islamic Republic is interweaved with the existence and survival of the regime, and therefore the women in Iran cannot get rid of such reactionary and ancient rules under the “Green” Flag, meaning without the overthrow of the regime, as it is preached by the reformers of the regime today.

The anti-woman regime of Iran and in general oppression of women is in the interest of the capitalists. And, the Islamic Republic with religious ideology and seeking Islam is in fact is exacerbating the exploiting condition of women workers and by doing so, exacerbating the exploitation of the whole working class, even further for the bourgeoisie benefits. This point, of course in greater details, has been explained by me a few years ago in an article titled: “The prevalence of anti-woman culture in the service of exploiting the workers evermore”. Here, referring to the above fact, it is only stressed that why the anti-woman laws of the Islamic Republic along with the anti-woman regime itself can only be overthrown to the trash bin of history by the revolutionary women and men adapting revolutionary path. And why the totality of the Islamic Republic, along with all its factions and wings, must be destroyed by the power of people, i.e. by the heroic power of the conscious women and men, to facilitate the foundation of progressive laws in favour of women, and in general enabling the liberation of women.

If we accept that the best measure to gauge freedom in a society is the level of freedom of women, therefore, once the Islamic Republic Regime is overthrown, one of the most important proofs of any regime that claims to be caring and democratic, shall be that in its first steps, not only recognises the equality of women and men in all spheres of economy, sociology and politics, but also declares and proves in deed that the state has no right in delving in to the private life of the citizens: from how women wear their clothes to their beliefs and credence. The more the hands of state is off the privacy and private affairs of the citizens, the more a civic society expands, and this is in itself a measure of how democratic the society has become. At the same time, religion should be considered as a private matter for the citizens, and a democratic government must not allow it to play any role in the public life, and with emphasise even more, that it should have no role in the social life of women.

Freedom of the society is dependent on the freedom of women, and for us, the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran with all its factions and wings, is the first step towards freedom. Let us strive to do all we can in this path, and this is how we should celebrate the International Women’s Day.

March 2010