Iran: capitalist theocracy sui generis
Posted on Friday 28 August, 2009
Filed Under International
THE current edition of Weekly Worker – seemingly the least popular but yet most widely-read publication on the British far left – includes a 2,000 word review of two recent books on Iran, penned by yours truly.
The works in question are Ervand Abrahamian’s ‘A history of Modern Iran’ (Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp224, £14.99), and Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Mahjoob Zweiri’s ‘Iran and the Rise of its Neoconservatives’ (IB Tauris, 2007, pp215, £20).
As well as assessing the content of the volumes named above, I also discuss some of the characterisations of Iran advanced by British leftwing groups. Alex Callinicos of the Socialist Workers’ Party has reportedly concluded that the Tehran regime is somehow Thermidorean, while the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty considers it to exemplify clerical-fascism.
I’m not convinced that either position helps us understand bourgeois theocracy sui generis; read why here. Feedback in the comments box, please.
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169 Responses to “Iran: capitalist theocracy sui generis”
Let’s not be coy. What should the next steop in Iraq and Afghanistan be? Of all the analysis I’ve seen, never once have I seen one that suggess a way forward for the beseiged populations inthose countries. Can anyone tell me what the working class movement in those countries should be doing? and are doing?
Not sure to what extent the working class exist in Aghanistan but generally they should be fighting the occupation of their country and at the same time use the chaos to push forward their interests.
Fine words butter no parsnips.
Or in Dean’s case:
Nihilism makes poor politics.
Sue -you asked the question!!! You said don’t be coy!!! and asked for ideas about what the working class should be doing!!!
What do you think? Should they just give up and accept foreign occupation?
To quote Marx (Civil wars in France): “World history would indeed be very easy to make, if the struggle were taken up only on condition of infallibly favorable chances.”
What a nihilist!!
I was kind of thinking along the lines of a general strike under the demands of full sexual equality, full rights of conscience and freedom of speech, the nationalisation of the major utilities, a road building programme, the setting up of a secular educational system, the establishment of easy credit on low interest for farmers and peasants etc etc. Rather than vapid sentiments about ‘yeah, victory to the working class, if it exists, which I’m not sure about.’. It seems to me that to mobilise the workingclass to resist the occupation by foreign troops and to throw out the utterly corrupt and politically bankrupt Afghanistani ruling class would be a wonderful thing. Is it racist to want other cultures to adopt a slogan of ‘Liberty, Fraternity, Equality’ or some approximation?
SueR,
Your proposals could go hand in hand with a resistance movement against the occupation (a general strike would be one way of opposing it, it doesn’t have to be violent) but anyway the Afghans are in resistance against the occupation!!
This is what they are doing, to answer an earlier question of yours.
Your ideas would seem to represent ‘vapid sentiment’ as no such movement is actually a reality in Afghanistan presently.
I will confess that I do not know enough about the country to comment fully on your ideas -these seem fairly advanced demands.
Is the Afghan state at a level where these are possible in the short term, are the economic conditions condusive etc etc?
I am sure that if it weren’t for the Taliban’s awful record that a fair few Westerners would be calling for “Victory to the Taliban” as an open expression of their own nihilism.
But as it is, even those Westerners, who cheer every time a Taliban suicide bomber kills people in markets, must be a bit embarrassed at the Taliban’s attacks on schools, women, teachers and burning of books?
“…even those Westerners, who cheer every time a Taliban suicide bomber kills people in markets…”
Are there people that do that, Mod? Well, name them and shame them…
“I am sure that if it weren’t for the Taliban’s awful record that a fair few Westerners would be calling for “Victory to the Taliban” as an open expression of their own nihilism.”
If they are nihilists, why should they be bothered about the Taliban’s awful record? But an interesting method is employed here. I suppose on the same grounds I could say that were it not for Hitler’s appalling record Modernity would be celebrating his birthday and hailing his greatness. If it is possible to project what people might be doing if things were totally the reverse of what they are a whole new world opens up.
morality:
“But as it is, even those Westerners, who cheer every time a Taliban suicide bomber kills people in markets, must be a bit embarrassed at the Taliban’s attacks on schools, women, teachers and burning of books?”
Not sure who ‘those Westerners’ cheering on the killing of people in markets are, but my guess is that theses fictional people would not be embarrassed by “attacks on schools, women, teachers and burning of books?”
“Those Westerners” are a convenient fiction to be against. So what are you actually for, morality? If it’s the continuing ‘sort of NATO’ occupation of Afghanistan, say so.
Name names?
I don’t know who they are.
Still, it does seem that many want a victory by the Taliban, in some way or other.
But that’s the problem I am pointing to, a fair few Westerners seem to want that conclusion, however, are very reluctant to admit it, *openly* and what it all involves.
With a few exceptions, these people, who ever they are, want the end result but can’t acknowledge how it would be achieved and by whom (a murderous Taliban).
This is what I am suggesting, a peculiar situation where silly people, like Dean, talk about a “a resistance movement” when in reality it is a killing campaign by the Taliban.
It is that inability to admit that the Taliban are murderous reactionary thugs, yet seemingly want them to succeed at the same time, that’s what I find odd.
PS: If you still want names, then ask Dean and others what they think of the Taliban and their methods.
Well, how do you know that this mysterious “many” support the Taliban, then? And if they’re so minor you don’t even know their names, why worry about them?
It’s a bit like all the antisemitism that happens at Islington dinner parties. We wouldn’t know about this except that the hosts of these antisemitic dinner parties keep inviting Nick Cohen. Well, either that, or Nick’s making it up.
Morality is using the same method:
a) Make up an outrageous position.
b) Ascribe this position to “many” unnamed people.
c) Demand loudly that your interlocutors dissociate themselves from this outrageous position he’s just made up.
It’s an impressive debating technique, if you’re a weasel.
Added to this, of course, is the fact that the “many”, “fair few” Westerners who hold this position are apparently reluctant to openly admit it, and may indeed be pretending to believe the opposite. How grateful we should be that Modernity is there to sniff them out, although unfortunately his mind reading machine is not yet sophisticated enough to say who they actually are. But I’m sure he’s working on it.
Mod,
I do not cheer when the Taliban blow up schools or markets etc. SueR asked what the Afghan working class should do. I said resist the occupation, there are many ways to do this. It seems to me that centuries long occupations by various foreign armies have not achieved a great deal for the people of that nation.
Do you cheer when an afghan wedding party is bombed by coalition forces? Do you say three cheers to another blow against reactionary thugs?
When an Afghan civilian dies do you say “there strikes another blow against the Taliban”?
Instead of sneering at others viewpoints try taking up SueR’s challenge and give us your ideas.
I don’t think he has any. It’s a bit like Nick Cohen, sneering at the left for being insignificant (not without some reason) yet devoting entire books to denouncing it. Either it is not so insignificant, or Nicky’s is a life misspent.
Yeah Dean, righto,
A “resistance movement”, as you put it, sounds better than the “Taliban” eh?
Politics is littered with the use of convenient euphemisms, it is a bit of middle class game playing, it is very English.
It doesn’t fool anyone.
As I said, people often don’t like acknowledging what they really mean concerning Afghanistan.
Me? I am against the Taliban, they are right-wing reactionaries, who would gladly enslave women, attack girls, burn books, hang people in football stadiums, ban music, etc and implement the most reactionary social rule in the world.
I am also against the cackhanded US bombing and blowing up of Afghans.
So please tell us what are your views on suicide bombings in Afghanistan, do you think it improves the situation or is a necessary evil?
Which is it?
I think the suicide bombings are the product of occupations by foreign nations interested only in exploiting Afghans and not at all interested in helping them.
This is why I responded to SueR with the call to resist the occupation.
Your view of being against the “cackhanded US bombing and blowing up of Afghans.” seriously fails to understand the nature and reality of the occupation.
It is an unavoidable consequence of occupation and the inevitable resistance against it.
Only a neo liberal could take such a view.
Dean,
You are not a liberal? No?
Didn’t you say “my western liberal sensibilities”, previously.
So, Dean, do you agree or disagree with suicide bombings in Afghanistan??
Go on, answer a direct question.
As I have said above, I have been very worried about the relationship between anti-imperialism, sommunist revolution and socialist attitudes towards. Today, I actually found an article on the ‘Revlutionary History’ website, that has answered some of my misgivings. In an article by J F Joubert, a bigwig at the Institute of Leon Trotsky in Paris, he runs through Lenin’s attitude to what is known as ‘revolutionary defeatism’. The most relevant part of the article deals with the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Lenin called for the defeat of the moribund, feudal Czarist Russia, he wanted to see newly emerging capitalist country of Japan emerge victorious. And why was that, pray? Because, the victory would assist the revolutionary workingclass movement in Russia. Joubert remarks that this was in line with Marx and Engles’ own thinking who always supported a young bourgoise against pre-capitalist formations. The idea of supporting pre-capitalist formations against anyone would no doubt have them all spinning in their graves. The problem in Afghanistan is that no-one really seems to be committed to any sort of democracy, so it makes it very hard to support anyone.
Mod,
I have answered it but not on your superficial, idiotic terms.
I believe that ending the occupation is a precondition of ending the suicide bombings, therefore, I responded to SueR’s challenge by proposing the working class resist the occupation. I also claim that real progressive change will not come to Afghanistan from this occupation. I believe this occupation has no interest other than its own. The Afghans will be sacrificed to these interests in the final equation.
I have no problem debating the merits of that position, even with neo liberals.
Your position is that of a neo liberal, as highlighted by your previous comments.
Surely, the guiding principle always has to be, ‘how does this facilitate the building of a revolutionary working class movement?’. Can Dean, johng, Mark Victorystooge et al put their hands on their hearts and say, ‘Yes, supporting the Taleban assists the reveluitonary movement’?
I haven’t mentioned the Taliban!!!
You asked what action should the working class take!!!!!
So, concretely, what should a socialist propose in Afghanistan and Iraq? And, talking about ‘working class resistance’ and ‘opposititon’ is just student bullshit.
I was not keen on the Taleban long before most people on the “left” caught up with it. The lynching of Najibullah, gruesome photos of which were widely distributed, was an early indication of what kind of people the Taleban are. I regard them, and the mojahedin they overthrew, as little better than a bunch of bandits whom Western and Pakistani intelligence services armed and funded because that was the Cold War, folks.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that Western imperialism is a civilising force in the world, and oppose its military adventures. I also see little or no political left in Afghanistan, and so feel no compelling need to support any political force there – whether it be “our boys” or a bunch of people with 14th century horizons. That “our boys” are having trouble there is just history running on a loop – “our boys” came to grief in Afghanistan on more than one occasion in the 19th century.
“So, Dean, do you agree or disagree with suicide bombings in Afghanistan??”
Dean you wrote: “I have answered it but not on your superficial, idiotic terms.”
That’s the problem, I’ve been arguing, that those who go on about a “resistance”, really mean the Taliban, yet can’t be troubled to address the questions around the Taliban’s conduct.
Again, it is that vulgar Third Worldism which talks in very generalised terms, but can’t address the concrete issue of the Taliban.
This is my point.
Me? I take a basic antifascist position, I don’t like the Taliban.
Dean, your depoliticised shiftiness makes me nostalgic for the likes of Southpawpunch and Paddy Gracia.
They may have been disagreeable individuals, but at least they were candid about their views on this topic.
So Dean, I ask you again:
I have answered the suicide bombing.
SueR -The resistance, i.e. the act of removing the occupation forces from their country, is not studentist bullshit but a concrete reality. On the other hand, your ideas of general strike etc could be construed as utopian, romanticism, bullshit. (though personally I thought they were good ideas and could form part of said resistance).
Modernity has still not given us any ideas of his own, he hasn’t told us what he thinks the occupation has achiveved or can achieve. If he thinks the resistance to the occupation will reduce over time I think history tells us the opposite.
Does modernity believe in the advanced nations occupying by force all the backward nations of the world? Is this his vision of faciliating change, what is his world view?
And more to the point, what we can tell the Afghans or Iraqis is irrelevant, they WILL resist, whether you like it or not.
We should be focused on what we say to our own working class about this situation, which is BRING THE TROOPS HOME.
Dean: when you are agitating around the issue of bringing the troops home, will you do it with a sneer n your face and facetious comments about ‘our boys’? I don’t think you’ll be very popular if you do. Where is the resistance that a socialist can identify with going on in Iraq and Afghanistan? As I tried to show, Lenin, Marx. Engles and Trotsky would not have recognised support for pre-capitalist tribal war lords as resistence. It is not pushing forward workingclass politics. Even if it is only a case of propaganda, then ot os necessary to raise the correct slogans. I’m guessing here that you are a member of the SWP, they seem to take a any fight is a good fight line because it weakens imperialism, but I’m sorry, yes it may weaken imperialism, although I doubt it, but it doesn’t help the Afghani or Iraqi people. You are just viewing them as so much cannon fodder. And, as for the British soldiers, I feel sorry for someone who has denied their basic humanity so much they cannot even see theterrible perdictament such men and women are in.
They will resist, it is a reality that will not go away, colonialism has been tried and failed. What you think Marx, Lenin or Trotsky supposedly recognised is utterly irrelevant.
When I look at colonialism in practice, it leads me to support resistance against it. I prefer the idea of the Afghans deciding their own fate, I think under these conditions we can be better placed to offer ideas to their working class, because while we patrol their streets with troops I think our advice will fall on deaf ears.
Which means your solution is nothing more than sitting back while our bourgeois carve up the world in their own interests. If that is socialism or Marxism then count me out.
Dean,
You can’t even answer an elementary question on your views on suicide bombing in Afghanistan.
Which is strange, because obviously you have strong views on the topic, but don’t want to clarify them, and it is clear that you are an educated individual, yet you can’t be honest about your own views.
As I wrote before:
I doubt, my critics above will now admit the nature of your views, but that’s the political problem, how third worldism mixed with a dash of Western nihilism and a clutch of slogans are ruining the British and Irish Left.
You’re quite correct, Modernity, and I’m ready to admit it: Dean is ruining the British and Irish Left.
Dean: I’m afraid you’ve counted yourself out of a socialist or Marxist understanding and line of action. That’s fine, that’s your perogative. Can I suggest that you read some proper books written by peoeple who’ve lived through key revolutionary struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth century, who’ve thought long and deep about questions of power (which is what it’s all about, who wields power and why), rather than relying on half-digested gobbets from the SWP.
No BenSix, I disagree. I don’t blame Dean personally.
I think that shifty attitude that makes out that these “resistances” are in any way progressive is really to blame.
It tries to pull the wool over people’s eyes, and does not succeed.
The Taliban are profoundly anti-socialist, they are profoundly anti-women, anti-gay, anti any form of human rights and anti-working class, so to make out that the Taliban’s success is in any way to be encouraged is wrong.
It is wrong on so many levels, and those that argue that it is acceptable, in a roundabout fashion, only manage to bring the Left into disrepute.
I was being sarcastic, Mod – sorry for that, it’s been a bad day.
I think that Dean is, like you and me, just a minor internet commentator. He happens to have views that I really disagree with, as do you, but neither have any impact on, well, anyone, so I don’t let it trouble me.
In fact, I think the view that Dean expounds is also insignificant – I mean, you couldn’t name anyone else that held it – so I don’t let that bother me either. The internet will inevitable attract niche opinions – in search of a niche, really – and if we were to worry about every view that we happened to find nauseous we’d be curled up, shaking, in a corner.
“but neither have any impact on, well, anyone, so I don’t let it trouble me.”
Of course, you don’t let it trouble you, because you don’t see the bigger picture.
Dean’s and your attitude were replicated many times over in the Stop the War Coalition.
You’ll remember what a failure that became?
Going from Millions down to 1,000s at best?
And why? Because of the excusing, obfuscation and game playing around the nature of the “resistance”.
Such attitudes are not convincing because they are essentially a colonial mentality which excuses, directly or indirectly suicide bombings in “far away countries” but doesn’t apply that same standard to attacks in Britain, eg. 7/7.
It is a crude mindset and not credible which is why, in my view, 100,000s deserted the StWC.
But if you don’t believe me try this, go into a shop/pub and get chatting about Afghanistan/Iraq and make the points as Dean does above. Then when someone asks you about whether or not you support suicide bombing in Britain, what will you reply?
What, pray, is Dean’s and my attitude? Maybe we share some – general amiability, possibility, or a contempt for vegetables – but I haven’t the faintest what you’re referring to.
Yes – I used to be a particularly monomaniacal “decent” so you’re not going to surprise me with the sins – real or imputed – of the Stop The War Coalition. However, in my view, it didn’t shrink because of “the excusing, obfuscation and game playing” – otherwise the marchers would have formed another coalition – but the sad reality that people lost interest. As you will, doubtless, be aware, the marches swell whenever a new conflict occurs – the war in Lebonan, say, or that in Gaza, at the beginning this year. This suggests, as I’ve said, that most people aren’t particularly motivated, unless there’s an especially intense conflict (or, in the case of Iraq, an impending one). If you have evidence that substantiates this “colonial mentality” thesis then I will, naturally, withdraw my own.
Right: I’ve tried it with a checkout girl, but instead of asking whether or not I support suicide bombing in Britain she said, and I quote, “Buy that drink, or get out of my shop“.
More seriously, I agree – it’s not a view I share, and I doubt that it’s widely popular – but you haven’t given me any reason to believe that it’s significant.
Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.”
BenSix,
So sorry, I was confusing your middle class sneering with Dean’s wasted nihilism.
My apologies, it is terribly easy to mix up the two, as the middle classes often appear much of a muchness to us, members of the under classes
Several questions leap out, Mod…
1) How can nihilism be wasted?
2) How would you know what class I’m from?
3) Do you always change the subject when you can’t back up a point?
x
I presume then, Modernity, that you disapprove of the strategy the US and British governments are currently evolving towards, which precisely involves treating the Taliban as a “resistance movement” with legitimate grievances which is to be approached through negotiations, and prefer the continuation of a straightforward “kill em all” approach? And do you consider the Karzai government and the Northern Alliance to be pro-woman, pro-gay organisations?
“As I tried to show, Lenin, Marx. Engles and Trotsky would not have recognised support for pre-capitalist tribal war lords as resistence.”
– SueR, above
“In the struggle between a civilized, imperialist, democratic republic and a backward, barbaric monarchy in a colonial country, the socialists are completely on the side of the oppressed country notwithstanding its monarchy and against the oppressor country notwithstanding its “democracy.”
– Leon Trotsky, “Lenin and Imperialist War,” Writings of Leon Trotsky, 1938–1939 (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1974), p. 165.
Not trying to get dragged into this debate, and I don’t think quoting the great masters necessarily answers every question, but we might as well be accurate.
Indeed, and Marx’s view on the Indian Mutiny would have attracted the ire of Modernity:
“However infamous the conduct of the sepoys, it is only the reflex, in a concentrated form, of England’s own conduct in India. not only during the period of the foundation of her eastern empire, but even during the last ten years of a long settled rule.”
Of course, had Sue R been around at the time of the Mutiny, she would have been rushing around denouncing the treatment of English ladies by barbarous Muslims.
Interesting point, ‘Deen’ is Arabic for ‘rightous war’. Is Dean a pen-name? As for the quotes provided above: I don’t see that they mitigate against teh point that the starting point is ‘how does this war forward the workingclass?’. The dynamics of struggle can sometimes take you to places you didn’t mean to go. Political democracy is only window dressing, the main question is how is production organised ie private property, there could be cases where support for a backward monarchy is the right thing, other things being equal. I don’t think support for the Taleban or the Iran Shia would be something that would have been advocated by the past leaders of Marxism, at least not without the caveat of ‘full civil rights, land reform, smassh tribalism, smash feulism etc’. If I’m wrong them I resign as a socialist.
I have said all I want to say on this subject but feel I must stress that at no point have I claimed to support the Taliban.
The whole of Modernity’s and to a lesser extent Sue’s criticisms have been founded on this straw man.
And Dean is not a pen name, the term rightous war is too religious for my tastes.
“Din” is Arabic for faith, you loon. You seem to inhabit an entire alternate universe where words mean whatever you choose, the Marxist classics can be adapted to fit in with your prejudices and you can simply invent half baked stories (such as Hamas making the hejab compulsory in Gaza) that confirm your bigotry. But I guess that is the world of 70s radical feminism as sponsored by the IMG, where anything to do with facts or logic is seen as an instrument of male domination.
Why should your crack addled brain be any sharper than mine, pete? Doesn’t crack lead to paranoia and delusions?
@ SueR
You ask “how does this war forward the workingclass?” in response to the quotes from Trotsky and Marx.
All I can tell you is that Trotsky and Lenin et al felt that, in a situation of imperialist occupation, the “national question” would tend to take precedence over all others, i.e. that a strong independent workers’ movement, and the sort of struggles for progressive reforms you mention above, would be unlikely to develop because the whole occupied populace would be focused on kicking out the foreigners.
There was no movement for women’s rights in the North American colonies while they were still under the occupation of the British, for example. But one emerged during and right after the War of Independence. Ditto the abolitionist movement, actually.
So a war for national liberation would forward the working-class movement because it would clear the ground for a real battle between the workers and their own bourgeoisie, without the national question getting in the way. Also: the semi-colonial bourgeoisie tends to be weaker than the imperialist power, so getting rid of the occupation weakens the enemies of the workers.
And: the war for national liberation has a radicalising effect on the whole population, providing fertile ground for the emergence of future struggles of the sort you’ve outlined above.
Obviously this is just the position of some socialists from a particular tendency in the movement, so you’re of course free to accept or reject it at your pleasure.
I hope you won’t resign as a socialist!
So, we can look forward to the struggle in Afghanistan developing into a socialist struggle against their own national bourgoisie. I await that development.
“the war for national liberation has a radicalising effect on the whole population,”
Not necessarily so, it certainly helps supporters of the Taliban, clan chiefs and fellow reactionaries.
It doesn’t do much for women, trade unionists, socialists, liberals, etc, non-Taliban types or basically anyone that doesn’t like the Taliban reversion to the 13th century.
It certainly doesn’t help girls wanting an education, teachers who often get shot by the Taliban, or books, which get burnt by the Taliban along the way.