In face of govenment represion, the Iranian working-class shows its heroic strength

On the occasion of Palestine Day in Iran, the Opposition, led by liberal-reformist Mir Hussein Mousavi, and former president Khatami, reared its head once more after months of an apparent bout of silence following the government crackdown on the opposition supporters and their protests after this summers elections. Quds Day (Palestine Day) is a government created holiday to help rally support for itself by showing off it’s anti-Semite and «pro-Palestinian» character, however this year it was hijacked by marked violence between hard-line supporters of the current regime, and those that have had enough.

These events clearly demonstrate that the underground opposition movement is far from dead, and that the people of Iran are still motivated by a desire for a radical change in the way society is run. The important thing to remember is that Mir Hussein Mousavi and his entourage are only the catalysts for this desire, that in fact the popular support for the opposition is more a popular-rage against the government. The people of Iran need to channel their ambitions, their raw power, into more productive and militant forms of struggle, such as a revolutionary general strike, if real change is to be effected. Mousavi is not the answer, a change in faces of the president will mean nothing for the people of Iran, short of a symbolic victory for the limited democracy that the Ayatollah so «graciously» permits them.

Published previously on Borges Blogue