On Jul 7, 2006, at 7:20 PM, Louis Proyect wrote:
Yassamine Mather was and probably still is a member of the
coordinating committee of an outfit called Workers Left Unity Iran
<http://archive.workersliberty.org/australia/Newsletter/WL29.pdf>.
The
outfit's Web site is www.etehadchap.org/. It espouses the type of
politics that Workers' Liberty in the UK and the like champion.
Mather
is also a deputy editor of Critique, Journal of Socialist Theory
<http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?
issn=0301-7605&linktype=5>,
on whose advisory board Torab Saleth sits. Critique's editor is
Hillel
Ticktin. It's a tiny political current from which this "open letter"
comes. I wish Mather had made her political affiliation clear from
the
outset, instead of simply listing her academic institution, which is
irrelevant to understanding the letter.
Yes, we should be clear that this controversy is being used as a
wedge by
people like Danny Postrel of Opendemocracy, a website that is co-
edited by
him and Todd Gitlin, as a battering ram against Islamic
backwardness, etc.
Doug Ireland has also posted the open letter. Doug writes some useful
things on gay rights but tends to follow the left-liberal crowd on the
usual talking points about Islam.
That being said, I have stated my differences with Yoshie on how to
appraise Ahmadinejad. I think he should be defended against
imperialism and
against the bazaar bourgeoisie in Iran but he is no Chavez. Chavez
is not
just a populist, he has made important statements in favor of
socialism and
seeks to build ties with Marxists. At his best, Ahmadinejad is more
like
Qaddafi.
I don't believe Ahmadinejad is Chavez. Then again, Iran is not
Venezuela, the Middle East, where socialism appears moribund if not
dead already, is not Latin America, where socialism has never died.
I like Venezuela better than Iran, but Iran is more fascinating than
Venezuela, in so far as things can go in all sorts of ways in Iran,
whereas things have decisively moved in the direction that I favor in
Venezuela.
Ahmadinejad may disappoint me, but I would rather try to understand
and clarify his supporters in Iran now and be found out wrong later
than not to say anything now and turn out to be correct later.
If there is anything more interesting in the Middle East than what's
happening in Iran, I'm all ears.
Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>
