Two Struggles, One Goal: Revolution!
The 8th of March, the day of international solidarity and unity, the day of marching against the capitalist patriarchal system that is ruling the world, is on the way. It is a day of struggle for achieving our goals of freedom and emancipation, a day that can bring together millions of women under the banner of breaking the chains of thousands of years of women’s oppression.
This year, we can feel the breath of hope even more clearly. This breath stems out of the struggles of millions of women all over the world on 21 January 2017. For the first time in history, millions of women rose in international solidarity against an imperialist fascist regime in the U.S. as it started its reign. More than 6 million people, with the vast majority women, not only represented the demands of women's rights, but also became the defenders of other oppressed people such as refugees, immigrants, black people, Latinos, gays, etc. This international solidarity and the achievements of such struggles can and must be directed to serve to continue such struggles and spread the fire of struggle that is just and timely in reacting to the monstrous crimes that the new rulers of this system, the Trump/Pence regime, are impatiently waiting to commit.
Our organisation, as part of the women's revolutionary movement, on the basis of our analysis of the current situation regarding the intensification of the subjugation of women and the escalation of violence against women on a world scale as well as in Iran, has concluded that it is essential to give a correct and appropriate response to such a necessity; and on the basis of this correct analysis we play our role wholeheartedly and full-forcedly in launching and waging the “Campaign to Fight the State and Social and Domestic violence against Women in Iran". The start of this campaign coincided with the coming to power of the fascist, anti-women regime of Trump/Pence and the important political changes that took place in the U.S. This political shift in the U.S has given tremendous momentum to different sections and strata and to new waves of political and social struggles around the world.
One of the most important aspects of this shift is the use of naked fascism on a world scale and particularly in the U.S - one of the most powerful capitalist-imperialist countries on this planet - in openly attacking women's rights and intensifying the oppression of women. The humiliating, horrendous and disgusting attacks on women by Trump during his presidential campaign outraged millions of women on a world scale. The support and participation of vice-president Pence when for the first time in the US an official at such a high position was taking part in a demonstration against abortion organised by the Christian fascist fundamentalists, on the first week of their reign, was another organised act against women. These are open and bitter attacks on women's rights. The trends indicate that these attacks will be intensifying and all the achievements of women in the Western countries which have been obtained through struggles on a world scale will be targeted ever more brutally.
The intensification of women’s subjugation has been and is on the agenda of all the anti-women, outmoded states and forces all over the world. If Trump’s reign started with attacking women and limiting the rights to abortion, two days later, the rulers in Russia changed the law regarding domestic violence against women; if the Christian fascist fundamentalists in the U.S attack abortion clinics and kill doctors, the Islamic fundamentalists and fascists who rule Iran and Afghanistan took away the rights of abortion since they have come to power. If the patriarchal fascist Trump sees women as a sex object for men’s pleasure, the patriarchal and backward president of Turkey Erdogan sees the place of women as being at home serving men and bearing children. If in Brazil Maria Louisa is imprisoned because she had an abortion, in the U.S. Ana Yoka is in prison because she wanted to end her pregnancy with a coat hanger.
From the white/Christian chauvinism of Trump in the U.S. to the chauvinism of Erdogan in Turkey, from the fundamentalism of Islamic Regime of Iran to the fundamentalist Christian fascism in the U.S., from the fundamentalist clique of ISIS in the Middle East to the Zionist rulers in Israel, from the Islamic fundamentalists of the Taliban and the rulers in Afghanistan, from the Neo Nazis in Germany to ...... while these reactionaries have differences, all these anti-women reactionaries are united on the intensification of violence against women. The fact is that hating women and chaining them is the common denominator of all reactionary forces, from religious fundamentalists to patriarchal capitalist-imperialists.
In front of them stands half of humanity, where the unity and solidarity of millions all over the world in their protests against fascist regime of Trump/Pence showed their common goals. The rule of the patriarchal system that has woven the world into a network of the capitalist system is the base of this common goal. This system has pushed women to an inferior position all over the world. Today the intensification of male chauvinism and the control of women and turning them more and more into the role of incubators and treating them as a commodity for men’s sexual desire are the requirements of the capitalist system that rules the world.
The intensification of women’s subjugation around the world is the result of the intensification of the contradictions and the real crisis of capitalist system. Today the intensification of these contradictions has reached a point where it produces fascist representatives such as Trump, a representative that ruthlessly increases oppression and exploitation and attacks people all around the world, a representative for forging a “new” form of rule and turning the U.S. into a nakedly fascist state. The capitalist system, in order to nourish its main necessities, meaning obtaining maximum profit, maintaining and developing its international interests, needs to preserve and intensify the oppression of women. This system in order to prolong its oppressive system needs to preserve and expand the domination of men over women. Therefore it is the result of this rule that women all over the world from so-called modern countries to the most backward regions are undergoing widespread violence, and the power to control women by men is being increasingly institutionalised through the laws, traditions, ideology, culture, etc.
For the same reason, the foundation for the unity and solidarity of women all over the world are the backward productive, political, social and cultural relations that are governing this world, which subjugate women and make them the slaves of men. It is the same oppressive relation that has created the conditions that the wealth of just 8 men is equivalent to that of 3.6 billion of the planet’s poorest people.
A world where 800 million people go to sleep hungry, where 3 billion women suffer from violence, a world where 70 per cent of productions is produced by women while they live in absolute poverty. A world where the majority of the people are slaves of oppressive and exploitative relations.
We should bear in mind that formation of naked fascism in the US as well as the growing momentum of fascist movements in other parts of the world are some of the most important aspects of the present situation of the world and show the intensification of the fundamental contradictions of the capitalist system. Imperialist-capitalism particularly the US is spreading chauvinism, racism and intensifying the subjugation of women, attacking refugees and immigrants, gays, invasions and wars and the destruction of planet Earth at an even higher speed… all are aimed to shape a more fascist and reactionary order not only in the US but also all over the world. For the control of the world these powers are on the one hand in contention and on the other hand try to make people believe that their system is eternal and that there is no other pathway for humanity. But there is another way, a revolutionary struggle for overthrowing and eradicating all systems that continue their existence based on oppression and exploitation. On this path, the elimination of gender oppression directly depends on carrying out the revolutionary struggle as well as sustaining that struggle and on the solidarity with the other oppressed people. This revolutionary struggle can be in the same direction for the birth of a new society, a society where all humanity will live together free and emancipated regardless of their gender, race, and nationality! Women have the greatest interests in the birth of such a society.
On this path and in such a turbulent situation our organisation will actively take part in the campaign to fight violence against women in Iran as well as the international struggle against dominant fascism in the US and will do our outmost in these struggles. Carrying out these two struggles in the tumultuous scene of today’s world is extremely important. At the time where all the reformist and liberal women are putting their efforts to save the system or at its “best” to reform it, the campaign to fight violence against women is in line with the revolutionary overthrow of the anti-women regime of the Islamic republic as the main cause of women’s subjugation becomes even more important. On the other hand, taking an active role in our international struggles to support people and particularly the revolutionary forces in the U.S. who are fighting against the fascist state of Trump/Pence is our important duty of internationalism and of supporting the decisive struggles that are facing all freedom-seeking, progressive and revolutionary people.
The realities in Iran as well as on a world scale require a prompt and practical response to the necessities confronting us. Therefore we call upon all women, either in groups or as individuals, to actively take part in the campaign to fight violence against women as well as in the struggle against naked fascism in the U.S. To wage these struggles united and shoulder to shoulder and in a large number and continue it with the perspective of victory will be a significant step in serving the emancipation of humanity.
8 March Women’s Organisation (Iran-Afghanistan)
01/03/2017
www.8mars.com
zan_dem_iran@hotmail.com
https://facebook.com/8Mars.org