Human Rights Chicanery
In his post “The limits of humanitarianism” Richard Seymour notes that it was only “a month after bloggers noticed, the Washington Post has reported on the confirmation of a vast escalation in aerial attacks on Iraq” and then only to justify it – well nothing new there – and that the pervasively named, Human Rights Watch, supports that view - again, nothing new there. HRW should adopt the three wise monkeys as their symbol for the reporting of human rights abuse they do.
The reality of course is that HRW, like Amnesty International, are as about as interested in human rights as McDonald’s is global nutrition. Their agenda is to champion Western imperialism in the name of human rights and ”contextualise” US and Israeli crimes against humanity, or as Babak Zadehamin puts it, “Human Rights Abuse Masquerading as Human Rights Advocacy“.
For more on the hypocrisy, bias and blatant dishonesty of Amnesty International, please see my earlier post, ”Amnesty International, Iran and Propaganda“.
steph
amie
rob
@ Dksu
Leftist doesn’t mean Marxist. Khomeinists do believe in nationalisation, res distribution of wealth, they’re anti-capitalism and anti imperialism. From what I’ve read of Ayatollah Khomeini (quite a lot) he had a lot better left wing credential than Lenin ever did.
Ahmadinejad took the same wages as mayor of Tehran as a road sweeper earns, lives a frugal life, opposes privatisation and economic liberalism, and has put redistribution not economic prosperity at the top of his economic agenda. That is leftist.
Khomeinism is all about democratic participation -as an anarchist, I don’t like institutionalised democracies but as far as institutionalised democracies go, Iran is one of the best. If you read their constitution there is no way that you could say that it is undemocratic. Actually, I think it is heavily based on the the ancient Athenian and modern Italian models.
Yes candidates were blocked from standing – so what? – find me a democracy that doesn’t bar candidates! Candidates are banned if they violate electoral or constitutional laws, that is what democracy is – majority rule. Those bodies are subject to democratic scrutiny and Iranians overwhelming supported that process in elections.
During the 2005 presidential election, no candidate with popualr support was disbarred. The voting process was free and fair. I have written more about Iranian democracy in other posts, if you’d like to check them out.
Liberation theology isn’t Marxist, Christian liberation theology has been inspired by South American Marxism and anti-imperialism but it essentially not Marxist. It recognises that Marxism, as a revolutionary ideology, is part of God’s purpose.
True – though they affirm property rights. They’re certainly ‘left’, but not ‘leftist’, in this regard (i.e. workers’ control of the means of production, participatory democracy, planning, etc.) – this is what I (not very clearly ;p) was trying to get at. The liberation theologians were categorically Marxist (debatable, obviously, but they identified themselves with the tradition). Though I know that there was a pretty strong ‘leftist’ tendency during the 1979 revolution, with the popularity of Ali Shariati, who was heavily influenced by writers like Marx and Frantz Fanon.
As for the elections – I was under the impression that large numbers of candidates were censored and banned from running. So, though there was a high turn-out, the choice would have been pretty limited. Again, I could be pretty off-base – what’s your take on this?
@ dksu
Thanks for the comment.
I don’t think there are “significant” minorities that are opposed to living under Shari’ah law, in fact I think it is pretty obvious that the vast majority of Iranians support their system of government. Their participation in elections is very high and they directly elect their president, which is more than the Americans do.
It’s not the system that I would choose to live under but then I’m not Iranian and it’s defintely much more democratic than most Western countries, even if it is a lot less liberal.
Also I’ve got to agree with Zadehamin, Ahmadinejad and the Khomeinists are left wing – they’re Islamic Liberation theologians. They’re anti imperialist, anti capitalist egalitarians, who believe in redistribution of wealth.
Interesting. I do know about the Armenian and Jewish communities that live in Iran peacefully – which one certainly wouldn’t believe from mainstream reportage ;p.
“Moreover, you say: “the deadly rivalry between the Iranian Left and the Khomeinists is well known, yet Khomeinism is leftist, whereas the Tudeh party were Shahists. Whilst there are those diaspora groups that profess to be Iranian “leftists”, yet they align with the far right and have no support within Iran. Since the betrayal of the Republic of the Jangali Leninists have been despised in Iran.”
I disagree with your characterization of Khomeinism as leftist. Though one could might say that it’s to the left of centre economically, to describe the regime as ‘leftist’ is false. And I can say, with certainty, that the Iranian lefties that I know (though obviously not a wholly representative sample, lol) do NOT align themselves with the far-right, nor have they ever aligned themselves with the Shah. I guess you might call them Trots ;p.
“During the last century the only religious group persecuted in Iran were Muslims.”
Could you elaborate on this a little? I don’t exactly get your meaning.
Thanks for the post, and I do agree with ‘never accepting anything at face value’ with regard to Iran, especially. I feel that I should point out, though, that my Iranian acquaintances are certainly not terrorists, Shahists, or allying themselves with the far-right ‘bomb Iran’ front – though I am aware that, unfortunately, there are many in the ‘exile community’ who do take this line!
DKSU
Please forgive my lack of care during the last comment: “During this century the only religious group persecuted in Iran were Muslims” should read thus: “During the last century the only religious group persecuted in Iran were Muslims.”
DKSU
It is hard to assess the support for the Islamic revolution in Iran from afar. This is because in the west, we our subjected to a barrage of false propaganda on a daily basis. Steph’s article pointed out many of these distortions and falsehoods, without professing knowledge of the facts.
If you visit Iran you would see that support for the Islamic revolution is feverish amongst the young; the accusation that religious minorities are persecuted in Iran is without substance; the number of Iranians that do not want to live under the Shari’a is far from sizable; and Canadian “Shahists” and “terrorists” are detested. Yet I should not ask you to accept my word for it: you have no reason too; instead I would merely caution that it is imprudent to accept anything at face value vis-a-vis Iran.
However, I would offer this that although the CIA fact book places the figure at 90%, Iran estimates its Shia Muslims at 93% of the population and Sunni Muslims at nearly 6%. Iran has a thriving and unmolested Jewish and Armenian Christian community. During this century the only religious group persecuted in Iran were Muslims. The Ba’hai cult is no more a religious minority in Iran than al-Qaeda is in the United States.
Moreover, you say: “the deadly rivalry between the Iranian Left and the Khomeinists is well known, yet Khomeinism is leftist, whereas the Tudeh party were Shahists. Whilst there are those diaspora groups that profess to be Iranian “leftists”, yet they align with the far right and have no support within Iran. Since the betrayal of the Republic of the Jangali Leninists have been despised in Iran.
Hey, I read your post about Iran and AI – good stuff.
In general, I very much agree with the notion that a people should determine for themselves the way they want to live – one can disagree with other ways of life, even attempt to convince people otherwise, but use of force in determining the laws others should live by is not at all justified.
Trouble, though, seems to arise when we have significant minorities who are being persecuted because of the way that they want to live. In the case of Iran, there are Sunni Muslims, Ba’hai, and sizable groups that don’t want to live under Shari’a. So I guess the question is, what exactly constitutes self determination? Is it limited by the laws of the ‘nation-state’ (I, personally, don’t buy this ;p)? How far can the principle be taken?
Anyways, I generally agree with your assessment of Iran, I’d just like to hear what you think with regards to some of these issues. From my conversations with Iranians in Canada, there’s much spite for the regime, and equally as much for the American threats to bomb the country. I should mention that a few of them are communists who’ve had family members either executed or imprisoned – and the deadly rivalry between the Iranian Left and the Khomeinists is well known.
I’m not an expert on HR in Iran, though I know they’re far flawless – but as you point out, no country has a spotless record.
Anyways, again, great post ;o.