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August 21, 2004Top * Still a Communist after all these years ? Dear Ms. Maryam Namazie, I have been reading your interviews on the Iranian.com and watching some of your programs aired on TV International English. I just can't figure how a young and intelligent person like you can still believe and support communism as an ideology after what was done in the name of this ideology in various parts of the World From the ex USSR to China and Cuba not to mention all the countries that have suffered behind the former Red Curtain. What you seem to suggest in your interviews is that people in Iran also have a strong inclination towards leftist ideologies and dogmas. As much as I believe that social progress has to take into account the interests of the workers and lower classes or the under priviledged I cannot swallow the left wing or rather communist gibberish. The world today is certainly shook in its certitudes particularily in regard to Western values of Democracy ( which you and your TV station are benefiting from) particularily in the aftermath of September 11th but lets not forget that it is precisely these values which are at danger in our World. As for the Communist party in Iran don't you think that the Toudeh has done enough damage to our country in the past ? As my late grandfather used to say Communism in Farsi should read "Kom Neest" aka "Empty Stoumach" . I do not have an aversion aowards idealists or young people looking for peaceful solutions to change the World into a better place, it just appears to me that ideologies whatever they may be offer comfort only to those lazy minds that do not seek to see the truth. Crying against US imperialism or Capitalism is fine if these words were not so many times used to justify another alternative to the world order which no one can predict its form or shape. I wonder if you read any of George Orwellls books be it 1984 or Animal Farm ? or the "archipel de Goulag" ( Sorry I just know the French title) of Soldjenitsin ? The United States has certainly made mistakes in the past, yet the US is a Democracy where even the president can be driven out of office through free elections. The US is a country where Michael Moore can make a movie critisizing the US President and his policies without being hurt. True democracy is not something that can be given to a nation on a silver plate and the situation in Irak for example is not ideal, yet I prefer to live in any Western country where as a citizen I can have my word and vote taken into account than in a totalitarian system. Communism however has failed on both accounts. I have seen in France where I live the way the communist party has evolved, it had to radically change its policy dominated by Georges Marchais and other leaders for its blind subordination to the Soviet Union. It only achieved this with the fall of the Soviet Union and the Perestroika. Yet there are still communist radicals such as Arlette Laguiller who keep on to the same staunch Stalinist or Trotskist or god knows what "ism" to the degree of rejecting even the Democratic Institutions as they did during the 2002 elections when Jean Marie Le Pen was second in the presidential race. Laguiller refused to sanction Le Pen the Fascist and racist candidate
as other leftist parties did and refused to encourage hs to join their
votes to the Democratic Coalition. I also very much doubt that Communism
can offer a just alternative to the problems of Iran, the only just
and realistic alternative is a Demoecratic Regime that respects Human
Rights
and Democratic principles like in the West and where even your mouvement
can have their say. |
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