In a recent post of mine, and in particular other ones that may be scattered around this blog, I vocalized support for the uprisings in Iran. Some may call it opportunism or political immaturity, but let’s face it: dialectics teaches us that nothing ever stops changing and that conflict and contradiction is inherent in matter and essential for life as we know it.
At the time, I thought it might bring about a revolutionary situation in Iran by which socialism might take power, manifested by the Communist Parties in Iran. This was nothing more than a severe error and ultra-leftism on my part.
After careful study of those who support the protests—John McCain, the Tea-Baggers, the Trotskyites such as the SWP and ISO and other counterrevolutionaries—plus a recent reading of mine revealing the true comprador nature of the RIM puppet Communist Party of Iran (Maoist), I came to the obvious conclusion that is not a revolution, but a counter-revolution. More specifically, it is a counterrevolution aimed at bringing back the days of the Shah of Iran and liquidating the gains of the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
The Communist Party of Iran (Maoist) makes their intentions crystal clear in the document published by the RCP’s Revolution newspaper:
“It is clear that the people’s struggle should be focused against the main enemy, the IRI. As long as the IRI is in power, there cannot be any talk of aiming the struggle against the US and the regime equally” (1).
In line with this, I must announce that I do not support the reactionary, CIA-backed Color Revolution in Iran, and have not for many months now. It is a bourgeois, reactionary revolution made up of petty-bourgeois shopkeepers and well-to-do students in opposition to the Islamic Republic. It is a comprador, pro- Moussavi the commie-killer protest designed to take power for Moussavi through Zionist and American tanks.
I call upon all revolutionaries to ignore the television and oppose these protests. When police beat down anti-Iraqi-occupation protestors here, the television is silent. When the police beat down pro-US protestors overseas, it is treated as the worst horror ever portrayed on humanity.
I fully admit it: I was resolutely, absolutely, 100% wrong and I take back my former position. For those of you who I admonished for calling out the protests and the Color Revolution for what they were at the time, I sincerely apologize for any epitaphs I might have hurled at you.
I call on all Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries to support the anti-imperialist government of Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Republic of Iran against CIA-backed coups.
For my Party’s position, follow this link:
http://theredphoenix.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/on-the-iranian-uprising-rebellion/
Sources:
1) http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/countries/iran/iranspyweed2.txt
Filed under: Anti-Colonialism, Art & Culture, Literary Criticism, Women's Rights
The main character Oothoon in The Visions of the Daughters of Albion is a liberation figure challenging not only male chauvinism and marriage but the institution of slavery and imperialism in general. The female protagonist Oothoon, a sex slave who is raped by the slave driver Bromion, is clearly made to represent both the fertile, virginal and innocent lands of the pre-colonialism New World and the oppression of the women of Blake’s time, who were, like slaves, treated as property of their husbands. In the course of his poem Oothoon becomes the ultimate symbol for liberation both as a woman and as a slave. Even though the author slyly created Oothoon as a European woman whose skin is described as “snow white” in order to elicit sympathy from European readers that a dark-skinned woman might not have received so heartily, she still becomes the voice of subjugated races.
Social conditioning is also examined as a force in society, since all three characters are chained (literally on the accompanying plates) by the conventions of the society they inhabit and the patriarchal, property-oriented and colonialist attitudes thereof. Bromion says explicitly to Oothoon, “Thy soft American plains are mine, and mine thy north & south: Stampt with my signet are the swarthy children of the sun: They are obedient, they resist not[.]” The double meaning here is transparent.
The idea of people and land as property is also examined, since Theotormon as a lover and owner cares not whether Oothoon as a person is harmed, but rather about his own possession of her and what his failing to obtain such a prize means for himself. He symbolizes the insecurity and oppression of colonialist man—specifically his feeling that for himself to have any value he must enslave and oppress others. It is also not a coincidence that Bromion is sketched as being very masculine and powerful, the idealized man who delights in domination. Like most of Blake’s more revolutionary works, Visions of the Daughters of Albion communicates the social and political ills of the time without having a traditional ending or clear resolution—Blake ultimately places the responsibility for true change upon his observers of the Visions, his readers.
