Iraqi Refugees and Resettlement

Jeff Leys — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:20:25 -0500

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Cathy Breen writes regarding the challenges faced by Iraqi refugees in navigating the resettlement process.

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Damascus, Syria
June 26, 2009

Cathy Breen with Iraqi Child in SyriaDear Friends,

My time in Syria is coming to a close. Tomorrow I will head to Jordan for a couple of days and then back to the big apple on July 1st. A final session with UNHCR the other day brought a sense of closure in some ways, as I was able to discuss concerns and turn over concrete “cases” for their consideration. We spoke of the increasingly desperate situation of Iraqi refugees here, one hidden from the world by the lack of media coverage. But we also acknowledged the many small miracles and victories we continue to witness.

A young Iraqi woman (I will call her Zayneb), mother of four small children, wrote a little book about a horse with hidden wings. She wanted to honor the staff at the UNHCR here in Damascus by dedicating the book to them. “Everyone knows” she told her grandmother as a child “that horses can’t fly.” But her grandmother, still living in Baghdad, could not be persuaded otherwise. She insisted that the horse she saw could fly! But it is Zayneb’s deep sense of gratitude that leaps out from the pages.

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Damascus, Syria
June 26, 2009

Cathy Breen with Iraqi Child in SyriaDear Friends,

While at the UNHCR, a colleague gave me a copy of a report which the International Rescue Committee (IRC) issued this month, IRAQI REFUGEES IN THE UNITED STATES: IN DIRE STRAITS. In February of 2008 a Commission on Iraqi refugees formed by the IRC visited Jordan and Syria to assess the condition of Iraqi refugees and then issued a comprehensive report entitled Five Years Later, A Hidden Crisis. In February of 2009 the IRC conducted a follow-up trip to the Middle East, and in April their delegations traveled to Atlanta, Georgia and Phoenix, Arizona to see firsthand how resettled Iraqis are adjusting to their new life in America.

“…most Iraqi refugees who were interviewed painted a picture of despair and frustration. Refugees [in the states] are finding it difficult to find a job and without secure income some are facing eviction from their homes. Without jobs, refugees cannot support themselves and their families on limited public assistance. Many of the Iraqis are traumatized and need additional support in the face of financial assistance, English lessons, employment counseling and access to health care.”

The report continues “Despite these difficulties, resettlement in the United States remains the only option for thousands of Iraqi refugees who are still in exile in the Middle East, primarily in Jordan and Syria.” The report concludes that “the U.S. resettlement program, likely the only safe alternative for thousands of Iraqi refugees, faces major structural challenges in its organization and funding. These challenges are exacerbated by a simultaneous global economic downturn and resettlement of a highly educated refugee population with many special needs…”

Over the last three months you may have read some of my communications. I have tried to describe something of the reality that Iraqis here and in Jordan are facing as a result of the war. I am amazed at the number of Iraqis here in Syria whom I met some years back in Jordan. Many returned to Iraq to see a sick family member, to sell a house or car, to get the “G” passport, etc., but then had to flee to Syria as the Jordanian borders were closed to them after 2006. My stories must seem anecdotal at times, and it is an ongoing struggle to try and put them in a larger political context in order to affect some concrete changes. Changes that might better their situations somehow, at least give them hope that there will be an end to their exile.

It is imperative to get Iraqi families and individuals who have family and sponsors in the U.S. reunited. This challenge seems daunting in the case of families/individuals who have been rejected resettlement by DHS, mostly on “credibility” rulings. The arbitrariness of these decisions must be acknowledged, and we must find ways to reverse them.

Yesterday I was with two families both of whom have close family members in the states, and yet both have been rejected on “credibility” grounds. I spend several hours with one family and held their severely disabled granddaughter in my arms. I basked in the love I witnessed for this child. I wrote about the grandfather, only in his 50s, who was asked by a DHS officer “Did you or did you not cook?” His military document stated that he was a cook, but in fact his military supervisor assigned him administrative duties in a cafeteria on an Air Force base when he saw that he had a degree in Hotel Management.

Their simple desire to be reunited with family in the U.S. has been denied. Is it possible that such a decision cannot be overturned? I refuse, WE must refuse, to accept this.

The other challenge of course are the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis stuck in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, etc. who are not even in the resettlement pool, so to speak, let alone in the Jacuzzi. There are fewer and fewer “slots” in terms of countries willing to take them.

Most likely this will be the last letter I will write from the Middle East. Like Zayneb, I have no words to express my own gratitude to you for your support and concern over these last months. Thank you for making this trip possible.

Cathy Breen

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen

Now We See You, Now We Don't

Dan Pearson — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:19:26 -0500

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Kathy Kelly writes about the civilian impacts of US drones attacks and Pakistan's military offensive.

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June 25, 2009

A boy from Pakistan’s Swat valley now resides an an abandoned building outside Islamabad. (Photo: Dan Pearson)In early June, 2009, I was in the Shah Mansoor displaced persons camp in Pakistan, listening to one resident detail the carnage which had spurred his and his family’s flight there a mere 15 days earlier. Their city, Mingora, had come under massive aerial bombardment. He recalled harried efforts to bury corpses found on the roadside even as he and his neighbors tried to organize their families to flee the area.

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June 25, 2009

In early June, 2009, I was in the Shah Mansoor displaced persons camp in Pakistan, listening to one resident detail the carnage which had spurred his and his family’s flight there a mere 15 days earlier. Their city, Mingora, had come under massive aerial bombardment. He recalled harried efforts to bury corpses found on the roadside even as he and his neighbors tried to organize their families to flee the area. A boy from Pakistan’s Swat valley now resides an an abandoned building outside Islamabad. (Photo: Dan Pearson)

“They were killing us in that way, there,” my friend said. Then, gesturing to the rows of tents stretching as far as the eye could see, he added, “Now, in this way, here.”

The people in the tent encampment suffered very harsh conditions. They were sleeping on the ground without mats, they lacked water for bathing, the tents were unbearably hot, and they had no idea whether their homes and shops in Mingora were still standing. But, the suffering they faced had only just begun. UN humanitarian envoy Abdul Aziz Arrukban warned on June 22nd that the millions of Pakistanis displaced during the military’s offensive against the Swat Valley would “die slowly” unless the international community started taking notice of the “unprecedented” scope of the crisis. (Bronwyn Curran, The National)

UN agencies and NGOs such as Islamic Relief and Relief International report that many of the persons now living in tent encampments, or squatting in abandoned buildings, or crowded into schools designated as refugee centers, may soon start dying from preventable disease.

Health teams note increasingly frequent cases of diarrhea, scabies and malaria, all deadly in these circumstances, especially for young children. With so many people living so close to each other, these diseases are spreading fast.

Relief groups are concerned that as the monsoon season approaches, in July, these problems will get considerably worse. Monsoons bring regional floods and cause escalating rates of malaria and waterborne diseases. The impact, this year, is expected to be much more severe because so many people are living in crowded and unsanitary conditions.

Pakistan’s already rundown health care system, officials report, is now near collapse. Hospitals in northern Pakistan have been overwhelmed, with exhausted doctors, depleted medicine supplies and avalanches of red tape blocking money and medicine for the crisis.

Writing for the Associated Press on June 7th, Kathy Gannon described the men’s ward in the Mardan District Hospital: “30 steel beds lie crammed together, with two-inch mattresses and no pillows. Pools of urine spread on the floor, and fresh blood stains the ripped bedding…The one bathroom for 30 patients stinks of urine and faeces. The toilets are overflowing, the door to one cement cubicle is falling off and a two-inch river of urine covers the cement floor. In one corner, garbage is piled high.”

The annual budget for health care in Pakistan, this year, is less than $150 million, while Pakistan’s defense budget last year came to $3.45 billion, and is expected to reach $3.65 billion next year.

People in Shah Mansoor worry that the international community as well as their own government won’t notice the health care crisis they face. But villagers yet to flee their homes in Waziristan agonize under constant military scrutiny from lethally-armed U.S. surveillance drones.

A villager who survived a drone attack in North Waziristan explained that even the children, at play, were acutely conscious of drones flying overhead. After a drone attack, survivors trying to bring injured victims to a hospital were dumbfounded when a driver stopped, learned of their plight and then sped away. Then it dawned on them that the driver was afraid the drone would still be prowling overhead and that he might be targeted for associating with victims of the attack.

The U.S. drone aircraft can see Pakistan - their pilots in air-conditioned Nevada trailers see the terrain even though they are physically thousands of miles away.

Writing about U.S. Air Force efforts to “meet the voracious need for unmanned aircraft surveillance in combat zones,” Grace Jean notes, in the June, 2009 issue of National Defense Magazine, that the Air Force’s 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing, at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, is expanding base operations. “We have 34 video feeds over the battlefield right now,” says Col. John Montgomery, the wing’s vice commander. When operating a drone, Montgomery says, “You are part of the battlefield.” Commenting on the hundreds of combat sorties he flew over Sadr City, in Baghdad, Montgomery said he even knew where people hung out the laundry and when they took out the trash. “I knew the traffic flow for the hours that I could see, and when that changed, I knew it. Once you know the patterns of life, when things are different or odd, that means something’s up, and that gives the battlefield commander, the joint commander on the ground, a heads up.”

On Tuesday, June 23rd, U.S. drones launched an attack on a compound in South Waziristan. Locals rushed to the scene to rescue survivors. The U.S. drone then launched more missiles at them, leaving a total of 13 dead. The next day, local people were involved in a funeral procession when the U.S. struck again. Reuters reported that 70 of the mourners were killed.

Drone operators and their commanders at Creech Air Force Base will become increasingly well informed about the movements of Pakistani people, but meanwhile the U.S. people will have lost sight of war’s human costs in Pakistan.

Now, we’re hearing of imminent army operations in South Waziristan that have alreadyforced about 45,000 people to flee the region, joining about two million men, women, and children displaced by fighting in the Swat Valley and other areas. People from Waziristan who flee from their villages, trying to save their lives, trying not to be seen by the omnipresent drones, will likely join the unseen, the displaced people whose lives and hopes escape international notice as they die slowly.

President Obama has taken us into an expansion of Bush’s war on terror, presumably guided by the rationale that his administration is responsible to root out Al Qaeda terrorists. But the methods used by U.S. and Pakistani military forces, expelling millions of people from their homes, failing to provide food and shelter for those who are displaced, and using overwhelmingly superior weapon technology to attack innocent civilians, — these methods will continue creating terrorist resisters, not defeating them.

If we want to counter Al-Qaeda, if we want to be safe from further terrorist attacks, we’d do well to remember that even when we don’t recognize the humanity of people bearing the brunt of our wars, these very people have eyes to see and ears to hear. They must be asking themselves, who are the terrorists?

VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly

Time for Solidarity With Iran

Dan Pearson — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:36:37 -0500

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Analysis of the current political events in Iran.

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by Bitta Mostofi and Bill Quigley

June 25, 2009

In Isfahan, Iran, an 80-year-old woman stood defiantly in her doorway. Twenty baton-wielding Basij men arrived on motorcycles and threatened to enter her house in pursuit of a group of young demonstrators. Instead of running with fear or turning her back on the demonstrators, this woman looked the pursuers straight in the eye and said, “You will not get past me.”

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by Bitta Mostofi and Bill Quigley

June 25, 2009

Stories of extraordinary bravery and nonviolent defiance to aggression and injustice have slowly but consistently found their way over the Alborz Mountains and across rivers and oceans. They have found their way into the hearts and minds of people across the globe who have been captivated for the past week by this most unlikely of uprisings.

Iranians in Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan and Tabriz have flooded the streets demanding their voices be heard. We see and are inspired by their movement. We have also witnessed the reality of violent suppression and carry a heavy sorrow for the tragically lost lives.

Yet, unfortunately, in the US, the loudest voices framing the discussion about Iran come from right-wing conservatives, who historically have repeated attempts to demonize and dominate Iran. The voices of solidarity from progressives and social justice activists who support the right of self-determination for Iran have not been raised as forcefully, if at all.

It is right to support President Obama’s position to let the Iranian people determine their own future, if that support is part of a larger and louder campaign for justice. This support does not minimize the need for international solidarity.

The Iranian regime must be held responsible for the severe violations of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The ICCPR upholds the right of all people to self-determination, to freedom of expression, to receive and impart information, to freedom of assembly and to vote in elections which guarantee the free expression of the will of the voters. The Iranian regime has continually violated these rights since the election and must be held accountable.

The leadership of Iran, and by this we mean the people on the streets, have lived the last week consistent with the principles of nonviolent resistance in response to a coup.

Where are the voices of social justice and human rights activists in the US? Where are our civil rights leaders and the leaders of nonviolent resistance? As the Iranians have stood side by side, and continue to do so, many on the left have come up with excuse after excuse as to why they remain silent.

Social justice activists must stand with Iranian activists now in order to prevent an ideological and dangerous intervention. Social justice activists must insist that the international community call for an immediate cessation against all human rights violations in Iran. Our commitment to freedom and self-determination cannot wane. Otherwise, we may have to ask ourselves when we look back on these weeks, what did our silence say?

Whether you believe the election was a fraud is beside the point. What is happening today is a popular movement that deserves the solidarity of all people of good will. The state apparatus in Iran continues to withhold information and refuses to carry any burden of proof. They intend to prevail by smothering the resistance.

What is needed now by all supporters of the rule of law, social justice and human rights in the United States is strong support for the Obama administration’s current position. Otherwise, a dangerous void is created in the conversation about Iran in which the same people who sang “Bomb, bomb Iran” are positioning themselves to be seen as the liberators of the very people they threatened to attack. We can support the administration’s position at present while urging the international community to condemn the violence used against civilians in Iran.

Over the past few years, many groups and organizations have led campaigns against US intervention and war on Iran. Yet, the people who led, donated to and supported much of this work have been too quiet in the last week, allowing conservatives to beat the drums of invasion louder than ever.

A woman at a prayer service for a fallen child said to one of the few remaining journalists in Iran, “I’m scared that all the blood shed for this cause may be wasted.”

The movement for rule of law in Iran deserves our solidarity. To those that continue to fight for their rights in the face of the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity, “We stand with you!”

Those of us that live over the mountains and across the oceans from Iran cannot show the bravery of the 80-year-old woman in Isfahan, refusing to allow the Basij to beat innocent protesters. But, like the brave Iranian woman, we can scream from the top of our lungs to those who are trying to usurp this movement for conservative causes, “You are not getting past us!”

Bitta Mostofi is an Iranian-American immigration and civil rights attorney who can be reached at . Bill Quigley is the Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and can be reached at quigley77@gmail.com.

Photos from Iraqi Kurdistan

Gerald — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:26:44 -0500

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Images from Northern Iraq

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During the Month of May Gerald Paoli of Voices served for 28 days on the Christian Peacemaker Iraq Team (CPT). These are some images from that journey.

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By Gerald Paoli

View photos from Northern Iraq

During the Month of May Gerald Paoli of Voices served on the Christian Peacemaker Iraq Team (CPT). These are some images from that journey. They include photos of the city of Sulaimaniya, the city of Halabja and images of the beauty of Northern Iraq.

There are also images of the two refugee camps written about in the article, Life and Death in The Qandil Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, by Gerald.

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Gifts

Dan Pearson — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:32:04 -0500

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The challenges faced by one Iraqi family seeking to immigrate to the U.S.

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Damascus, Syria
June 16, 2009

Middle Eastern people are by nature gift givers. My room and the refrigerator outside on the patio attest to this. The homemade yogurt from Namir’s family and the jar of cherry jam from Sara, mother of four; are in the process of being consumed. However, the large oil painting from 16 year old Noor, a bar of soap carved into the shape of a foot by little Anfal and a large Arabic bible are just a few of the lasting items so lovingly given to me.

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Damascus, Syria
June 16, 2009

During my brief overnight trip to Aleppo I was walking with Iraqi friends through one of the world famous souqs. The rich smell of spices, the intricately fashioned inlaid tables and the beautiful woven scarves and colorful fabrics were just a few of the things that delighted my senses. I dared not admire anything openly. I was certain that if I did the family, refugees themselves, would have purchased the item for me. As it was they did indeed buy me something, a set of beautiful prayer beads.

As I write you on this Tuesday morning, I am thinking of an Iraqi friend who is standing at this moment under the hot sun with hundreds of others at the UNHCR hoping to speak with someone about his case. Another family of nine is being interviewed by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for resettlement to the U.S. They were so nervous. Yet another family is due to depart tonight from Damascus to the U.S. That is, the mother and four children are slated to travel. The father has been rejected by DHS on “credibility” grounds. He must remain behind. They were advised that should the wife and children refuse the offer to travel, they would lose any hope of resettlement. Once in the states, the wife was told she can file papers in the US. Maybe her husband can join them in a year or two. His mother, three sisters and brother live in the states.

I just got off the phone with a trusted translator friend who only days ago introduced me to this family. Shall we go to the airport to see them off? I’m not sure I can bear to witness the family’s grief. Their four year old daughter (pictured above) said “I’m going to wait behind with you. I don’t want to leave you.”

In the last days we have been trying desperately to get this decision overturned. I will go to internet in a little while to see if our urgent appeal has reached the ears of any congress people. But I feel like we are trying to move a mountain.

In the final chapter of his book “The Street Philosopher and the Holy Fool: A Syrian Journey,” we find the author Marius Kochiejowski in a half-jesting dialogue with his Sufi alchemist friend, Sulayman, from Damascus. Marius tells him that there are no tents in London, nor camels for that matter, should Sulayman decide to travel there. Sulayman replies “All right then, when I arrive with the camel I will give [the neighbors] gifts and they will grow to like the camel. A human being is a creature of gifts, which is why for four thousand years you’ve loved Santa Claus because he gives gifts.”

You are probably asking yourself what does Sulayman or Santa Claus for that matter, have to do with people waiting in vain for hot hours in the scorching sun? Or with a family so desperate that they would agree to separate. I’m not really sure myself.

I believe however that despite the ongoing war(s), we are not by any means just takers of life, inflictors of suffering. We are also givers of life, givers of gifts. More important than the small gesture of money however is the message you send them that they are not forgotten. I take every opportunity to tell them that many many people in the U.S. are trying to better their situation. Each one of them has asked me to thank you.

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen

The Iranian Uprising is Home Grown, and Must Stay That Way

Jeff Leys — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:51:17 -0500

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Analysis of the current political events in Iran.

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by Stephen Zunes
CommonDreams - original source
June 19, 2009
Additonal Analysis by Stephen Zunes

The growing nonviolent insurrection in Iran against the efforts by the ruling clerics to return the ultra-conservative and increasingly autocratic incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinjead to power is growing. Whatever the outcome, it represents an exciting and massive outpouring of Iranian civil society for a more open and pluralistic society.

Ironically, defenders of Ahmadinejad’s repression are trying to blame everyone from the U.S. government, to nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp, to various small NGOs engaged in educational efforts on strategic nonviolent action as somehow being responsible for the popular uprising in Iran. It appears to be based upon the rather bizarre assumption that millions of Iranians would somehow be willing to pour out onto the streets in the face of violent repression by state security forces only because they have been directed to do so by people from an imperialist power which overthrew their last democratic government and subsequently propped up the tyrannical regime they installed in its place for the next quarter century.

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by Stephen Zunes
CommonDreams - original source
June 19, 2009
Additonal Analysis by Stephen Zunes

Even putting aside the bizarre spectacle of self-proclaimed “leftists” coming to the defense of a right-wing fundamentalist autocratic like Ahmadinejad, this claim ignores several key factors:

1) Neo-conservatives and other American hawks were hoping for a victory by the hard-line incumbent to justify their opposition to President Barack Obama’s tentative steps at rapprochement with the Islamic Republic.

2) Opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and the vast majority of his supporters are strongly nationalist, anti-American, anti-imperialist, and would neither desire nor accept U.S. support.

3) There has been a longstanding Iranian tradition of such largely nonviolent civil insurrections against imperialist powers and autocratic rulers and no outside power is needed to convince the Iranian people to rebel.

The Neo-Cons Supported Ahmadinejad

The only people happier than the Iranian elites over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s apparently stolen election win Friday, were the neoconservatives and other hawks eager to block any efforts by the Obama administration to moderate U.S. policy toward the Islamic republic.

Since he was elected president in 2005, Ahmadinejad has filled a certain niche in the American psyche formerly filled by the likes of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi as the Middle Eastern leader we most love to hate. It gives us a sense of righteous superiority to compare ourselves favorably to these seemingly irrational and fanatical foreign despots.

Better yet, if these despots can be inflated into far greater threats than they actually are, these supposed threats can be used to justify the enormous financial and human costs of maintaining American armed forces in that volatile region to protect ourselves and our allies, and even to make war against far-off nations in “self-defense.”

The neocons have not been subtle about their desire for Ahmadinejad to continue playing this important role. For example, right-wing pundit Daniel Pipes, at a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation just before the election, said that he would vote for Ahmadinejad if he could, because he prefers “an enemy who is forthright, blatant, obvious.”

Last week, just two days before the Iranian election, Congressional Republicans — in an apparent effort to provoke a nationalist reaction which would enhance the chances of Iranian hard liners – tried to push through a floor vote to strengthen U.S. sanctions against Iran.

It is interesting how some of the very foreign policy hawks who just last week were dismissing Mir Hossein Mousavi’s expected victory as irrelevant since, in their view, there was essentially no meaningful difference between him and Ahmadinejad, are now among the most self-righteous in denouncing the apparent fraud and the most outspoken in their pseudo-outrage at the results.

Their worst-case scenario for these American hawks would be a nonviolent insurrection that would topple Ahmadinejad and allied hard-line clerics and the development of a more pluralistic and representative Islamic Republic in Iran. . Neither the neocons nor Iran’s reactionary leadership want to see that oil-rich regional power under a popular and legitimate government. Indeed, the neocons and Iranian hard-liners need each other.

The Nationalist Nature of the Opposition

Mousavi – despite his disagreements with Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the years — has been very much part of the establishment. Indeed, Mousavi would not have even been allowed to run for president otherwise, since the Council of Guardians routinely forbids anyone who is seen to not sufficiently support the country’s theocratic system to participate.

Yet, Mousavi attracted a large and enthusiastic following during the course of the campaign which may have led the ruling clerics to fear that the momentum of his incipient victory could result not just in limited reforms, like those attempted under former president Mohammed Khatami, but revolutionary change. The size and intensity of Mousavi’s final campaign rally, in which he referred to Ahmadinejad as a “dictator” — which, by extension, implied an indictment of the system as a whole — may have tilted the clerics into believing they could not take the risk of allowing the anticipated results to be verified. Despite his candidacy displaying a personality and style closer to Michael Dukakis than Barack Obama, Mousavi came to represent the change so many Iranians, especially young people, desperately desired and appeared determined to make happen.

Even among Iranians dedicated to the principles of the Islamic Republic, many now see their country essentially as a police state, recognizing that Ahmadinejad and the ruling clerics are little more than corrupt self-interested politicians who have manipulated their people’s religious faith for the sake of their own power.

However strong their opposition to the current regime, the democratic and reformist opposition simply does not trust the United States, which overthrew Iran’s last democratic government in 1953, armed and trained the Shah’s brutal security apparatus, backed Saddam Hussein in his bloody war against their country, imposed strict economic sanctions on their country, and has hypocritically obsessed about their civilian nuclear program while supporting such neighboring states as Israel, Pakistan and India despite their developing nuclear arsenals.

While Congress in recent years has approved millions of dollars in funding to support various Iranian opposition groups to promote “regime change,” most of these groups are led by exiles who have virtually no following within Iran or any experience with the kinds of grassroots mobilization necessary to build a popular movement that could threaten the regime’s survival. By contrast, most of the credible opposition within Iran has renounced this U.S. initiative and has asserted that it has simply made it easier for the regime to claim that all pro-democracy groups and activists are paid agents of the United States.

Feeling pressure from Iranian democrats and major Iranian-American groups regarding such counter-productive efforts, Obama and the Democrats have since ended this controversial program. Ironically, Republicans are now attacking the administration for having somehow abandoned Iran’s pro-democracy struggle while Ahmadinejad and his supporters are citing the now-discarded effort as proof of U.S. complicity in the current uprising.

Generations of Struggle

Most Iranians – who have traditionally been very proud of their political, social and cultural history – would find it rather bizarre to learn that some Western bloggers, ignorant of that very history, are insisting that the recent protests are a result not of their own anger at an apparent stolen election and continued autocratic rule, but simply because some Americans have told them to.

In reality, uprisings like the one witnessed in recent days have occurred with some regularity in Iran since the late 1800s. Indeed, the idea of Americans having to teach Iranians about massive nonviolent resistance is like Americans teaching Iranians to cook fesenjan.

In 1890, unpopular concessions on tobacco and other products to the British led leading Shia clerics to call for nationalist protests and a nationwide tobacco strike, which succeeded in forcing the Shah to cancel the concession in early 1892.

In 1905, in opposition to widespread corruption by the Qajar dynasty and allied regional nobles and a series of other concessions to Russian and other foreign interests, an uprising initially led by merchants and clergy ensued which would continue for the next six years. In what became known as the Constitutional Revolution, many thousands of Iranians engaged in peaceful protests, boycotts and mass sit-ins, along with occasional riots and scattered armed engagements. The result was significant political and social reforms, including the establishment of an elected parliament to share power with the Shah and anti-corruption measures.

A CIA-sponsored coup in 1953 ousted the elected nationalist prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh and his nationalist supporters and returned the exiled Shah to power as an absolute monarch. Through mass arms transfers from the United States, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi built one of the most powerful armed forces ever seen in the Middle East. His American-trained secret police, the SAVAK, had been thought to have successfully terrorized the population into submission during the next two decades through widespread killings, torture and mass detentions. By the mid-1970s, most of the leftist, liberal, nationalist, and other secular opposition leadership had been successfully repressed through murder, imprisonment or exile, and most of their organizations banned. It was impossible to suppress the Islamist opposition as thoroughly, however, so it was out of mosques and among the mullahs that much of the organized leadership of the movement against the Shah’s dictatorship emerged.

Open resistance began in 1977, when exiled opposition leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for strikes, boycotts, tax refusal and other forms of noncooperation with the Shahs regime. Such activism was met with brutal repression by the government. The pace of the resistance accelerated as massacres of civilians were answered by larger demonstrations following the Islamic 40-day mourning period. In the months that followed, Iranians employed many of the methods that would be used in the unarmed insurrections that toppled dictatorships in the Philippines, Latin America, Eastern Europe and elsewhere in subsequent years: mass demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, contestation of public space, and the establishment of parallel institutions.

Despite the bloody image of the revolution and the authoritarianism and militarism of the Islamic Republic that followed, there was a clear commitment to keeping the actual insurrection largely nonviolent. Protestors were told by the leadership of the resistance to try to win over the troops rather than attack them; indeed, thousands of troops deserted, some in the middle of confrontations with crowds. Clandestinely smuggled audio cassette tapes of Ayatollah Khomeini speaking about the revolution played a key role in the movement’s mass mobilization, and led Abolhassan Sadegh, an official with the Ministry of National Guidance, to note that “tape cassettes are stronger than fighter planes.” Ayatollah Khomeini’s speeches, circulated through such covert methods, emphasized the power of unarmed resistance and noncooperation. In one speech, he said, “The clenched fists of freedom fighters can crush the tanks and guns of the oppressors.” There were few of the violent activities normally associated with armed revolutions such as shooting soldiers, setting fires to government buildings or looting. Such incidents that did occur were unorganized and spontaneous and did not appear to have the support of the leadership of the movement.

In October and November of 1978, a series of strikes by civil servants and workers in government industries crippled the country. The crisis deepened when oil workers struck at the end of October and demanded the release of political prisoners, costing the government $60 million a day. An ensuing general strike on November 6 paralyzed the country. Even as some workers returned to their jobs, disruption of fuel oil supplies and freight transit, combined with shortages of raw materials resulting from a customs strike, largely kept economic life in the country at a standstill.

Despite providing rhetorical support for an improvement in the human rights situation in Iran, the Carter administration continued military and economic support for the Shah’s increasingly repressive regime, even providing fuel for the armed forces and other security services facing shortages due to the strikes.

Under enormous pressure, the oil workers returned to work but continued to stage slowdowns. Later in November, the Shah’s nightly speeches were interrupted when workers cut off the electricity at precisely the time of his scheduled addresses. Massive protests filled the streets in major cities in December as oil workers walked out again and an ongoing general strike closed the refineries and the central bank. Despite thousands of unarmed protesters being killed by the Shah’s forces, the protesters’ numbers increased, with as many as nine million Iranians taking to the streets in of cities across the country in largely nonviolent protests. The Shah fled on January 16, 1979, and Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile two weeks later. He appointed Mehdi Bazargan prime minister, thus establishing a parallel government to challenge the Shah’s appointed prime minister Shapur Bahktiar. With the loyalty of the vast majority clearly with the new Islamic government, Bahktiar resigned February 11.

One element that contributed to people’s willingness to mobilize under harsh repression was the value of martyrdom in Shia Islam. The movement’s emphasis was to “save Islam by our blood.” Indeed, there are interesting parallels between the legacy of martyrdom inspired by early Shia leader Imam Hossein with the Gandhian tradition of self-sacrifice. As demonstrated by their subsequent rule, the Iranian revolution’s leadership – unlike Mohandas Gandhi – clearly did not support nonviolence as a principle, but recognized its utilitarian advantages against the well-armed security apparatus of the Shah’s regime.

While the revolution had the support of a broad cross-section of society (including Islamists, secularists, nationalists, laborers, and ethnic minorities), Khomeini and other leading Shia clerics strengthened by a pre-existing network of social service and other parallel institutions consolidated their hold and established an Islamic theocracy. The regime shifted far to the right by the spring of 1981, purging moderate Islamists including the elected president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr and imposing a totalitarian system.

A New Revolution?

Now, a new generation of Iranians is rising up in the tradition of previous generations using largely nonviolent tactics to challenge their oppression. Those out on the streets in Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, and other cities are not just middle class intellectuals but also represent a broad cross-section of the poor and working class and include both the majority Persians as well as other ethnicities.

It is not clear whether the opposition can successfully organize a “people power” revolution of the kind which have succeeded in ousting autocrats who attempted to steal elections in such countries as the Philippines in 1986, Serbia in 2000, or Ukraine in 2005 or whether – as in Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Mexico – the regime will remain in power.

In any case, it is clearly a home-grown indigenous struggle. Any effort by the United States (which has allowed one —and possible two—stolen elections to stand in recent years) to intervene will only hurt the pro-democracy movement. Given the history of U.S. interventionism in Iran, Obama’s cautious approach will do more to help those in the current popular struggle than anything more explicit, despite Republican demands to the contrary.

The future of Iran belongs in the hands of the Iranians and the best thing the United States can do to support a more open and pluralistic society in that country is to stay the hell out of the way.

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Stephen Zunes is Middle East editor for Foreign Policy In Focus. He is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003.)

Photos from Pakistan

Dan Pearson — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:30:28 -0500

Short Information Teaser

taken during a recent Voices delegation to Pakistan

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View photos from the 2009 Pakistan delegationShah Mansoor Camp, District of Swabi, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan

In Late May and early June 2009, Kathy Kelly, Gene Stoltzfus, Razia Ahmed, Steve Kelly and Dan Pearson traveled to Pakistan. They visited various cities and villages and met with people who have been forced to flee their homes in the Swat Valley amidst a violent military offensive against suspected supporters of the Taliban.

Through dozens of meetings, the delegation heard various perspectives on the crisis in Pakistan. Those with whom they met included professors, human rights activists, journalists, representatives of NGOs committed to humanitarian relief work and educators.

While each meeting included discussions about US drone attacks, the most informative was a meeting with a survivor of such attacks in north Waziristan. An account of this meeting and other reports are posted in the following articles: Visitors and Hosts in Pakistan, Down and Out in Shah Mansoor, A Weaver’s Welcome

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View photos from the 2009 Pakistan delegationShah Mansoor Camp, District of Swabi, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan

VCNV Author

Dan Pearson