DC: Workers from Iran remind me that we’re communists

On May Day, the Progressive Labor Party was joined by a group of Iranian workers, men and women, at Malcolm X Park in Washington, D.C. for our annual March for Communist Revolution. Their hatred of capitalism and the Islamic Republic of Iran was palpable. “What do you think about Hamas?” I asked. “Fascist!” was their immediate emotional response. I realized then that I had been too cautious about raising criticisms of Hamas’s nationalist misdirection of the Palestinian liberation movement at the many protests calling for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid to Gaza. Listening to these workers’ description of Hamas as an organization that silences any debate within Palestine made me realize that I have to call for communism at every turn. They said, “Of course, that’s what we have to do.”

These workers also spoke to the fact that Iran’s government cares only about its power base. One of them pointed out that “Iran did not fire a single bullet” in support of Palestinians -- until three of its generals were killed in Syria. The Iranian Islamic ruling class does not care about working-class Palestinians. They enforce a reign of terror against workers in Iran as well. One worker referred to the music being played in the park and said that there was no freedom to play such music in Iran. He continued, an Iranian rapper is facing execution by the state! State violence against women has led to an organized movement called WOMAN LIFE FREEDOM. Their large banner shared this message. Another called for the destruction of the Islamic State. 

The U.S. rulers have tried to co-opt (in the minds of U.S. workers) the outrageously sexist character of Iran’s ruling class and government. An essay in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) laid out the horrors facing women in Iran and called for us to care about internationalism and listed Afghanistan and Sudan as well -- without any mention of Palestinians or Gaza. The essay thus served the U.S. bosses by attacking Iran without any support for Palestinians against whom the U.S. and Israel are waging genocide. The NEJM has gone to great lengths to avoid any mention of the 6-month-long genocide in Gaza despite a recent self-criticism of their failure to mention the oppression of Jews in Nazi Germany from 1933-1945. (Only after World War II was over did the NEJM cover the Nuremberg trials). Palestine has yet to get a mention! A joint letter to the journal by comrades pointing this out has not been published and most likely never will. Major medical journals have suppressed support for Palestinians. The American Medical Association has refused to consider any resolution even for humanitarian aid and their journal (JAMA) has only written essays in support of Israel. 

At the conclusion of the May Day rally, the Iranian workers sang the Internationale with us and then sang it in Farsi, to great applause from the other May Day marchers.As a result of these conversations, I plan to sharpen my conversations with pro-Palestinian protesters to call for organizing for communism and not just another capitalist nation-state. There are lots of examples in the past where national liberation was won but capitalist oppression and exploitation persisted. The failures in South Africa and Vietnam are the most familiar to U.S. audiences. My thanks to the workers from Iran who helped me think more clearly about this. 
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Brooklyn Nakba rally open to communist ideas

Recently a group of members of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) participated in a Nakba day rally protesting the war and genocide carried out by the terrorist government of Israel, against the people of Palestine. This war has already claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people, more than half of them children, even newborns, a crime that is being condemned by all the peoples of the world.

During the protest, where there were thousands of repressive, racist and criminal police, we distributed hundreds of CHALLENGEs, which were received with great enthusiasm by many people and we also spread the line of our Party.

Before the march took off there were many police squads in riot gear and other repressive forces of the city who surrounded us on the sidewalk. As hundreds more protestors trickled in and with the leadership of hundreds of brave young people, we eventually took all streets and avenues in all its breadth, disrupting traffic on several streets in that sector of Brooklyn. So even a large squad of hundreds of police could not stop the disruption for several hours. But eventually at the Manhattan Bridge numerous arrests were carried out.

It was an eventful day of great militancy where our PLP group once again demonstrated our role and commitment to the masses and with the
conviction that only a communist revolution will end the war and destroy the capitalist imperialist system and all its evils.

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‘For workers in Palestine’

Below is the poem given at our May Day celebration dinner in Chicago

Well I’ve never been there, so I wouldn’t know,
but it seems it's a place where watermelons grow      (Palestine).
To give you a clue about where it’s at,
They once had a leader named Arafat.

But divide and conquer is the bosses’ game,
their political parties — they’re all the same.
To undermine Yasser and the PLO,
Israel funded Hamas and Genocide Joe.
5.3 million over decades you know,
AIPAC gave the money to Genocide Joe.
Schools, hospitals, they had mosques, even steeples,
smaller than Chicago, about 2.3 million people.
Vibrant and beautiful, it all had to go,
bombed into rubble, thanks to Genocide Joe.

In Haiti, in Pakistan, all over the map,
more and more workers are now fighting back.
The students are too -– more encampments you’ll see,
at Northwestern, at Emory, at USC.
The reps went to Columbia, they were hoping for a rout,
the students in the camp said get the F___ out!

Back in Chicago, you’re likely to hear,
chants far and wide on May Day each year:
“Working People Have No Nations,
Smash Racist Deportations”

The fight against nationalism you know that we need,
it’s definitely a message I’m sure we should heed.
For workers in Palestine, it won’t be a win
if all we can do is get a new capitalist in.