Iran Iran

The recent landslide victory in Iran is the latest high profile story to hit the international political scene. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, driving out the much hyped Rafsanjani turned out to be embarrassing for the western media channels, all of which made Rafsanjani out to be some sort of balancing act that the rest of the world needed in order to co-exist peacefully and free from a potential nuclear conflict. It is debatable how much Rafsanjani would have been able to influence the Shura council in pleasing the west but the Americans were certainly convinced of his abilities.

The real issue here is the fact that more than 60% of Iranians turned up to vote and treated the elections very seriously and the fact that they brought Ahmedinejad to power should also be treated very seriously. The Iranian nation historically has proved to be a strongly nationalist entity and their drawn out war with Iraq, the revolution and dealing with a hostile and aggressive America poised at their frontier is a discomforting thought for most Iranians. Therefore, it should not appear surprising that Iranians are moving towards a harder shelled leader who will take a stand against the US. It should never be perceived that Iran would be as easy a walk in the park as Iraq was. The initial thrust of the US blitzkrieg would meet with much greater resistance and the ‘insurgency’ to follow would be like something never seen by the Americans before. The real Vietnam lies northeast of Babylon.

With both its hands tied up in Iraq, the US is highly unlikely to mount a campaign in Iran although over the past couple of years the US has made several attempts. CIA hand was suspected in the voting station bombings in the south west of Iran as well as the Tehran students’ rebellion a couple of years ago. Universities in Iran have been the focal point of societal change and the revolution gained impetus from campuses as well. In 2002 students in Tehran hit the streets and immediately received unprecedented support by the US and western media. Wide media coverage and kissing up to the students didn’t really pay off and the US was told off and asked not to meddle in the affairs of the students. What really bothered the American’s was that this was not the government telling them off but the students didn’t appreciate US involvement. It takes a little more than McDonalds, MTV culture and ‘land of opportunity’ propaganda to woo Iranian students who are socially and politically very aware of their country and the world they inhabit. The US is myopic in its dealings with Iran and must understand that the Islamist rule the country sternly and harshly at times but they still have had a landslide mandate since the revolution and two days ago they showed it yet again.

Western corporate media and the US would have the world think that the major issue of the current elections has been ‘rigging’. It is highly unlikely that such highly publicized elections were rigged. Given the levels of public awareness and political activity amongst Iranians had the elections been rigged, the western media would not have missed even a two man protest and made it out to be thousands protesting, just as they manipulated camera footage in Venezuela. Iranians didn’t even give western media that much of space to spin webs in. The main issue surrounding the current election has been Iran attempt in acquiring nuclear arms and in finding strategic partners in the region. India has been a willing partner in the situation where it is surrounded by the US from all sides. Israel has also had a field day since the ‘war of terror’ as it has managed to get after top leadership of resistance groups. Iran finds itself more and more suffocated and finds no alternative but to brace itself for any eventuality by acquiring nuclear weapons, to strike alliances where ever possible such as with India and to pick a fighter of the revolution, one who played a pivotal role in occupying the US embassy in 1979, as the next president.

On the diplomatic front it has scored quite well. It has managed to step out of the firing line by involving the EU in the nuclear issue. Ever since Russia politely removed itself from the equation, the EU has filled the vacuum and its involvement has ensured that they US is kept at Bay.

These are tough times for Iran. Its national security is at risk and it cannot but make certain that the insurgency in Iraq does not subside. Its only guarantee for survival is the further entrenchment of the US in the Iraqi quagmire. With two of its greatest enemies, Israel and America, parked next door, Iran is warming up to some grim times ahead with Ahmedinejad in the driving seat.

The State Strikes Back - followup on the PTCL workers union strike

Many expected this to take a bit of time but the State pulled a surprise this past Saturday. The Rangers moved in to occupy all PTCL installations in the country and the Army signals core moved in to take over operations so that the workers could no longer disrupt lines of communication.

The protests that had ended with so much promise a week earlier and had the potential of churning out something substantive for the direction the economic policies of Pakistan are headed ended in violent suppression. Hundreds of union leaders and members have had to go underground, hundreds more have been arrested, tens have been fired from their jobs, the press has even filed a news item about a 15 year old boy that has been picked up and detained by the security agencies. Intelligence agencies are being kept busy by harassing families of employees driving many more underground. The army seems to have come into its own now as further suppression is on the cards over the coming days.

The aggression and blatant suppression of a peaceful, democratic protest movement, which was lead by thousands of concerned workers, supported by hundreds of thousands of others from all over the country, has been denied its fundamental right to protest. The Union can thank its lucky stars that this is not Uzbekistan but Pakistan is headed towards that model since the military does have the blessings of the US. If enough dissent is shown in this country, the military will not hesitate to bare its fangs.

The Union is now deeply embroiled in the confrontational stage of the conflict and violence has also been introduced into the equation by the Pakistan army and so called democratic and freedom loving neo-liberals of Pakistan. A large umbrella of concerned organizations and unions has been formed as a group, which is going to combat the drive to privatization. Some of these organizations who have links and with international donor agencies, which already espouse the neo-liberal agenda, so one cannot be certain of the extent and honesty of support. Although the union is in dire need of support I think that they had better not look for support beyond other workers Unions and stick it out on their own. The sooner they get politicized the better. Radicalization of this union is no longer an option and seems like more of a certainty in the upcoming months. I see the survival of workers rights and livelihoods in radicalization, especially since the military has cut the ribbon on this race.

All said about the rude shock that the Union has suffered it is time to get its act together. It is serious about its objectives and we already know that it is organized enough to take on the state in this case. The sooner the debate is brought into the macro perspective and the workers wage the war not only on the PTCL front but on the Nationalization-Privatization front, the better their chances will be of success.

Many critics of a national economy would like to enforce privatization as solution to the economic ills of Pakistan. However I maintain that horror stories associated with neo-liberal privatization are far too many. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the neo-liberals received a free hand to do as they pleased in the world and did exactly that. The best example is the US ‘backyard’ of Latin America. From 1991-2002 all countries were subject to fanatical neo-liberal market reforms and by 2002 countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile hit the world headlines as classic representatives of failed economies. Over the past couple of years leftist governments have swept the continent and nationalizing the key industries in their respective countries has brought these countries back on track. For instance, Chavez has performed a miracle by eradicating illiteracy in his country with a national economy in matter of a few years.

It is saddening to note that here, the privatisation is preached as gospel and dissidence is subject to violent oppression. The sooner we flip the coin and examine both sides of it, will a way to economic progress be found. What the government/military is up to of late is all a sham.

Union Strike

Something out of the ordinary has happened over the past 3 weeks. The PTCL workers Union has pulled off a successful strike and has managed to get the privatization of the company postponed indefinitely. It is by no means a minute task and is a monumental accomplishment as far as rights based movements are concerned in Pakistan. The spirit of this resistance however has not yet donned the cloak of a resistance movement per se and if it is to sustain itself over a period of time, it must do exactly that.

On Saturday I got out of bed and walked to the front door to get the papers and the news about the strike was on the cover page. I have not smiled the paper like this in years. ‘Finally’, I thought to myself. Finally someone in this country has stood up in the face of oppression and waged a struggle for their rights and forced the oppressor to back down. Finally someone in this country has stood up for an ideal they believe in, and in an unflinching manner, faced the music till the end. And in this case it ended with a euphoric march outside PTCL headquarters in Islamabad and in garlands of flowers for the Union negotiators.

The Union leaders must be lauded for adopting non-violence and not compromising on their ideals. Some may say that compromise is the synergetic way to go, but the struggle would have gone home if ideals were compromised on.

The battle has surely been won but the war is still on. PTCL privatization was something, which the State has been banking on for years and in my opinion a significant reason for the Union’s success was that they took the State by surprise. No one anticipated that the workers could launch such a spirited offensive. A workers union activity on this scale has not been witnessed in decades. Now comes the real test.

Harassment by the intelligence agencies and use of violence by the Rangers id not bear the desired results. The State will get smarter and already should be well on their way to breaking the unity of the Union. If the WAPDA and other Unions in the country are supporting this movement there should be good chance that the union will continue to make its presence felt. It must continue to do that and it must figure out ways to keep money out of the equation. The ideal has proved to be strong to this point but that is because the State was taken unawares. They will try every trick in the book and will go all-out to infiltrate the Union. It remains to be seen whether the Union will hold its ground.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if PTCL began showing shrinking profits. So far a big criticism of the corporation has been its health. It’s a financially healthy organization, which employs over 60,000 employees and yet manages to show annual profits up to Dollars 30 million. What logic could possibly work in selling the idea of privatization? Parts of WAPDA were sold off into entities like KESCO, IESCO, MESCO, and LESCO etc but the problems that plagued WAPDA now plague these organizations. Instead of finding ways to making performance better in the organization, the solution that we have adopted is to cut off the ailing organization into pieces and hope that they will function well as smaller entities. Time usually tells, and it tells us that this privatization may not be the way out. Why is the idea of privatization being preached as gospel when it’s not proving to be all that it promised to be?

The debate is essentially between Privatization and Nationalization. The debate is also between profiteering and performing. I think that when looking at large state run corporations its more important to look at how many people are provided livelihoods, how many people are serviced and how many families survive off the corporation rather than whether the corporation is profiteering or not. In the case of PTCL, I think its criminal of the state to even think of disbanding an organization that supports tens of thousands of families, feeds hundreds of thousands of mouths and at the same time actually makes supernormal profits.