The women who put out this call are risking their lives to do so. Read it.
Support the Revolt of Iranian Women against Forced Hijab!
| Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Below is a CALL issued by an underground women’s collective in Iran. Their Call is supported by radical workers, teachers, students, artists, writers, and other justice seeking groups. This Call is issued on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Iranian women’s revolt against Ayatollah Khomeini’s Decree on compulsory Hijab. The Call also stands in solidarity with the fight against the rise of fascism and racism in North America, Europe and other parts of the world.
March 8, 2019 marks 40 years since the uprising of women against the Islamic Republic “Hijab Decree.” In this year, we are also marking the first anniversary of uprising of dispossessed masses and daring revolt of women against the hijab, popularly known as the “Women of Revolution Street.” Today we are in the midst of growing strikes and protests by workers, farmers, students, teachers, nurses, pensioners, and other groups.
Therefore, we call on all of you to support the struggle of women against the forced hijab.
We consider the struggle against the forced hijab as a global struggle against all forms of patriarchal oppression and degradation of women by Islamic fundamentalist states and groups in the Middle East and North Africa and all over the world. This is a global struggle against male supremacy, racism and sexism by all of the capitalist imperialist states, fundamentalism, Christian fascism, and right wing political forces throughout the world.
We, women and men, aim to unite the struggle against forced hijab with:
- the struggle for political rights, such as freedom of expression and association; civil liberties; freedom of sexuality and the rights of LGBTQ+ people.
- the struggle against the torture and imprisonment of political, labour, environmentalist, and social activists; the struggle for freedom of all political prisoners and those who have been jailed for their beliefs.
- the struggle against all wars waged by imperialist and reactionary armies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan, as well as all sectarian wars in this region.
- the fight for the right of the masses to have access to science and a scientific understanding of the human and natural world we all inhabit; the fight against religious superstition; and the struggle for the separation of state and religion.
- the struggle against poverty, unemployment, dispossession and displacement of people, economic corruption, child labour, exploitation and plundering of the lives of workers, teachers, and peasants; and the fight for equality, safety, and economic and social security for all people.
- the struggle against all kinds of national, cultural, linguistic and religious discrimination against Kurds, Arabs, Turks, Afghans, Turkmens, Baloch people in Iran, as well as the struggle against the persecution of Dervish and Baha’i followers; and the struggle for equality and freedom of all nations and cultures in Iran and in the Middle East and North Africa.
- the struggle against environmental destruction, plundering of nature by capitalist relations of production which itself gives rise to corruption; and fight for the right of people to clean air, revival of marshlands, safeguarding rivers, forests and lakes for the future generations on the planet earth.
Thus, Beware, Beware—We ARE TOGETHER!
The emancipation of women concerns the whole humanity. A society in which half of its people are second class citizens is a suffocating society. Thousands of years ago, women’s oppression emerged with the rise of private property and exploitation. Today, patriarchal and male supremacist relations have their roots in the functioning of capitalist relations of production, which also produces all of the other problems we face, including imperialist wars, poverty, unemployment, and the destruction of environment, etc. Therefore:
- We want a world without exploitation, discrimination, oppression and suppression, war, and the destruction of the environment.
- We want a society that considers—not only every woman—but every human being regardless of their gender, race, identity, nationality, and beliefs as a full human being. In our imagined and desired society everybody would have equal opportunities to fulfil their potentials and dreams—a society within which the blossoming of each is required for the blossoming of all.
We call upon all women and men involved in different social movements to join and defend our struggle for an unconditional abolition of mandatory Hijab, and Sharia laws as well as eradicating all kinds of women’s oppression. Without women’s emancipation, none of us is free.
