March 8,2008
Celebrate International Women's Day
This year on International Women’s Day, “The Women’s Campaign for the Abolition of All Misogynist and Gender-Based Legislation and Islamic Punitive Laws in Iran against Women” (Karzar), in which the March 8th Women’s Organization (Iran, Afghanistan) is a participant and contributor, has called for a bold march through the streets of Brussels. This march is in defiance of the woman-hating regime in Iran and other Islamic fundamentalists—and in defiance of U.S. efforts to use the brutal oppression of women in Iran and Afghanistan to drum up support for its war for empire in the Middle East and its threats to attack Iran.
With this action, women from Iran and Afghanistan are declaring that their fight is against both of these enemies, that they will not choose between two different versions of hell: stonings, forced veil, and brutal anti-woman laws or U.S.-sponsored bombs, occupation and domination. They will take their protest from the U.S. embassy, to European Parliament, to the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran.Each year since 2006, Iranian women activists in exile in Europe have taken to the streets on March 8th joined by hundreds of Iranian and international revolutionaries and progressives who support their struggle against both enemies.
This year the March 8th Women’s Organization has issued an important call for women and men in the U.S. to support their struggle and to fight against the regime in the U.S. at the same time as they fight against the regime in Iran. A solidarity march will be held on March 8th in the streets of Los Angeles, and solidarity events will also take place in New York and San Francisco. Playwright Eve Ensler, best known for the play, The Vagina Monologues, wrote this statement for the IWD march in Los Angeles: “I stand in solidarity with the women of Iran, that they may be protected from the patriarchs, both within their country and outside, who attempt to censor them, destroy their rights, invade them and occupy them. I stand with you in your struggle for freedom from this tyranny that you may come into your power and voice.”
A great deal is at stake for the future of humanity in whether people in the U.S. step out and take a stand in support of this courageous struggle of women rebelling against both these outmoded forces in the world. Revolution wholeheartedly supports this call and we encourage our readers to build for and attend the solidarity actions.
