Revolutionary Socialist Movement – Pakistan
We mourn the death of Jina Mahsa Amini. Mahsa was a young Kurdish woman who died in the custody of Iran’s morality police. She was not the first, many a woman before her died silently. But this time it is different. Masha’s family spoke up. We know her name. We say her name. And a
multitude of Iranians, both young and old, are adding their voices.
For a month now, protests have rocked Iran. The people have stopped asking for an apology. They are demanding the fall of the fundamentalist dictatorship. “Women, Life, Freedom” and “Down with the Mullahs” are the slogans echoing from Tabriz to Zahedan, and in Iran’s capital of Teheran. Even in those cities formerly thought to be the bastions of the clerics and their reactionary guard, the people are demanding the fall of the regime.
Your sorrow is our sorrow. Mahsa, and the many hundreds the regime has murdered since then, they are like sisters and brothers to us. We know your pain because we know how it is to mourn for our Pakistani sisters who have been killed for honour, religion and the lust for power and profits of a patriarchal ruling class. We know how it feels to fear
walking the streets alone. We know the denial to hold the hand of a loved one in public. Many female Pakistani workers and employees fall victim to the abuse, harassment and exploitation of their bosses. So, we, too, know this grip of a capitalist patriarchy suffocating us.
Your uprising is our uprising. It is an inspiration to us. Many
Pakistani girls, and boys for that matter, will surely be inspired by the courage of those Iranian girls, daring to cut their hair in public. They know how it feels to be deprived of a decision. The patriarchy and its fundamentalist shock troops don’t demand women wear a headscarf for reasons of piety or modesty. They do so to make us small, to exert control over our minds and bodies. A free woman can choose what to wear. She can decide to wear a headscarf, or not. That does not diminish her belief, it gives her belief real meaning.
We will try to follow the path that you have shown us. But we wish to do it together with you. For far too long, the competition of our rulers, their sectarianism and nationalism, forced a wedge between the women, the youth, the exploited working class and poor peasants of our countries.
If we want to gain freedom and defend it, we can do it best together. Let us learn from our respective movements, from the experiences of our women’s movements, from our struggles to build trade unions and our efforts to form revolutionary students’ circles.
If there is any way in which you wish to cooperate, or if there are ways in which we can aid your current struggle, let us know, and we will do our best to support you.
Revolutionary Socialist Movement – Pakistan