Hamid Taqvaee
November 7, 2001

The war that began with the September 11 atrocity is an internal war in the international reactionary camp. This camp, led by the USA, announced its existence with Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the 2nd World War. It has been unrivalled after the fall of the Berlin wall until now. Thatcherism, Reaganism, the World Bank, IMF, CNN, BBC, religion, nationalism, ethnicism, political Islam, the doctrine of cultural relativism, NATO, Taliban, Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran are all different parts of this international camp. This camp was essentially shaped in order to guarantee the hegemony of a newly developed imperialism after the 2nd World War to confront the Eastern Bloc and smash the Socialist and Left movement globally. Terrorism has been an intrinsic characteristic of this camp. Multiply September 11 by thousands and you will arrive at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If the massacre of civilians and innocent people signifies terrorism, then the bombing of Vietnamese villages, organising Pinochet’s coup and the genocide of the Left in Chile, the bloody suppression of Palestinians, the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children through economic sanctions, bringing Taliban to power in Afghanistan and bringing political Islam to centre stage as well as many other acts of USA and NATO foreign policy are part of the track record of international terrorism. September 11 was neither the first nor the most atrocious act of terrorism. This time however, innocent people in the US were its victims. The dagger that the USA had essentially sharpened against the Left was on this occasion used against the people of America.

Near the end of the Cold War, the USA government and its allies in NATO brought political Islam to centre stage in order to confront the Soviet Union and smash the Left in Middle Eastern countries. In particular, the Islamic Republic in Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan came to power with these very objectives in mind and with the West's endorsement and support. The experience of these two countries clearly demonstrates that terrorism is the only way that political Islam can relate to the contemporary world and be relevant. The inhuman and ultra-reactionary capacity of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic in Iran, including genocide, torture, flogging, stoning and imposing unrestricted rightlessness on women, is part of political Islam's meaning in today's world. Islam without terrorism loses its political meaning and relevance.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, political Islam's role not only did not end, but rather on the contrary, a post Cold War world provided a suitable swamp for its development. With the fall of the Eastern Bloc, the world turned to the Right. The most Right wing and reactionary doctrines in the West - those championed by Thatcherism and Reaganism - became sole contenders and brought all the historical filth to the surface with them. The Left was isolated and its enemies -those that progressive humanity had fought against since the French revolution - began thriving. Religious, nationalist, ethnic and racist movements emerged everywhere. There began a rapid regression not only at the level of politics but also in philosophy, art, culture, education, print media and mass media. September 11 could only have taken place in the context of such a swamp.

Bush and USA officials claim that the reason behind this atrocity was the perpetrators’ enmity with contemporary civilisation, but in fact, terrorism today is the result of the West’s retreat from contemporary civilisation. ‘Civilisation’ without secularism, equality and freedom is not civilisation; rather it is contemporary reaction. The war that has begun is in fact a war between NATO’s modern reaction and political Islam’s Stone Age reaction.

In fact, September 11 is the result and consequence of the blending and confluence of these two terrorisms. The New York explosion gave domestic meaning to the USA and NATO’s foreign policy on the one hand and removed Islamic terrorism from the framework of domestic politics in the countries of its sphere of influence in the Middle East, specifically in Iran and Afghanistan, and gave it an international dimension on the other.

The people of America and the West suddenly realized what dreadful ‘internal’ consequences and meaning their governments’ foreign policies could have. They also saw themselves alongside and in solidarity with people living under the yoke of political Islam in a country such as Afghanistan. Today, this situation has opened ears in the West.

People are asking why and looking for answers. The media wants to find answers in the Koran, theology and Islamic studies in the East and the West. They have once again exhumed the erstwhile debate about the clash of civilisations and the meaning of Jihad, suicide, etc. in Islam and begun holding conferences and round tables. This nonsense does not convince anyone. This is no longer the war in the Gulf, Bosnia or Somalia. This time the catastrophe has occurred in America itself and the people of America have been its direct victims. American society is searching for answers because it wants to feel secure, wants to live and does not want to have the fear of biological and germ terrorism hanging over its head. American society is now compelled to understand the world; it has paid a heavy price to learn the direct relevance of occurrences across the waters to its daily life.

The USA war in Afghanistan is not answering anyone either. This is not the solution, it is part of the problem; people are beginning to understand this. Today, more than ever, public opinion is ready to listen to the political truth about the contemporary world. Only the Left can be the amplifier of this truth. It must be explained to people thirsting for the truth that this is a war of brutality not a clash of civilisations. The record and relationship of Islamic and USA terrorism must be exposed for public opinion. The banner of secularism and the separation of religion from the state must be raised. We must stand against nationalism. It must be shown to all that USA nationalism is as ugly and horrendous as Islamic terrorism. We must shake people out of their nationalist and religious identities and address their humanity. That mournful mother in New York who says: ‘I do not wish this for anyone in the world’ is doing just that. We must speak of the calamity of living under the yoke of Islamic terrorism in Iran and Afghanistan to those who have opened their eyes after the New York catastrophe. We must discredit the thesis of cultural relativism. We must confront the camp of internationalist reaction. We must show that NATO’s war in Afghanistan is not the solution for terrorism but rather escalates it. We must directly and completely smash political Islam.

Political Islam developed on the USA and NATOs’ general anti-Left strategy but its atrocities belong directly to it alone. The crimes committed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic in Iran and the Islamic movement in the Middle East and North Africa in general must be widely exposed and explained. We must especially explain that political Islam - be it in government, the opposition, ‘fundamentalist’ or ‘moderate’ - means nothing but brutality and backwardness.

In this battle, the Worker-communist Party of Iran has a critical and decisive role to play. Our party is one of the world’s few Left organisations that did not retreat in the wake of the Western Bloc’s ferocious assault of reaction after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but rather struck back, moved forward and expanded its struggle. Our party has persistently confronted the Right’s assault and in particular struggled against USA and NATO state terrorism during the post Cold War period. Another special feature of our party is more than two decades of unceasing struggle against the backbone of political Islam - the Islamic government in Iran. Today, in the world after September 11, these two aspects of the struggle are merging more than ever before. Today, we are witnessing a rise in an anti-war movement in the USA and Europe. At the same time in the context of an international assault on political Islam, we are witnessing the heightening struggle for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic in Iran. These two movements must become familiarized with each other and join together. The people of America must understand how the Islamic Republic’s overthrow is directly linked to the eradication of terrorism in their society; the people of Iran must also understand that the international Left’s fight against political Islam is in their interests and will in its turn be a catalyst for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. In both of these fronts, our party can and must play a leading role.

The camp of international terrorism which was formed from the beginning against the Left, and was supposed to be the vanguard of the new world order, had effectively resulted in nothing but war, terror, fear, insecurity and a ‘new world disorder’. The time for the Left’s wholehearted assault on this terrorism has arrived.

Translators: Fariborz Pooya and Maryam Namazie.