Today I am speaking to you as a member of a peace organization in Washington, the Coalition to Stop the US War against Iraq. This organization was formed in 1991 in response to the beginning of the US war against the people of Iraq, and has worked on ending the sanctions and bringing peace to Iraq. I am an Iranian woman of Kurdish ancestry who has lived in the US for a long time, and the fact that I do work on peace for Iraq, I believe, carries a message that I am very interested in promoting; that is the message of solidarity. Though Saddam Hussein dropped chemical weapons on villages of Kurdistan, and carried on an eight-year US-supported war with Iran, causing the deaths of half a million people on both sides, I, as a Kurdish/Iranian woman, stand in solidarity with all the people of Iraq. The only way we can bring about peace and justice in the world, and specifically at this time in the Middle East, is with solidarity among all the people of the Middle East, especially the women. That is because according to all available statistics, women and children are the ones who suffer the most as the result of war, in the form of refugees, and in the form of widows trying to eke out a living for their children. In fact, an Afghani woman who recently visited Afghanistan, upon her return, was telling us how she learned that many widows of the war are prostituting themselves in the backs of some shops in Kabul to earn money to feed their children.
The Iranian women activists, like women activists from other Middle-East countries, have to walk a very tight rope. We have to work for peace and justice, which means that we must work against any kind of US imperialist interventions in our countries, while at the same time we continue to struggle for our rights against our own repressive governments. In the case of Iran, the theocratic government has constrained many of the rights of women. The women of Iran, for the last 23 years, both inside and outside of Iran, have consistently worked to gain their basic human rights.
It should be pointed out that the Iranian women inside Iran are very sophisticated. With their participation in the 1979 revolution, and their history of struggle against imperialism and for their rights since the beginning of the 20th Century, they are not some passive women under a cover. Today in Iran, despite tremendous impediments, women are active participants in their destiny. From running for city councils; to running for the presidency of the country; to participating in worker, student, environmental, welfare, and charity organizations; women in Iran raise the level of discourse to include demands for fundamental political change. Today in Iran, women applicants for college constitute more than 50% of all applicants. These women, in their everyday participation in politics, the arts, and publication of books and magazines on women's issues, are stretching the limits of the Islamic laws, and calling for more liberalization all the time. They are also active in many international issues, most recently in support of the Palestinian people.
The women from Iran in exile have been working for 22 years in defense of human rights, and specifically Iranian women's human rights, participating in international movements, international forums, working with Amnesty International, and in conferences on women; and bringing forth the voices of Iranian women, especially those promoting separation of religion and state and establishment of a secular society, which is very difficult to express in Iran.
Today, the propaganda attacks by the US government and the Zionists on Iran have given much impetus to the ultra-right faction of the ruling class in Iran to crack down on the people's pro-democracy advocacy and movement. Bush included Iran in his "Axis of Evil"; the US government has accused Iran of "harboring terrorists", and even of cooperating with the FARC in Colombia; the Zionist government of Israel has accused Iran, with no evidence, of sending shipments of arms to Palestine, and has suggested to the US the necessity of a strike against Iran's nuclear power plant. The American government, while considering various plans for intervention in Iran, is making the best use of the media to spread its propaganda and prepare American public opinion for its war and/or intervention in Iran. And if war comes to pass, the conservatives will have a stronger excuse to condemn all progressive struggles as a threat to the defense of the country, and in conflict with opposition to the imperialist war. And, certainly, the results of this war will include not only the agony of human suffering, but also the destruction of the country's infrastructure, which will in turn result in diverting the people's resources, even after the war, to the reconstruction effort, postponing the people's democratic movement, which right now is flourishing in Iran. It is very important that we work to support self-determination for the people of Iran to carry on their struggle, not only to defeat the ultra-right faction of the current government, but to eventually bring about a truly democratic and secular government in Iran, which has been tried many times in Iran and has been thwarted every time by US imperialist intervention.
What the people of Iran need today is the solidarity of the peace and justice movement to make sure the US does not make war on Iran.