The Iranian left and the Nobel Peace prize

Thousands of people greeted Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi at Tehran's Mehrabad airport . Many were women activist form NGOs , others from independent human rights groups. Comments by Iran’s president Khatami, belittling the Nobel peace prize as a political gesture by the Norwegian committee , made sure that this welcoming turned into a major anti government protest. Slogans such as ‘Ebadi enemy of apartheid ‘ ( referring to sexual apartheid in Iran), ‘Political prisoners should be freed’, ‘tank, bullet have no effect, the Islamic Republic will not last’ . Many women’s groups held placard with the slogan ‘stop execution of Afsaneh Norouzi’. (Afasaneh Norouzi is facing execution for stabbing and blinding a man who intended to rape her. She has been in prison for the last 5 years and her final appeal against the death sentence was recently rejected). However despite the size of the demonstration it should be noted that the majority of the participants were from the middle and upper classes. Shirin Ebadi was not known by the majority of Iranians and some her comments soon after winning the prize in Paris , echoing the sentiments of the Nobel Committee about coexistence of ‘an Islamic government’ with democracy and women’s rights deterred some people from joining the welcoming ceremony. Since her arrival in Tehran she has also made a number of contradictory statements . On the 19th of October in an interview with the Arabic paper Al Shargh she emphasises the need for the separation of state and religion and openly criticises the president for falling behind the ’reformist ’ movement. Yet a few days later she denied the comments. On another occasion she has defended interference of religion in politics.

Shirin Ebadi was appointed a judge in the last year’s of the Shah’s regime, however once the Islamic regime came to power , she could not act as a judge. She worked as a lawyer, first and foremost in defence of the rights of women and children, inevitably concentrating on improving the rights of women in cases of divorce, polygamy , abuse within the confines of the laws of the Islamic regime. Some Iranian groups of the left

have criticised her for trying to fit women’s rights within the limits of the laws of the land. This is an absurd criticism as the other alternatives would have been not to take up women’s cases, concentrate on more lucrative clients, give up law or go into exile! She has set up a children’s charity , mainly for victims of abusive parents or in cases where the mother is not able to look after her children. In 1999 she defended some of the students arrested after the demonstrations in Tehran University, she was also the lawyer of the families of victims of serial political murders in Iran ( these were murders executed by agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence) . She is currently the lawyer of Nasser Zarafshan a fellow lawyer arrested for exposing the role of high ranking members of the regime in serial political murders. Since her return to Iran she has spoken out in defence of Zarafshan.

I don’t think there can be any doubt that the peace prize had a political message this year. The committee was taking a stance against US/UK warmongering and Islamofobia in the region, however if the intention was to give any solace to Iran’s Islamic regime (as claimed by some groups of the left) by giving the prize to an Iranian women, they have encouraged more outspoken forms of opposition to the Islamic regime inside the country.

In addition the bitter word of the so called reformist 'khatami' against the prize has eroded his support even further. However those who have praised Ebadi to the skies are also mistaken. Shirin Ebadi has no claims to lead struggles for democracy and women’s equality, she is not a suitable person to do so, but more importantly the task of the left is to warn against all forms of ‘elitist’ individual leadership and encourage movements from below. The demonstration at Tehran airport showed once more the anger of ordinary Iranian especially women with the continued rule of the clergy and it will encourage others to join the women’s movement in Iran. The task of an intelligent left is to see the contradictions presented by this award , to realise the strength , weaknesses and limitations of a human rights lawyer, not to see her either as a heroine nor as a villain.

Yassamine Mather

21 Oct 2003

( an earlier version of this text is published in Solidarity- weekly paper of Alliance for Workers Liberty)