Regarding the uprising in Iran, another schism is becoming apparent within the movements in the West. A schism that escalates into verbal confrontation within an extremely feverish, oppressive, and competitive environment.

Written by Thanasis Kosmopoulos / RisingUtopia– Athens Greece

Translated by Tasos Sagris / Void Network

If at least those of us who express opinions from the ramparts of the movement could manage to free our thinking from the feverish compression of these times and from the competitive-narcissistic culture that has permeated us—perhaps without our even realizing it—we could produce results through fruitful disagreements.

The schism lies in how we view the situation. Some prioritize the significance of the uprising in Iran as an expression of liberation from theocratic power, with poverty and oppression as the main causes, while those “on the other side” prioritize the geopolitical dimension, interpreting the uprising as instigated by American-Zionist imperialism in order to undermine the theocratic regime and restore the Pahlavi dictatorship.

The fact that each side focuses only on one extreme (the uprising from below), while the other focuses on something entirely different (the uprising as planned subversion), taking positions at the most extreme poles, shows how much competitive logic and self-promotion through disagreement has infiltrated the movements—even among people who are organized and know how to discuss things when they meet in person. So like imprisoned mice, we tear each other apart, each one entrenched in their own narcissism.

Setting aside, however, the “psychodynamic” fields of the outlet where this text is being written, we must take a position on the events in Iran at this time. And the position states that a mass social uprising is a reality where things are suddenly disrupted, and for the umpteenth time, in the relationship between society and power. This mass-scale uprising with hundreds of dead and wounded cannot be happening out of nowhere through manipulation by an external actor. The Americans are experts at dictatorships, at abductions, and at coup practices for changing regimes that didn’t suit them, even in mini-uprisings like Maidan, which was nothing more than the surface pretext for state overthrows that had already been prepared on the Ukrainian political stage long before.

Here it’s not the same as Ukraine. No foreign power can “stage” a mass social uprising in Iran with this altar of blood. Much less transform it so that a society of 92 million consents to the change from 47 years of theocratic power to the dictatorship of any Pahlavis. In Iran today, anti-American sentiments are far more prevalent than anti-regime ones. The US knows that even with a more easily successful military coup, Iranians would hardly accept American hegemony. The possibility of failure of an instigated practice is very serious.

There is a burden that moves Iranian society to risk their lives in the streets of Iranian cities. And as always, one of the main causes and triggers of major uprisings is the sudden decrease in income and the absence of freedom. Then no one can downgrade a mass social uprising because it is spontaneous. It is not instigated.

Some commentators, highlighting the consequences of the chronic embargo on the difficult position of the poor strata, again attribute responsibility for the social uprising to the West and its sanctions, as indirect “manipulation” toward uprising. Yes, this argument also has a basis, but the embargo doesn’t mean that the state doesn’t have the ability to find a way to fix this problem. After all, Iran has very close relations with China, participating in the Shanghai alliance.

So here there is an issue: from which perspective do we see things, and from which perspective are things actually happening.

Anyone who wants to maintain an anarchist/libertarian political identity must analyze an uprising from the perspective of the insurgents.

Freedom, the human being, the community, society—these are priorities, values, ethics, a way of seeing things. Even if geopolitics weighs more heavily on events as in Ukraine, we as libertarian anarchists must see the sufferings of societies affected by this war FIRST! The possibility of intervention by the social actor FIRST! This is the imperative of our worldview. This is what made us be with the Palestinians FIRST! We are with the Palestinians and not with their flags. This is what makes us be with the insurgent Iranians FIRST! And not with the flags of the state they are subjects of. This is our perspective. The ethics of our values above whatever geopolitical correlations.

Conversely, in the case where we view this uprising from a geopolitical perspective, it is inevitable that this downgrades the insurgents, perceives them as manipulated pawns, insults people who are giving even their blood in the struggle against the state’s forces of repression. With this logic, no uprising can fail to be instigated, since all uprisings occur under active geopolitical conditions. And the social uprising for the police asssination of 15 years old student Alexis Grigoropoulos in Greece 2008 was considered by some to be instigated by Russia while by others by Turkey. I don’t think this is the way that corresponds to the perspective of all of us who are participants in the cause of social Anarchism. I believe that by focusing on geopolitics, we have internalized a managerial conception of movements that belongs to the dominant logics of “mass management,” as well as to the detached games of the geopolitical chessboard of power relations.

Explaining the stance of many comrades on social media, I believe that during the previous period with the genocide in Gaza, some of us, beyond the historical dimension of the Nakba, belatedly discovered the geopolitical dimension of things. The tragedy of the genocide not only brought American-Zionist aggression into the frame of our political critique but also quite rightly targeted it as an axis of evil—a now established conception that is confirmed by “the Trump reality” every day.

Consequently, Gaza opened a new chapter in our political understanding, a dimension that the older ones among us had taken into account anyway, but which the younger ones didn’t have, since the social movements barely dealt with geopolitics. This new ‘discovery’ was received as a revelation, when in reality not only is this far from true, but the opposite may occur: this newly acquired analytical tool we’re so eager to showcase can actually blind us even more through our over-idealization of it. This happens because many of us treat what we previously ignored as a ‘revelation,’ when it’s actually something very old and quite leftist in origin. Because an analysis that puts societies on the margins, devaluing them as absolutely controlled and manipulated, that if it doesn’t identify them with states considers them levers of geopolitical interests, is nothing but a leftist analysis derived from the spirit of Stalinism, and later during the Cold War era.

Let’s stop “reinventing the wheel” by idealizing “our new tool” because of our previous ignorance. This way of perceiving things is wrong. Let’s do some introspection to see all those “patterns” that function permanently in our understanding, and let’s rid ourselves of them, if we want to become dangerous to the State. It’s a problem when geopolitics takes precedence over the societies. The superpowers, the regional powers, the states and their moves quite logically come to the center of our perspective through the deeper desire to see the genocidal punished, with the consequence, however, that we downgrade the subject that interests us, namely that of emancipatory uprising or the corresponding social revolution.

I would say then, recognizing that in the historical time of an uprising, the geopolitical dimension also takes place—it’s quite unlikely that Mossad units are not in the field—we must focus on what is primary, which is nothing other than solidarity with a society that is rising up for a better life and for its freedom. This in itself has value. This is axiologically our libertarian way of seeing reality, without ignoring the economic, geopolitical, religious, cultural, or historical dimension of issues. Giving honor and respect to the culture of the people of the East, divesting from our critical stance any colonial Western privileges.

In conclusion, being primarily interested in the stakes of “moving” societies does not preclude taking a position on geopolitical stakes but also on every other dimension of issues. First and foremost, we are interested in the people who are rising up and the success of their struggle for a better life; secondarily, we are interested in geopolitical conflicts, which we judge primarily based on what’s good for societies, which in reality creates that anti-colonial, anti-imperialist value code.

Yes, today American-Zionism is the matrix and source of state terrorism, neo-fascism, and wars. It is a source of oppression and misery and subjugation of many societies around the world. We will not divest ourselves of our value code by supporting its opponents and raising flags of oppressive regimes on our otherwise anarchist social media profile. Our stance cannot be determined by geopolitical dynamics, nor by the hatred we have for opponents. The opponent of my opponent cannot be my friend.

Our value system has at its center social revolution for freedom, common ownership, equality, horizontality. That is, social emancipation, which like a polar star forms an axial direction in a straight line. Imperialism, colonialism, nation-states are forms of oppression and exploitation. They can even coexist. We too can stand against them, being critical without betraying our principles.

In this way we must meet with the struggles of Iranians as well as all those who rise up against the state/capital system.

___

Written by Thanasis Kosmopoulos / RisingUtopia– Athens Greece

The post On the Uprising in Iran and the Schism Within the Movements in the West appeared first on Void Network.

Last Tuesday evening, Mahsa (Zina) Amini, a 22-year-old ethnic Kurd from the western city of Saqez in the Kurdistan province, was detained outside a metro station in Tehran by Iran’s notorious morality police.

Mahsa Amini was travelling with her family from Iran’s western province of Kurdistan to the capital, Tehran, to visit relatives when she was reportedly arrested for failing to meet the country’s strict rules on women’s dress, ie, not wearing the hijab and her trousers “correctly” and was brutally beaten in a police van, according to witnesses.

The news comes weeks after Iran’s hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, called for stricter enforcement of the country’s mandatory dress code, which has required all women to wear the hijab head-covering.

According to Hrana, an Iranian human rights organisation, Amini’s family were told during her arrest that she would be released after a “re-education session”. But Amini was in a coma her family said, adding that they were told by hospital staff that she was brain dead.

She was accused of improperly wearing her hijab in a country which strictly enforces the compulsory covering of women’s hair and bodies. According to witnesses, she was beaten while inside a police van that took her to a detention center. Amini died on Friday in the hospital after spending three days in a coma. 

Police in Tehran immediately denied responsibility for her murder and said she suffered “sudden heart failure” while waiting with other women at the facility to be “educated.” Amini’s arrest and death rapidly set off protests across the country, initially starting outside the hospital where she died and spreading to other provinces. Throughout social media, she has already become a symbol for the struggle against the compulsory hijab and police across the world. 

While Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi called Amini’s family to express his condolences, he’s mostly dealt with the crisis — one of the biggest of his first year in office so far — by brutally repressing the Iranians who have taken to the streets. The repression has particularly targeted the Kurdish regions that have gone on general strike in protest against the killing of Mahsa. At least 10 major cities have been shut down since Monday despite intense police repression. 

Hundreds of brave Kurdish women protesting the mandatory hijab took off their scarves during Amini’s funeral and waved it in the air while chanting slogans in Kurdish and Farsi: “Death to the dictator!”; “Killing for the scarf, how long will it be?”; and “Woman, Life, Freedom.” Security forces later shot some of the protesters and attacked many with tear gas, injuring at least 30. 

Elsewhere in Iran, security forces have cut off internet access and attacked and arrested protestors, beating people indiscriminately in the streets and targeting activists in the women’s movement. Like in previous struggles, the student movement has been at the forefront of organizing mobilizations, with major protests breaking out in campuses across the country despite the presence of repressive forces and potentially severe consequences for students.

In a joint statement, fourteen student organizations from schools including Amirkabir University, Tarbiat Modares University, and Allameh Tabataba’i University called for a “dissolution of the Guidance Patrol and Morality Police as one of the most important institutions of repression post-revolution” in Iran. 

The protests have not only led to a deeper questioning of the police, but also a deeper questioning of the regime among broader sectors of society. At protests, demonstrators are using anti-regime slogans such as “Death to Khamenei!” referring to regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Other slogans included “Death to the dictator!” and “No fear! We’re all together!” Importantly, some protesters are condemning the brutal authoritarian rule of both the U.S.-backed Shah’s regime, which lasted from 1941 until the 1979 revolution, and the current Islamic regime against the monarchist perspective of some Iranians who advocate for a return to Iran’s monarchy through the son of the late Shah. 

The Iranian diaspora, which is estimated to include at least six million Iranians around the world, has also been active in organizing protests against Amini’s atrocious murders, particularly in Europe, Toronto, and New York. 

Iran’s Deepening Fault Lines 

Mahsa Amini’s shocking murder and resulting social unrest are creating a difficult political backdrop for Raisi who is set to speak at the UN general assembly in New York on Wednesday. 

Beyond quelling the popular discontent, Raisi faces an erosion of legitimacy of Iran’s regime which has strong theocratic features. This political crisis is also marked by a widening of the rift between the two wings that have come to dominate Iranian politics: the “reformists” and the more conservative “hardliners.” Thus far, pro-reform figures like former President Mohammad Khatami have questioned the regime’s response to Amini’s death. Former lawmaker Ali Motahari also wrote that he feared that the incident could portray the Iranian government internationally as an entity like the Taliban in Afghanistan. 

Other reformists have gone further to release statements against mandatory hijab and the morality police. Reformist lawmaker Parvaneh Salahshouri, the leader of the Women’s Faction in Parliament, wrote against the compulsory hijab in 2018 and, as recently as August 2, 21 prominent reformists had also denounced mandatory hijab laws. 

Recent reports on the frail and ailing health of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have also opened up questions about political uncertainty and even deeper factional divisions, as Khamenei’s death would open up a power struggle over his successor. 

The deepening crisis of the Iranian regime cannot be seen outside of the dissolution of the Iranian nuclear deal, which had provided temporary relief from some sanctions — a strategic aim of both wings of the regime. The imposition of Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions, which Biden is continuing, have plunged the country into an unprecedented economic crisis, primarily affecting the workers and poorest sectors of Iranian society, who expressed their rage at the economic situation during two important waves of class struggle in 2018 and 2019. 

Since then, the regime has responded to the unstable situation by expressing its more bonapartist features and relying heavily on its repressive apparatus to crackdown on any discontent. In addition to the increased repression, last year’s presidential elections underscored the undemocratic aspects of the Iranian “republic” in which the 12-person Guardian Council responsible for approving candidates for elections essentially blocked the nomination of anyone who can possibly challenge Raisi as a way to effectively secure the election of the hardliner.

These tendencies toward bonapartism are undoubtedly linked to the growing political influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a powerful security force and internal police which by some measures controls two thirds of Iran’s GDP and is increasingly competing with the clergy for power. Their historic role can be traced back to helping to consolidate the Islamic regime during the Iranian counterrevolution and the functioning of the IRGC expanded greatly in the political crisis set off by the aftermath of the 2009 elections which they played an important role in suppressing. 

In recent months, the increased persecution of prominent political activists in Iran, especially women like Leila Hosseinzadeh and Sepideh Rashno, has put a spotlight on the rigid discipline of the reactionary regime which beyond the oppression of women (Iran is one of the world’s top executioners of women) and the brutal punishment of the queer community as the recent death sentences of queer activists, Zahra Seddiqi Hamedani and Elham Choubdar show, also extends to the denial of basic democratic rights like the recognition of independent trade unions. 

Developing Tendencies toward Crisis and Class Struggle 

Since the beginning of 2022, the social atmosphere in the country has also been marked by  waves of protests and strikes, mostly targeting water shortages and the growing cost of living crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. As Red Flag recently reported, the Iranian economy is facing a serious crisis: 

The currency hit its lowest value ever in June and annual inflation is sitting at 41.5 percent and climbing, according to figures from the Statistical Center of Iran. The price of essential foodstuffs has increased by 90.2 percent, and household expenditures have tripled, while real wages continue to decline.

The effects of crippling maximum pressure sanctions, coupled with the seemingly comatose nuclear deal, has led the regime to impose austerity as a way to make workers pay for the crisis that is crushing them. Already, Raisi has introduced a slew measures like cuts to wheat subsidies and an elimination of pharmaceutical subsidies. As a result, there has been a thirteen-fold increase in the price of bread, and bread riots quickly emerged in the southern province of Khuzestan, which is home to a large Arab minority and a frequent flashpoint of struggle due to environmental problems in the region and the presence of the militant sugarcane workers of the Haft Tappeh union. 

Within the workers’ movement, teachers have also led struggles related to the cost-of-living crisis and have spearheaded a series of nationwide strikes, rallies and occupations, including huge demonstrations across the country on May Day this past year as part of the Coordinating Council of Teachers’ Trade Unions. On a political scale, new Marxist organizations (largely operating underground) like the “Labour Organised Action Committee” (LOAC) are emerging among the student and workers’ movements as revolutionary socialist ideas re-emerge among the Iranian vanguard which has been involved in the recent waves of struggles from the mass uprising in 2019 to the oil workers’ strike in 2021. 

From Fury to Freedom 

The social explosions emerging in Iran have the potential to build threads of continuity with the historic struggle of the Iranian masses against their oppressive regimes and the threat of imperialism. In order for the mobilizations that are emerging against women’s oppression to advance in a way that responds to the interests of the oppressed and exploited in Iran, it’s important to tie the struggle against Iran’s particularly undemocratic and patriarchal regime with a struggle against the capitalist system that sustains the bourgeois mullahs. 

In that sense, the convergence of the burgeoning women’s movement with Iran’s combative working class that has emerged as an important actor in recent struggles can play an important role in pushing these struggles forward. Let us not forget that the Iranian revolution was set off by the Shah’s violent suppression of protests and authoritarian rule. It was the oil workers’ strike in response to this repression that set off a general strike that brought the Shah’s regime to its knees. The oil workers in Iran today have the potential to wield their strategic power in a similar way.

And the Iranian revolution was not only a revolution against the Shah’s regime but a revolution against the imperialist forces that benefited from his rule. These lessons are important today, as imperialist countries like the U.S. and France denounce the murder of Mahsa Amini as a way to conceal their own interests. These are the so-called “democratic” countries whose police also brutally murder women, whose regimes deny the right to abortion, and impose racist hijab bans limiting a woman’s autonomy from another angle. These are the countries that impose maximum pressure sanctions that inflict suffering on Iranian workers everyday. 

Against the Iranian ruling class and foriegn powers, the involvement of the left can be decisive in fighting back independently against these oppressive attacks. After all, it was Marxist women who organized the first massive protests against compulsory veiling during International Women’s Day in 1979. 

The international Left and feminist movements around the world should also take up the banner of the Iranian women, youth, and workers in struggle, in the spirit of the George Floyd protests which spread globally. The problems we face as a class go beyond our borders and can only be resolved internationally.

_________

Source: https://www.leftvoice.org/say-her-name-protests-erupt-across-iran-after-police-murder-of-mahsa-amini/

written by

Maryam Alaniz

Maryam Alaniz is a socialist journalist, activist, and PhD student living in NYC. She is an editor for the international section of Left Voice. Follow her on Twitter: @MaryamAlaniz

The post Iran on Flames after Morality Police murder of Mahsa Amini- Videos and Reports appeared first on Void Network.

Iranian youth, in 6 and 7 December, appeared again in the streets expressing a powerfull negation to Iranian regime. The totalitarian government of Iran refusing left’s, anarchist’s, homosexual’s and freak’s existance in Iran and fighting to eliminate any difference and dissent in the Iranian society. Void Mirror international blog and Void Network share here interesting information from Iran Student Day struggle, a day of memory and struggle for the youth of Iran from 1953 until our days. Iran Student Day is the anniversary of the murder of three students of University of Tehran on December 7, 1953 (16. Azar 1332 in the Iranian calendar) by Iranian police in Pahlavi era. Every year there are local demonstrations at many universities organised by students. Government also organises a national demonstration which sometimes clashes with student organised protests.It is celebrated both by religious and secular student movements.

We publish here the characteristic announcement of left student publication Bazr:
16th Azar (Dec 7th): Always Red! Bazr Student Periodical:
On the Occasion of 16 Azar/December 7, 2009 16th of Azar is on the way once again. Any ceremonies planned for this year will be different from those of previous years. This school year started with a different beginning. 13th of Aban (Nov. 4th), which had always been a boring event, this time around was a starting point for this day. 16th of Azar, however, has always been a climax for all the events. From the people’s point of view, the university and university students have been symbols of consciousness, knowledge and struggle. After the recent surge forward [by the people], which saw astonishing days and moments, the Student Day can become a turning point. However, a review of this day in history shows us some important points. The starting point of 16th Azar was in the university student struggles in 1953, in opposition to the Shah’s policies and, specifically, to Nixon’s trip [as Eisenhower’s vice president] to Iran. The demonstrations held for this occasion led to the deaths of three university students [in Tehran] by the names of: Qhandchi, Shari’at Razavi, and Bozorgnia. Since then, 16th Azar of every year has been celebrated as the Student Day, albeit with different degrees of intensity. The point that is evident and clear, however, is that the Islamic Republic has always attempted to confiscate this day in the name of Islam. But, the students’ struggle of 1953 was a fight against the ruling oppression and imperialism. The three murdered students belonged to the communist Tudeh Party and to the National Front. The oppression of that day and today are not different; only its form and appearance have changed, but its class nature is the same as it was. The Islamic Republic, by creating student organizations that were attached to the regime, such as the Daftar Tahkim Vahdat (Office of Consolidation of Unity) and various Islamic associations, has to this day tried to fully expropriate this day and to use it for its own policies. In recent years, with the presence and regeneration of leftist students in universities, the 16th Azar ceremonies have been held with a different quality. In particular, we can point to the ceremonies held in 2006. Although it was a joint ceremony in conjunction with Daftar Tahkim, with the presence of the radical students the day turned into a radical and oppositional program against the regime. The day after, although an account in the E’temad Meli newspaper (belonging to the reformist faction then, and today’s opposition) contained a picture of the ceremonies displaying red placards, the report itself claimed the ceremony to have been organized [only] by Daftar Tahkim Vahdat and reportedly filled with enthusiasm. In 2007, when the regime could no longer stand the strengthening of the left, in the lead-up to the 16th Azar, it organized a widespread campaign of arrests against leftist activists, and detained nearly 40 individuals and sent them to Evin. Despite that, the Student Day was celebrated, albeit in small crowds, and several of the students were also arrested after the ceremonies. In that year, Daftar Tahkim Vahdat, at ease of mind in the absence of the left, organized the ceremonies. The interesting part was the confiscation of the leftist slogans; something that was repeated in different ceremonies held later by Tahkim Vahdat students. They confiscated both the day and the slogans! But how will the 16th Azar be this year? This year, everything has changed considerably. In the recent leap made by the people, the presence of the students was very widespread and influential. The Iranian regime, knowing that the universities and their students constitute a major segment in the struggle, attacked the university campus [in Tehran] with vengeful violence, killing many and injuring, arresting and disappearing many more. The final exams were canceled so that the students would return to their hometowns. But, none of these stopped the rage of the people and the university students. The start of the school year, which was accompanied with many ‘if’s’ and ‘but’s’ regarding opening the universities or not, turned out to be a hot beginning. This time, though, the student protests and the struggles spread nationwide. The students have organized/assembled under many different pretexts. None of the regime’s representatives have been able to give speeches in any of the universities in Tehran or in other cities, and most such speeches have turned into arenas of radical struggles. Although green symbols and slogans have more or less been present at these protests, the organization of these protests, according to students who attend them, have not been under the leadership of the Daftar Tahkim Vahdat students, and have been mostly spontaneous. In all this, the presence of the first-year and newly arrived students, who had started university having just arrived from a street fight, has been very manifestly positive. After the 13 Aban/November 4th ceremonies, the Iranian regime, terrified of the 16th Azar, began its attack in many different forms. The execution of Ehsan Fattahian, a Kurdish political activist and 16 others in the same week, the widespread arrests of university students in different universities, suspension of students and banning them from entering universities, and ordering vast numbers to report to disciplinary committees are among such attacks. It is certain that these arrests will not stop the 16th Azar ceremonies from being held. This year, however, an important change has been created. Until now, the Islamic Republic has been trying to confiscate this day, but today the reformist faction of the regime, which sees itself as the opposition, is trying to do the same. But, the reality is that the green faction, today, is part of the ruling system. Not only are their demands not radical, they even try to control people’s radical slogans and moves. The greens, who never thought people’s protests would materialize like this, have tried to claim ownership over these struggles and have done their utmost to tame and control them. They are riding the wave of people’s struggle. But the reality is that they cannot be real leaders of people’s fight, since they too seek to consolidate the 30-year long positions and policies of the Islamic Republic, but in a different form. They talk of the return to the constitution; of the real revival of religion, and they talk of the Islamic Republic, not a word more, nor a word less! Haven’t such categories been noticed and examined for the last thirty years? The reformist faction which has been a part of the ruling system has been complicit in all matters. But, the fissure that has appeared today among the rulers is over how best to continue and prolong the life of the Islamic Republic. Their class nature and their goals are not different. Their clash is not over the people’s interests. It is therefore necessary that the university students — as a part of the people with a concentrated presence at the nerve centers of knowledge and consciousness — must consciously address this issue and prevent the Student Day from being confiscated, this time by the greens. Although the [organization of] Tahkim Vahdat does not enjoy its previous strength, we must remember that the greens, as a part of the regime, still have their own forces, media and platforms. Daftar Tahkim is not only not the representative of 16th Azar, it is even an obstacle to celebrating the Student Day in its true meaning. This organization has annually used this day to push forth the policies of the Islamic Republic, and this year will undoubtedly push forth the policies of the greens. The Student Day is a day to fight against ruling oppression and imperialism, and this year the message of the 16th Azar, delivered by university students, must be heard by all, all the more gloriously. In the last months, the street has been the scene of people’s struggles, and today, on the eve of the 16th Azar, the regime has taken special measures in preparation to limit the events of the day to the university campus. At the same time, we must note that even the green faction is not too enthusiastic about the events spilling beyond the university campus walls. They are well aware of the explosive potentials of the university students, and know that if the students join up with the people and other youth in the streets, the 16th Azar ceremonies will turn untamable. This could lead to big losses for the greens. This year’s 16the Azar can become a determining turning point and springboard for the people’s movement. It was for good reason then that, from the very first days [of the movement], in order to tame the people’s movement, this regime attacked the university, since it knew that students carry a big weight in the movement. The events of the past months have unfolded in such manner that despite the differences between the two factions, their discourse is increasingly similar. Moussavi has been content with issuing conciliatory and pacifying statements, and Karroubi, who they claim is a radical, on the eve of the Student Day has stepped back and remained silent. The students must use this atmosphere, which contains all the right elements for a radical fight, and must insist on the radical nature of this day as a revolutionary day, a day of anti-oppression and anti-imperialism, and revive the true meaning of this day. The true horizon of the student’s struggles must be based on the interests of the majority of the society and against the totality of the regime. We must not allow the greens to confiscate this day in their own name and to put a green stamp on it. We must fight against and expose the crimes committed on the university campus [in Tehran University], we must fight against the arrests, the suspensions and expulsions and putting stars on students and against the recent executions, especially the execution of Ehsan Fattahian. The ruling faction orders the replacement of humanities courses with classes in Islamic studies and the green faction speaks of the correct revival of religion in the society. On this day, we must raise our voices against all such cases and against the dissemination of superstitions – instead of science – in the most essential places of science and knowledge. As opposed to the policies pursued by the greens, who are opposed to slogans targeting the whole political structure [of the regime], on this day we must use radical and revolutionary slogans against religious rule, against compulsory hejab [cover for women], in support of dominated ethnic minorities and against the entirety of the system; and we must avoid raising religious and nationalistic slogans. By creating independent organizations consisting of a radical student body, we must prevent the confiscation of the student protests by regime organizations, such as Tahkim [Vahdat] and Anjoman Eslami (Islamic Association). Do not allow them, after confiscating the slogans of the day, to then also confiscate this day that belongs to the university students. We must take the fight from inside the university campus to the streets. In the recent leap, women and girls have had a noticeable and magnificent presence, and nowadays a major part of the student body consists of women. We must be the voice of the girls and women of the society, and reflect their demands. The voice of those who proved that they have an important role in leading the recent fights. Let us not allow 16th Azar to turn green! Let us celebrate this day in red, not only in appearance but in form and essence! article appeared in the site for information from middele east Uruknet: http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m60817&hd=&size=1&l=e

for many different videos about what happend in Iran Student Day 2009
navigate in the Thought Provoking magazine Frontline:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2009/12/videos-16-azar.html?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=feeds&utm_source=feeds

Student Day Turns Violent in Iran:

http://www.rferl.org/content/heard_in_iran/1898768.html

December 7 — National Student Day protests occurred throughout the country amid heavy security and numerous clashes. Among the slogans chanted were, “This government is Fascist; it must be stopped,” and, “What happened to the oil money? It was spent on the Basij!”

One student tells Radio Farda that police and the Basij attacked student protesters at Tehran‘s Amir Kabir University by firing tear gas, but the students threw stones to prevent them from entering the university. Another witness said that students broke the gates of Amir Kabir University so that other people could join them.

“I can hear shots in the air from inside Tehran University, while they are beating people with batons, metal rods and sticks outside,” said a witness. There was heavy traffic on Enghelab [Revolution] Avenue, said an observer: “People and cars just keep going up and down the street, as they cannot chant slogans because of the huge number of security forces.” Even the traffic police are armed with batons, another witness from Tehran said.

A student at Ferdowsi University in Mashad in northeastern Iran said that plainclothes agents filmed students participating in rallies: “They might suppress or kill us, but what can they do with our children? We’ll raise them with the story of Neda.”

From Bu-Ali Sina University in Hamedan in west-central Iran, a rally participant said: “Police arrested one of the students who was severely injured during clashes and did not let him to be taken to hospital.”

A witness at Esfahan University in central Iran said students held a peaceful assembly on university grounds, while surrounded by a large number of police and security forces.

A Kurdistan University student said an “unprecedented” number of students participated in the Student Day rally this year.

for more detailed information about what happened in Iran Student Day 2009 navigate to the page of Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2009/nov/04/iran-student-day-protests

The post Iran Student Day 2009 appeared first on Void Network.

The Islamic Republic’s Failed Quest for the Spotless City

Azam Khatam

(Azam Khatam is an urban sociologist, a member of the Iran Sociological Association and a member of the editorial board of Goft-o-gu.)

It is characteristic of modern social revolutions to seek moral improvement of the population, as well as redress of the injustices of the ancien regime. In 1794, Paris echoed with calls to “righteousness”; in 1917, the Bolsheviks denounced the bourgeois decadence of the czarist era. For Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and other clerical leaders, the Islamic Revolution of 1979 was not only a seizure of political power, but also the moment of revival of Islamic morality, which had been systematically weakened by the secular Pahlavi regime. The clerics set out to build in Iran “a spotless society.”[1]

Since its inception, the Islamic Republic has labored tirelessly to indoctrinate society with a state-sponsored Islamic ethical vision, through the education system, state-owned broadcast media, propaganda films known as “holy defense cinema” and a host of coercive measures. In 1980, the regime infamously launched a “cultural revolution” aimed at intellectual elites, closing the universities for three years, and reopening them only after extensive purges of the faculty, administration and student body.

But the lives of ordinary Iranians have been far more deeply affected by a parallel project, based on the Qur’anic verse “commanding what is just and forbidding what is wrong” (amr-e be ma‘ruf va nahy-e az monkar), a basic tenet of Islamic jurisprudence and a moral obligation for every Muslim. In most times and places in Islamic history, this formulation has been akin to the concept of “personal responsibility” propagated by social conservatives in the contemporary United States—an exhortation to industry, propriety and clean living that is, in the end, up to the individual to heed or ignore. Under the Islamic Republic, it was to be up to the state. For two decades, a special morality police rigidly enforced “Islamic” codes of behavior in the streets, workplaces and parks of Iranian cities.

By the end of the 1990s, it was clear that the morality police had lost its power to intimidate. Increasingly youthful and educated, Iranians came to make a clear distinction between Muslim religious identity and the claim that Islam is a basis for an alternative social and political order. And they would simply decide for themselves what was pious personal behavior and what was not. Sights that once incurred the wrath of the virtue squads—forelocks poking out from under women’s headscarves, satellite dishes and weekend parties of young friends—were now regarded as ordinary aspects of life, especially in big cities like Tehran. Women, in particular, kept expanding the definition of the ordinary by dint of their actions, working outside the home, exercising in parks, walking the streets in colorful dress and running businesses in the male preserve of the bazaar.[2] Young people were not necessarily becoming secular. The same man might have a taste for Western music and for innovative hymns of mourning for the martyrdom of Imam Husayn; the same woman might have a keen interest in fashion and believe in a religious duty to cover her hair. Youth turned the occasion of Ashoura, when Shi‘i Muslims commemorate the death of Husayn, into a mix of sacred ritual with provocative fashion, flirting and a festival atmosphere.

Conservative hardliners were resentful of the slippage in enforcement of their puritanical standards, a slippage they regarded as a betrayal of the revolution as well as an offense against Islam. Their presidential candidate in 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ran what has been called a campaign of “stealthy radicalism,” pledging to restore moral rectitude by example and not by force. Once he was elected, of course, he cracked down. But the children of the revolution no longer fear or respect the cultural code that Ahmadinejad seeks to reimpose—and, indeed, they have defied it.

Revolutionary Piety

In April 1979, Khomeini ordered the Revolutionary Council to create a morality bureau (dayereh amr-e be ma‘ruf) that would uproot corrupt pre-revolutionary cultural habits. Initially, this bureau may have held some populist appeal, in that Khomeini hinted it would be a people’s watchdog in the corridors of power. In a May 1979 speech, the ayatollah said: “The morality bureau will be independent of the state, so as to monitor it, and no one, not even the highest authorities, will be exempt from its supervision.”[3] Indeed, Article 8 of the Islamic Republic’s constitution refers to amr-e be ma‘ruf—the shorthand term for public morality—as a key basis of social relations and a mutual obligation of ordinary citizens and government. In practice, enforcement of amr-e be ma‘ruf has been directed overwhelmingly at the citizenry—and in particular at women.

A morality police unit was established in Tehran in 1979. One of its first acts was to demolish the old red-light district of Tehran, removing 2,700 prostitutes.[4] In the ensuing months, thousands of people were arrested for such “moral crimes” as extra-marital sexual relationships, alcohol consumption, gambling and pederasty, and hundreds were executed. More liberal Revolutionary Council members objected to the excesses, as well as the unaccountability of the morality bureau to the Council, and the Revolutionary Court briefly disbanded the bureau, citing unauthorized arrests and confiscation of personal wealth. The bureau was resurrected in 1981, this time as a special court for prosecuting cases of “prohibited activities.” In the same year, the Islamic Republic mandated that women wear modest “Islamic” attire. (Contrary to persistent myth, the law in Iran has never required women to don the full chador, though they are strongly encouraged to do so. In practice, “Islamic” attire has meant a variety of manners of dress, typically a manteau covering the arms and a headscarf. The chador is enforced, however, in mosques, judiciary buildings and other public spaces, including on some university campuses.)

At first, the power of the morality court was absolute. Then, in 1982, the first Islamic penal law was ratified by Parliament. The law codified the prohibition of “non-Islamic” dress for women. Article 102 declared that women dressed “improperly” in public would receive up to 74 lashes, a penalty only softened in 1996, when it was changed to jail time or a fine. This clause of the penal law remains the only legal instrument for implementing amr-e be ma‘ruf. With codification, the bureaucratic state sought not only to restrain judicial autonomy, but also to construct an Islamic identity through threat of sanction. In the 1980s, the state promoted a culture of self-sacrifice and obedience, and any resistance on the part of women to strictures upon dress was treated as counter-revolutionary treason. Even as the Iran-Iraq war raged, prominent conservative figures took the line that the struggle over moral issues should not take a back seat.[5] Authoritarian enforcement of amr-e be ma‘ruf created what Roxanne Varzi has called a “public secret,”[6] by which many urbanites hid their “non-Islamic” beliefs and habits at home, while appearing to be properly Islamic in public.

The Post-War Era

In the late 1980s, morality policing entered a second phase with the formation of a new state “headquarters” (setad) for enforcing amr-e be ma‘ruf and the return of thousands of Basiji (voluntary militia) activists from the war front. The Basij, initially created to shield the Islamic Republic from internal security threats, was now assigned the role of ensuring that Islamic ethics were observed. Basiji checkpoints in the streets gradually turned to the task of imposing Islamic codes, peaking in 1993, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini’s successor as Supreme Leader, espied a “cultural invasion” of Western, secular and counter-revolutionary influences. The state-owned press put the number of Basijis thus engaged at anywhere from 230,000 to 3.5 million.[7]

The target population was no longer the secular Iranians who had criticized the revolution in the 1980s, but the masses of urban middle-class youth who were born and raised under the Islamic Republic, and had supposedly eaten and breathed nothing but revolutionary Islamic ideals. Patrolling setad units harassed, humiliated and arrested young men and women in streets, workplaces, universities and other public places, accusing them of moral misconduct.

Meanwhile, the face of the capital was changing under Gholamhossein Karbaschi, the mayor from 1989 to 1998. In the first half of the 1990s, Tehran witnessed an explosion of new construction, financed partly by the municipality, which levied steep new taxes on commercial developers, and partly by the developers, for whose benefit the city bent zoning laws.[8] The number of parks doubled, and 74 new cultural centers appeared in less than five years.[9] Meanwhile, the proliferation of shopping malls reflected the decline of revolutionary fervor, with its collective ideals, as individual consumerism took root. Eventually, the new urban policy became the focal point of a confrontation between the “reformist” figures associated with President Mohammad Khatami and traditional conservatives. Mayor Karbaschi’s Hamshahri, the most popular newspaper at the time, endorsed Khatami’s presidential run in 1997. The next year, he was tried and imprisoned on corruption charges related to the methods behind Tehran’s urban renewal.

But the modernization and revitalization of Tehran’s public spaces reflected powerful desires among city residents, desires that also hindered the implementation of amr-e be ma‘ruf. The post-revolutionary technocratic elite, for instance, having made fortunes through political connections, wanted to indulge in conspicuous consumption. The generation of youths that had grown up under the Islamic Republic were highly frustrated by the limits imposed by scarce resources and exclusive policies upon their life chances. They understood the policies as an effort to marginalize those who were insufficiently “Islamic.” Public opinion on cultural values began to fragment. The families of war martyrs, who tended to be of humbler origins, supported the fight to safeguard the moral promise of the revolution as well as their protected access to state-sponsored privileges. Meanwhile, the modern middle classes were eager to make a clean break with the “republic of piety.”

The extension of setad activities into government offices and the provinces intensified official disagreements. Conservatives, raising the specter of cultural invasion, accused the more pragmatic Khatami camp of being indifferent to the ethical promise of the revolution. They mounted attacks in the press on Karbaschi’s cultural centers in Tehran.

As minister of culture and Islamc guidance in 1992, Khatami ratified the Principles of Cultural Policy, which became the reformist charter for cultural reform. The charter advocates relatively tolerant policies and refers not at all to amr-e be ma‘ruf. On the contrary, it calls for government institutions to restrict the selective imposition of severe religious views upon the public, for fear of negative social consequences. In 1999, an Islamic institute at Tehran University sponsoring research on amr-e be ma‘ruf proposed that “the political system should avoid imposing on people too much ideological pressure, too many restrictive codes and too much propaganda based on religious principles.”[10]

The ascendancy of the reformist bloc in Parliament, and the associated intellectual and cultural ferment, effectively ended the second stage of moral policing in the name of amr-e be ma‘ruf. From 1996 to 2005 the Basij checkpoints were fewer and further between, and the government told the setad it lacked legal authority for its indiscriminate patrols.[11] Setad authorities also lost their control over believers in faraway cities. The discourse of “cultural invasion” through communications technology and mass media was replaced by Khatami’s talk of the “dialogue of civilizations.” People expressed their will for cultural change through street celebrations, starting with the victory of the national soccer team over Australia in the 1997 World Cup qualifying match. These celebrations were a cultural turning point, since such “non-Islamic” emotions of jubilation had not been expressed in public since the revolution.”

Yet the hardliners did not simply acquiesce in their marginalization. Renegade “operational teams” of the setad meted out “Islamic punishment,” as with the serial killings of women accused of being prostitutes in Mashhad and Kerman in 2002 and 2003.

The New Puritanism

In 2003, even as many conservatives in Parliament dropped revolutionary-era rhetoric in recognition that Iranian society has changed, the hardliners consolidated themselves in a coalition of more than 18 groups, some of which had been active since the 1990s, and others of which were new associations organized by clerics and officials. Although the coalition had ties to traditional conservatives in the bazaar and among clergy in Qom and Tehran, it aimed primarily to give voice to the less privileged among Islamist ranks, including the radicals marginalized under Khatami and the urban low-income strata.[12] The hardliners turned amr-e be ma‘ruf into a mobilizing slogan for radical Islamist forces as the reformists’ moment waned. Later, they used amr-e be ma‘ruf to gain leverage in their political conflicts with reformists and even more pragmatic conservatives.

Conservatives took over Tehran’s city council in 2003, Parliament in 2004 and the presidency in 2005. From their first move back into power, they upped the volume of their demands for aggressive policies to control public life, directing harsh criticisms at the laxity of the reformists to prepare society for the coming retrenchment in cultural policies. The judiciary announced another initiative to create a force responsible for policing “moral crimes” in November 2004. Committees answering the force’s national command were to be formed in each mosque, neighborhood, factory, school and government office, with the task of implementing amr-e be ma‘ruf. Several clergymen, including teachers in the Qom seminaries responsible for training judges since the revolution, mildly protested the idea of placing such a body under judicial supervision.[13] Independent lawyers also pointed to the clear conflict of interest, as well as the lack of parliamentary approval for the plan.[14]

As the 2005 presidential campaign got underway, the leader of the hardline coalition, Ahmadinejad, promised his followers a new age of economic justice and Islamic piety. The two components of his populist platform were harmonious, even if they aimed at different political targets. With his denunciations of corruption and promises to put the fruits of oil wealth on the humblest of dinner tables, Ahmadinejad cast himself in subtle, but clear opposition to Islamist power brokers such as former President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a founder of the Islamic Republic who wound up as his rival in the presidential runoff. At the same time, he stoked resentment of the reformists among the more ideological sectors of his base, such as war martyrs’ families and Basiji families, by decrying reformist disregard for amr-e be ma‘ruf and vowing as well to crack down on conspicuous consumption. The 2005 presidential election was the first since the revolution in which candidates felt compelled to declaim a “mild” position on veiling. Wary of being labeled a fundamentalist, Ahmadinejad promised that he would not “interfere with the choice of hairstyle of young people.” But after he won, and all the branches of government were back in conservative hands, the conservatives resumed attempts to discipline public behavior with the language of amr-e be ma‘ruf.

In May 2005, Tehran’s conservative city council called in the police commander and blasted him for excessive tolerance of “inappropriately veiled” women in public. A few days later, special morality patrols reappeared in the streets, for the first time employing women officers.[15] In August of that year, the arch-conservative newspaper Keyhan demanded that the government step up its efforts to enforce amr-e be ma‘ruf: “Why do secular states expend such great effort to protect their youth from moral decadence while our Islamic state is painfully indifferent and silent toward the degradation of ethics among our youth?”[16]

The same month, the city council ratified a document called “Strategies to Extend Piety,” mandating still more bureaucratic organs, including a coordination committee drawn from various ministries and executive bodies, that would cooperate with police to punish violators of “moral codes.” By the spring of 2006, the morality police were once again ubiquitous, arresting or intimidating young women and men for their dress and conduct, confiscating satellite dishes and punishing shopkeepers who were selling “inappropriate” articles of clothing. At the same time, several cultural institutes formed during the reformist period were closed. Others were severely restricted; the budgets of cultural centers in Tehran were cut by half, while more funding was provided to religious institutions.

Within the conservative coalition, there were disagreements over amr-e be ma‘ruf. The director of the parliamentary cultural commission mounted what he called a “fundamentalist critique of fundamentalism,” pointing to the inefficacy of past attempts to police morality. Another conservative said enforcement efforts should be “soft, not hard.” As conservative intellectuals left the coalition in protest of the morality campaign, more power accrued to the radicals.

In the spring of 2007, the most extreme conservatives in the Tehran courts designed a “public safety program” (tarh-e amniat-e ejtema‘e) aimed at allaying public fears about increased consumption of drugs, thuggish behavior among youth, rape and burglary—but also at enforcing amr-e be ma‘ruf. As it was nominally a normal anti-crime initiative, the program was assigned to the regular municipal police by the president. The move was in keeping with Ahmadinejad’s “stealthy radicalism” during the campaign, for he sought to assure Tehranis that the regular police, not the notorious Basij, would be the enforcers. As a police commander told the Fars News Agency, “We didn’t use Basij forces, because we assumed there would be more resistance from the people.”

The Basij, however, criticized police for their “mild” methods. By August, the Basij had been invited to take over operations targeting drug dealers and gangs of robbers. Basij commanders, embedded in the state bureaucracy, used the chance to proclaim themselves the saviors of political stability of the Islamic Republic in the cities. They inveighed against a “cultural NATO” and a “conspiracy of foreign forces” seeking to overthrow the Islamic Republic through the propagation of “non-Islamic” behavior among youth and women. The mix of cooperation and competition between the Basij and police ended in a kind of military occupation of cities in the spring of 2008. Patrols criss-crossed each of Tehran’s 23 main thoroughfares, where confrontations between police and citizens over “moral issues” were a daily occurrence.

The fresh campaign was vicious in its treatment of young people dressed in “non-Islamic” fashion and its harassment of alleged arazel va obash, a derogatory phrase meaning drug dealers, addicts and thieves. In the first four months, nearly 1 million people were publicly humiliated, or “instructed,” in the streets and 40,000 were arrested. Of those detained in 2007, 85 percent were youths aged 16 to 26, and 10 percent were accused drug dealers and thieves, 35 of whom were executed within a month of their arrest. Reports on the program’s progress were released to the press as a warning to all. Investigative reporters revealed that an “instruction” center for addicts in Kahrizak, on the southern fringe of Tehran, was turned into a temporary prison, where “criminals” were severely tortured for one or two months, without trial, to terrorize them prior to their release.

This new puritanism disguised as a “public safety program” lifted the most fanatical elements of the hardline conservative firmament to the commanding heights of cultural policymaking in the Islamic Republic, and turned amr-e be ma‘ruf into a major challenge for the government, at a time when it already faces crises in economic and international policy. Human rights lawyers and activist women started a round of protests against the “public safety program” in 2007. The feminist website Meydan Zanan took the initiative, publishing news of street demonstrations, human rights activities and government debates on the issue. At the same time 20 independent lawyers filed a complaint against police with the highest court with jurisdiction over government agencies, claiming that the “public safety program” is illegal because it is not included in routine police tasks and it lacks parliamentary sanction. One year later, the court rendered its verdict that “there is no sanction or legal requirement” for the “public safety program.” In the summer of 2008, the main independent student organization, Tahkim Vahdat, initiated a series of public meetings on “violations of human rights by the public safety program” in Tehran and other cities. In most of these activities, there was reference to principles of human rights and the protections of personal freedom outlined in the constitution.[17]

In late January 2009, the new minister of interior and the deputy police commander suggested that the “public safety program” violates the citizenship rights of the people.[18] Regular police patrols have decreased markedly in the streets of the capital. At the same time, Basij commanders and others among the arch-conservatives dream of institutionalizing the agencies enforcing amr-e be ma‘ruf as a separate ministry[19] and of making amr-e be ma‘ruf the basis of the penal system. Already, toward the end of 2008, the Basij had declared that its enforcement activities would intensify in redress of the “retreat” of the municipal police.[20] The failure of the “public safety program” is another piece of evidence for the proposition that present-day Iran is de facto a post-Islamist society, a place “where, following a phase of experimentation, the appeal, energy and sources of legitimacy of Islamism get exhausted even among its once ardent supporters.”[21] During the 2005 presidential campaign, Elahe Kolaei, spokeswoman for the reformist candidate Mostafa Moin, referred passingly to his opposition to mandatory veiling. In January 2009, the Coalition of Nationalist Religious Parties, a collection of liberals and social democrats with active “Islamist feminists” among its members, has published a statement calling for the “remedy of discrimination everywhere” and asking that obligatory veiling be abandoned. This is the first time since the consolidation of the Islamic Republic that a political party has taken this step. The events of early 2009 mark both the end of the third phase of the attempts of the state to impose amr-e be ma‘ruf upon an increasingly recalcitrant population and an unprecedented degree of political fragmentation within the power centers of the Islamic Republic.

Endnotes

[1] Keyhan, December 12, 1981.

[2] See Asef Bayat, “A Women’s Non-Movement: What It Means To Be a Woman Activist in an Islamic State,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 27/1 (2007).

[3] Ettelaat, April 4, 1979.

[4] Ettelaat, February 20, 1980.

[5] Ettelaat, April 21, 1986.

[6] Roxanne Varzi, Warring Souls (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000).

[7] The lower number appeared in Keyhan, November 11, 1995, and the higher number in Ettelaat, February 5, 1997.

[8] For details, see Kaveh Ehsani, “Municipal Matters: The Urbanization of Consciousness and Political Change in Tehran,” Middle East Report 212 (Fall 1999).

[9] Yas-e No, November 22, 2003.

[10] Jahad Daneshgahi, A Study on the Conditions of Revitalization of the Tradition of “Commanding the Just and Forbidding the Wrong,” (1999), p. 138. [Persian]

[11] Sharq, September 8, 2003.

[12] See Mohammad Maljoo, “Political Economy of the Rise of Ahmadinejad’s Government,” Goft-o-gu 49 (August 2007). [Persian]

[13] See, for example, Laila Asadi, “On Legal Aspects of Veiling in Iran,” a paper published by the research section of the Hozeh Elmieh Qom, and accessible online at http://www.porsojoo.com/fa/node/73527. [Persian]

[14] Aftab Yazd, December 12, 2004.

[15] Hamehan, June 14, 2005.

[16] Keyhan, August 14, 2005.

[17] For more on the protest campaign, see the Meydan Zanan website at http://meydaan.org/campaign.aspx?cid=55. [Persian]

[18] Etemad, January 29, 2009.

[19] Iran, February 5, 2009.

[20] Etemad, December 16, 2008.

[21] See Asef Bayat, “What Is Post-Islamism?” ISIM Review 16 (Autumn 2005).

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