It took me a while to understand what Comprador Bourgeoisie meant back in 1979. It was finally explained to me by a Marxist class mate to mean the bourgeoisie class that was dependant on the imperialists as opposed to the national bourgeoisie which could be regarded as patriotic and nationalist. He also reiterated that National Bourgeoisie in Iran was dead because of the policies of the Pahlavi dynasty. That was the official Marxist line by most of Iran's Marxists except the Chinese backed Ranjbaran (Toilers) Party for some reason.
Comprador bourgeoisie was the worst enemy of the Marxists, worse than the evil bourgeoisie. A true Marxist couldn't utter the phrase without spitting on the floor after saying it. Within seconds I came up with a Persian equivalent for comprador bourgeoisie and asked my Marxist class mate again if that was a correct translation? To which he nodded uneasily and condescendingly giving the impression that it was somehow classier to say the original term which the plebs did not understand.
This was a marked distinction between the way Khomeini spoke and the way the Iranian Left spoke. Ayatollah Khomeini spoke bad Persian with bad grammar and overused the word 'nonetheless' in his badly constructed sentences but he spoke in a way ordinary Iranians understood.
'We say to you, Mr. General, we want you to be a master and not a servant, not the servant of the Americans, why do you want to be a servant?' is how Ayatollah Khomeini addressed the Iranian military officers when he made his first public speech after his return from exile. It was simple language but the message was understood by all. Yet the Left spoke in a condescending way with lots of borrowed and imported Marxist terminology which left the ordinary Iranians not having a clue what they were talking about and even irritated them by their intellectual snobbery. The Iranian Left was so immersed in reading Marx and Lenin, they had forgotten to read books about Iran or better still find out about the Iranian society itself and its limitations. It was mandatory for the Iranian Left to read the voluminous history of USSR's Communist Party which left them no time to read History of Iran's Constitutional Revolution. Had they done so they would have been better informed about the treacheries of the Iranian clergy and Russia and how they had kept Iran's society back from progress and modernity.
So when I saw the title of Ardeshir Ommani's crap article, 'Iran's Comprador Bourgeoisie: Down with Russia! Down with China!' it reminded me of those turbulent days and how the Iranian Marxists thought they knew better.
So what is it that has troubled this so called anti-imperialist activist? He is having sleepless nights because people in Iran are chanting 'Down with Russia' and 'Down with China', Islamic Republic's super power backers.
How dare do they? asks Ardeshir Ommani, for Russia and China have been the friends of the oppressed forever in Ommani's warped world. Those shouting such slogans must be the wretched Comprador Bourgeoisie! :)))
Although true to his nature, Ommani closes his eyes to the realities and tries to calm himself by referring to such 'comprador bourgeoisie' chants as a 'brief episode', but in fact this is not a brief episode at all, the ordinary plebs that Ommani despises so much, have understood and felt with their flesh and bones that Russia has been and is our historic enemy.
Ever since Peter the Great made a wish about Russia reaching the warm waters of the Persian Gulf and the Tsars backed the corrupt and incompetent Qajar dynasty and took away vast chunks of Iran to the time the Russians stood in the way of Iran's Constitutional revolution and bombed the new parliament building, to the time when they invaded North Iran, to the time when they tried to annex Iran's Azerbijan through their puppet Pishewari, to the time when they ordered their puppet Tudeh Party to demand Iran's oil in the north to belong to the Soviets and right until today when the Kremlin masters are backing Ahamdinejad and denying Iran's rightful share of the Caspian Sea, Russia has been the backer of despots and puppets in Iran as it has been all over the world.
Ommani should know better, had he not buried his head in the sand, that the chants of 'Down with Russia' is not a 'brief episode' it is chanted across Iran by all the people constantly these days. Of course the 'anti-war' activist hero never marches in the streets when Russia destroys Chechnya and its people, or when Russia invaded Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, this 'anti-war' activist has been very selective for the last 40 years when it comes to war and which war he should be anti.
Finally where does this anti-imperialist and 'anti-war' activist live? Does he live in Iran? No, there is no danger of him going back to Iran, in fact he travels there frequently but he decided to leave Iran in 1980. Does he live in his beloved Russia? No. China? Still No, our anti-imperialist stooge of the Iranian regime lives in New York, America :)))
11 comments:
I wasn't even around then, but every time I read something by Ommani, I get the sense that his political compass is stuck in the late 60s. He is one of the funnier IRI apologists. I read him to laugh.
Excellent article. This clarifies the chant for us in the west. I had no idea. Thanks. Jan
Good Article. I despise all these Leftists in Iran. They brought so much destruction by what they did. They should just leave us alone and go and live a week in Russia, China or Cuba. To see and feel communism, or what it remains of it. But they dont. Hippocrates...
H.
Garbage article - hands down. But here's the best part:
"....for the first time former President Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran's wealthiest men, publicly known as "the Shark" regarding his financial transactions that led to his families' massive accumulation of riches during his tenure as President of Iran, led Friday prayers at Tehran University."
That's not why they call him a "shark!!!"
PEace,
barmakid
what does he smoke?
Thx for mentioning the shark Barmakid, I wanted to mention it but then I thought it would come across as defending Rafsanjani but as you say they call him shark because he can't grow a beard and shark does not have the same connotation in Iran
'Finally where does this anti-imperialist and 'anti-war' activist live?'
The same place where the rest of them live: from the arch-Commies of the old school down to Sharia-loving loons and other assorted crusaders all choose to live in imperialist lands and not in all those wonderful societies that Islam or Communism have created. Funny that.
California, I believe.
WTF is it with all these pseudo-left wingers defending the Islamic Republic who are the biggest fascists around. Unbelievable, people like this make me ashamed to be a liberal.
Arash
Nice article. Do you recommend anything to read on the constitutional revolution?
KK,
If you are Iranian and can read Persian Kasravi's History of Iran's Constitutional Revolution and Adjudani's Iranian Constitution Revolution and the Backgrounds of the Velayat Faghih
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