The Iraqi working women, vanguard of the revolution
Since last October, as part of the same chain of revolutions that is shaking Middle East since 2011, the Iraqi masses took to the streets to fight for a decent life, confronting the imperialist oil companis' loot and their protectorate. The ongoing revolution in Iraq is for work, drinkable water, electricity and other basic needs that do not exist in the country, when it's the third world oil exporter. The US and its transnational companies, with their local puppets of the Iraqi government, are responsible for this situation of the masses and they know it.
After four months, the crackdown made by the Iraqi protectorate's government has not stop. It has become even crueler. There are thousands of murdered and thousands of political prisoners. The war cry is the same echoed in the entire Middle East: ‘The people want the downfall of the regime!’. This cry was first shouted in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, then in Libya, Syria and Yemen, then in Sudan, Algeria and today is a sounding cry in Iraq and Iran.
The working women have played a fundamental role in this chain of revolutions, at the forefront of the demonstrations, in the rearguard assisting those in struggle, marching for the freedom of their comrades to the doors of the jails, and in thousands of other ways.
The heroic women that had occuppied Tahrir Square from the beginning, were among the first ones to be attacked. Armed men from militias killed the civil activist Sarah Talib with her husband Adel Hussein, at their home after they returned from a demonstration. Afterwards, the paramedic activist Saba al-Mahdawi was kidnapped after she came back from Tahrir Square in Baghdad and she was tortured before she was released a few weeks later. Activist Mary Mohamed, some days after being released, was kidnapped, and this caused the killing of the 19 year old Zahra Ali, after a brutal torture, and her body was dumped in the road as a punishment for his pro-revolution father that went with her to Tahrir Square in Baghdad. Also, there's the last massacre carried out by the militia against the protesters in Al-Sank area.
They came out to the streets stronger than ever, leading a huge demonstration called “millon women demonstration". On Thursday, February 13, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women across the country protested against violence and killings of anti-government protestors by the hand of the government security forces and armed militias. Women also demanded equality, claiming their right to protest together with the Iraqi men after an absurd ruling of the prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that asked women and men to be separated in the protests due to gender difference. Right before Thursday protests started, the clerics accused the protesters of being “full of naked people, promiscuous, drunk people, lack of morality, excess of freedom and non believers". That's why when they reached Tahrir Square, in the tunnel, nowadays an art gallery in whose revolutionary walls it is painted “The women of October revolution are revolutionaries and not whores".
Protests took place in several important Iraqi cities such as Baghdad, Basra, Nasiriya, Najaf and Karbala, among others. Women, surrounded by a cordon of men to protect them from crackdown, were holding posters and signs in English and in Arabic saying “separate religion and the state is way better than separating men and women”, “revolt, resistance and smile because you are the nation, you will complete the revolution". Other ones waved the Iraqi flag chanting “stop discrimination against women", “end gender segregation", “women are revolution, not genitals" and “Freedom, revolution, feminism".
The Iraqi woman has had a fundamental role for years. Wars, killings and kidnappings by the hand of the regimes that Iraq had over these years have left many fanilies with only one parent, in which the mother raises the children and is the only source of income. That's the reason for which women, specially mothers, play a central role in the lives of the majority that came out to protest and are the most important symbol of the revolution. The clerics treated women as inferior once again after they filled the big void in production and education during the war. Without working women, factories, labs, farms and institutions would not have worked.
The working women led the campaign against the Personal State Bill of Jaafari in 2014 that tried to legalize the marriage of minors. They were also at the vanguard of the demonstrations asking for high rank jobs, which were also brutalized by the Iraqi government.
Today, in the current Iraqi revolution, they are the vanguard. These women that for years suffered mistreat of the institutions, triple exploitation and machism are the ones heading the struggle. They are the first ones to go to the most dangerous clash zones to eliminate and extinguish the tear gas canisters, as in Tahrir Square tunnel or helping the wounded, as in al-Ahrar bridge or al-Sink under the bridge and on the high columns and in Tigris river cliff.
The students also became a symbol of the revolution and challenged the authority, when many students from different governorates declared a strike and came out to protest in demonstrations organiized from their high schools, despite police suppression and threats from the Education Ministry.
The Iraqi women are a great example of struggle and heroicity that the whole feminist movement should follow. The revolutionary women are an inexhaustible source of forces. Their struggle against imperialism, the regime of the protectorate, exploitation, machism and for the separation of the religion from the state is the banner of the Iraqi revolution today.
The revolution in Middle East rises again and counts with the working women as part of its ranks.
Together with them, from Iraq to Palestine, from Syria to Iran, from Sudan to Algeria and in the whole Middle East:
“THE PEOPLE WANT THE FALL OF THE REGIME!”
Victory for the revolution!
For the working class to live, imperialism must die!
Open the road for the working women!
Democracia Obrera (Workers Democracy) – Spanish State
|
|
A paint in the wall in Tahrir tunnel, Baghdad
A paint in the wall in Tahrir tunnel, Baghdad
A paint in the wall in Tahrir tunnel, Baghdad
|
