“If we Iranians can hope, even after 47 years of strangulation and murder by the world’s superpower, then all the people of the global South can hope as well.”
Maryam Eslamdoust spoke at Stop the War’s recent International Anti-War Conference. You can read her speech below.
We represent transport and travel workers across Britain and Ireland and we are proud to be one of the sponsoring trade unions for today’s International Conference Against War.
I will speak to you today from two perspectives:
The first is as a trade union leader, on the urgency of the anti-war movement as a trade union cause.
The second is as an Iranian woman, witnessing my birth nation’s victimisation and resistance to the imperial war
machine.
So, turning first to the priority of trade unionists resisting the relentless drive to war. Here in Britain, we are experiencing pressure towards war, which is reflected across Europe and the rest of the Western
world.
This is not just a rhetorical pressure. Nor is it just expressed in support for America’s imperialist wars. Rather, our government is in a desperate drive for armaments.
Their plan is to more than double military expenditure over the next few years, and they have made very clear how they will pay for it: by cutting the very essentials of everyday life for workers.
They are continually threatening to cut social security benefits for tens of millions of families who rely on that redistribution to survive in our cruel economy – even when they are in work. And more immediately, the British government has announced that every other department must slash their capital budgets to fund weapons purchases.
In my members’ industry – transport – we are particularly hard hit, as transport spending is focused on capital investment, and as our transport infrastructure crumbles in many places, we cannot afford to forgo investment.
We mourn the death of a train driver, killed in a collision which we believe was caused by failures of safety
equipment. We cannot afford more deaths caused by failure to invest.
And the money being taken will not be spent on the men and women serving their countries, but rather on big American toys, such as nuclear-armed F-35 jets, which Iran has proved are not even suitable for the needs of the unnecessary wars of today.
Which brings me on to Iran. I am a leader of a British and Irish trade union, but I am also a proud Iranian woman.
A year and a week ago, as Israel launched its first open war against Iran, I promised that Iranians would not be bowed by this imperialist aggression, and I am proud to say we have not been bowed.
We have faced the most enormous tests, but the brave men, women, and children of Iran have held our heads high and withstood two of the most powerful militaries in the world.
So, as peace may be slowly blooming for Iran, we Iranians ask ourselves the question:
Dare we hope?
Dare we hope that no more lives will be blighted by war?
Dare we hope that future Iranian girls and boys will not grow up with the fear that the Tomahawk missiles may one day come for them?
Dare we hope even while we mourn the precious children of Minab, murdered by the US?
Dare we hope that Iran might be treated like a normal country?
Dare we hope that we might be allowed to breathe, that sanctions might not constrict everything that future
generations do?
Dare we hope that our people’s minds might not be poisoned by propaganda satellite new channels?
Dare we hope that in 5 years time, if we mention that we are Iranian, people will respond with their love of our food and our song, not cower away from imagined terror?
And I answer my question – yes! We do dare to hope.
Iran’s resistance, Iranians’ enormous strength of spirit, allows us to dare to hope.
And if we Iranians can hope, even after 47 years of strangulation and murder by the world’s superpower, then all
the people of the global South can hope as well.
Our cousins in Cuba can hope.
Our sisters and brothers in Lebanon can hope.
And our beloved Palestinians can hope.
Conference, we dare to hope.
Long live Iran!
Long live Cuba!
Long live Lebanon!
Long live Palestine!
- Maryam Eslamdoust is the General Secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA). You can follow the TSSA on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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