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Over 120 friends, family and political comrades of
Bahman Moayedi gathered to celebrate his life on April 1 at an Iranian
restaurant in Richmond Hill, north of Toronto. We were drawn together by the
stunning, sudden loss of someone so animated by love, honesty, human
solidarity and a relentless drive for social justice.
Bahman died in a tragic accident on March 21. His
beloved partner Hannah Hadikin informed us that, while on a brief
vacation to celebrate the Iranian New Year with her at Isla Margarita, 23
miles off the north-east coast of Venezuela, "Bahman went for a swim and
was swept away by a current. All efforts to revive him
failed." He was 63 years old.
I first met Bahman about five years ago, although he
had moved to Toronto
in 1986. He began attending events sponsored by the NDP Socialist
Caucus, and participating in the activities of Socialist Action. As
I got to know Bahman I came to appreciate his rich historical experience
and I was able to learn more about his native land. I was
fascinated in part because he was a witness to some of the greatest
events of the second half of the twentieth century, particularly the
momentous 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the hated, U.S.-backed
dictatorship of Reza Pahlavi.
Washington took its revenge on the revolution
by pushing Iraq
into a cataclysmic, 8 year-long war with Iran. The conflict
saw nearly a million Iranians killed or wounded. Aerial
bombardment, which destroyed many civilian neighborhoods, plus factors of
internal repression and economic hardship, sent thousands into exile,
including Bahman and family. They lived briefly in France, and finally
came to Canada.
Bahman Moayedi first travelled to the United States in the
early 1960s, where he went to university. He witnessed the rise of the
powerful mass movement against the war in Vietnam. He was a member of the
Socialist Workers’ Party in Seattle and Pittsburgh, and then returned to Iran in 1978 to
participate in the revolutionary upsurge.
He was an active supporter of the Sattar League, the Iranian section of the Fourth International,
which was founded in the United States by radicalized Iranian
students. After the February 1979 revolutionary overthrow of the
Shah, Iranian Trotskyists formed a unified party. The Socialist
Workers’ Party (HKS) in Iran
called for a workers’ and peasants’ government to replace the
Khomeini-Bazargan provisional government. Bahman worked closely
with the HKS.
However, by the summer of 1979 the HKS split. On
one side were the Iranian Trotskyists who had worked closely with the US
Socialist Workers’ Party, and on the other side were the Iranian
Trotskyists who had worked with the European sections of the Fourth
International, led by Ernest Mandel. The split was mainly over
participation in the election for the Islamic Constitutional
Assembly. Bahman aligned himself with the Revolutionary Workers’
Party (HKE) made up mostly of Sattar League cadre and leadership.
According to Kamran Nayeri, a co-founder of the
Workers’ Unity Party (HVK) and a leader of the Iranian Trotskyist
movement, the HKE gradually adapted to the Islamic Republic, to its
repressive and anti-labor policies, all in the name of support for the
anti-imperialist struggle. Meanwhile, the HKS adapted to ultra-left
sectarian currents that placed struggle against the clerical regime above
the need to work within the ranks of the Iranian labor movement.
The HVK was formed by factions within HKE and HKS that opposed these political
adaptations; it called for an independent working class strategy and for
a workers’ and peasants’ government.
After settling in Canada, Bahman was a supporter of
the Communist League, an affiliate of the US-SWP, until disagreement with
their abstentionist stance towards the movement against the US war on Iraq caused him to
leave.
Finally, Bahman entered the sphere of Socialist Action
and joined us in 2003. He was actively involved in the NDP Socialist
Caucus, in the Willowdale NDP constituency association and served on its
executive, the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, and the Toronto Haiti Action
Committee. He worked in solidarity with Palestine, in opposition to
imperialist threats against Iran's sovereignty, and many other progressive
social change movements, including campaigns for aboriginal peoples’
rights. He was a fierce opponent of racism, sexism and homophobia,
and did not hesitate to challenge bigotry and discrimination whenever he
witnessed such ugliness.
He was extremely well read, appreciated music, theatre
and cinema, and loved to share with others what he knew about the world -
so long as it did not involve talking about himself. In the latter
department he was reticent to a fault. But he never tired of trying
to educate us about history, nor of exposing the pernicious role of
imperialism - for example, how Britain and the Allies occupied Iran during WW2,
ripped off its energy resources, and how the CIA in 1953 overthrew the democratically
elected secular politician who nationalized British Petroleum, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh.
Bahman saw the masses as the motor of social
change. His view was grounded in his experience, both in North America and Iran, and in a
serious study of world history. For that reason he was passionately
drawn to the process of revolutionary change currently underway in Venezuela. He
also desperately needed to find a paying job since his work as an
immigration consultant dried up. So he left Toronto last September to work full
time in Venezuela
as an electrical engineer on a massive social housing project near Caracas. It had
been years since he was able to apply his skills in his professional
field, so he jumped at the chance of working with an Iranian construction
firm and for a government that is making a positive difference in the
lives of ordinary poor and working people in Venezuela.
Despite being far away, Bahman kept in regular contact
with comrades. He was a prolific writer. He was frequently
published in Socialist Action newspaper under the pen name Ben
Yedi. His favourite topic was the mistreatment of immigrants and
refugees. Some of Bahman’s last email messages reflected his
general outlook and passionate concerns.
On March 1 Bahman wrote disapprovingly of the Canadian
government’s decision to implement UN Resolution 1737, an embargo of
certain goods and services waged against Iran's nuclear energy
program. After all, why should Iran be prevented from providing for its
future energy needs when the U.S., and its allies in Europe and Israel, have
stockpiles of nuclear weapons, some aimed directly at Iran?
On March 5 Bahman sent a report on Iran’s condemnation
of a U.S. refusal to grant visas to a delegation of Iranian feminists
scheduled to speak at a United
Nations women’s conference in New York.
On March 7 he relayed to us an article about students
in California
and across the U.S. holding strikes, sit-ins and rallies against the U.S.
war of occupation in Iraq.
He wrote that it was heartening to see a revival of the spirit of student
revolt.
On March 8 Bahman sent a report of his visit to the
slum district of Pitare, in Caracas, in which he noted significant
improvements to housing and local nutrition. At the same time he
bemoaned that fact that some of the social funds provided by the popular
radical regime of Hugo
Chavez were being diverted by corrupt local officials.
On March 18 Bahman requested of me a report on the
anti-war demonstration in Toronto that occurred one day earlier, and I
complied.
Finally, on March 18, he forwarded a FOX news report
that Iran is
threatening to retaliate against U.S. forces for a series of suspected
kidnappings of high-ranking officers of its elite Revolutionary Guards.
Did he anticipate the eventual stand off with Britain
over the 15 wayward British sailors? The truth is that Bahman was
on a permanent campaign footing, defending his homeland and its working
people against plots and schemes, against the slings and arrows of the
Empire. At the same time, Bahman was not a simple-minded patriot,
nor was he a narrow nationalist. He was a revolutionary
internationalist. As such he knew that Iran’s suffering is
rooted in an unjust socio-economic system, at home and worldwide. He knew
that the best defence of Iran against imperialism would be the
replacement of its repressive populist regime, and the controlling
clerical establishment, by a secular socialist government of Iran’s
workers and farmers. To this combined task, the quest for
independence for all oppressed nations and for an end to class
exploitation, what Trotsky called the Permanent Revolution, Bahman
devoted his life.
For him, solidarity knew no boundaries. The
struggle for social justice was indivisible. He took up the cause
wherever he was: France,
the United States,
Japan, India, Canada, wherever life
and work took him. In Canada he threw himself into the grassroots
campaigns and organizations of working people. His orientation was
to the mainstream, not to the sidelines. He strove to move
mountains, not pebbles. So he joined us in fighting for socialist
policies inside the only mass labour-based political party in North America, the
New Democratic Party.
He would joke about how his riding executive, in an
effort to achieve greater cultural diversity, invited him to provide “ethnic
food” at some of its functions - while his ardent desire was to serve up
his socialist ideas and turn the party to the left.
Bahman integrated his commitment to help others into
his daily livelihood as an immigration consultant. He fought
passionately for the rights of refugees and for those displaced by the
merciless economic forces of globalized capitalism.
Selflessness, generosity, and dedication to principles
were the hallmarks of the man. So was his good humour, never taking
himself or anyone else too seriously. His infectious laugh, a kind
of whooping chortle, could disable any oversized ego; it instantly put problems
into a human perspective. He was cosmopolitan in outlook, but never
so preoccupied with big issues and remote goals that he would not
instantly drop whatever he was doing to attend to the needs of his three
sons, Massih, Chebli and Siamak, and his daughter Yasmin. He
married three times, yet remained a good friend to his former wives long
after separation. I suspect he broke the long distance record for
transporting students’ books and furniture across southern Ontario. I
never met a father more devoted to his children than Bahman. Nor
have I ever met a man more proud of the academic and professional
achievements of his daughter and sons.
My partner Elizabeth and I last saw Bahman on February
9 when he joined us for dinner at our home. We had just returned
from vacation and he was making a brief visit to Toronto to tie up a few loose ends
before returning to Venezuela.
We always kept bottled beer in our refrigerator just for Bahman.
Between sips of the brew he recounted the strengths and weaknesses of the
Chavez government. Bahman was no Pollyanna, no mindless
cheerleader. He was a critical Marxist, and he saw many problems in
the unfolding revolution.
He was impatient, mostly in a good sense. He
wanted to see solutions to poverty and oppression, not tomorrow, but
now. Sometimes his impatience clouded his judgement about what is
possible and how best to proceed, but it never blunted his commitment to
fight for the underdog and for the majority.
We were privileged to have known and to have worked
alongside him. He cannot be replaced, and he will never be
forgotten.
Socialist Action-Canada dedicated its 13th
annual, cross-country educational conference, held April 27-29 in Toronto, to the
memory of Bahman. Our hope is that his example will inspire those
who knew him to step forward, to help us to continue the work to which he
dedicated his life.
As they say in Venezuela: Companero Bahman Moayedi
vive!
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