Komalah

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Komalah (Komele in Kurdish) is a Marxist Kurdish opposition group. The word Komele in Kurdish is derived from Komel (Society) and means association[1].

1 Political background
2 Political program
3 Organizing Elements and Komalah's Formation Chart
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Political background

In 1967, Komalah was founded and struggled against the government and policies of Shah for 12 years until 1979. In 1983 Komalah formed a political organization with other Iranian Marxist and socialist groups called the Communist Party of Iran. [2]

[edit] Political program

Komalah considers itself a Marxist organisation. Its aim is the establishment of a new kind of society, a new kind of social system based on freedom, equality and social justice, in other words a system of socialism guided by this principle: from each according to ability, to each according to need.

Unlike the Tudeh Party, it has never supported communist states or political entities such as the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba and Albania, and remains an independent organisation.

In its view, the struggle for socialism requires workers acting together on a mass scale. At the same time, it recognises that collective action does not come from nothing. Instead, each and every small struggle provides workers with experiences and the confidence in their own ability and strength. Towards this end, workers organise themselves in trade or professional organisations (such as trade unions etc) and their political parties.

In Iranian Kurdistan, Komalah is trying to create the conditions favourable for bringing about radical changes in peoples’ lives, and to end the national oppression of the Kurds. For this purpose, it has developed a special programme which asks for self-determination rights for the people of Iranian Kurdistan. This right means that the people of Iran’s Kurdistan can, if they want to, secede and establish their own independent state. Hence, Komalah aims to be able to create such conditions in Kurdistan which would enable them to conduct a free referendum in a democratic fashion, and to make their final decision to either separate from or remain within the framework of Iran. Nevertheless, Komalah itself does not support the separation of the Kurdish people from Iran. Instead, it advocate the linking up of the Kurdish people’s efforts of struggling for freedom with those of the working people in the whole of Iran.

If the decision of the Kurdish people were to remain within the framework of Iran, it would seek changes such as the creation of equality of all nationalities in Iran, an end to all the practices and official laws which discriminate between the various Iranian nationalities, and alongside it the reversal of the imposition of the present official language on the peoples, an end to the bureaucratic intervention by the central government in people’s everyday lives, and the possibility of creating and setting up a system of democratic power internally.

While Komalah has been, and continues to be, actively involved in the struggle to remove the national oppression from the Kurdish people, it is also opening other avenues of struggle in Kurdistan. This is why Komalah raise questions such as the day-to-day quest of workers for economic improvements; of women against oppression and the political and social inequalities they are suffering; of poor farmers against the bourgeois landowners. They also include efforts of shaping civil society through building mass institutions such as trade unions, youth and women’s organisations; and the expression of popular will through people’s councils in the towns and in liberated areas whenever possible and no matter how transient they may be. It also means pressing for unqualified political freedoms and the basic rights of working people, not only in opposition to the central government, but also against anyone and any local force which violate these rights; and it means struggling against religious superstitions and backward morality.

[edit] Organizing Elements and Komalah's Formation Chart

Komalah's conference is held every two years. Until now, there have been eleven conferences, the last one having been held in July 2003, when a central committee of 21 members was elected.

The Central Committee holds meetings every three months. These meetings always elect an Executive Committee to conduct the work between the meetings. Komalah has an official spokesperson who is at the same time the first secretary of Komalah. Currently, this spokesperson is Ebrahim Alizadeh.