Siahkal 1971 - Tehran 2010

UCC History Society hosts

“Siahkal 1971 - Tehran 2010 the history of the new left in Iran”.

Boole 3, Main Campus, University College Cork, College Road.

January 28th 7.30pmYassamine Mather, Iranian political activist and writer will trace the emergence of a movement of extraordinary significance in the struggle for democracy in Iran today.

“The take over of a gendarmerie in the small village of Siahkal on 8 February 1971 by a group of revolutionaries marked the beginning of the end for the despotic rule of the Shah. Nine members of the newly formed Fedayeen, a left-wing guerrilaist group launched an attack which sparked the creation of an armed revolutionary movement in Iran. While the attack itself was easily crushed, the event and the massive repression that followed proved to be a turning point in the struggle against the Shah. It inspired a new culture of poetry, song and art for a new generation and created a momentum of resistance that would result in the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.”

“Today again the movement is on the streets of Iran. Another generation is refusing to be silenced or cowed into submission, despite the overwhelming force used against them by the Islamic regime. The anniversary of Siahkal and the movement it created has become particularly significant for today’s opposition. There has been a renaissance of the music and poetry of the 1970s. The political parallels are obvious but today illusions in Islamic radicalism have gone. The revolution begun by Siahkal remains unfinished.”

Yassamine Mather, Glasgow
Yassamine Mather is an Iranian socialist in exile in Scotland. As a young woman in Iran she became a member of the Fedayeen. In exile, she left the group and became a member of the coordinating committee of Workers Left Unity Iran. She is a member of the Centre for Socialist Theory and Movements (Glasgow University) and the deputy editor of the journal Critique. She is in active contact with the left-wing and student movement in Iran today