Letter to the International Workers’
Movement
From: Falah Alwan, FWCUI’s president
Four years of occupation and destruction have devastated the
society, where the streets witness daily killings through explosive bombs,
booby traps, cars, and belts.
Unprecedented destructive powers were unleashed in these 4 years to
turn people’s lives into hell. All of this happens amongst false promises of
democracy and freedom, in the time when the country is stamped by tanks,
military vehicles, and tens of thousands of heavily armed soldiers.
The occupation troops, their allies and the influential militias
have driven the society into a burning sectarian war. They have also
confiscated the most basic liberties in the areas under their power.
Moreover, the regional powers have put their resources and
experiences under the command of the armed groups and powers who represent
their interests in
The secular, libertarian, and egalitarian alternative failed to
become the major power to face and resist this scenario. Still, the
freedom-loving people have expressed their aspirations to resist these
situations in a variety of ways.
The workers of
The workers’ movement managed to maintain an independent presence
regarding their theses, programs, and approaches of workers’ organizations, or
their different practical methods of work among the movement, even through
setting forward practical demands here and there.
The main reasons which stopped the workers’ social efforts from
turning into a main pole/part within the political formula and kept them as a
mere potential force, is not that the workers are incapable or reluctant in
organizing; although these factors are of some influence more or less. In
reality, there is an essential reason and aspect, which is that the weakness of
the workers’ movement in
The workers of Iraq have to face and confront the whole arsenal of
the occupation troops, and moreover all the dominant and destructive political
and militia forces, in addition to all their reactionary heritage which defies
all the liberties of the workers and the people. All of these forces have their
regional and worldwide depth and resources, and are therefore international
powers. In other words, the working class in
In the midst of the flow of blood and fire, the Federation of
Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq has established its presence as a
radical workers’ movement with a profound basis of revolutionary tradition, a
movement which forwards demands and fundamentals of social equality and a
humane alternative for the current situations.
Our victory and survival precondition
is that the international workers’ movement stands immediately by us, not in
the sense of supporting and encouraging a movement somewhere in the world, but they
need to regard it as a basic part of an international movement which confronts
a fierce adversary whose main objective is to impose weakness and withdrawal on
the international workers’ movement and paralyzing its’ political will.
Iraq is currently the main arena of struggle between the American
and the regional local forces, a struggle which is basically reactionary.
Achieving a working class victory in
The failure of the US and the current political forces in imposing a
functional political model in the last four years in Iraq, in addition to the
drawbacks which came over the nationalist and political Islamist forces, have
opened a window of opportunity for the leftist and libertarian forces to enter
the arena swiftly and to become THE alternative.
The pre-requisite for that is preparing and organizing the workers’
forces and ranks around their main aims, in addition to attracting and gaining
the inseparable support of millions around the world. Only then, the
possibility of victory becomes achievable and possible.
Falah Alwan
Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions
in Iraq, president
March 6, 2007