By Miriam Scharf (Newham NEU)

At our annual NEU conference 2000 delegates representing 500,000 education workers in England and Wales make conference policy and discuss many international issues. This year MENA Solidarity held a fringe meeting, ‘Women at the Frontline of the Struggle’ with speakers from Iran, Syria and Sudan. 

We heard on zoom from Esmail Abdi, leader of the teachers union in Iran, imprisoned more than once for their role in fighting for workers’ rights. Diane Nammi, Kurdish activist and founder of the organisation for Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights spoke about the Woman Life Freedom movement sparked by the death of Jina (Mahsa) Amini, and the struggle that continues despite the repression. Behnoosh Sabah, an Iranian teacher in exile here echoed the call for justice insisting, ‘this movement is not only about opposing a regime. It is about reclaiming life. It calls for dignity, autonomy, and justice for all, especially those who have been most silenced’. 

Inas Hamid, Sudanese activist, spoke about how women as ‘leaders, organisers and revolutionaries have shaped the struggles for liberation’. She recalled the December 2018 revolution where,  ‘new alliances of feminist bodies, women’s unions, and resistance networks blossomed. It was a glimpse of a different Sudan- free from patriarchy, militarism and exploitation’. She described the present disastrous violence saying, ‘These militias fight for warlords, wealth, and for international backers’ and called out the British government’s role. Inas ended with a powerful call to ‘fight against imperialism, against capitalism, against a rotten world order that sees people as expendable and profit as sacred’. 

Finally we had a message from Salma, an English teacher in Syria. She said: 

“Hello comrades, I’m glad to be here and talk about the struggles of Syrian workers after the fall of the dictatorship. Syria’s workers are writing a new chapter in their country’s history, three months after the fall of the dictatorship, they are facing a new enemy, which is an economic system designed to keep them poor and powerless. The facts speak for themselves: wages unpaid for months, mass lay-offs without any reason, life-saving subsidies eliminated and prices doubling over night. At first workers protested alone – a factory here, a hospital there. But they soon realised the truth – divided they would starve, and united they could fight back. 

The old regime’s puppet trade unions have become battlegrounds. Workers are reclaiming these organisations, turning them into real weapons for their struggle. As one of our comrades says, ‘we have no experience in unions, the dictatorship erased that, but we have rage and we are learning’. 

February 15th marked a turning point across Syria. From Damascus to Aleppo, from Latakia to Sweida, workers marched under one banner: ‘no pay, no work’. The very people who kept Syria running during the war are now shutting it down to demand their rights. And the challenges are enormous: new bosses replacing old ones, sectarianism used to divide us and foreign powers circling like vultures. 

But the workers’ movement has an answer. The Revolutionary Left Current and other groups are building unity across all divisions, their message is clear – no to state violence, no to sectarianism, and workers’ rights above all. So this isn’t just about Syria, when workers anywhere are crushed, we all lose, and they rise up, we all win. Their fight is our fight.” 

What you can do:

• Download and share our leaflet about workers’ struggles in Syria [Syria leaflet WEB]
• Share our new report on Sudan’s revolutionary and popular movements here [Sudan pamphlet WEB], order a print copy here and make a donation here.