Help Not Wanted
In Spring of 2020, accounts of seeming Iranian origin started tweeting messages with the #CalExit hashtag. Often the messages were in Farsi. Other times they were in English. Some had images of the summarily executed Qasem Soleimani in the landing pages of the accounts. One tweet expressed support for California’s independence while attacking Israel.
Iranian actors seemingly promoting Californian independence are harmful to our efforts. Their tweet campaign is not creating either interest to participate nor donations to the California National Party. We know that many people of Iranian descent make California their home. As Californians, we welcome their participation in our party. We don’t find Iran’s treatment of Californians when in their country of origin as anything other than a tourist to have been either free or fair.
Californians value self-determination. We find it being eroded by the United States, however, that is not the only nation in the world that is working against its citizens’ self-determination. Neutral observers find that Iran does not have free and fair elections. History has recorded that Iran has been both subjected to and perpetrated foreign intervention. Iran is one of many nations that have failed to bring peace to all residents of nations on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. To Californians, Iran is another nation that wages war on poor people far from them justifying such acts with poor rationales that decent people reject.
Iran is a theocracy. Californians are seeking a secular republic where a woman can choose to cover her body as a practice of her faith, not a nation where a woman has to cover herself to leave her home so she isn’t antagonized by actual moral police. California is threatened by theocrats in North America as it is; it is antithetical to our movement to form an alliance with that form of government wherever it may fester.
A handful in the movement haven’t made these distinctions. The California National Party finds it necessary to make the following clear:
- We do not welcome the support of nations run by despots to gain independence.
- We cannot account for other, separate organizations that do not share these values.
