Watch a shorter version of this article as a video I made for Vocal Politics.

“Resistance is the foundation of human reproduction as a social being.” This is how scholar Ali Kadri phrased it, but this isn’t merely an academic idea, it is something tangible to anyone under the violent boot of empire.

As revolutionary political prisoner George Jackson put it, “Life is revolution and the world will die if we don’t read and act out its imperatives.”

Resistance, revolution, is life itself: This is the material and spiritual reality of anti-imperialist struggle across the world. The Shia ethos of resistance, rooted in Imam Hussein’s martyrdom battling Yazid at Karbala, takes it a step further than the materialist understanding:

“Sheikh Mohammad Ali Shomali — one of the most serious Shia scholars alive — argues that the highest human right is not life. It is dignity. He asks the question plainly: if you are kept alive but degraded, humiliated, treated as less than human — what is the value of that life?

He roots this in Quran 57:25. The mission of every prophet was justice. And dignity falls directly under justice. To be just is to treat human beings as deserving of honour. Not life first. Dignity first.

This is how he reads Karbala. Imam Hussein knew he could live if he submitted to Yazid. He could have worshipped in peace. But a life of worship without dignity — having surrendered to an oppressor — had no value.

Hussein ranked it plainly: “Death is better than losing your honour. And losing your honour is better than going to hell.”

...Iran — the country, the civilization, the idea — is fighting for human dignity. That is what [Imam] Khomeini’s vision was. That is what the revolution was for. That is why Iran does not capitulate when every Western analyst says it should. When bombs fall on Iranian soil, the question the Islamic Republic asks is not “how do we survive.” It is “how do we refuse to be humiliated.” These are different questions. They produce different answers.” (@Iran_Amazing)

Palestinian, Lebanese, Iranian mothers do not send their sons off to fight because they love death. No, they love life. And they understand resistance is a precondition for life, that the fate that awaits us all when we cease to resist is far worse than the consequences one faces for resisting, even if it is martyrdom.

Resistance cannot just be understood as the act of firing off the rifle or missile — it is the community that nurtures and reproduces the resistance fighters, that hides them when they are pursued, that refuses to leave their land, that rejects cooperation with the enemy, that constitutes the social basis for the continued existence of the resistance.

We recall in October 2022, when hundreds of young men in a West Bank refugee camp shaved their heads to confuse the IOF pursuing Oday al-Tamimi, a Palestinian fighter who was bald. On Thursday, hundreds of Iraqi children and families went to search for an allegedly downed US pilot after local tribes offered a reward for his capture. Early Saturday morning entire villages, including women, in the Beqaa, eastern Lebanon, took up arms against IOF soldiers attempting a paratrooper ambush, and again thwarted another attempted ambush in the early hours of this morning. Every night millions of Iranians are rallying in the streets, despite the bombs raining down.

This popular cradle of resistance is why the resistance can never be seen as some entity separate from the people. “The guerrilla moves amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea,” as Mao put it.

This is why the enemy commits all-out genocide in the battlefield, because when they cannot defeat the guerrillas militarily, they resort to attempting to annihilate the popular cradle of resistance as a whole. But so far, they have only succeeded in birthing more freedom fighters.

This popular cradle is why, even when the imperialist powers scorch the earth and burn the skies and rain death from the clouds, the resistance remains undefeated, in the tunnels of Gaza, in the mountains of Lebanon, in the seas of Yemen, in the deserts of Iraq, and in the cities of Iran.

Some of my other reports for Vocal Politics on the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran:

• Dwindling Missiles and Air Defense Systems: US War Machine Bleeding Itself Dry In Iran

• Iran’s Decentralized Mosaic Defense: Can Iran Be Defeated Like A Conventional Army?

Please consider donating:

• I am fundraising for my friend Rita’s educational program in Gaza, she is hoping to buy gifts for her 1000 students in time for Eid.

• I am also helping fundraise for people staying in the Shatila Refugee Camp in Beirut, which is in the area of Dahieh where the IOF issued mass forced displacement orders to hundreds of thousands of people, but many cannot leave or refuse to leave, so we will be purchasing emergency supply packages.