I did not want to enter a debate with Mahtab and her friends, whose Marxist organization had tacitly taken sides with the government, denouncing the protesters as deviant, divisive and ultimately acting in the service of the imperialists. Somehow I found myself arguing not with Mr. Bahri but with them, the ostensibly progressive ones. They claimed that there were bigger fish to fry, that the imperialists and their lackeys needed to be dealt with first. Focusing on women’s rights was individualistic and bourgeois and played into their hands. What imperialists, which lackeys?
