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Revolutionary Papers is a transnational research collaboration exploring 20th century periodicals of Left, anti-imperial and anti-colonial critical production. Read More

Solidarity and Support Committees

The emergence, activities and meetings of an organised global network of support committees in solidarity with the revolution in Dhufar and the Gulf in the early 1970s were reported in Sawt al-Thawra. The solidarity movement was geographically extensive with numerous committees formed across the so-called First, Second and Third Worlds including Algeria, Bahrain, Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Italy, Kuwait, Lebanon, Somalia, the Soviet Union (initially Kiev, Moscow, Warsaw), Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere. 1Sawt al-Thawra, no. 47, 14 April 1973. The global 1960s – a period of radicalism and protest, social and cultural revolutions in Europe, decolonisation and Cold War struggles in the Third World, and civil rights struggle in the US – enhanced these connections. 2See for instance: Kristin Ross, May ’68 and its Afterlives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Quinn Slobodian, Foreign Front: Third World Politics in Sixties West Germany (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012); Jeremy Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005); Chen Jian and Martin Klimke, Masha Kirasirova, Mary Nolan, Marilyn Young and Joanna Waley-Cohen, eds., Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties (London: Routledge, 2018).

In this context, a common vision and purpose against war and in pursuit of justice and freedom tied students and activists in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Africa with the revolutionary liberation movement in Dhufar and the Gulf. The membership of these committees combined Arab students, workers, and progressives with local left-wing students and activists. In many of these committees, particularly in metropolitan centres where large numbers of Iranian students were studying abroad, there was a significant presence of Iranian students who opposed the Iranian collusion in the war. The Confederation of Iranian Students – National Union (CISNU) played an important role in and alongside committees with Arab student unions in organising opposition to the shah’s role in the Gulf. 3Afshin Matin-asgari, Iranian Student Opposition to the Shah, (California: Mazda Publishers, 2002).

▴ A solidarity poster produced by the Iranian Students Association in the US to commemorate 9 June, the anniversary of the Dhufar Revolution. Source: Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG).

The committees undertook various political and intellectual activities to demonstrate solidarity and support, raise awareness, and campaign for an end to the war. They organised the raising of funds, collected medical equipment and medicine, created and distributed educational pamphlets and materials, hosted seminars and film screenings, wrote articles and pursued media coverage, established ties with supportive organisations and parties, lobbied their respective parliaments, and sent representatives to congresses, meetings and conferences.

▴ In 1975, the French Support Committee of the Revolution in Oman produced a double-sided vinyl titled “Revolutionary Songs from the People of Oman Yemen, and Iran”. The record contained 10 tracks, documenting the voices and struggles of the popular movements across the Gulf. The text on the sleeve read: “if the ‘revolutionary peril’ sealed the union of imperialist forces and reactionaries in the Gulf, the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula and Iran are also united by deep ties and common interests”. The imagery featured in the songs comprised mountains and towns in Dhufar, a free society with no place for sheikhs and sultans, the mass demonstrations of August 1972 in Yemen, the mountainous Siahkal in northern Iran, and an Iranian plea to Iranian soldiers to end their support for Sultan Qaboos’s regime against the people of Dhufar.

The second international solidarity conference took place from 27-30 December 1974 in Paris. This photo from the conference was published in Gulf Solidarity with a list of the committees in attendance. Gulf Solidarity, vol. 3, no. 1-2, Spring 1975. Source: Personal archive of the author.

Photograph of Fred Halliday and PLA fighters in Dhufar. In the April 1973 solidarity conference, the Irish activist and later LSE academic Fred Halliday was elected President of the support committees. At the time, he was writing the book Arabia without Sultans following his first visit to Dhufar. Halliday was involved in establishing the Gulf Committee in Britain, alongside other individuals including Helen Lackner, Fawwaz Traboulsi and Kamel Mahdi. Source: LSE Archives and Special Collections.

Two important international solidarity conferences took place in 1973 and 1974 in Aden, PDRY, and Paris, France, respectively which brought together representatives from various support committees. The first of these, the Congress of the Committees in Support of the Revolution in Oman and the Arabian Gulf took place from 16-19 April 1973 in Aden. The purpose of the conference was to establish practical working programmes for maximising solidarity efforts and supporting committee work. The delegations that were present in this congress were from the committees in France, Britain, West Germany, Belgium, Somalia, Kuwait, Poland and the Soviet Union. 4Sawt al-Thawra, no. 48, 21 April 1973.

In documenting and listing the diverse network of support for the revolution, Sawt al-Thawra publicised the contours of a counter-alliance of global political actors – students, activists, and progressives – working together to oppose foreign intervention in Dhufar and to support the anticolonial revolution. International congresses were an important site of mobilisation and exchange in addition to the frequent cables, messages and telegrams of solidarity published in Sawt al-Thawra.

▴ 1 of 4 — A report on the Iranian military offensive in Dhufar was translated and published in German from the French by the Confederation of Iranian Students – National Union in Germany. The original French report was published by Iranian students in France. Source: Courtesy of Archiv für Forschung und Dokumentation Iran (AFDI).

▴ 2 of 4 — A German information pamphlet on the people’s war in Dhofar published by the Solidarity Committee in Support of the Arab Liberation Movement. Source: Courtesy of Archiv für Forschung und Dokumentation Iran (AFDI).

▴ 3 of 4 — A poster published by the Kashmir Committee of Solidarity with Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman and Arab Gulf appealing for medical aid. Source: Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Exeter.

▴ 4 of 4 — An information booklet on the liberation movement in Dhofar in Persian published on the tenth anniversary of the Dhofar Revolution by the Committee of Palestine, part of the Union of Islamic Students’ Associations in Europe. Source: Personal archive of the author.

  1. Sawt al-Thawra, no. 47, 14 April 1973.→
  2. See for instance: Kristin Ross, May ’68 and its Afterlives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Quinn Slobodian, Foreign Front: Third World Politics in Sixties West Germany (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012); Jeremy Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005); Chen Jian and Martin Klimke, Masha Kirasirova, Mary Nolan, Marilyn Young and Joanna Waley-Cohen, eds., Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties (London: Routledge, 2018).→
  3. Afshin Matin-asgari, Iranian Student Opposition to the Shah, (California: Mazda Publishers, 2002).→
  4. Sawt al-Thawra, no. 48, 21 April 1973.→