No. This is a Genuine Revolution - Interview with Graeber by Evrensel Newspaper

What made me think in terms of the similarities to disasters is the wartime adversity and collective responses to that, e.g. as described here:

The above reminds me a lot of responses to disasters - some of which have been explicitly political/anarchist - Common Ground in New Orleans, Occupy Sandy in NYC - many others which had similar mutual aid dynamics without an overt political orientation.

I wouldn't associate spontaneity with 'backwardness', or see it as mutually exclusive to organised forces with a programme. To take the Spain '36 example, the reason spontaneous collectivisation was so widespread in, say Aragon, when the state effectively collapsed, was because of a decade or more agitation by the CNT-FAI, so when the opportunity came they knew what to do and didn't wait for anyone to issue instructions. If the PYD have been proselytising Bookchin, something similar could be happening here, given the opportunity presented by the withdrawal of the Syrian state. That doesn't mean it is - it could be directly organised by PYD units rocking up and declaring things to be municipal collectives, but the discussion of Tev-Dam suggested this was more of a bottom-up thing (with the encouragement of the PYD).

In terms of necessity, basic survival under wartime conditions is surely a factor. It was in Spain. I'm not even sure how money can be abolished except by necessity. If there's a material need for a means of exchange, i.e. an economy of discrete firms trading in a market, then declarations to abolish money will be a disaster (or see a new spontaneous currency take its place, like cigarettes in prisons, or some of the barter schemes in Argentina 2001). Money can only be abolished by making it obsolete, e.g. by replacing market relations with reciprocity and mutual aid between collectives, replacing wages with basic universal entitlements etc. That can be driven by ideology, but even ideologically capitalist states tend to partly suspend market relations during full-scale war (rationing, central planning etc). This is the impression Janet Biehl gives:

It might be a useful exercise to briefly draw out the similarities and differences between the EZLN and the PKK/PYD.

Possibly the most pertinent difference is the environment in which both formed: there was no atrocious civil war going on in Chiapas prior to the emergence of the EZLN; rather, it was peacetime (at least in the eyes of local and federal government officials) and the Marcos et al arrived there in the 80s with the intention of forming a Maoist rebel army. This meant that when they chose their moment to rise up and commence military operations (1st Jan 1994), they had to confront the complete attention and deployment of the federal state and its repressive forces (which, realistically in Mexico, includes the media, eg the pro-PRI Televisa TV station), leading to an almost instant military defeat. They then had to focus on building an international solidarity movement to prevent a counter-insurgency massacre, which was much more successful, and thus they ensured their own survival and a certain (debated) level of autonomy.

From thereon in, there was (seemingly) a huge amount of internal debate within the Zapatista communities on their future direction, simultaneous to peace negotiations with the government. In the end, we saw the Zapatistas effectively renounce foquismo (in all but name anyway) and instead take a sort of radical liberal approach towards building a mass social movement across the country which seemingly ignored electoral politics (La Otra Campana/Sexta Declaración), which many outside commentators have lauded as a leftward drift. Others since a certain Leninist/national liberation tint to the Declaración and terms like "mal gobierno" (what is "good government" then? etc).

Due to the peacetime origins of the movement, it hasn't been subject to international geopolitical pressures and attempts at cooptation. I'm not sure how Marcos et al would have responded to overtures from a US govt hostile to the Mexico City administration - tbh, the notion of the State Dept allowing an unfriendly President in Los Pinos is fantastical anyway.

Neither does it have the legacy of a bloody multi-decade uprising in which - however much Graeber may throw his toys out the pram screaming racism - atrocities were committed (Googling for a brief chronology of the PKK should suffice for evidence). A better comparison for the PKK in Turkey might be someone like the Sendero Luminoso in Peru (admittedly, the PKK weren't quite as murderous, but the comparison holds with their leaders being in jail and their cadre occupying/'cleansing' remote mountain village outposts).

I'm not trying to present EZLN as the good example to the PYD's bad one, but rather indicate the importance of material conditions in terms of the creation of social forces. Perhaps the central question is whether we can actually see positive, revolutionary social movements in times of international (proxy) civil war. Spain is a good example of how to do it right and wrong, and how the continued engagement of the liberated areas in the anti-fascist popular front ultimately led to their liquidation. This is a lesson which Graeber et al seemingly refuse to take into account with their glowing articles: if you believe this is a "genuine revolution" to be compared with Spain, then why aren't you arguing against the cross-class collaboration which destroyed the Spanish revolution?

I think the burden of proof is on supporters insofar as they make extraordinary claims. If the PKK has transformed itself from a statist nationalist gang into a force for some form of libertarian socialism, I think - though I'm open to correction - that would be the first such metamorphosis in history. What has made me skeptical is the fact this extraordinariness isn't really acknowledged, it's just presented as self-evident and skeptics casually dismissed as imperialist etc (anti-imperialism now means calling for US airstrikes, but whatever).

In terms of what is required, well some basic information on the content of the purported revolution. I appreciate in David Graeber's case it's taken this time to arrange a visit, go, etc. But in that time we've had literally hundreds of posts demanding support and labelling skeptics as colonialist imperial sectarian internet warriors etc with hardly any detail about the content of the 'revolution'. This isn't just on libcom, I've got friends/comrades on Facebook who are really enthusiastic about 'the revolution' but don't seem to know anything beyond 'womens militas!' and 'Bookchin!' and we absolutely must support it right now stop asking questions.

If you'd have asked an anarchist in August 1936 about the revolution in Spain I'm pretty sure they could have reeled off something about collectivised transport, workers in arms, agrarian collectivisation, maybe shown some pics of the collectivised trams or proclamations of libertarian communism etc. The paucity of concrete information despite the volume of chat in this case has struck me as odd. I don't speak any of the regional languages, but it's not like there's a shortage of english language articles, they've just been very short on substantiating what is meant by 'revolution'.

I'm trying to keep track of concrete info here, but the signal-to-noise ratio on Rojava threads has been really low. I'm glad David Graeber wrote up his account and I hope he expands it, as it's the first detailed concrete info I've seen. But as I said to him on twitter, and above, I think it's reasonable for people to be skeptical given the unprecedented nature of the claim. The best way to persuade skeptics is to acknowledge the doubts are reasonable and provide information which shows they're misplaced. Throwing around insults ('colonial left' etc) has the opposite effect, giving the impression there's no substance.

@ kerre; I think I stated it clearly enough the first time in #44;

What kind of acceptance, recognition - and from whom - would ensure and protect the existence of such a Homeland? Regardless of “anti-national/anti-state” etc rhetoric - however the political authority of the Homeland described its territorial entity, to emerge and survive as an entity it would have to be recognised and function in relation to other nation states and international capital as itself a nation state or an autonomous region within a larger state. If the Rojavan political authority (despite acting now like a militarised state) is really to reject statehood but obtain a Homeland then - whatever its ideological claims of rejecting "capitalist modernity" - any Homeland will have a de facto existence under the umbrella of a larger state. It would only be displacing statehood onto Big Brother and asking for a partial delegation of statehood – as ‘regionally autonomous’ state power - to itself. So the demand for a secure internationally recognised territorial Homeland can't be an anti-state demand - for gaining it depends on securing statehood and/or the protection and recognition of other states. And it all leads back to the question of the non-possibility of 'socialism - esp. an anti-state version! - in one country'. This has nothing to do with your claims of “pessimism” over “imperfect” movements; it’s a contradiction in the articulated demands/goals, yet I haven't seen this contradiction addressed. So if, as you apparently say, you think it’s not “impossible to exist even in imperfect shapes” in this world then say why and how.

This is again avoiding answering the question – Caiman didn’t ask your opinion of likelihood of victory but why relevant lessons from Spain 36 aren’t being taken into account by those who repeatedly reference it. Any “victory” under cross-class collaboration and PKK Homeland democratic (pseudo-anti)-nationalism will be a defeat for the working class and would hasten the end of any more radical tendencies (if they exist). Maybe a lesser defeat than other possible defeats (though the PKK’s bloody history doesn’t prove that); but if those are the only options – and they will be while there is no critique of cross-class alliance – then dressing those options up in simplistic anti-national, anti-state, ultra-democratic blah blah propaganda is just mystifying bollox.

The situation is obviously more nuanced than this swipe suggests. From my perspective, one day, all of a sudden, self described anarchists were trumpeting an obscure strategically unimportant guerrilla group with a history of atrocities as the bulwark of a libertarian communist transformation of society. Those who questioned the reality of this situation were dismissed as "internet warriors" who were too "purist" to see that the "Rojava Experiment" was either the champions of libertarian communism or social democratic reformists who nonetheless should be supported depending on who you asked. Instead of offering any evidence after being tirelessly requested to do so, these true anarchists instead repeated the same arguments over and over again, demanding that all anarchists fall in line to support this obscure group. So now in the English speaking world we have a situation where we are at each others' throats over an argument about a strategically insignificant guerrilla organization that is as alienated from our daily lives as one could possibly imagine. Who is to blame? We can judge for ourselves. But my god this argument has passed the height of stupidity and entered in the realms of Trotskyists.

First things first-- get rid of this ridiculous infantile "up" "down" crap. This isn't supposed to be Facebook.

Sorry, I felt duty bound to vote you down

That seems to be your answer to everything you don't have an answer for; but I'm not asking an abstract "ideologically trained" PKK cadre to repeat the Party line - I'm asking you (though, with replies like that, I begin to wonder if there's much difference). But if you don't have an answer but you're so sure there's an answer in the All Knowing Ocalan's writings then I presume you've read it - so please give some idea of the basics of what he says on this. You're clearly trying to dodge a very simple, clear question by using your now-standard avoidances of difficult questions.

I think you are stuck - clearly the Guru has the last word on everything and you don't see the need to think it through to the point where you can express it for yourself. Very "anti-hierarchical".

But Bookchin's strategy is clearly wrong as a means of struggle against capitalism, so presumably Ocalan's is no better, and the EZLN, however supportive we may be of the Chiapas indians struggle against the encroachment of capitalist commercialism and the Mexican states military, has no strategy of use to the worlds working class in developing an autonomous struggle within and against global capitalism. The PKK may not want 'socialism in one country' but would surely settle for a more democratic autonomous region within one or other of the existing states with all the inevitable compromises that Red has indicated would ensue. Non of this invloves denying everthing people in Rojava are doing to survive in such desperate circumstances but it does involve serious questioning of the claimed revolutionary significance of that as a force against both the global capitalist economy and the influence of imperialism and nationalism. It is not a denial of facts on the ground or an accusation of lying but an important difference of interpretation of those facts based on historical experience.

Following on from Red Marriot's post... so maybe a link to the golden words of the PKK leader, or a copy and paste of the 'answer to that' would be of help. Thanks in advance, Kurremkarmerruk.

Serge - there is at least one text by Ocalan on this site for reference if you search.

A fair summary, Spikymike.

From a video linked to by kerre on another thread; http://libcom.org/forums/middle-east/rojava-economy-class-structure-1710... - these quotes seem to confirm what I said above about the fatal contradiction between the ideological claims for a supposedly ‘anti-state, anti-national’ Homeland and the statist form it must inevitably take. The apparent vision described is of a democratic mixed economy capitalism with investment invitations for US and other foreign capital. Whatever anyone else is imagining, the Rojava leaders seem to be clearly talking here of either independent statehood or regional autonomy within a larger Syrian state ;

Edit; this post wasn't a response to kerre's last post as I hadn't seen that before posting.

kurrem... afraid I don't follow the logic in your response to my comment on the EZLN. A separate critical discussion of Bookchin's later libertarian politics might be helpful but I would have to re-read a lot of stuff to do justice to that and that is not top of my list just now, but maybe later. I think if you stitch together my various contributions on the different Kurdish discussion threads here they are fairly coherent in their criticism of what I see as 'territorial' approaches to revolutionary change. I feel we often end up talking across each other and don't have your resilience or persistance in keeping that up.

Wrong - I originally asked you what you thought;

After several requests for what you thought, instead of answering for yourself you referred me to the works of the great Ocalan - a man who has a personality cult built around him both on the ground in Rojava ('his picture in every room', his god-like image on flags, badges worn etc) and among supporters elsewhere. I clearly wasn’t asking for the Party line. So hardly surprising I should question your response in that way.

There seem to be three sources of ideology/rhetoric;
1) The distant figurehead Ocalan; his influence filtered through his leadership and personality cult, preaching his Bookchinian conversion to a version of ‘municipal/town hall socialism’.
2) The on-the-ground Rojava leadership; paying lip service to vague democratic sentiments while pursuing pragmatic nationalist/statist goals via geo-political and military diplomacy and conflict.
3) The supporters; leftists including anarchists (who may go down in history as anarcho-stalinist cheerleaders) who often paint on-the-ground events in the most idealistic rosy light, often based on flimsy evidence and/or wish-fulfillment.

Much of 2) above blatantly contradicts 3), yet this is seemingly ignored. Kerre can link to a video containing those quotes from Rojava commanders to support his case and yet still imply there’s no contradiction between their statements and the “anti-state, libertarian etc” claims made by himself and others. It’s bizarre.

I'm "biased" against certain interpretations of the Kurdish movement and against statisms and nationalisms. And against people who repeatedly misrepresent what I say to avoid dealing with awkward questions.

Fwiw, this is what David Graeber said on Twitter regarding this:

@JosephKay76 @RooftopJaxx a formal state-like apparatus to deal with foreigners, which would be carefully kept from any of the mechanisms

— David Graeber (@davidgraeber) December 30, 2014

@JosephKay76 @RooftopJaxx of formal police or military power. Then there were bottom-up structures that aren't even mentioned in the

— David Graeber (@davidgraeber) December 30, 2014

@JosephKay76 @RooftopJaxx documents for foreign consumption. That's one thing that really struck me. They don't even really talk about the

— David Graeber (@davidgraeber) December 30, 2014

@JosephKay76 @RooftopJaxx TevDem bottom-up initiatives when dealing with most foreigners, they assume they'll get a hostile, but they're

— David Graeber (@davidgraeber) December 30, 2014

@JosephKay76 @RooftopJaxx still very careful to ensure that all the mechanisms of coercive power are answerable to the bottom-up structures

— David Graeber (@davidgraeber) December 30, 2014

@JosephKay76 @RooftopJaxx that's how they can say "we've created democracy without the state." States maintain a top-down monopoly of force.

— David Graeber (@davidgraeber) December 30, 2014

@JosephKay76 @RooftopJaxx many of our discussions were about how to create safeguards to prevent foreign pressure from turning the potemkin

— David Graeber (@davidgraeber) December 30, 2014

@JosephKay76 @RooftopJaxx state into a real one. It's a real dilemma that everyone is aware of & they asked us advice a lot about that.

— David Graeber (@davidgraeber) December 30, 2014

@JosephKay76 to give an example: one of the few areas still under regime control is the airport. Because if you're not a state, you can't

— David Graeber (@davidgraeber) December 30, 2014

@JosephKay76 @RooftopJaxx really run an airport - because you'd have to be signatory to endless security, commercial, legal agreements ...

— David Graeber (@davidgraeber) December 31, 2014

@JosephKay76 @RooftopJaxx ... all of which assume a top-down coercive state mechanism, & where they'd actually make sure they really exist.

— David Graeber (@davidgraeber) December 31, 2014

@JosephKay76 ok - if you want to see a test of sincerity - one of the topics of police training is to study examples of past PKK atrocities

— David Graeber (@davidgraeber) January 1, 2015

(Yes I spent my new year arguing about Rojava, I was at home ill)

Just try reading what people actually said.

(Though it might well have been an accurate accusation if I'd made it...)