Anarchists join fight against IS to defend Kurdish autonomous areas

Relax I was just kidding

Again, I see this thread spiraling down the ideological rabbit hole and the conversation has become quite circular.

Can we just agree to disagree on who ideology and struggle for the realization of such an ideology become a material condition/reality? I see two general camps established through this conversation concerning DAF and Kurdistan.

Camp 1:

There are anarchists/communists/leftist or whatever you want to call yourselves who seem to suggest that acting out, as political entities in the material world, only make sense and can only be done when the material conditions and social conditions are so likened to the ideology espoused. Both ideology and action have to be in unison and needs to flow from not only from the working-class itself but from an ideologically conscious working-class that is become activated and is fighting solely for its liberatory interests against capitalism.

Camp 2:

There are anarchists/communists/leftists or whatever you want to call yourselves who seem to suggest that politics is something that happens and is an activity that flows from many different aspects of life and ideology is one of those aspects. Ideology is a set idea that interacts with the material world as is a product as much as an analysis of the material world. With the realization that ideology itself is simple an ideal, the ideal vision if you will. Though Ideology is important the attempt and what transpires is equally important when measure with the ideal. The material world is dynamic, conditions change, and ideology can either change in connection to what happens in the world for better or for worse. People, organizations, and conditions produced through action can either begin to emerge and gravitate towards libertarian socialist/anarchists views and activities or backslide towards something else.

I know not everyone wants to be lumped into that camp or this camp based on my comment but I think we need to seriously ask ourselves at this point, what the hell is the point of this all most addictive behavior to constantly discuss ideology with an almost nonexistent connection to the conditions and developments on the ground and for the other side to constantly comment back equally as vicious with attacks that ideology alone cannot solve the worlds problems in general and free the working-class from capitalism in particular.

I think it is almost naive, no it is naive, to think that a revolution or whatever you call the bringing forth of the emancipation of the working-class will simply flow from the wellspring of communist/anarchist ideology, we get it. And the other side this it is naive if not stupid, as history has shown, to support and ally one communist/anarchists self with fighting forces and systems that are not specifically anarchistic or communistic of the libertarian kind, we get it. We disagree.

And with respect to the comment that Bookchin's splitting up anarchism into two camps: lifestyle and social, will if the shoe fits. But of course this splitting hairs has become two generalized because there exists many lifestyles that anarchists find themselves in. Though the bigger point is that lifestyles themselves are just that a style in which you carry yourself and conduct your life a habit or activities that you define yourself with. But again, how is a lifestyle, whether dumpstering or reading, going to create a social revolution that destroys capitalism? So, yeah sure dont be confined in only one lifestyle or social movement....

One last point before discussing something relevant. Why is it that the political and social developments that are happening and have happened in the Cantons is being challenged with arguments that reach further back into the regions political past? You see this even done against anarchists and anarchists positions with respect to Bakunin's position on collective work but wages(wages being the right of the individual) and Proudhon's almost Jeffersonian view of society. Instead look at the current developments and assess them for what they are and refrain from bringing up the past if the past being brought up is the past that an organization is taking a step away from or re-assessing themselves.

Reality happens and I think its encouraging to see political and actual material development come from any part of the world.

Anyway, Workers Solidarity Ireland has posted some new exciting news on their Facebook page concerning Kobane. The news coming from Kobane is that the YPG has driven ISIS further out of the city and has taken back areas that were besieged by ISIS in these last couple of weeks. GREAT! YPG is pushing ISIS back!

Also, just received my copy of Democratic Autonomy in North Kurdistan. The interviewees and writers of the book very quickly de-mystify themselves and do not answer with propaganda that what they are doing is some utopia. Rather, the very honestly say that they do not have all the solutions or the solution but are attempting to create something that resembles "socialism" (for lack of a better word and I hope the word used is being understood as it is intended to be used).

Just from the little I have read in the economic chapters and sections I am impressed with what they have instituted. I think its interesting that they are able to do what they are able to do with respect to anti-capitalism while we who live in the west are unable to do even the smallest step towards non-capitalist socio-economic relations. But I think there is a lot to be said for the older notion of counter-power. Also, this book discusses the idea of counter-power. Perhaps due to the conditions and presence of a fighting force that keeps certain political and economic relationships at bay allows for counter-power and autonomy to begin to be built up.

The Kobane war's worst damage was its negative morale affect over the world working class.

All these highly militaristic slogans like "arm the Kurds" or "bombs to Kobane" are demoralizing the proletariat by reducing the question of class struggle into a military one. Class solidarity is reduced to donations for armaments, internationalism is reduced to dying in Kobane, struggle against reaction is reduced to the support of a nationalist-stalinist army. By creating the illusion that class struggle is "an abstract idea" which doesn't have any chance "in the real world", Kobane war went beyond effecting the lives of the poor peasants and workers in Northern Syria, and spread a feeling of demoralization and ineffectiveness.

This "bullet in the head materialism" must be staunchly rejected. Many young and courageous people are dying for this "rationalism of arms". We have to resist the idea that there is anything "radical" or "democratic" (!) about national wars.

Yeah yeah the morale of the working class was so high before Kobane. Working class was so close to establishing world revolution before the bloody nationalists started to fight IS. But thanks to Kobane now all is lost.

Yeah yeah the moral of the working class was so high before Kobane. Working class was so close to establishing world revolution before the bloody nationalists started to fight IS. But thanks to Kobane now all is lost.

Willingness to struggle is not an absolute, abstract idea but a changing and evolving collective spiritual-material mode of class stance. It expresses itself in proletarians' real struggles against their material conditions. And revolution is just one, most clear stage in its crystallization. And don't you worry; Kobane war, Turkey, IS and PKK can't kill the spirit, even though they may weaken it. Internationalists will take a stand and fight for the morale of their class, relentlessly condemn all the shameless military adventurists, nihilism, chauvinism. I firmly believe that left communist/anarchist internationalist comrades/organizations will not keep quiet and fight this good fight.

Ok if you say so, Class War 101. I was just thinking it was only you who is demoralized due to the recent developments in Rojova. But no worries I know it was the proletarians now.

mikail: honestly, and I think most would agree, that ISIS is responsible for militarizing the struggle.

Would you suggest that the besieged residents of Kobane limit themselves to pure forms of proletarian struggle, like strikes, sit-downs, and, dare I say, leafleting, when a violent obscurantist group armed to teeth with the latest US weaponry wants to plunder their city?

Secondly, given that US interests have been unable to move with the tides of change in the Middle East, despite all their strategic alliances, military backing, and intelligence gathering networks they have invested in the region, anyone sitting comfortably at their computer should second guess their "enlightened" synopsis of the events that our unfolding in the most fluid and unpredictable way.

Israeli genocide, US bombardment, fundamentalist encirclement, and an entire globe numbed by commodity fed nihilism....

"... Yet, however critical the situation and circumstances in which you find yourself, despair of nothing; it is on the occasions in which everything is to be feared that it is necessary to fear nothing; it is when one is surrounded by all the dangers that it is not necessary to dread any; it is when one is without resources that it is necessary to count on all of them; it is when one is surprised that it is necessary to surprise the enemy himself."

Marx-Trek:

How did I not realized that? I was about to ask you give us more detailed explanation on the book. But I just realized it is about Northern Kurdistan. It is about Turkey Kurdistan, not Syria. I know I think some stuff about it already. (Though not the economic dimension,except the rumors about some communes in south east Turkey that are communialized and Turkish army could not enter to them etc...) It would be terrific if you could open a new discussion, summarize it or pass the information somehow.

And about the situation of Kobane now, see my post above, one with a news translation. Salih Muslim (co-ledaer of PYD) says "we will announce the liberation of Kobane very soon".

kirilov;

I am in no position to tell what people in Kobane should or should not do. Majority of them already escaped to Turkey. I fully understand that and I think any truly revolutionary organization should call for solidarity with the immigrants.

About the US; it actively supports PKK by bombarding the ISIS, in fact that enabled PKK to repel ISIS.

Your "solidarity with the immigrants" sounds dangerously close to humanitarian aid for refugees.

Solidarity, on the other hand, is an active and symmetrical relationship manifested entirely in struggle. In this instance, it implies all and everything that contributes, whether directly or indirectly, to the complete eradication of ISIS forces and the total destruction of the Turkish state.

I am not defending the PKK, but I strongly doubt that the US "supports" a group that has for so long been placed on their black list.

Towards the liberation of Kobane!

Kirilov,

I don't see how "total liberation of Kobane" helps the total destruction of the Turkish state (which I am all for!). PKK fought with Turkey for years and could not defeat it militarily. Now its leader Ocalan is calling for Turkey's recognition, shows his respect to "Ataturk" (so-called founder of Turkish Republic) and in his trial he openly said that he is "in the service of Turkey".

Class solidarity with immigrants is not humanitarianism. Immigrants face pogrom threats and forced to work for horrible wages, lower than already low minimum wage. Struggling together with them against nationalism (Turkish and Kurdish) and the bosses, is the only thing that can eventually abolish Turkey. PKK who asks arms from NATO can not and will not be instrumental in this task. Working class is alone.

Congrats Mikail you made it to the eighth page without saying anything really.

I am in no position to tell what people in Kobane should or should not do.

But you constantly comment on what they should do, even your following sentence (and ones in earlier comments imply that)

Majority of them already escaped to Turkey.

so I guess the ones who are stayed behind (and according to Salih Muslim there is at least 2000 civilians left in the city, including children) are not that important. Also refugees, there is a great life awaiting them I guess right? Wiped out from everything they own, their land, their life, and in a new country they even do not speak their language? You speak a lot about refugees, but I wonder if you really do something for them. And I wonder how would you communicate with, them on what sort of communication between you and them can take place. Because all the refugees I meet escape not from PYD, but from IS (not just Kurds also Arabs - One Arab boy I communicated actually, but still-) They were in fact pretty ok PYD fighing against IS. I am not sure but if the situation becomes stable (and non-violent again) they would probably wish to go back to Kobane. Where is your sudden sympathy for sympathizers of militarist, nationalist, terrorist organizations (that prevent the upcoming world revolution) come from?

About the US; it actively supports PKK by bombarding the ISIS, in fact that enabled PKK to repel ISIS.

Yeah I mean nobody said otherwise. This is just a fact.

Posting this for information, not an endorsement: Kobani: What’s In A Name?

Three points jump out. Two on why the left should support PKK/PYD/YPG:

1. Because while they receive superpower backing, so did Cold War national liberation movements which the left supported.
2. Because the military conflict in Kobane may strengthen the electoral hand of the pro-Kurdish parties in Turkey.

What struck me here is these are some of the same arguments e.g. Devrim has made against cheering the PKK, i.e. 1. Yeah, the left has always supported nationalist stalinist gangs and 2. The blood of idealistic youth is the price for electoral manouvring.

The third point, probably the main claim, seems broadly correct though:

3. There's no non-engagement with geopolitics, since it's a powerful structure which any revolution would have to deal with. The question is what terms of engagment, what degree of independence from imperial machinations etc.

While broadly I think that's right, I still think the idea of demanding unconditional US military support of socialist revolution is very revealing. If what was happening was a socialist revolution, the US would be backing ISIS all the way, or at least letting ISIS wipe it out before supporting a Turkish occupation.

Struggling together with them against nationalism (Turkish and Kurdish) and the bosses, is the only thing that can eventually abolish Turkey.

This is just Bullsh*t and it means that you actually did not even had speak to one of these refugees. You are just making a political fantasy of revolution on your computer. So Mikail you will make a revolution against Turkey with refugees? Your perspective of reality is hugely distorted.

I agree with you and Gorter: the working class is utterly, entirely, and completely alone.

However, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. And that doesn't mean, once again, that I'm supporting the PKK.

War usually eats revolutions, but things are entirely up for grabs now. You can turn a blind eye, and wait for the revolutions of the past to replay themselves - the first time tragedy, the second time farce., the third time is just highly unlikely Yet, the world is neither static nor is it cyclical, which is why comrades want to enter into history on the ground, and do their best to move things in an emancipatory direction.

I salute their courage!
Again, towards the liberation of Kobane!

Can we say there is an official relation between the YPG and the coalition?

Yes, we are acting in concert with international coalition forces. We are in direct contact with them, in terms of intelligence, on a military level, and in terms of air strikes.

I guess the coordinates for the airstrikes are coming from you then?

Yes. One of our special units in Kobane gives us coordinates, and the YPG transmits these coordinates to coalition forces, and then air strikes are directly realized. I would also like to mention that we also benefitted from the assistance of certain Kurdish factions, and this assistance is ongoing.

Source: http://civiroglu.net/2014/10/14/ypg_usa/

It s not just that US airstrikes are to the advantage of YPG. There is active collaboration between the two. And when a small small guerrilla force cooperates with the US military machine, it s the latter which dominates utterly. YPG and PYG are in the process of becoming an auxciliary force of US imperialism. If there ever was any autonomy of this part of the Kurdish struggle, it seems to be disappearing fast. I am for the right of the Kobali community to defend themselves against IS with whatever is at hand. But let's stop pretending that it 's a revolution they are defending.

Mikail said,

Class solidarity is reduced to donations for armaments, internationalism is reduced to dying in Kobane, struggle against reaction is reduced to the support of a nationalist-stalinist army.

Again, what is of interest here is the Rojava, the other Cantons, and the other Kurdish political regions and areas organized along more libertarian-leftist and communalist lines. Yes we get it, the PKK and other leftist organizations in the region have a history of being what you refer to as a "nationlist-Stalinist army" (use for the sake of conversation) but that is not what is being defended and aligned with in the spirit of solidarity and mutual aid, etc...

Yet again, I do not think most of the anarchist/communist/libertarian-socialists are cheering for the past but the recent developments and push for a large region in Kurdistan to have embrace something beyond the "nationalist-Stalinism" you are so afraid of.

Obviously people are very interested in the region, I suggest for the sake of making your comments relevant to the larger conversation going on here please criticize what people are discussing. We are not discussing the pre-communalist/pre-autonomy but the developments since the ideological an organizational changes.

And yet again, having such a staunch political line and political demands prior to solidarity is such a simplistic argument that reduces actual revolutionary anarchistic/communistic class struggle to only the activities you see fit - perhaps the most Stalinist political line of all.

Willingness to struggle is...a changing and evolving collective spiritual-material mode of class stance. It expresses itself in proletarians' real struggles against their material conditions. And revolution is just one, most clear stage in its crystallization.

I some what agree with you. Class struggle is a changing and evolving collective realization of the need to engage in collective struggle against capitalism. The crystallization of revolutionary class struggle does not express itself in the proletariat engaging in class struggle but instead emerges when the proletariat engages in class struggle for the precise reason to negate the dialectical relationship that constantly reproduces the daily life of capitalism with the desire to create post-capitalist anti-capitalist anarchistic/communistic societies that freely associate, etc...

Internationalists will take a stand and fight for the morale of their class, relentlessly condemn all the shameless military adventurists, nihilism, chauvinism.

Why are you fighting for the morale of our class? Also, why do you abstract yourself from our class by discussing it as an entity that you do not belong to? Being that you are such a strong advocate for our class? But yeah, why are you fighting for your own morale, that literally means you want us to fight about feeling good about what we are doing and feeling convinced that what we are doing is just and right? No, no, I get what you are saying this struggle is not just because it is not a true working class struggle - we disagree.

A question needs to be asked, is there any struggle worth fighting for that which is not a struggle that both upholds the proper proletariat ideology for workers liberation and struggles pointedly against our relation to capitalist dynamics and capitalism? Is it not worth fighting against these negative social symptoms within capitalist society, the very social symptoms that heighten the contradictions and sectarianisms within our class (being that such struggle s are based on class perspective, anti-capitalist, and anti-statist perspectives)?

By creating the illusion that class struggle is "an abstract idea" which doesn't have any chance "in the real world", Kobane war went beyond effecting the lives of the poor peasants and workers in Northern Syria, and spread a feeling of demoralization and ineffectiveness.

Honestly, I think your statement here is a more valid critique of your own position. Your perspective abstracts class struggle and puts class struggling into a box that can only be opened up with by theoretically and ideologically correct groups that then unleashes the power of negation upon "their" class. Class struggle does in fact have a chance in the real world. Class struggle happens everyday (a point I think we both agree).

How will class struggle begin to communize itself if we do not engage in daily struggle, participate and do solidarity work with organizations and groupings of people fighting for similar ideals, and learn and figure out how to grow our communizing struggle?

We have to resist the idea that there is anything "radical" or "democratic" (!) about national wars.

Again, again, again, why are you stuck in the past? We are not discussing the PKK of the past at this moment. We are not suggesting that Stalinist tendencies of the PKK's past need to be supported. We are not suggesting that people should go to Syria to fight for the past. What is interesting is the emergence of something new within the region and that is worth fighting for.

To close out on your point, with the logic used in your arguments Spain 1936-39 should not have been fought for because it too demoralized the working-class and reduced class struggle to only an anti-fascist war and not a true revolution. After all, there was a republic that contained representative democracy and the CNT even have representatives within that government. The Spanish Civil War was merely a war against a super big and fascist capitalist nation-state but for leftists soft nation state that would institute more "fair" "democractic" capitalism.

OR,

The CNT-FAI, the POUM, Durruti, and other anarchists/communists realized that if they launched a working-class struggle against fascism and capitalism, while seizing the opportunity of a weak nation-state to begin to create collectives and embryotic communism/anarchism, then the possibility of revolution could be both ideologically and materially realized. Sometimes it worth to engage in less than true communist/anarchists struggles precisely because struggling creates opportunities for the crystallization of struggle that can lead to revolution.

-------------------------------------------------KURDISH DISCUSSION BELOW------------------------------------

kurremkarmerruk, I was bummed to find out that the book is about autonomous Kurdish activity in Turkey and not Syria. However, the ideological, political, social, and economic discussions being had here in the thread are being had in the book too! I think it will offer some insight into the political and economical developments within the Kurdish struggle. I will probably be able to finish the book over the weekend and would be into creating a different thread to further discuss it.

I think it would be interesting to compare developments in Chiapas and Spanish collectives from the within the civil war with the Cantons and developments within the Kurdish regions. Just having recently realized that there are so many different Kurdistans within Kurdistan.

Joe Kay,

While broadly I think that's right, I still think the idea of demanding unconditional US military support of socialist revolution is very revealing. If what was happening was a socialist revolution, the US would be backing ISIS all the way, or at least letting ISIS wipe it out before supporting a Turkish occupation.

Demanding unconditional US military support of socialist revolution is very revealing, who do you suggest is doing this? Us on here by supporting Kobane resistance against ISIS and support and wanting to further learn about the Cantons and the autonomous development in Kurdish sections? Or do you mean that the PKK/YPG/etc... are demanding unconditional US military support? I would assume that they YPG are demanding airstrikes from the US for strategic military reasons not for some ideological reason.

I think the US is very hesitant to support YPG precisely because of geopolitics, Turkey being a strategic ally, Turkey is in NATO, and the US wants to stave off ISIS and not allow ISIS into Turkey or further West. I think that the US bombs come down upon ISIS not for Kobane or for the Kurds but to guard Turkey and Syria (until the US figures out who is going to win in Syria and who they can then strategically support and gain another ally). Also, I think the US does not care if ISIS wipes YPG and the Kurds off the map so long as ISIS does not flow into Turkey and further West. Also, I think the Turkish attacks and repression of Kurdish organizing within Turkey is another indicator of the US and Turkey's true intentions. The US does not seem dead set on ridding the world of ISIS b/c they could, the US does not want to lose Iraq, Turkey, and the entire Middle East to ISIS and then be stuck with Iran as an ally, its geopolitics.

I agree with you, geopolitics and imperial power in the world is very strong and something we as anarchists/communists need to deal with...somehow...perhaps establishing autonomous regions that want to fight against capitalism/power as positive...

Rooie,

I do not think what is happening in Rojava is revolution in the historical or academic sense of the word. However, I do think the Cantons are beginning to transform themselves into something that is very interesting, autonomously interesting.

Again with the Spanish comparisons, despite the brilliant comment about time and history not being repeated, did USSR/Stalin's support for the international brigades cheapen or lessen the actions and activities of the CNT-FAI, etc... in Spain? I would say no. Also, within the spirit of same comparison, I would agree with you that if the YPG began to accept weapons from the US based on conditions to change its politics and economics, as did the groups that feel under Stalins grip in Spain, then yes, your point would be valid. However, has this happened yet? I highly doubt that the US will support the YPG outright beyond what is strategically useful (in the premeditated defense of a NATO ally, Turkey).

And I believe the Kurdish YPG sentiment is the that they will not change their views for anyone but themselves. the groups in question were fighting the NATO/US supported nation of Turkey before ISIS was around and I am sure they will continue to defend their interests after they run through ISIS.

Great statement by WSM.

The WSM sums it up perfectly and make a very correct point about ideology!

From: https://www.facebook.com/WorkersSolidarityMovement?ref=br_tf

The WSM considers the struggle for Kobane and the autonomous zones of Rojava to be crucial for the development of a political alternative for the region. We view Daesh as the toxic excrescence of the results of global and regional imperialist intervention in Syria and Iraq.

On the one hand this has taken the form of the US 2003 invasion of Iraq, and its ever more bankrupt policy since of funding corrupt clientelist hirelings, the infamous "moderate militias". The problem with such "non-ideological" forces, hired for their compliance with American views and their hostility to ideological opponents of US imperialism in the area, is that they are a paper tiger. Shortly before his assassination, Ahrar al-Sham leader Hassan Aboud, said of the Iraq army's rout by Daesh was "because the army has no military ideology,".

In contrast to US and Western blind search for "moderate militias", the regional imperialisms of the AKP-led Turkish state, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE, have been happy to fund and support forces fuelled by the negative ideology of sectarian hatred. While each, in their competition with the others, had their own favourite brigades, the combined effect of their open gates to money and weapons to all sectarian jihadists, whether Ikhwanite or Salafist, was the nourishment that allowed Daesh to grow from a marginalised Iraqi guerilla to an internationally recruited threat across Mesopotamia and the Levant.

Today in Kobane two strong ideologies confront each other. One them, t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶t̶a̶r̶d̶ ̶l̶o̶v̶e̶-̶c̶h̶i̶l̶d̶ of imperialism, celebrating slavery and sectarian totalitarianism, the other fighting for the ideals of autonomy and freedom. In such a confrontation it is no surprise that Turkey and its Western allies have decided that the most threatening of these two ideologies is the idea of freedom. The WSM condemns utterly the brutal actions of the AKP regime in blockading Kobane, while allowing reinforcements and weapons through to Daesh. We condemn further this morning's strikes by the Turkish air force against alleged PKK positions in Daglica. We support the struggle of YPG/YPJ volunteers in Kobane and Rojava and that of Turkish Kurds against the oppression of the Turkish state.

The experience of Rojava in beginning the implementation of the KCK's ideology of Democratic Confederalism is in our opinion as significant for the development of political alternatives in the Middle East as the earlier experience of the Zapatistas was for Central and South America. If political movements like the KCK, and the Zapatistas before them, have moved from an authoritarian left position towards more libertarian politics, it is not because anarchism in the 21st century is playing the role of the most powerful and prestigious alternative to reformism and social-democracy, as the Bolsheviks once did in the wake of 1917. Rather it is because that anarchism is not a brand but a toolkit of principles and practices for the self-liberation of the oppressed and exploited. We see it as our duty to express our solidarity with Rojava and the kurdish movement, not because they have ideologicaly made a step in our direction, but because they represent hope in this region and because they are the oppressed fighting the oppressors and whatever may be the imperfections of their process we will stand in solidarity.

Note - this statement 'WSM International Secretariat on the defence of Kobane' arose from a request made to us by Devrimci Anarşist Faaliyet for a short piece giving our perspective for inclusion in a publication they will be distributing in Kurdish areas of the Turkish state (and we hope in Kobane once ISIS have been driven back and out of sight).

Despite the authors strange tone and use of words this article introduces some interesting points concerning geopolitics and media:

http://pando.com/2014/10/16/the-war-nerd-nobody-could-have-predicted-islamic-states-retreat-from-kobane-except-me/

enough quotes from US military leaders and ideologues to really blow a whole in the whole US/YPG/PKK collaboration and usurping and destruction of Kurdish autonomy in exchange for weapons bought with pro-neoliberal strategy in the region.

Marx-Trek, I was responding to the argument of the linked piece:

Kamran Matin

the western left’s success in pressurising US-led collation states into providing unconditional military-logistical assistance to the Kobani’s defenders would be an important tactical victory in the left’s wider anti-imperialist strategy.

Joe Kay,

Fair enough. I think Kamran's statement is pretty off. I think the Pando article posted above does a pretty good job of stating why thinking US support is at all relevant, needed, or even some indication of Kurdish collaberation with US neo-liberal agenda is happening.

Someone bombs my enemy, I am not going to lose sleep or have to reassess my ideology, especially when they are bombing ISIS for their own strategic interests in the region not on the Kurds behalf.

Marx-Trek

Yeah I am waiting for thread. As I know the situation of Kurdish movement in Turkey more. I can even report back with live interviews with people involved and contribute to discussion. Or I can read quote important parts or summaries of Ocalan etc... It would be fun :D

I also do not think the article in disorder of things is correct (especially in terms of unconditional US aid etc...) The writer considered whole article based on politics of a global left and its political pressure to effect governments (or global coalitions). This makes the article very insturmentalist in its approach. So although it makes some good and interesting arguments it is hard to defend as a whole:

But for example I liked this part:

So the basic question regarding the relation of geopolitics and progressive politics is under what specific circumstances such forces engage with international and regional powers. In the current conjuncture PKK and PYD are movements that have successfully combined a popular grassroots movement, a highly innovative and resilient form of armed struggle with a remarkably independent foreign and regional policy. As a result, although they might suffer tactical defeats, they are unlikely to be manipulated into imperial intrigues. In fact, PKK and PYD have consistently called on Syrian opposition forces, other Kurdish parties, and KRG to revise their uncritical alignment with US foreign policy in the region.

In the case of Kobani, the request of military assistance made by PKK and PYD therefore simply represents a tactical exploitation of the contingent convergence of their specific interests with that of US led anti-IS coalition for a wider strategic political project. For victory in Kobani will have important and wide-ranging ramifications beyond Syrian Kurdistan.

I think the point he makes here about how PYD is the only "real" force that can prevent Kurdish population (and other ethnic populations in autonomous region) from sucked into imperialist wars is an excellent one. I wrote this now in another thread so I will not explain it in detail again. (Link: http://libcom.org/forums/news/isis-17062014?page=7#comment-545723 )

Joseph Kay

I personally find your comment half right. I think you are missing some of the stuff article discusses for example the point I emphasized above. Moreover stuff that is wrongly discussed in article like: "Because the military conflict in Kobane may strengthen the electoral hand of the pro-Kurdish parties in Turkey." -according to me of course- lead you to wrong conclusions on what is debated here between me, Marx-Trek and mikail (for example I think my posts never emphasized any electoral politics. The significance of the issue here is much beyond that, Electoral politics are actually tiny (mostly instrumental) part of the actual content of Kurdish movement and what it stands for)

However I am debating it in too much forums now, I am really tired. I am also very tired to make new translations to support my arguments (as a lot of stuff related to Kurdish movement, is newly translated/produced into English) I think we can do it much better in the upcoming forum thread by Marx-Tek that will focus on the real content of Kurdish movement and its comparative evaluation in face of other militant libertarian/democratic socialist/communist/communal movements in the past and present.

Marx-Trek and kurremkarmerruk doth protest too much. The latter even going so far as to being a rape apologist of Öcalan, even though the imprisoned nationalist really should not be of any significance if Kobane really has moved towards organizing itself communistically. Such argumentation smacks more of a belief, nay faith, born out of a desperate hope that Kobane really is what is written in their constitutional scripture. I don't know either way what is happening in Kobane, but just saying that the way the two of you argue is not helping, especially kurremkarmerruk.

Thanks man, you are the most helpful.

You're welcome! I'm glad you thought so.

Khawaga,

We doth protest too much and our points may seem to be very repetitive, believe you me, I am very aware of boringly repetitive nature going on in this thread. However, its is very hard to move beyond our collective dementia because we cannot get passed deadlocked conclusions of both sides.

Perhaps I can offer another solution. Instead of our long winded posting back and forth we can agree to disagree, won't happen, and come to the two sentence conclusion I am offering up.

1. One side, based on ideological reasoning, does not like the idea of supporting groups (organizations, collectives, social movements, social forces, etc...) that are not reacting from pure proletarian communistic/anarchistic conclusions and desires to destroy Capital through class struggle and the methods of such a struggle must be held to the highest standards determined by said ideology (and seemingly this group does not agree that "warfare" can or will be an aspect of said struggle because it is not class based and militaristic).

2. Another side, based on analysis of the conditions and developments on the ground, like the idea of supporting groups (organizations, collectives, social movements, social forces, etc...) that are reacting and struggling to defend themselves against an extremely reactionary murderous force, and on a positive note, apart from struggling against reaction, if movements have taken an organizational step that makes solidarity generally accepted even for the most staunch anarchist/communist ideologues will give full solidarity to said groups (seemingly this group agrees that "warfare" may be a part of said struggle that is encapsulated within the larger struggle - class struggle).

I think this fairly sums up the two sides here and all the rest is just polemical nonsense. I will become subjective again and make this point; I believe that the other side in this debate is not taking serious or even reading all the comments we are posting or the links to information we are posting. I believe that the other side's position has locked itself into a position and will remain there despite what is happening or not happening in the Kurdish region. For the other side this is not a discussion about events and conditions but purely a logic exercise and ideological exercise. The debate swings back and forth between the same point counterpoint because the other side will not address or engage in the conversation being had. Instead we jump from the rape topic to the stalinist topic to the adventurism topic to US-imperialist lapdog topic and it repeats itself. Some other people here have posted and responded to the comments and linked information and that has provided for a very interesting conversation.

Such argumentation smacks more of a belief, nay faith, born out of a desperate hope that Kobane really is what is written in their constitutional scripture. I don't know either way what is happening in Kobane, but just saying that the way the two of you argue is not helping, especially kurremkarmerruk.

I think you could not be more off than you are here. I will flip it. I think such argumentation of the other side smacks of an ideologically predetermined conclusion, nay faith, born out of an abstract and idealist understanding of how the world is and how revolution works. For communists to rely so heavily on abstraction and idealism is very odd since our ideological godfather's view on idealism and conclusions on idealism are exactly why we are against idealism and instead rigid materialists.

You not knowing what is happening on the ground is an honest observation. Though I would offer, no suggest, to you that you do not need direct personal experience of something in order to get an understanding of some development in the world. For example, you can look at any movement or social event that occured in the past that you do agree with and ask yourself why you are allowing yourself to support such a thing.

As to reduce my fair amount of looking into and digging up of things to better understand what is happening in the Kurdish region with respect to autonomy and communal organizing into a belief in Constitutional "scripture" is pretty funny. However, the humor is at your expense not mine. My method of understanding things I am not directly involved in is nothing short of what people generally do. I will not bore myself or offend your intellectual capacity by spelling out how to study, research, and come to conclusions based on said research. That would be about as offensive as your comment above.

I do not understand your need to make a psychological assessment of me and determine that I suffer from some condition that makes me have some base need to believe that what is happening in Rojava is autonomous. I assure you my political commitment does not rely on the existence of Rojava. This is simply incorrect.

If it proves that all this incorrect and all we have if is something that is more like, say Iraqi Kurdistan (which appears to be more of a semi-autonomous state with institutions and bureaucracy that manages the social relations not all that much different from perhaps a socially democratic European nation), I will concede, and simply say, OK, I was wrong and what is happening in the region is nothing more than a secular socially liberal modern political development (even though that development would be interesting as well for completely different reasons).

I am not a rigid ideologue. However, I very strongly am attached to being an autonomist-leftist. And I do not believe that solidarity is only deserved by those who share my almost identical political views. That's just being an asshole and the exact opposite of solidarity and networking.

Also, its not that any of us, a very large portion of the autonomous-left (anarchist/communist/libertarian-left/etc...), are supporting the resistance and developments in Kurdistan (Rojava, Cantons, etc...) simply because we want to. Support has developed because this event has happened, the social development are happening, and people from all over have either traveled there or have contacts that are informing them of these developments. And from pretty basic methods of understanding something and deduction, we have deduced that, yes, this is something worthwhile new and interesting that needs further understanding. To make my point even clearer, these developments have been going on for longer than ISIS attempting to take Kobani. Unfortunately, I was one of the ones that only passively tolerated PKK at demos in Europe and had no real interest in the region until after I saw a non-fucking religiously or sectarian insane group battle it out with another insane group on behalf of further bloodying up the region that inadvertently allows for Western (capitalist) interests to run amok (a side note, the western interests and end result is falling flat on its face).

-----------------------------------------------KURDISH/KOBANI UPDATE-------------------------------------------

It appears that ISIS is being pushed further back!

Al Jazeera article: After Repelling ISIL, PKK Fighters are the new heroes of Kurdistan; http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/10/17/pkk-s-rise-in-iraqikurdistan.html

Of course the Pentagon is now taking credit for making that happen, though not missing a line to indicate that their interests and strategy has not changed (blowing yet another whole in the argument that YPG are just US collaborators, etc...) . As can be seen in Western news sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/16/world/meast/isis-threat/index.html

Here is a taste of the rationale,

"There's been no strategic shift here, as far as I know, at least from the military perspective, about Kobani or any other town," Rear Adm. John Kirby said, making a unique appearance at the State Department's daily briefing.
In recent weeks, administration and U.S. defense officials have said it wasn't essential to keep the city, not far from the border with Turkey, from becoming the latest in Syria to fall into ISIS hands.
"We never said Kobani didn't matter," Kirby said. "What makes Kobani matter for us from an airstrike perspective is that (ISIS is) there, and that they want it."
Kirby said the number of airstrikes in Syria or Iraq depends on how "target rich" an area is. The past few days around Kobani have seen more ISIS targets, he said. There are more ISIS fights there with more force, Kirby said.

Again, I am correct in assuming there pretty big differences between Iraqi Krudistan the Peshmerga militia and PKK/YPG Turkey, Syria, etc...?

Nevermind, the article pretty much reiterates what has been already explained and answers my question.

Here is another article discussing geopolitics as it relates to the many different Kurdistans within Kurdistan.

Here: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/08/iraq-turkey-kurds-fight-islamic-state-201481581133776796.html

And this Aljazeera news is really interesting as it shows how its influence seems to increase in Iraq kurdistan. Their fight certainly gives them political influence in the region. This can lead to power in every way. It is also interesting that this news is reported by Aljezeera as it is actually more sided with FSA due to quatar and arab islamism. Even today there were a protest of it in turkey by members of socialist democracy party.

Marx-Trek, fair enough, my comment was in anyway more direct at your "compatriot". I have no way or little time to evaluate all the various writings on Kobane, don't have time to look into who is writing what accounts and why, and in the fog of war much will get lost (and in any case, the little time I have to spend on politics is more directly related to organizing here rather than spending energy on something that I have very little opportunity to do anything about).

My main point, however is that you "doth protest too much" and that therefore you are undermining your own argument; arguments that others may be more receptive to if you didn't post up essay length comments, sometimes one after the other (again kurremkarmerruk is more guilty of that than you). kurremkarmerruk even doesn't want to concede any criticism; even rape accusations are just bs! That really is undermining his/her position and I can't but help to think that s/he is arguing from an ideological position as much as those that you accuse others of (and I think that you are, to a considerable degree correct in that accusation; some more than others).

I guess my mistake was to lump you together with kurremkarmerruk and having his/her argumentation sow doubt on what you're arguing (and tbh I can't for the life of me remember the difference because I did lump you together) so for that I apologize.

Thanks now i am judged by people who even did not bothered to read anything written here. Super nice!

Khawaga, your sincerity is much appreciated. Thanks.

Yeah, I am almost sadly convinced that there is no use in discussing the issues any further with the most commentators on this thread because it seems that most, not all, of them don't even bother to read. And now, apparently the length of people's responses to questions or statements have become a problem. So now not only is the positions put forth the problem but so too the length of someone's comment. I get the sentiment or the frustration of reading a long comment, but then again, people should not make such grand over-generalizations or ask questions that do not demand answers beyond yes or no... I come to Libcom to read, learn, and engage with what I have learned...sometimes it takes longer sometimes it does not.

Also, it is kind of hard to not write longer posts than most when one has to constantly explain and re-explain their position prior to discussing some new aspect of the larger conversation. I am not the one that is constantly demanding one's position to be validated and I am not the one that is attempting to hold under lock and key what counts and doesnt count for good anarchism/communism. Hence, me having added the ---------------LINES------------------ indicating that the shit above is yet another re-explanation of my position, that again goes completely unnoticed even though the response was basically asked for, and then below something that actually contributes to the conversation about Kobani and the developments within the cantons.

As for you not having time, ok fine, we are all busy, I have no idea what you are doing and you have no idea what I am doing besides posting on here. But here is the thing, you seem to be interested and invested enough in what is happening in Kobani since you are following a thread on the issue. Also, I am glad that you are doing exactly what the Kobani Kurds are doing, being to busy with their own shit and issues than to worry all that much about what someone else thinks or does in some far off region of the world.

But all in all, I just dont get the constant need to seemingly engage in a conversation about something and then instead of actually comment back concerning the issues previously raised, ignore someone's response, and instead jump to the next argument without even engaging the issues brought up. The problem is not difference of opinion or perspective. The fact that people are arguing in circles, some more than others, are not actually engaging with the conversation being had but instead are talking at the conversation.

As for being lumped together, that is fine when there are similarities but when there are difference there are differences. However, I am not really sure what the differences really are other than everyone keeps accusing "K" of being a rape apologist, an accusation thrown less at me. And here we are again, discussing the rape issue (then it will be Stalinism and then US imperialist lapdog strategy and then class struggle and then back to rape). After having read all the information provided by "K" about the rape issue, reading the accusatory comments, and trying to find more info myself; I am silent on the issue because nothing glaring pops out other than some Turkist nationalist site discussing the rape issue. Its not that rape is not an important issue but when you have to search and search and search and find nothing really worth discussing the point seems moot.

Also, I am not all that interested in some imprisoned persons sexual activity, as already stated over and over, but instead in what is going on in the Cantons, at point which I think "K" and I agree on. So yeah the only difference I guess is that "K" seems to have more knowledge and infomation about Ocalan and I seem not convinced of the rape, nor am I all that interested in defending his actions or non-actions because I do not now. And again, this has already been discussed in several posts prior to this one. Again the length of the posts are determined not by me but what I and "K" are constantly asked to respond to. Then for some reason those responds fall on deaf ears, but thanks to you not this time! thanks for engaging (since that is what forums are for, right?).

kurremkarmerruk

Thanks now i am judged by people who even did not bothered to read anything written here. Super nice!

Telling that kurremkarmerruk PM'ed me to only ask how I knew the rape accusations against Ocalan was correct. Apparently contacting someone about the reputation of someone is more important than trying to convince someone that what is happening in Kobane really is a social revolution. Telling of kurremkarmerruk's position.

And by the way, what I wrote was:

I have no way or little time to evaluate all the various writings on Kobane, don't have time to look into who is writing what accounts and why,

meaning that while I have read quite a bit of the content pointed to by the links various people have posted, I cannot judge for myself what statement and analysis is more truth worthy or correct than other. Especially since I cannot read either Turkish or Kurdish; it is an admittance of not being able to evaluate something. That is something completely different than not reading, which is what kurremkarmerruk think I wrote. It indicates insincerity.

Note I did not refuse that what is happening in Kobane may actual be a social revolution, only that your way of arguing is counter-productive and seems to come from a place of faith rather than reason (granted a rather poor argument on my behalf). But since I critiqued, I must be attacked and dismissed. The difference in Marx-Trek and kurremkarmerruk respective replies is telling.

And for what it's worth Marx-Trek, I've found both your posts and kurremkarmerruk's informative and even interesting, and so the other long comments by people opposing you. This thread is where I follow the events in Kobane. Since I don't claim by any means to have a special insight into what happens there I evaluate what I read here, and truth be told, I can't make up my mind abut what is going on, though being a cynic and seeing how the left and anarchists often jump at anything that may constitute some communist movement as the next big thing (due to the general lack of militancy in our own countries) I am sceptical. Nothing would make me more happy than to eat my cynicism and find out that really is going on turns out to be what you are arguing. Delighted even.

(I'm re-posting this from the thread "PKK political evolution")

Inspired by this debate, I got in touch with DAF (Devrimci Anarşist Faaliyet), an anarchist organization in Turkey, to ask them their opinion on all this. They were kind enough to take the time to write me a reply, from one of their comrades who speaks English.

They make the point that the movement in Rojava is similar to the Zapatistas, which I think is a good comparison, because the Zapatistas also are not anarchist (or anti-capitalist) but they are influenced by anarchism and use decision making processes within the tradition of anarchism. Generally, anarchists are in solidarity with Zaptistas, simultaneously celebrate the many positive things in their movement while also being critical of deficiencies (their not being anti-capitalist), and I think this same approach is appropriate in Rojava.

I'm going to copy/paste the email in a new post, but not using the quote blocks, because that makes it harder on the eyes to read.

QUOTING AN EMAIL FROM D.A.F. (Devrimci Anarşist Faaliyet - TURKISH ANARCHIST GROUP)
======================================================================
We can divide your questions in three part;

-effect of Bookchin to theory of Kurdish Movement
-the situation in Rojava
-the position of PKK

Firstly, it is true that Ocalan (the popular leader of the Kurdish Movement) theorise "Democratic Confederalism" referencing Bookchin, Kropotkin and Bakunin. He also declared that he had passed over Marx. This declaration is something like a break point of movement which had a leninist tradition. (But please pay attention that I am using as Kurdish Movement insistently.

Party had also put away the hammer and sickle signs from their flags. So this attitude of party shows something about the changing. Of course,this does not simply show that they have changed their ideas to anarchism.

Democratic Confederalism is a new theory by Ocalan. As I mentioned they reference some anarchists, but Ocalan did not say that it is an anarchist theory. But many similarity with social anarchism.

Ok we have to accept that Bookchin even do not consider his theory as part of anarchism,he thought that it is a new theory (I think this point is another discussion between anarchists). So we can say like, it has relation or similarity with anarchism, like the way of understanding democracy, patriarchy and centralism where Ocalan's theory mostly focuses on.

Especially in 2000s PKK become more social, now it is really hard to say that the decisions are determined by the party headquarter. That is why I am using as Kurdish Movement. Kurdish Movement reference party, HDP which is in Turkish parlament,Ocalan and Kurdish People.

We can easily say that we are witness in decentrification of movement. Direct Democracy is mostly used in arguments of party and also used in the practice that is trying to be built.

I,personally, think that Kurdish Movement and Zapatist Movement have many similarities. Comrade, how can we describe Zapatista Movement? They are also not anarchist, but we are giving importance to this popular movement too.

Now there is a war in Rojava where Kurdish people are trying to maturize a revolution. There could be many defficiency. But it is our responsibility as revolutionary anarchist to solidaire with Rojava Revolution, because revolution has no borders and the real main opposition with turkish state is Kurdish Movement and there could be chance for expand this fire of revolution in west part of anatolia.

As DAF, we can not be far away from this social movement. This is also our understanding of anarchism: be in solidarity with oppressed ones.

I hope this information may help you to understand the situation. Do not hesiatate to ask me detailed question.

The DAF also sent me this excerpt from their interview with with Alternative Libertaire (French Anarchist Newspaper):
Rather than repost the whole thing, you can find it here: http://libcom.org/forums/middle-east/pkk-political-evolution-17082012?page=1#comment-545763

DAF in generall another group who likes to be a part of the instutional power structure, they have no kind of critics even though they said that famous but most times empty rhetoric: "We're supporting the oppressed ones, we're on the same side". What the fuck about the "mandatory military service?" in Rojava? In that sense their practical support to so called social movement is supporting the ones who have instutional power structure in the name of "being against the power" and "in the special circumstances", is just another propaganda to spread their own ideological motivations, influences and practices. Of course they're are not evil as none can be., they may be doing some good thing with refugees for example.

But need to consider everything with its goods and bads. DAF, now supports an organisation who doesn't call itself a state but practically a state with its police, military forces and prison structures.

And once again, we're going to have another kind of disaster in an another ongoing disaster. The one which has the similarities with Palestine but that time it is much more faster in terms of its statization period.

So, as in general, need to go beyond labels to see what really is going on. Beyond the label of anarchist, beyond the level of autonomy. DAF is pretty good example what may happen if there's very limited or not at all critical analyses and perspective about what's going on.

So, Bonanno said about the palestinian state in Palestine Mon Amour:
" A Palestinian State could not fail to move in the direction of all States: that of military reinforcement, armed intervention, and the transformation of future diplomatic agreements into instruments of threat and retaliation. "
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alfredo-m-bonanno-palestine-mon-amour#toc18

So, as already before the the early signs of the coalition agains "evil enemy" Rojava started that process of practical statization.

And, with its unique differences, it seems there'll be somehow same experiences too, that will be lived as it's already started in the discussion like that happened in the Palestine:

" In the same way that it took us years to convince ourselves that the Israelis were torturers even though they had just come through the extermination camps, now goodness knows how long it will take to see that the Palestinians, comrades once upon a time, can become torturers today. "
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alfredo-m-bonanno-palestine-mon-amour#toc18

tw,

As for DAF's rhetoric, I think the Ireland WSM comment (posted above) on solidarity for Rojava adequately addresses why someone would/should generally support or look positively at the recent developments.

The one which has the similarities with Palestine but that time it is much more faster in terms of its statization period.

I am not quite sure if I got your point completely right here, are you saying that the Rojava Canton's and the other Kurdish "democratic autonomous" areas are an example of a more rapid "statization" than Palestine or are you comparing the Kurdish democratic autonomous areas to a certain period in Palestinian history?

At this point I would have to disagree with you comparison. Seeing that Palestine is still working towards official state recognition, then there is the pretty strong critique that the PLO eventually became the managers of Palestine heavily influeneced through the political process with Israel, effectively policing their own population for Israel. Furthermore, we have the Palestine Authority and the Palestine legislature. I would probably say that if anything this has closure resemblance to the Iraqi Kurdistan political landscape. However, resources and the plethora of militias and the individual parties activities within Palestine makes the comparison a little difficult to generalize.

One of the things I find interesting in Palestine as well as in Kurdistan in general and in Northern and Western Kurdistan in particular is the absence of total state authority and power from Turkey and Syria which provides actual political space for social organizing and fighting forces to emerge. And what is really interesting and worthwhile is the actual mention and emergence of something that not only in words but in practice is beginning to experiment with autonomy and collective/communal social organizing.

As for the mandatory military service, sure that is a relevant and interesting topic that needs to be discussed further. Which military service and what military, militia, or fighting group are you specifically are you referring to? YPG?

The only option is fight in the army of YPG. You can not fight indepedently even if you like.

That mandatory service law is in practice, confirmed by the old friends who are now with Kurdish Movement... It's also confirmed that's in practice by other sources...

Here is detailed decision of the Rojava cantons:

------------------

The news site is close to the "Kurdish Movement". Can be seen also as a part of that movement...

http://www.diclehaber.com/en/news/content/view/410688?from=1923065108

-------------
"Rojava to defend itself with this law"

KOBANÊ (DİHA) - The Democratic Autonomous Administrations Founder Assembly held a meeting in Rojava and legislated an important law regarding the service of defense.

According to ANHA, the Democratic Autonomous Administrations Defense Law, which will be applied in all three cantons of Rojava, has been published in the official gazette. Defense Law includes 9 articles. According to the law, civilians aged between 18 and 30 must enlist in the military for six months. The law also states that the soldier can choose to either serve the six months with no interruptions or in break the time up into different phases. The duties and responsibilties of those residing in Democratic Autonomous Administrations are as follows:

First Article: The participation of residents of Democratic Autonomous Administrations into YPG fronts is defined as "Defense Service".

Second Article: The duty of defense is a/an social and ethical duty. Each association and family must charge someone for defense service.

Third Article: According to the law, each citizen aged between 18 and 30 has to enlist in the defense service. The participation of young women is voluntary.

Fourth Article: The duration of defense service is 6 months. When the duty of defense ends, attendant can optional leave or can join in the units of defense. It's necessary to complete the duty of defense within one year. Students must finish their defense service over a period of two years.

Fifth Article: The situation of quitrent from defense service; Those, who are in the ranks of YPG/YPJ (People's Protection Units/Women's Protection Units), asayish (security) and Kurdistan Freedom Movement, are exempt from the defense service. Families' only members, youths with heavy illnesses and disableds are exempt from the defense service.

Sixth Article: Financial contribution is given to the families of those who put the bread on the table in the family along their defense service.

Seventh Article: Those, who refuse to give the defense service and to join in defense of country, will be face disciplinary measures. Those who acts unlawfully during their duty will be on trial which will be based on the military law.

Eighth Article: Those, who want to give defense service, join in YPG units.

Ninth Article: This law is valid when it is published in the Offical Gazette.

(nt)

I am not quite sure if I got your point completely right here, are you saying that the Rojava Canton's and the other Kurdish "democratic autonomous" areas are an example of a more rapid "statization" than Palestine or are you comparing the Kurdish democratic autonomous areas to a certain period in Palestinian history?

I'm saying about what's happening now, in terms of practice. Kurdish people were under attack for long time, in many form for long time by different states.

That comparison with Palestine was generalized in terms of being under attack and one of the ideas as a solution to that attacks was forming a state. But i totaly agree there're huge differences with Palestine. The groups, the individuals, history and so on, pretty much everything except forming a state and a practically a state which is not called a state, still those are not the list of the all different and same/similar parts of those two.

I'm sorry but i think you like to be pretty much optimistic about when there is and there was no power structure which is called as state. In palestine, when the times it was called as Palestine Authority and Hamas in the place that it can govern or more recently when it's called as state, practices are in that direction, but if you wanted to mean they're not succesfull like the many other states on realizing their power to controll life: punish, organise and other power practices in systematic mean, i can agree on some points. But, since you may have missed as might many other things, there're a manifest some years ago which was pretty much good from GYBO

One of the things I find interesting in Palestine as well as in Kurdistan in general and in Northern and Western Kurdistan in particular is the absence of total state authority and power from Turkey and Syria which provides actual political space for social organizing and fighting forces to emerge. And what is really interesting and worthwhile is the actual mention and emergence of something that not only in words but in practice is beginning to experiment with autonomy and collective/communal social organizing.

"Fuck Israel. Fuck Hammas. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!
...
"
http://gazaybo.wordpress.com/manifesto-0-1/

"Trying to shut us up by saying “don’t criticize, keep your divisions “secret” and discrete” is most harmful! It just confirms our politicians that they can keep on doing it the way they do it, they will be supported by people who don’t know the theory lying in political programs. In other terms, criticizing Hamas political leaders – but the other factions’ political leaders AS WELL – is a way for us to say “if you keep it this way, all you will get is division, which is what Israel seeks”."
http://gazaybo.wordpress.com/about/

"For this we demonstrated, for this we put in weeks of work to bring the people of Gaza to the streets, for this we were knocked down by thugs on the streets, for this we have been arrested and abused."
http://gazaybo.wordpress.com/gybo-2-years-after/

And unluckily there'll be many stories about as you called "no state in practice" but for me canton named but statization in progress and some state practices is in progress in Rojava.

Anarchism is founded on class solidarity against militarism - since when are 'anarchists' public relations agencies for capitalist paramilitary political parties?

[quote=Anarchists in Support of Rojava-Kurdistan]"ISIS KILLS. PKK PROTECTS"
"Solidarity with Kobane, York Minster York UK"[/quote]

I couldn't understand much about your critic AES, what is it and to who? There're some posts here who are in sympath with PYD -not me..

Since the only thing i got from your post is that ISIS is bad and the PKK is good. How good you're feeling with that simplistic dualism?

tw_, thank you for your information above about miltary conscription. I am commenting about earlier discussion on this forum thread on the subject "Anarchists join fight against ISIS to defend Kurdish Autonomous Areas".

My comment is about a photo which someone shared on facebook (see link above), where they wrote on a placard "ISIS KILLS. PKK PROTECTS".

My comment "Anarchism is founded on class solidarity against militarism - since when are 'anarchists' public relations agencies for capitalist paramilitary political parties?" was directed to anyone else who thinks "PKK PROTECTS".

PKK are fucking capitalists.

tw_,

The quotes from the Palestinian youth are awesome and make a valid point.

Sure you can call me optimistic about what I consider a weak state, that is fair and fine. But I still think that if multiple different militias/fighting units that represent different political interests can emerge and fight against a larger enemy (be it ISIS, Turkey, Israel. etc...). Also, to be clear, my point is not support for Hamas or Hama's views or other organizations. However, I do understand the popular support, despite the youth's view being valid, that emerges because these forces fight against the larger "oppressor" - that just reality. All aspects are interesting areas to discuss, both positive and negative. To be clear, I look more favorably towards across the borders solidarity and international solidarity that happens in challenging "oppression" or Palestinian anarchism activities in the area, one example being cutting power to Settlements. Though what is lacking from the anarchist left and larger left in general in the area or internationally is its inability to effectively deal with or engage with militarized oppression (invasions, etc...)

Hence comes in groups like Hamas that do deal with the military attacks from Israel (popular support through traditional "state" politics and figthing). Then the view of resistance and the observation of "militarized" resistance, passively look at any resistance (ex. "at least some group is fighting against "oppression", which is not the same as supporting or saying I love Hamas). Then groups like Palestinian youth,citizens, mothers, etc... voice certain favorable amazing views and other organizations with views that are closer to one's own political view make real on the ground impact and you can see it as favorable, etc... Hence this discussion.

As for the military service in YPG, thansk for the analysis and information. I see your point and admit this is obviously a sign of hierarchy and demanding something. Maybe my on view on 6 months which can be split up into 3 month terms makes me a bad anarchist but I am not losing sleep over it. However, hypothetically, I would have argued for voluntary service not demanded service but then would have joined and rejoined as needed anyway. So yes, this is a point proves the anarchist tendency on how to socially organize did not win out and again I think the Irish WSM speaks to this issue (ex. What is emerging in Rojava is interesting and like the Chiapas, the point on not being strict anarchists but using certain tendencies and strategies that has gathered valid support from the international anarchist movements.).

tw_

DAF in generall another group who likes to be a part of the instutional power structure. In that sense their practical support to so called social movement is supporting the ones who have instutional power structure in the name of "being against the power" and "in the special circumstances", is just another propaganda to spread their own ideological motivations, influences and practices. Of course they're are not evil as none can be., they may be doing some good thing with refugees for example.

So everyone should abolish every form of institution for you? You have very high standarts man, what can we do to reach your level I don't know.

But need to consider everything with its goods and bads. DAF, now supports an organisation who doesn't call itself a state but practically a state with its police, military forces and prison structures.

We discussed and know this already, And it is why actually (unfortunately) Rojova experiment is similar to CNT in Spain with its liberated areas. They also killed unarmed people (priests) they also implemented their law (women in military then to supporting positions) they even participated in government etc... I want to see a somewhat similar experiment can evolve into. (And besides my wishes and more importantly Kurdish population seems to want to see it come true)

DAF is pretty good example what may happen if there's very limited or not at all critical analyses and perspective about what's going on.

Good old anarchists/communists they just emphasize lack of critical thinking in their (mostly intellectual) rivals like liberals.

So, Bonanno said about the Palestinian state in Palestine Mon Amour:

Bonano in this article makes an totally superficial separation between people who throws stone to tanks and their political views, so that he can speak as if these are two totally different things. I think at best this is a very bad and crude form of materialism philosophy (combined with idealist politics, more on it below). This also makes politically nearly impossible to support these people who throw stones and support political party. For example in your comment you could only mention one thing: refugees, (ICC people also say the same thing over and over again), or for Palestinian situation you can only mention humanitarian stuff. OK nice, but if you think this is political support for people or solidarity in any political sense you are wrong. First of all you need to recognize the people you want to support and have a political solidarity relation with. You must recognize that they are people they made a decision, they have an agency (not of course unlimited but at least can lead them to a position among available options) I think the main problem is this unfortunately western anarchist/communist tend not to wish to recognize any other political entity. In their minds it is basically so given that "if the revolution will ever be occur" it will occur in the places they are part of (so issues of arms etc will mostly be eliminated, as they will make their revolution at the heart of imperial power there will be a spectacular opposition between interests of imperial powers and working class etc...) or it will happen according to ideas produced by them (critical individual, working class, communism etc...)

(Before rape apologist accusations begin, I must say: I do not oppose any of the ideas I referred, I am just saying, demanding of all of them to be true at the same time for a social movement is a form of orientalism (because this ideas exist and become part of social consciousness of some sort in relation to a material context and a specific social organization, which might or might not exist in its totality in Rojova) and it results in misunderstanding the political content of situation at hand)

" In the same way that it took us years to convince ourselves that the Israelis were torturers even though they had just come through the extermination camps, now goodness knows how long it will take to see that the Palestinians, comrades once upon a time, can become torturers today. "

I mean this is true, Kurds could do that. however again the same issue here: Why everyone is asking Kurds to become what they failed to become? I very so wish they establish an society where basically "all unnecessary human suffering will end (as it was used to be said) however who managed to do that, and whom are we judging that the Kurds might to realize this ideal. If you know how to do it (I mean as a real political and social power) go do it. I am sure the Kurds will run into your arms to be part of it. However there is no such alternative seems to be available for it right now (and for example forum thread "what current movement inspires you most?" seems to imply that as everyone either mentions (according to their account) something small or historical)

I will jump ahead a bit: for me the question becomes in the light of the lack of real alternatives to current capitalism: where might such non-capitalist society would emerge? Will it spring by the hands of industrial working class in the global centre, or by the actions of those in the periphery who are oppressed by the hands of the state and its never ending quest for implementing capitalism in these places. I think it might not be wise to pick a side first then produce an answer according to it and then generalize it to all places and social formations.

AES:

Anarchism is founded on class solidarity against militarism - since when are 'anarchists' public relations agencies for capitalist paramilitary political parties?

Since when anarchists side with states and condemn people's self organization or movements? If you care to look at you would see anarchist have a long history off supporting national liberation movements (as freedom from people's own liberation from their racial/capitalist oppressors)

PKK are fucking capitalists.

You must be expert on "fucking capitalists" (pun intended). I guess you could show me examples of who is "fucking capitalists" right now? I really admire your detailed political analysis that goes way beyond just ideal principles, it is so complete and elegant I now wish to denounce my past as a rape apologist and side with your anti-capitalist global worker movement.

Is it just me who's finding the shameless cheerleading for the PKK on the one side versus 'the communist left says NO!' said in the voice of Ian Paisley (and yes I know it's not just left comms) all a bit tiresome? There's been a bit already but can we have some more of the nuanced stuff please?

Bonano in this article makes an totally superficial separation between people who throws stone to tanks and their political views, so that he can speak as if these are two totally different things.

It's not his seperation, it's real seperation that exists, there's no one block in anywhere, that's what the fucking power lovers wants to see, wants see the things in "easier" way, easier to understand. For the simplification of life, for trying to control the life easily.

Since you wrote and it shows pretty much uninformed about Bonanno and you just read a part from the little book of Bonanno about Palestine issue, did not understand it even thought you opened the link of it, it was much more than a simplistic article like you would do. Bonanno is not trying to simplfy the things as you do in the sake of supporting something you called as revolution. And some more ignorant argument from you follows "idealistic" do you know wtf is that? Do you think it's a gun that you can use everytime without giving a shit who you direct it to? Alfredo Bonano is an insurrectionist anarchist, who support propaganda by deed. He was in jail some years ago when they robbed a bank. He's not feeling guilty because he's not "hopefull" like you who sits in front of the computer and calls for support to authoritarian organisations because of conditions. Did you heard about International Revolutionary Front / Informal Anarchist Federation (Global)? I guess it's an another idealistic west fantasy for you. What a bad it's not just in west, i did not want to made you feel unhappy, too bad :)

I'm saying that, if that's revolution, i'm against it, i don't care how they call themselves, democratic federalists or even anarchists, or even the one identity which we do not yet. I'm not against any form of authority just because it's named state, it calls itself authoritarian, it calls itself fascist, it calls itself socialist, i'm against it and i want to attack it because it's an authority, it's a form of oppression. Can you understand what i mean!

Since you are not going to stop "yes this is problem but anarchist did that too" stupid argument to stop criticising of mine and others, it's not so much meaningfull. I'm not personally supporting the authoritarian practices that happened in the history, i'm crticising it, i want it to be criticised, as a possibility to stop it, but not as a guaranteed formula that will prevent that, no ideology in that form. As i agree in that sense with Bonanno, it's critical analyse that's vital for me.

I am sure the Kurds will run into your arms to be part of it. However there is no such alternative seems to be available for it right now (and for example forum thread "what current movement inspires you most?" seems to imply that as everyone either mentions (according to their account) something small or historical)

I'm not surprised you trust that much to Kurds (i'm really so much afraid to ask which Kurds because as you pointed out it's a revolution, and i need to be carefull it's called like that. i'll not ask which Kurds to you, i don't want to provoce you to think, don't want to destroy your comfortable "thinking" zone)

I did not check the forum for inspiration list, but that may be good to open a wider thinking and discussion yet i can not say so much about. One of the basics that i learn is that, there's a word called as "populism" and very interestingly it happens in the wider/bigger "revolution", what a coincidence. Really interesting irony, isn't it? And in your thinking way, if everything we can support with very little critic or sometimes without critic is so small, it may not a problem of the reasons for criticising the those "bigger ones", it may not be the problem that the bigger ones are authoritarian in some form rather then all those "desperate" thinks it may be that we might be wrong about analysing the real politics and conditions/contexts for "revolution" and we need to consider supporting the so called anti-state authoritarian practices. If you want to be revolutinary you need to face with the disgusting and painfull facts, different realities -not instutional ones that's also being realized by individuals which are organised in different forms only. So yes, even though there's very small and very little hopefull things going on in generall things are really bad, and it's not getting good in generall nor it seems in that way. And it's impossible if there's no miracle of the worst, which may happen much more rarely than the miracle.

About picking sides, can you explain me how you can pick the side of the oppressors and the oppressed ones at the same time? And remember that the oppression is not just state or the imperialists that can realize their power to order life, control the life, if needs to be more clear with your words to help you understand what i mean, there are "good oppressors" which i'm against.

P.s: i can speak and read turkish very well, but i don't want to say where i live. Since the discussion had to turn in some kind of individualisation of attack to you also, i want to read your next "critics"... I want to see what category you'll put me in :).

Another Note: In Many Turkish languaged web site, today there's a confirmed news that PYD got logistic support which is arms (different qualified ones, propably much more heavily ones too, and medical things too) from the Iraq Kurdish Federation that are sent by the C-130 cargo airplanes of the United States from the air to the Kobane.
Source: CENTCOM

Another problematic article in their uncritical support for weeks turns now into critical, you may feel that position closer, since it's not "idealistic" :)

http://roarmag.org/2014/10/kobane-kurds-us-imperialism/

You or the some other ones may be guessing why i am discussing here since i feel closer to the insurrectionary anarchist ones. Basically, with another reasons of mine, it was pretty much crazy to see the people were defending undefendable positions in Turkey and in Europe and some in U.S about Rojava.

tw_

I'm not saying there're only PYD members in Kobane, and in all Rojava, or everyone supports that structure. At least i know some people from the Turkey went there to support the "anti-fascist" fight. But i'm not quite sure if all of them was aware of the signs of the authoritarian practices. But that doesn't mean that left can not support their authoritarian politics. Personally i think that the left, except some individuals and some little organisations is a part authoritarian culture, in a way or so.

But do you really think that the only reason why so many people since at least some of them know that Turkey was a fucking supporter of islamic militants in Syria an indrectly the ISIS (that's clear for sure, may be direct support to ISIS which we may find later) moved from the Kobane? Numbers changing between 50.000 to 200.000 and some more. If there was a libertarian structure in Rojava. Can't be reason that they don't want to forced to military service at least for some if not for all?

I'm sorry to say that, I don't see the ISIS and the YPG as equally bad as fucking most democratic and oppressor, currently president of the Turkey R.T Erdogan see them equally evil. I'm attacking the politics of the YPG-PYD and contributers to it, -yes in that circumstances!.

Kobani: US drops weapons to Kurds in Syria
Kobani air drops likely to anger Turkish government, which opposes sending arms to Kurdish rebels in Syria
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/20/us-drops-weapons-to-kurds-in-syria

tw_

Wauv, you wrote so long, shit, I met my pair finally now the this from will explode I guess.

Quote:
Bonano in this article makes an totally superficial separation between people who throws stone to tanks and their political views, so that he can speak as if these are two totally different things.
It's not his seperation, it's real seperation that exists

according to what it is real?

Since you wrote and it shows pretty much uninformed about Bonanno

I am not uninformed about Bonanno, I am critical about Bonanno (though you are right I did not read the full of the book you shared, however thanks to Turkish anarchists Bonanno's translated represented in Turkey)

And some more ignorant argument from you follows "idealistic" do you know wtf is that?

Yeah I mean if you put subjective idealist aims to heart of your political analysis you become idealistic. If you separate material people and their consciousness you are either: materialist or idealist. As Bonanno does in its article

lfredo Bonano is an insurrectionist anarchist,

Yeah I know his deeds he is translated to Turkish, all you wrote can be found in wiki.

guess it's an another idealistic west fantasy

I did not said his actions (or related people's actions) are idealist (however in another context they could be considered idealist, which I would never wish to condemn, on the contrary sympathize, however this is totally different from an ontological discussion, I tried to point to above)

I'm saying that, if that's revolution, i'm against it, i don't care how they call themselves, democratic federalists or even anarchists, or even the one identity which we do not yet. I'm not against any form of authority just because it's named state, it calls itself authoritarian, it calls itself fascist, it calls itself socialist, i'm against it and i want to attack it because it's an authority, it's a form of oppression. Can you understand what i mean!

yeah and say it is wrong. It is a very basic, 101 explanation of separation between freedom/oppression which is an old ideal going back to enlightenment and it is simply wrong.

Since you are not going to stop "yes this is problem but anarchist did that too" stupid argument to stop criticising of mine and others, it's not so much meaningfull.

Why discussing history is not meaningful?

it's critical analyse that's vital for me.

No defending Bonanno and his "critical analyse" is vital for you and it is just your subjective stand point in this debate. (Tip: you need to show me something to prove me I am wrong, not praise intellectual capacities of you or your mentors).

Another Note: In Many Turkish languaged web site, today there's a confirmed news that PYD got logistic support which is arms (different qualified ones, propably much more heavily ones too, and medical things too) from the Iraq Kurdish Federation

Yes you are right on it.

Another problematic article in their uncritical support for weeks turns now into critical, you may feel that position closer, since it's not "idealistic" smile

http://roarmag.org/2014/10/kobane-kurds-us-imperialism/

Come on :D Now you are suggesting me articles, thanks so much :D (If you had read any of the discussion made in here, everyone knows that article pretty well)

it was pretty much crazy to see the people were defending undefendable positions in Turkey and in Europe and some in U.S about Rojava.

What is undefendable? what must be defended in context of Rojova especially in Turkish context you think? To help you with your answer: Maybe I should sent you a link :D in response: so why do you think insurrectionist anarchists here support Rojova and especially the solidarity with Rojova demonstrations in Turkey? http://sosyalsavas.org/ as you know turkish check them.

tw_

I'm not saying there're only PYD members in Kobane, and in all Rojava, or everyone supports that structure. At least i know some people from the Turkey went there to support the "anti-fascist" fight. But i'm not quite sure if all of them was aware of the signs of the authoritarian practices. But that doesn't mean that left can not support their authoritarian politics. Personally i think that the left, except some individuals and some little organisations is a part authoritarian culture, in a way or so.

I alo think so yeah. But I think everyone was aware who go to Kobane of the history, culture etc of Kurdish struggle. So why do you think DAf also go there as "human shields"? DAF being also a very action oriented, antagonistic part of anarchist movement in Turkey?

Why do you think your position is so separate from the insurrectionist anarchists of Turkey? Any comments on that?

I'm sorry to say that, I don't see the ISIS and the YPG as equally bad as fucking most democratic and oppressor, currently president of the Turkey R.T Erdogan see them equally evil. I'm attacking the politics of the YPG-PYD and contributers to it, -yes in that circumstances!.

Yeah but I agree with you on it, why do you attack me?

AES

Anarchism is founded on class solidarity against militarism - since when are 'anarchists' public relations agencies for capitalist paramilitary political parties?

[quote=Anarchists in Support of Rojava-Kurdistan]"ISIS KILLS. PKK PROTECTS"
"Solidarity with Kobane, York Minster York UK"

[/quote]

Quite aside from the dubious politics of red-and-black-washing the PKK, they're also a proscribed organisation in England and Wales, and displaying public support for them therefore carries a sentence of up to 10 years imprisonment and an unlimited fine.* A prosecution in the immediate term seems unlikely since the US are working with the PKK at the moment, but that photo could come back to haunt people.

Maybe I should sent you a link grin in response: so why do you think insurrectionist anarchists here support Rojova and especially the solidarity with Rojova demonstrations in Turkey? http://sosyalsavas.org/ as you know turkish check them.

They are not insurrectionists :) i know many people who contribute to that site :) One more funny argument from you, sorry no joy to you from me :) Since you were pretty much confident about you know everything, i needed to stop that empty joy too.

Decide if the someone you called is idealist or not. Stop playing intellectual masturbation game, looking from different points game.

You don't have a problem with authority, you want it to be apart of it. Bonanno in Turkish is very very limited. Some texts are wrongly translated, pretty much of them don't exists and some of them is named with Bonano even he did not wrote.

-------

You can start the party, PYD just thanked to the Coalition for their support. And Iraq kurdistan said we'll send more help soon with U.S airplanes.

No defending Bonanno and his "critical analyse" is vital for you and it is just your subjective stand point in this debate. (Tip: you need to show me something to prove me I am wrong, not praise intellectual capacities of you or your mentors).

It's not my duty the put something in your eyes to help you to be able to see it, if you want to ignore, there's no solution for that, nor i will try to convince the one who defends his/her position in all means, no critical thinking of own position.

yeah and say it is wrong. It is a very basic, 101 explanation of separation between freedom/oppression which is an old ideal going back to enlightenment and it is simply wrong.

I'm not talking in terms of modernist dualism (even democratic modernist dualism one :) ) I never talked about freedom, it's a word. I'm not an ideolog who likes to program an ideology by simplistic dualist thesis.

Even on the affinity groups there will be some form of power relations but that's beyond good and bad dualism. The point is the absence/rejection of authority.

--------------
What are anarchists

Who do anarchists struggle against

Against the State seen as the centralised organisation of power in all spheres (administrative, financial, political, military, etc.)

Against government which is the political executive organ of the State and makes all decisions concerning repression, exploitation, control, etc.

Against Capitalism which can be considered both as the flux of productive relations in course and individual capitalists, their activity, their projects and their complicity in this form

Against the individual parts that the State and capital are divided into. In other words the police, judiciary, the army, school, newspapers, television, trade unions, the large multinational firms, etc.

Against the family, which forms the essential nucleus upon which the State structure is based

Against the world of politics, therefore against political parties (all of them), Parliament which is the expression of bourgeois democracy, and the political ideology which serves to mask real social problems

Against fascists and all the other instruments of repression used by the State and Capital

Against religion and the Church which constitute a potent ally to repression

Against the army which is an armed force that is used against the people

Against prisons which institutionalise the repression of the poorest of the exploited classes

Against asylums which repress the different

This is potentially really sad news for Rojova:

http://www.radikal.com.tr/turkiye/turkiye_pesmergenin_kobaniye_gecisine_yardimci_oluyoruz-1219996

This says Turkey let peshmerga to cross its land to reach Rojova. This might make Barzani stronger n the region. This is potentially not so good. If the effect of Barzani increases in Rojova, we will see an orientation toward parts of imperialist plans.

And also I think it is no coincidence that the weapon support happened at the same time with transportation of Peshmerga to Kobane.

What false ideas do anarchists struggle against:

Against reformism which wants to set social problems right by using laws, political parties, parliaments, referendums, votes, etc.

Against efficientism which wants to reduce man to an automat always capable of working and obeying

Against humanitarianism which calls for peace and safety of an abstract idea of man but does not act concretely to attack class enemies.

Against nonviolence which blocks the just violence of the exploited which is their only arm of liberation

Against patriotism which feeds the absurd idea of the homeland in preference to other nations, whereas the exploited have no homeland but are brothers of the exploited of the whole world

Against militarism which justifies the function of armies with the swindle that their role is the defence of the homeland.

Against racism which defines a part of the human race as inferior

Against male chauvinism which reduces women to sex objects.

Against feminism which closes itself within an asphyxiating inverted male chauvinism.

Against the delegate which separates the exploited from direct action.

Against hierarchy which educates towards social stratification.

Against obedience which represses all individuality.

Against authority which prevents the autonomous development of the individual.

Against progressivism, a modern version of evolutionism which is the ideological covering of reformism.

Against economism which puts the economics at the centre of the history of class exploitation

Against trade unionism which is the direct product of economism and which means to limit the class struggle to claiming at the level of the workplace. Anarcho-syndicalism, with all its revolutionary declarations does not escape this reformist limitation.

What anarchists want:

Abolition of the State, Government, Capitalism, the family, religion, the army, prisons, asylums and every form of power which uses the law to force others to do something. Therefore refusal also of any kind of workers’ or socialist State and of any form of dictatorship of the proletariat

Elimination of the private property of land, the tools of labour, materials, machines, factories, the land and anything else required for the production of what is necessary in order to live

Abolition of salaried work and reduction of work to a minimum organised by individual groups federated on the basis of their own aptitudes and sympathies as well as on the basis of their own needs

Substitution of the traditional family with life in common based on love and reciprocal affinity and on the basis of real sexual equality

Organisation of life, such as that of production, based on free associations differing according to the problems to be faced, interests to be defended and affinities to be developed. The whole of these organisations federated on a local basis, by groups of communes, then widening the relations to a larger federation until it reaches the maximum possible of the liberated areas of the revolution

Education free and aimed at an awakening of individual aptitude which in a liberated society will be meaningful only in the limits in which this liberation is realised

The spreading of atheism and anti-religious propaganda, always necessary because on these problems even the liberation that has come about cannot exercise more than a limited clarification

Completion of the social revolution until all domination of man over man be abolished.

The means anarchists want to use:

The specific anarchist organisation which is an active minority of conscious individuals who share personal and political affinity and give themselves the aim of calling on the exploited to organise themselves with a view to revolution.

A federation of different anarchist groups who while changing nothing of their particular specific structure, link with each other with informal, federative pacts in order to better coordinate their own action

Propaganda to explain through books, pamphlets, newspapers, leaflets, graffiti, etc. what the intentions of the ruling structure are and the dangers facing the exploited. Also to supply indications of the anarchist struggle and show who anarchists are, or to urge the exploited to rebel, denouncing the consequences of obedience and resignation

The struggle to claim better conditions — Although we are not reformists, the struggle to obtain improvements in one’s immediate situation (wages, habitation, health, education, occupational, etc.) sees anarchists present although they do not see these moments as ends in themselves. They push the exploited towards this form of struggle so that they can develop the elements of self-organisation and refusal of the delegate which are indispensable in order to develop direct action at all other levels.

Violent struggle to realise the social revolution along with the exploited. The attack against the class enemy (State, government, capital, church, etc.) must necessarily be violent, in the case of the contrary it would only be a sterile protest and would determine a reinforcement of class dominion. This attack could be:

isolated attacks against individual structures or people who are responsible for repression

an insurrectional attack by a specific minority

a mass insurrectional attack

a mass revolutionary attack

Each of these levels, starting from the first, may or may not create the conditions leading to the successive one to develop. Political and economic analyses can foresee this possibility within certain limits, but cannot give an absolute response: action itself is the only test for action. The moral foundation of violent struggle already exists in the fact of repression as it has been exercised by power for centuries.

Quote:
Maybe I should sent you a link grin in response: so why do you think insurrectionist anarchists here support Rojova and especially the solidarity with Rojova demonstrations in Turkey? http://sosyalsavas.org/ as you know turkish check them.
They are not insurrectionists smile i know many people who contribute to that site smile One more funny argument from you, sorry no joy to you from me smile Since you were pretty much confident about you know everything, i needed to stop that empty joy too.

What? But they are into Bonanno? If you search news related just to Bonanno you will see like 20 of them if you search for Bakunin you will find only 3. I know they have also an primitivist tendency but this does not contradict their direct-action oriented approach.

However real question is: But why do you think they support it?

You don't have a problem with authority, you want it to be apart of it. Bonanno in Turkish is very very limited. Some texts are wrongly translated, pretty much of them don't exists and some of them is named with Bonano even he did not wrote.

So? Still he is possibly the most translated, topical contemporary anarchist in Turkish circles. Except Bakunin and Kropotkin I guess Bonanno is doing literally in turkey :D

You can start the party, PYD just thanked to the Coalition for their support. And Iraq kurdistan said we'll send more help soon with U.S airplanes.

What Iraq Kurdistan sent is not just weapons it is also political power in region. PKK ad Barzani do not get very well. and they have political and ideological disputes and even a history of fight.

Even on the affinity groups there will be some form of power relations but that's beyond good and bad dualism. The point is the absence/rejection of authority.

Pufff... so why don't you like Rojova and its direct democracy experiment? on what basis, if there is always some sort of power even in affinity groups? how do these people accept authority mindlessly?

And unlike you I do not see the role of anarchists as only a negative one. (in reference to your poetical manifestation of against this and that) (

NOTE: but come on I get it you are hyped up to see the world as a better place, so do I, why do you try to attack me so viciously? I really do not get it? You say like ISIS is not same for me with YPG, so do for me. Why you only attack me and not the others who claim so. I am all for people's self action against or with PKK etc.. But why do you criticize me? I really do not get you.

The moral foundation of violent struggle already exists in the fact of repression as it has been exercised by power for centuries.

Come on, you got to be kidding me? You think so and you think PYD should not be supported even critically?

Power in the Foucalt's way interpratation of power, it's not power to controll, as an authority. "Power" is not always power but in that time seems like it's because of limited description of mine. If you go beyond the beliefs that suppose that human nature is good, you'll need face with the different possibilities that may happen, but in an uncomparable level with the authority of power...

To be honest, that last post of you was the good one in some parts it was also included some feelings of you. I don't want to put you in an evil position but, please, it's not just temporary moment that you're offering that:

I am all for people's self action against or with PKK etc.. But why do you criticize me? I really do not get you?

You can not be in a position where you can say "against or with PKK". First of all PKK doesn't want this. They have political program in first place. So if you are with them, imagine how much initiative you can have, or may be not at all?

As i said many times, and gave examples about authoritarian practices in the Rojava, in some point you agreed and for example you said: the mandatory military service is problem but then? It was just a momentarily critic. I can not except your position, you say it's problem but you see that as something bad which can be tolerated, will be disappear. So what?

Things are going even worse in terms of what that organisation wants. And it'll be... For us too, people are getting mad, in that sense you're even better position for some of critics even then you continue that...

I may have attacked you a little bit more than i need to, but i'm not saying all of my attacks wrong. It would have been just a little less. Because i'm also a little nervous about how that militarisation of the region turning people into some kind of authoritarian ones... Some pacifist ones turn to support the mandatory military service, some conscientious objector says, mandatory military service in practice but it's not that strict and so on.

Why i'm defending my attack is that, you're still supporting and saying needs to be supported... It's an individual contribitution to the authoritarian culture, and if you said you're not an anarchist but a socialist, i would attack less. (Sorry if you're not an anarchist but if it was just my prejudice) Because what happens is not so much contradictory to the socialist tendencies in generally...

If PYD was not imposing the authority for the mandatory military service as a part of the power structure there, i may reconsider my position about it.

Actually, earlier position, because of my limited knowledge of what's going on in Rojava was much more positive about critical support. I agree, it was a little bit my mistake, my stupidity too.

But now? What can say different about when they're forcing people to "defend" their own land just under their control? How can i support them? If you can explain that to me i would be happy to listen in the context of what's going on...

By the way

My suspicion is kind of confirmed. US does not say they give arms to YPG. They say they transferred the guns from air to near Kobane (arms of Iraq Kurdistan). Also the second news I share says Turkey now let Peshmerga to pass from its lands to reach Kobane. as you know Turkey was not letting people to pass to Kobane legally and arrest members of PKK-YPG.

Therefore although YPG might benefit from the guns. These guns are guns of Iraq Kurdistan trasferred there by US and possibly will be used by/with Peshmerga.

I know people will label again YPG for this. However the real problem is this. If Peshmenrga becomes active in region and affect Rojova. Will it still continue to be a democratic autonomy experiment? (Without the power of YPG and PYD to politically support it to be so)

tw_

Ok thanks for giving me some credit.

Mandatory service is horrible. however I only assume they do it because they are under conditions of war and it will hopefully be a temporary policy. The thing is yeah I am here thinking optimistically without evidence, you don't need to except that.

However there is also this. Rojova is a real piece of land and people inhabiting it right? (I think we can agree here:) I support people's right to defend it, not to be slaughtered by IS (might not agree on this:) moreover if the political programme of these people's organisation is (at least) relatively good (on issues like democracy, economy, gender equality etc...) I can also support them politically, I consider them my ally and I am all for solidarity with them. I think this is what a political relation is. However this relation should not have to be unconditional or eternal. And according to developments we can make changes.

You can not be in a position where you can say "against or with PKK". First of all PKK doesn't want this.

Yeah you are right, but there is also no significant resistance to PKK please read all the first hand accounts of Rojova. YPG is seen as a heroic army who defended its people. Its influence even increased to Iraq where they are not active actually (it is the part of Barzani) The same thing is with the class. All the first hand accounts of Cantons say there is very social policies and democratic communes in existence, there is not a significant economical inequality that will spark a popular class based organization. I do not want to be a non-critical supporter of anything. But there seems to be no such accounts, no evidence. I am just hoping PYD will be able to stick to its programme and continue direct democracy experiment showing the world how people can build democracy from bottom up (in all aspects of social life) and how this is a better model than capitalist modernization. If the things do not go this way and they become an authoritarian state by all means I would really love to act against it with Kurdish anarchists.

But current situation is more like we (global anarchists) condemn Kobane's authority but Kurdish anarchists and people from there say us: "no it is actually not that bad at all, and support us". I just think we should give them more credit. We should not force them to denounce all their "Kurdishness" before even speaking to them. I think this is what harms solidarity, be it between anarchists or between different ethnicities. If you find my position is a "temporary" critique, I guess. Its OK.

hat militarisation of the region turning people into some kind of authoritarian ones.

Yeah militarisation is really bad. however YPG is not the one responsbile for thta and if they do not wish to build a state and imply a communalistic economy and do other politically progressive stuff they are doing etc... I would be glad to say that I am gald they did that. that's all.

If PYD was not imposing the authority for the mandatory military service as a part of the power structure there, i may reconsider my position about it.

Yeah I mean they should not. But I am not in a war like they really are. This military thing is very new though the law has passed some time ago. They made a kind of census to know how many people will go to military even this month. I do not think they still punished anyone for not doing it. (But they will I guess) I mean it is your decision if you do not want to support it due to this as an anti-militarist I understand that.

But I think from a larger perspective PYD is comparatively the best option for anti-militarism (for example: they do not want to control all of syria, they are ok with autonomy in their own land, all others wish to expand and conquer all.) comparative to other actors in the region. But again my explanation makes sense in the context of the war in Syria and it is not a generalization. I don't know if you are willing to discuss this real-politic issues.

http://www.radikal.com.tr/turkiye/tezkereden_faydalanan_ilk_yabanci_asker_pesmerge_oldu-1220025

This news says: Turkey is training Peshmerga.

The collaboration between Barzani and Turkey is really bad and it might give PYD hard time to hold their non-totally-cooperative position with the imperial powers and their political ideals. As Peshmerga can become powerful with support from Turkey in the region and alter what YPG wants to implement (and also they are very open to western cooperation like Turkey).

Serge Forward

Is it just me who's finding the shameless cheerleading for the PKK on the one side versus 'the communist left says NO!' said in the voice of Ian Paisley (and yes I know it's not just left comms) all a bit tiresome? There's been a bit already but can we have some more of the nuanced stuff please?

PLEASE!

Where are you so I can shake your hand?

If you haven't already, read libcom.org/blog/rojava-anarcho-syndicalist-perspective-18102014
Rojava: An Anarcho-Syndicalist Perspective -- good stuff

I also liked Zaher's report http://libcom.org/news/experiment-west-kurdistan-syrian-kurdistan-has-proved-people-can-make-changes-zaher-baher-2 ... a first hand witness report, so that's valuable in itself (I've only been able to find one other first hand report). He describes what he witnessed very positively, then at the end he talks about criticisms.

In the Russo-Japanese War and the Second Boer War of 1899-1902 Kropotkin opposed both sides on an 'anti-statist' basis. In 1905, he had published a letter in LE TEMPS in Paris noting "if Germany invaded France, I would take a rifle and defend her."... When war broke out in September 1914, Kropotkin wrote the "Germans threatened new to eradicate this Latin civilization [France] which had given birth to 1789, 1848, and 1871"...

It is particularly because of this example of Kropotkin's betrayal of class solidarity and revolutionary anti-militarism that I have come to despise historiographies that follow a lineage of anarchist thinkers because all are inadequate, and same for every other 'intellectual'.

For a realiable history which follows the development of worker organisations as its historical markers, see Revolutionary syndicalist internationalism, 1913-1923: the origins of the International Working Men’s Association - Wayne Thorpe and (a later version of this authors studies) The Workers Themselves. This shows considerable coinsistency on internationalism and anti-militarism. Another useful document (especially about Spain 1936) see Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th Century - Vadim Damier.

... how is Kropotkin's failure different to the error of siding with PKK(etc) vs ISIS/ISIL? Genuine question.

Is it because of the atrocity of beheadings that we can accept workers being recruited into the slaughter as an acceptable situation, as a justified war?

If that is the case, then why did revolutionary workers not argue for their comrades to take sides in wars when concentration camps were first introduced in the Cuban war of 1868–1878? Revolutionary anti-militarism was our position against the second Boer war despite widespread repulsion because it was there that trench warfare was first introduced and concentration camps were used for the second trime in history on large scale causing deaths to ten of thousands of women and children? We were supposed to stand without equivocation against militarism in both World wars and every other war... but workers and poor who were broken by despair of witnessing atrocities, or learning of them were recruited against each other, and especially against those who oppose militarism.

Should we not rather have an objective marker to decide against all militarism such as class which is the only correct and timeless position against all wars and hierarchy, or can we just be swayed by the shock value of "enemy" soldiers as portrayed by the rival warring capitalists?

Fuck ISIS. Fuck PKK. Fuck Class Collaboration.

Boomerang and serge, etc....

First, I reall appreciate the Anarcho-Syndicalist article on Rojava cantons and the regional politics and history. A great look at the region.

Let me point out that this thread has included many similar points and articles that describe things in a similiar manner. Great article to add to the conversation.

As to your concerns for lack of indepth analysis, I get your concern and agree. However, I would have to point out, despite the want for a indepth critical discussion, this thread has:

1. gone from a discussion of anarchists in the region going to support the Kobani fight against ISIS and solidarity; to,

2. to asking why anarchists would go to the region to support such a fight; to,

3. having to defend the very idea of solidarity and explaining why anarchists would come to the conclusion of showing support for Rojava and YPG's fight against ISIS and for something; to,

4. people having to constantly validate their own position as an anarchist position on solidarity and arguing against simplistic arguments (only anarchists/communists can do good things and that is all we can support); to,

5. finally some more people wanting to engage in further and more in depth discussion on what is happening in the region despite even more ridiculous accusations and deeper irrelevant ideological arguments (such as arguing and comparing imperialist wars between imperial power, Kropotkin and Bonnano....huh?)

Again, great article from an Anarcho-Syndicalist perspective, reads much like the book Democratic Autonomy in Northern Kurdistan (informative yet critical)!

Well, it seems that western interests have found a common local player that they are willing to publically support, Iraqi kurdish forces and power players. It would seem that this strategic support will strengthen a more moderate (less autonomous) and recognizable/acceptable authority in the region. Perhaps the US is realizing that even though this political player was ignored almost 20 years ago, but now since the US war and political policy in the region has utterly failed and produced a blood thirsty wacko-a-doo band of reactionaries, and general civil war; the Peshmerga and Iraqi Kurdistan is perhaps that beacon of western hope in the region after such a royal fuck up of war in Iraq,etc... However, will this lead to further instability, with new undetermined developments, and is the US gambling and hoping that this will not blow up in the face in 10 years? But more importantly, what does this mean for the cantons and the autonomous activity in Syrian Kurdistan? I think K is right in that this move to support, allow, and arm the Iraqi Kurdish forces will have implications on the activities this thread has debated it needs support. I would continue to argue that the Autonomous Kurdish activity will need more support now more than ever because now they are stuck between 3 different hard places: 1. defending against ISIS, 2. defending autonomy against regional suppression , and 3. the US/NATO backing a section of the Kurdistan in hopes of growing popularity of the moderate and showing other portions of Kurdistan that the moderate Kurdish option is more valid than an autonomous one that requires actual involvement and not just compliance with a moderate program.

The Anarcho-Syndicalist articles includes in interesting point on why the YPG is the only fighting force in the region and how that effects and does not affect politics...a good read on many other points, I suggest people who are so concerned with the "statization" should read it for themselves (but then the comments from under the syndicalist article just come full circle).

At the end of the day it is the people within the Cantons and the YPG who will decide what and how they want to live and who they will fight against to defend their lives. It can either become another regional group that does things somewhat better and is less of the problem (the worse alternative development) or the regional group continues to grow and strengthens both their autonomy and free association and collective/networking ways of living (the better alternative). As the article points out, and I optimistically think/agree, the Kurdish people have for too long lived under state repression and dictatorship, I do not believe that the people are naive enough to be fooled by a dictator in Kurdish disguise (their M.O. seems to be fighting against being dominated on).

As the article points out, and I optimistically think/agree, the Kurdish people have for too long lived under state repression and dictatorship, I do not believe that the people are naive enough to be fooled by a dictator in Kurdish disguise (their M.O. seems to be fighting against being dominated on).

But now the "kurdish forces" are in controll and they're practicising their authority in the places that they can control, what about that. Everyone who says critical support is needed than "interestingly" forget about the what that "good" side is doing with its limited power to control: forcing people to fight in their own army and so on, the only one problem enough to stop supporting.

And so interestingly, so called anti-nationalist "kurdish movement" who is called like this mostly by the ones who has limited knowledge because of language barrier. -which can be understood but can not be supported to have weak positions because of that. When they are in hard conditions, when they want to call people to the streets, they are starting to talk about the heroistic character of the Kurdish people, the great resistance of Kurdish people and kurds needs to this and that and that's and this is the duty of every Kurd etc. So, even in the the consideration about them if they have nationalistic politics or not, they're in the real politic so frequently.

Does criticising the nationalism but also having nationalistic politics makes you anti-nationalist? Clearly, they don't want to get away with that connection if they do so, they'll loose so much power. And yet this is not possible to seen by some "anarchists"...

AES

please don't do post the same comment to more than one forum thread. This is really just not good form of propaganda. Should I also copy my reply into here? Why have different forum threads then? Maybe we can have one forum thread and everyone can speak in it on everything in their mind like a chat room :D Getting lost in debate and jumping to non-relevant points in relation to original issue is one thing. But deliberately posting the same comment that is not related to any other previous comment, directly to different forums is another.

tw_

But they can not jut give up their "kurdishness" right? As it is reality that Kurdish people are minority in many countries and they are objectively discriminated against, oppressed and exploited more than dominant ethnicity (and its workers). For example, Kurds experience their own kurdishness, whenever, they are harassed by cops due to their birth place, they went to primary school, whenever call them "This is Turkey speak Turkish" etc, whenever they are humiliated by Turks (including many Turkish workers) as "stinking Kurds" ...? And this is not an individual issue, it is a social issue happening in mass scale.

The existence of PKK refers to this problem and I think this is a real problem that relates to the very lives of millions. I assume you do not think this is just an unimportant issue? And it is actually this what I find impressive about PKK: they kind of negotiate this national content of their social base (majority) and direct it towards that is much more democratic and multi-ethnic politically.

kurremkarmerruk:

The racists attacks to Kurdish people is reality nobody can deny that, but the point is it's not just against Kurdish people and there're also racist people in Kurdish movement too, beyond nationalism. So it's again, no good and bad only, not that simple.

About more democratic and being multi-ethnic. I'm not democrat and i'm also against the demoracy and its different forms, i'm not a liberal in that sense like you. Got it?

"
...
Because the struggle, the life and death struggle, is not only against the fascists of past and present, those in the blackshirts, but is also and fundamentally against the power that oppresses us, with all the elements of support that make it possible, even when it wears the permissive and tolerant guise of democracy.

...

But I think it is useful to draw distinctions. I have never liked fascists, nor consequently fascism as a project. For other reasons (but which when carefully examined turn out to be the same), I have never liked the democratic, the liberal, the republican, the Gaullist, the labour, the Marxist, the communist, the socialist or any other of those projects. Against them I have always opposed not so much my being anarchist as my being different, therefore anarchist. First of all my individuality, my own personal way of understanding life and nobody else’s, of understanding it and therefore of living it, of feeling emotions, searching, discovering, experimenting, and loving. I only allow entry into this world of mine to the ideas and people who appeal to me; the rest I hold far off, politely or otherwise.

I don’t defend, I attack. I am not a pacifist, and don’t wait until things go beyond the safety level. I try to take the initiative against all those who might even potentially constitute a danger to my way of living life. And part of this way is also the need and desire for others—not as metaphysical entities, but clearly identified others, those who have an affinity with my way of living and being. And this affinity is not something static and determined once and for all. It is a dynamic fact which changes and continues to grow and widen, revealing yet other people and ideas, and weaving a web of immense and varied relations, but where the constant always remains my way of being and living, with all its variations and evolution.

I have traversed the realm of man in every sense and have not yet found where I might quench my thirst for knowledge, diversity, passion, dreams, a lover in love with love. Everywhere I have seen enormous potential let itself be crushed by ineptitude, and meagre capacity blossom in the sun of constancy and commitment. But as long as the opening towards what is different flourishes, the receptiveness to let oneself be penetrated and to penetrate to the point that there is not a fear of the other, but rather an awareness of one’s limitations and capabilities—and so also of the limits and capabilities of the other—affinity is possible; it is possible to dream of a common, perpetual undertaking beyond the contingent, human approach. The further we move away from all this, affinities begin to weaken and finally disappear. And so we find those outside, those who wear their feelings like medals, who flex their muscles and do everything in their power to appear fascinating. And beyond that, the mark of power, its places and its men, the forced vitality, the false idolatry, the fire without heat, the monologue, the chit chat, the uproar, the usable, everything that can be weighed and measured.

That is what I want to avoid. That is my antifascism.

"
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alfredo-m-bonanno-what-can-we-do-with-anti-fascism

The racists attacks to Kurdish people is reality nobody can deny that, but the point is it's not just against Kurdish people and there're also racist people in Kurdish movement too, beyond nationalism. So it's again, no good and bad only, not that simple.

Ok but my point was not that. My point was Kurdish movement as a movement is not racist. For example Rojova constitution makes reference to all sorts of national identities that build the canton. On the other hand for example The constitution of Turkish state says: it is only build by Turks, it is solely their land and state gets its legitimacy from national sovereignty (of Turks). If you look at the national anthem references to nationality goes beyond that and it references to Turkish blood.

So the point is individuals and organisations can be racists (like Turkey) However as an organisation Kurdish movement is not racist. It is even possibly the best alternative and control over Kurdish population to become anti-racist (as due to historical oppression from Turkish state and Turkish population many of them have very anti-Turk sentiments) However if you look at the politics of Kurdish movement. They try to prevent such racist emotions to grow very deeply. They even fro example critical of their own national identity ( For example: PKK recognized and pardoned and condemned Kurdish involvement in the Armenian Genocide.)

Of course I doubt this will satisfy an insurrectionist like you. However you can check everything I said with your friends etc. Not to be part of Kurdish movement of course, but to know them better at least.

I never saw PKK as an evil and i was not blind to what they are doing, that's also reason why i'm not supporting and on the current circumstances not equalizing them with ISIS which would be mad to say.

But also, i have to point out that, since you criticised the modernism before, you don't want to leave the modernist paradigm of thinking and always trying to find the lesser "evils" to support in that case organisations to support. And creating dualisms in that case comparing with Turkish State's constution.

As i said this is not anarchy in any mean, i'm not saying this is not insurrectionary anarchy, it's nothing to do with any kind of anarchy. It's your personal authoritarian choices which tries to be justify itself on circumstances, giving time to see what will happen. If you were going to critically support the individuals even who are connected to the PYD that would be different than now. But you're openly supporting organisations which are oppressive and militaristic. If you say that's critical support doesn't mean so much thing.

Even though there's a possibility to reach an anti-autharitarian practices inside an authoritarian progress of culture (that doesn't mean that culture needs to be supported), your position doesn't have enough critical position for that possibility but it strengths that authoritarian culture as many other supporters of that structures.

I did not criticized you, I perfectly know you are not totally against them. I just wished to express a point that was important for me.

By the way here, someone who appear to be a member of DAF made a comment under: Rojava: An Anarcho-Syndicalist Perspective (not an impressive one for my standards, but have a look at yourself)

http://ideasandaction.info/2014/10/rojava-anarcho-syndicalist-perspective/

About article itself: I guess this is one of the best articles that can be written by someone who is away from the region. Nevertheless It is sad for me to see the lies get circulate so much that they started to become reality for people away. Anyway this is part of human condition I guess. I will not speak on it more here. I just hope these lies are considered by readers as just suspicions and not proven facts, thus does not make barriers on solidarity with people of Rojova.

I am reading new compass now: They have some very informative articles. for example I mentioned in this thread that there is something called "The Mesopotamian Social Forum". If you want a glimpse of it from the words of Janeth Biehl. You should check this article out: http://new-compass.net/node/265

Marx-Trek

Perhaps the US is realizing that even though this political player was ignored almost 20 years ago, but now since the US war and political policy in the region has utterly failed and produced a blood thirsty wacko-a-doo band of reactionaries, and general civil war; the Peshmerga and Iraqi Kurdistan is perhaps that beacon of western hope in the region after such a royal fuck up of war in Iraq,etc... ]\

First of all didn't see any response to what was just said about anti-militarism. Second of all I had to post because this is such a blatantly ridiculous statement. The Kurds were ignored 20 years ago? The U.S. knew exactly what is was doing when it encouraged Kurds to try to topple Saddam in 1991, only to then allow them to be all slaughtered by Saddam's forces when the U.S. decided that they preferred Saddam to whatever form of autonomy would exist as a result of the Kurds and the Iraqi working class taking power. The slaughter of Kurdish and Iraqi rebels took place while the U.S. occupying the country and the U.S. allowed it all to happen. Robert Fisk argues that the crackdown on the rebellion in 1991 was so brutal and merciless that it is the prime reason that when the U.S. invaded in 2003 that nobody took the U.S. commitment to democracy seriously.

Following this, the next major interaction that I know of between the U.S. and the Kurds 20 years ago was in Turkey, where the Clinton administration was supplying weapons (including chemical weapons) to Turkey which were then used to kill thousands of Kurds living in Southeastern Turkey.

Soapy

Can you open what do you ask a bit more? "First of all didn't see any response to what was just said about anti-militarism. "

kurremkarmerruk

Soapy

Can you open what do you ask a bit more? "First of all didn't see any response to what was just said about anti-militarism. "

The post by AES

AES has a bad habit of posting the same thing in multiple threads. I kind of discussed it or at least raised some questions to him in another thread so I did not wish to fill all forum debates with my own arbitrary manifestos in name of anti-militarism (or similar stuff).

If you want to read, it is this one: https://libcom.org/forums/news/isis-17062014?page=8#comment-546113

kurremkarmerruk

AES has a bad habit of posting the same thing in multiple threads. I kind of discussed it or at least raised some questions to him in another thread so I did not wish to fill all forum debates with my own arbitrary manifestos in name of anti-militarism (or similar stuff).

Boy that's ironic.....

No I do not post the same thing, you might not like it but I do not wrote something in word and then post it to every forum. I think this is just bad form of discussion. I spent time and wrote replies to people. I wish the same back from people. I know my answers might not be good or short but, I never did this.

kurremkarmerruk

AES:If you care to look at you would see anarchist have a long history off supporting national liberation movements (as freedom from people's own liberation from their racial/capitalist oppressors)

Just noticed this. What the hell? There's nothing very anarchist about supporting the creation of new nation-states, which in practice is what successful national liberation movements always lead to.

Tyrion

Yeah I know it doesn't look very real looking back from the mindset of contemporary world, However there is such history (and to me: an ambiguous but proud one) For example check "Anarchism and History of Ideas (5)" in this link: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/media/wwwlboroacuk/content/phir/documentsandpdfs/ASN%20Conference%20Schedule%2027.8%20FINAL.pdf
Historically anarchists never avoided questions of ethnicity, race etc... And although the summaries of these presentations were not included in the link. Anarchists were never dismissive of the oppressed people and their rights and also their fights.

Also for example Landauer must have engage with this question related to ethnicity and anarchism to certain extend. Maybe someone can help us, what was his thoughts?

Also see this for example: https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/handle/2134/10266 Here Sureyyya Evren challenges the eurocentric historiography of anarchism and shows actually it is a very limited picture of what anarchism meant in global level. (and in the periphery of the capitalist center, there were really interesting anarchists who tried to negotiate issues of ethnicity to anarchism.)

Soapy I am having a really really really hard time seeing any difference of opinion or memory of history between your post and mine? Your comment reads like a counter point but all I see in your post is agreement on the history of US/Western non-intervention and allowing Saddam to brutally suppress the uprisings in Iraq. So what is your point?

Regarding anti-militarism? What do you want me to say? I find the point moot (because I a generally agree with anti-militarism (in an ideological sense) and a response simply seems a little ridiculous. I do not see the point to read or respond to posts that read like a laundry list of what anarchists are for and against. Seriously? What is the point of engaging such a post?

But here you have it. Yes, as an autonomist-leftist I am against nation building, militarization of state power, and oppose military intervention, and nation-state military operations for capitalist interests.

As an autonomist-leftist I am for a defense of any kind by people of a community that organizes for autonomy, class struggle, fight for communal minority defense, etc...etc...etc...(some examples are: Zapatistas, CNT-FAI, Black Panthers, Deacons for self defense, Robert F. Williams, YPG, POUM, etc...)

Also, since I am not a staunch anarchist ideologists who only supports anarchists actions and groups but will give vocal support/understanding for other groups fighting for "freedom" maybe not my "freedom" but a "freedom" nonetheless. I will choose to stand in solidarity with groups I deem fit not because of pure ideological reasons but social, historical, and material reasons as well.

Again, I find the need to even address militarization on this basic ideological level as pretty fucking strange, silly, and moot (because I assume people posting on libcom have somewhat obvious similar views) if you look at the issue without overly ideological lenses.

And now sense I am on such a rant I will indulge a little further. The Banana quotes are to much. Say it yourself, just because he said it does not make it right or any more important. That shit ain't scripture. Some other posts on this thread already made the point of not referring to dead old men or books but instead apply principals and strategy to the current situation...good idea.

If you want my view on any other wiki anarchist topic find it somewhere else. Whats the next question? "Marx-Trek and K what is your stance on authority?" Seriously, why was my answer to militization necessary?

I apologize and realize this post is poison to the discussion but for some reason people were dying for a response.

===========================Kurdish Question/Discussion----------------------------------------

Anyone have any interesting news regarding Iraqi Kurdish forces, US aid, and reactions to these developments within the YPG, etc...? I am afraid a strategy to support and bolster the moderates is at work.

Just a quick question, people are aware that ethnic minority "nationalism" or "national liberation struggles" is not always about building nation-states, right? Though I agree with critique against national liberation movements in a similar manner that the Black Panther Party criticized national liberation struggles and cultural nationalism.

By the way I find this:

This is the last mail Nejat Agirnasli wrote before going to Kobane (where he was killed) If I am not mistaken, he was discussed in this forum thread:

http://fraksiyon.org/suphi-nejat-agirnasli-every-heart-is-a-revolutionary-cell/

"As an ordinary young man, I simply made a choice imposed by mundane contradictions. And above all, I made this choice for myself. I didn’t hit the road to serve a lofty aim; I just wanted to enchant life, this charmless, reified world side by side with earthly people. I have learned that my contradictions couldn’t be overcome, but one could only endeavor to socialize and organize such contradictions at a higher level inasmuch as they are social. This was the point in my life where I was closest to Truth."

Despite my "public" perception, I really try not to do emtpy Kurdish propaganda, However this post might be considered as one as it is only related to a music video.

http://www.imctv.com.tr/2014/10/22/kardes-turkulerden-kobaniye-klipli-destek/

This song is made by Kerdeş Turkuler (Translation: Brother/sister folk songs) It is an ethnic music band focused on reviving the musical plurality of the Turkey (not just Kurdish). They are originally the music society of Bogazici University. The video in the music clip is real footage, of protests against borders, of Kobane, of Kurdish population etc... (Clip has English text that describes the situation of Kobane) The song is in Kurdish I do not understand what it says. It is recorded for solidarity with Kobane. It is part of a current campaign of artists. The campaign is named “Savaşa Karşı Ses Çıkar” (Shout against the war). The aim of the campaign is to make Turkish State open a safe passage to Kobane.

(Here other artists support the same campaign by reading poems by Ursula K Le Guin: http://www.imctv.com.tr/2014/10/15/sanatcilardan-sanatcilara-savasa-meydan-oku-cagrisi/ )

As this campaign is related to "solidarity with Kobane". I thought I should post them here in case anyone wishes to check them out, or learn more about some of the leftists relation to Kobane, or get some visual clues to situation, etc... (also the music is awesome :D like all of their compositions)

Marx-Trek

Boomerang and serge, etc....

...

As to your concerns for lack of indepth analysis, I get your concern and agree. However, I would have to point out, despite the want for a indepth critical discussion, this thread has:

1. gone from a discussion of anarchists in the region going to support the Kobani fight against ISIS and solidarity; to,

2. to asking why anarchists would go to the region to support such a fight; to,

Ok. I've read a couple other threads thoroughly, but since it's become repetitive I now am just skimming them (this thread is soo long, which is why I've only skimmed).

The justification for anarchists (or others) going to Kobane to fight ISIS is to prevent a massacre, mass-rapes, mass-enslavement, and other horrendous things that ISIS would do. Do you have to like the PYD or PKK to want to prevent this? No.

And while you're there you can encourage people to start seeing things through the lense of class struggle, and encourage a break with these hierarchical parties.

boomerang

The justification for anarchists (or others) going to Kobane to fight ISIS is to prevent a massacre, mass-rapes, mass-enslavement, and other horrendous things that ISIS would do. Do you have to like the PYD or PKK to want to prevent this? No.

The problem is PKK does never (it never did in the past) allow any independent armed group to operate on its terrain. In fact, it is even opposed to any other intervention, even other Kurdish parties. Just yesterday they announced that they will not allow the peshmarge troops enter Kobane to fight ISIS! I think that is enough reason to see that what PKK is really fighting against is not rape and murder, but challenges to its hegemonic power.

Mikail do you have any links to prove that?

To prove what? I suggest you to read this book (free pdf's are available) for historical background of PKKs tactics and strategy:

http://books.google.com/books?id=V1uhlcKklRYC&pg=PR1&lpg=PR1&dq=aliza+marcus+blood+and+belief&source=bl&ots=Vtuf36w1Sr&sig=yzx-G0Of97fkjU2RozZrZf-uh6M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VSRIVOOKAZbfsASsv4DgCg&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=aliza%20marcus%20blood%20and%20belief&f=false

Boomerang,

No you do not have to like the PYD, YPG, and/or PKK in order to be supportive of people fighting against ISIS in defense of their homes. You can just want to support people, etc... And yes, of course you can talk to people while you there. Just like the anarchists that have chosen to go there to either support like DAF, like syndicalists who have gone to learn about what is happening, and the group that went and studied the Cantons and produced a study about Rojava.

I would say that the reason to support or even go to Rojava to help in the fight against ISIS is not only to prevent bad things from happening but also to learn and support what appears to be an emerging communalist effort...and "solidarity".

Mikail,

There has already been some posts concerning the YPG/PKK's not allowing other fighting forces in the region. Some reasons are interesting others are obviously problematic. I think not letting the peshmerga, if this is happening, could actually be argued as a relevant and valid point. Since the Peshmerga is tied to the Iraqi Kurdistan state which is developing closer ties with Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan does not want or allow PKK/YPG forces within Iraqi Kurdistan.

I figure that all the YPG haters on this thread would actually applaud the YPG for not allowing a militarized force that is moderate, acting with US support, and has ties to Turkey into Kobani to fight against ISIS but for Western/NATO/US interests.

Median Empire MC Germany has joined the fight for Kurds against ISIS:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-motorcycle-club-members-join-dutch-bikers-in-fight-against-isis-9804525.html

I figure that all the YPG haters on this thread would actually applaud the YPG for not allowing a militarized force that is moderate, acting with US support, and has ties to Turkey into Kobani to fight against ISIS but for Western/NATO/US interests.

This could be a question open to debate;

1)if PKK was not already in alliance with Syrian state in 1990s, and with Barzani and Talabani in northern Iraq today. In fact, pesmerge and PKK are carrying our joint operations in Northern Iraq.

2)if PKK itself was not a militarized state-like apparatus.

3)if PKK did not already receive American arms...

Where did you find information that the US is supporting the PKK? Would love to read further on that issue. All I have read and seen is that the US views the PKK as a terrorist organization, is concerned that arms drops men to be to given to the Peshmerga may get into YPG/PKK hands.

Found this article ( http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29684761 ), US airdrops in Kobani of Iraqi Kurdish supplies being dropped by US planes. Is this what you are referring to? And, http://online.wsj.com/articles/us-airdrops-weapons-and-supplies-to-besieged-syrian-kurds-in-kobani-1413761080?tesla=y

I am not all that keen on the 90s Syrian Kurdish political moves but from what I have read it seems that there was been fighting and tension between the two groups. The same with tensions between Barzani/Iraqi Kurdish authorty and the YPG/PKK.

As for the YPG/PKK alreay being a state-like apparatus - I think our discussion on the Rojava Cantons and Syrian Kurdish developments, organizational shift, and history of the PKK/YPG and I guess we just disagree on what the developments and new things emerging means. I think the syndicalist perspective article properly addresses these issues.

Hey K,

What is the political relationship or connection or link between Mr. Muslim the PYD and the Rojava Cantons? I know there is some information in the Anarcho-synidicalist article concerning the PYD and the cantons but I was wondering if you could quickly explain it as well?

This article I mean: http://libcom.org/news/experiment-west-kurdistan-syrian-kurdistan-has-proved-people-can-make-changes-zaher-baher-2

I am tired of writing the same thing, so if you don't mind please see the previous pages for links about;

1) Saleh Muslim's negotiations with the US officials.

2) Arms drop to PKK/PYD in Kobane.

I am not all that keen on the 90s Syrian Kurdish political moves but from what I have read it seems that there was been fighting and tension between the two groups. The same with tensions between Barzani/Iraqi Kurdish authorty and the YPG/PKK.

Yeah there was "occasional conflicts", but occasional alliances with Barzani and/or Talabani as well. About Syria connection in 1990s; Ocalan lived in Damascus (capitol city of Syria) under the protection of Hafiz Esad's government in this period till he was captured by Turkey in 1999. The PKK had military camps and was the only Kurdish nationalist group that Esad allowed to legally operate in northern Syria in this period:

Syria always had the closest relations with the PKK and around
1985 Damascus expanded ties.13 The PKK was allowed to take full
control of the Helwe training camp in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley,
where PKK militants trained with Palestinian guerrillas before the
1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon pushed both the Palestinians and
PKK militants further north. At the same time, contact between Syria
and Ocalan became more frequent. Although Damascus relied on its
intelligence services and local intermediaries to carry out dialogue
with foreign militant groups, President Hafez al-Assad’s younger
brother Cemil Assad took a particular interest in the PKK and visited
its Helwe camp. Apart from a seat in the People’s Assembly, Cemil Assad
had no official position in the Syrian government, but he essentially
controlled the port city of Latakia, and PKK militants believed
he was responsible for organizing Arabs living in Turkey’s Hatay region,
the former Syrian province that Syria still claimed.
p.99

Damascus was wary of its own Kurdish minority and it continued
to make clear to the PKK that it could not agitate on behalf of Syrian
Kurds. However, Damascus began encouraging the PKK to recruit
members from among the Syrian Kurdish population, hoping this
would redirect local Kurdish attention away from fighting for change
inside Syria. The PKK already was fairly well known among Syrian
Kurds. In his first few years in Syria, Ocalan gave speeches to Syrian
Kurds, and PKK militants often traveled around the Syrian Kurdish
villages to make propaganda and collect money.
Syrian Kurds, especially university students, were excited by the
PKK and its promise of an independent Kurdish state, even if it was
going to be a Turkish Kurdish state.
p100

These quotes are from Aliza Markus' book on PKK, one of the few credible ones around.

Dido, writing the same thing over and over is what this thread has become. However, your recent post have provided new and interesting information to the history of Syrian Kurdistan.

I agree with you on 1 and 2, this happened, are happening. The impact or fall out from these political and fighting efforts, we will just have to wait and see.

I want to read Blood & Belief, it seems like an interesting historical read.

Though history is relevant, I think the changes that are emerging as best expressed by Ireland WSM, this article: http://libcom.org/news/experiment-west-kurdistan-syrian-kurdistan-has-proved-people-can-make-changes-zaher-baher-2 , the stories in Roarmag, Democractic Autonomy in Northern Kurdistan,Dirik talk, and all the other reports coming from western Syrian Kurdistan about the autonomous developments; seems to be substantial changes from past ways that these Kurdish movements and the PKK are now doing things. I do not think that anyone on here ever denied the problematic history or vald critiques of the old/past PKK.

From Ireland WSM,

Eyewitness audio recording of Zaher Baher of the Kurdistan Anarchists Forum looking at the experiences of self-management in the West Kurdisan region, experiments that have become more widely discussed as the result of the defense of Kobane against ISIS.
The audio was recorded at the meeting organised by the London Anarchist Bookfair and KAF at LABF2014
Their description in the program for the bookfair read "A comrade from the Kurdish Anarchist Federation (KAF) and Haringey Solidarity Group has just returned from Syrian Kurdistan. Speaking with numerious people while there, it seems there is a desire to run Western Kurdistan (the Syrian part) along broadly non hierarchical, and dare we say anarchist, lines. As the KAF member says, “The best example the ‘Arab Spring’ produced so far is the ‘movement of the democracy society’ in Syrian Kurdistan. This emerged from the bottom of society where everybody regardless of their nationalities, religions, beliefs and genders came together to build local groups, the ‘house of the people’, neighbourhood committees and the Communes”. This while a war is being raged against them by ISIS."

You can listen to the audio recording at:
http://www.mixcloud.com/workerssolidarity/anarchist-eyewitness-to-self-management-in-kurdish-syria-west-kurdistan/

It seems I was hasty about assessing PKKs desire to stay independent from Barzani; Saleh Muslim (PYD) and Barzani came to an agreement now. Pesmarge troops may be on their way to Kobane.

http://www.radikal.com.tr/dunya/suriyeli_kurtler_ortak_yonetimde_anlasti-1220660

According to this news report PKK front groups and Barzani's party (ENKS, PYD, TEV-DEM, EGRK) signed the "Duhok Treaty agreement" as of yestreday.

According to this agreement Syrian Kurds will form a joint administration, organize a joint military force and political union. An inter-group political mechanism will be established. In this joint administration TEV-DEM and ENKS will be represented.

Thanks mikail. But i can not find any news that says they rejected peshmerga. On the contrary yesterday they sined a cooperation pact with barzani. I do not know its contents for now. So according to what you said they rejected Peshnerga in Kobane 2 days ago?

Also mikhail if i remember correctly just 2 or 3 days ago when the news that said pesmerga will be allowed to cross Turkey, did not you claimed pkk barzani and Turkey just agred with each other (and US). You were critical of that cooperation. And now you are also critical of the non-cooperation that you say is happening in Kobane now. Isn't it a bit telling about your criticism of PKK

Mikail yeah this is the news i also heard. It is published in Times yesterday (that they are trying to make an agrrement)

Kurremkarmerruk;

Yes well, first I read the news about US arms being sent to PYD in Kobane and Turkey's opening of corridor for Pesmerge. That indeed meant an agreement between PYD, Turkey, Barzani, the US.

Then 2 days ago, I realized that my comment was hasty indeed. It seems PKK and Barzani was not in agreement. Because PYD declared that they did not want pesmerge's involvement in Kobane war. And naturally, that confirmed my conviction about PYDs hypocrisy; because if the situation is dire and if PYD cared about people, why should it reject PYD support then?

And yesterday we suddenly learned that PKKs concern was not the defense of Kobane but coming to an agreement with Barzani about the management of Rojeva. They formed a coalition government as the above news indicate. So basically, my position and doubts have been confirmed.

However, you are right, that I was clearly wrong about PKKs unwillingness to cooperate with an independent military force. At least they are open to work with Barzani's pesmerge forces.

Mikail:

Then 2 days ago, I realized that my comment was hasty indeed. It seems PKK and Barzani was not in agreement. Because PYD declared that they did not want pesmerge's involvement in Kobane was. And naturally, that confirmed my conviction about PYDs hypocrisy; because if the situation is dire and if PYD cared about people, why should it reject PYD support then?

No, you are making it up again? Maybe you were a victim of your hatred of PKK ? Because I also was scanning the news and I did not find any statement form PYD that says We do not want Peshmerga. On the contrary there were statements saying that we are dissapointed by lack of support from Iraq Kurdistan. So can you provide us with a link please?

Mikail

Yeah PKK is open to cooperation with Barzani However I do not think this is only result of their own will. Because you know we sometimes forget but Kobane (and Syrian Kurdistan in general) is not only a political entity. It is also a social entity. It has millions of people living in it. That has different views on politics. If PYD declares itself as a supreme authority as a political entity, this would propably result in a civil war. Especially people who support Barzani in Syria will not be happy with it. As far as I know, PYD and Barzani parites declared autonomy together, and most of the "representative" structure of government has equal members from PYD and KNC (Kurdish national council, this organisation has a lot of names but it is coalition of parties that support Barzani) There are also liberals (it is a party) also quotas for all sorts of ethnic minorities and religions etc... So PYD is not and can not act alone, and it is not just imposing its own will on this level. However as YPG is the only armed force (till now) and it is close to PKK that was criticized by KNC as acting oppresively. This is the political situation of PYD. Although they are not very fond of Barzani, they need to have an agreement for social reasons (apart form military reasons that might arise contractually) Lastly, when the war will finish there will be open elections and the representative pat of the power structure will be elected according to votes of people, so we will see then: who will have the upper hand in Syrian Kurdistan, who will be able to put his political principles into practice.

Why should I make such up such a thing Kurremkarmerruk? For example please see this:

http://www.aljazeera.com.tr/al-jazeera-ozel/pyd-ve-kdpnin-kobanide-iktidar-mucadelesi

Marx-Trek:

On issue of not letting Peshmerga into Kobane, I agree with you that it it will have an harmful effect on development of cummunalism there. Well it was actually why I scanned all the news to see any sign PYD would reject that (as Mikail strangely claimed they did). however then later I reconsider my position and think abut already existing presence of Barzani in Syrian Kurdistan on political level, So you can read my above post on it. I think it offers a good insight to why Peshmerga is about to enter Kobane now.

Ok mikail, I accept that. Apologies (however this is just a political commentary that is written down to condemn PYD I guess. It become invalid even yesterday. Aljezeera is also know to support Barzani anyway. May I suggest also to read Firatnews to get correct news on PYD's position)

YPG says: there is still no arms support from Syrian regime (It is today's news)
http://www.firatnews.com/news/guncel/ypg-suriye-rejimi-silah-ve-muhimmat-yardimi-yapmadi.htm

EDITED due to misreading and wrong translation

http://www.firatnews.com/news/guncel/evrensel-degerlerin-savasini-veriyoruz.htm

PYD co-leader Asya Abdullah says: (in summary form) "IS sees Kobane as an issue of prestige. It is trying to gather support and people by claiming they are fighting against US. We would be glad if Peshmerga helps in our fight. In last three days attack of IS increased."

Marx-Trek:

I know some stuff on "Mr. Muslim the PYD and the Rojava Cantons" but I am not sure if it is correct:First of all Muslim is co leader of PYD (just like Asya Abdullah who is a woman, I mention her in my above comment) PYD is the Kurdish party which is ideologically in the same line with PKK. However, they are free to act on their will in Syria. In 2000's they were declared illegal by Syrian regime and treated harshly. In 2011, with the instability in Syrian regime, they made a pact with other big Kurdish parties (sided with Parzani) And declared autonomy in Cantons. I think the all Cantons have their own local councils and govern themselves. However on trans-canton level there is a supreme parliament like organization that has equal members of PYD and Barzani parties (and also other parties, like liberals) and other representatives of different ethnicities and religions. YPG is connected to this parlament. However YPG is practically full of members of armed forces of PYD, as other parties did not have such forces and Barzani did not sent his man to help (he actually backed up his power in Iraq). The articles in new compass say that: it is still not totally decided that what are the boundaries of these two kinds of governments, they are still existing as practical arrangements I guess and not strict rules. I don't know, if this helped :D

By the way I also heard from multiple friends that, some of the Kurdish population started to shout pro-US, pro- Obama slogans (in Rojova), or make such Facebook postings etc.. My Kurdish friends were very critical of that however such sympathy for US seems to be on increase.

kurremkarmerruk:

YPG says: there is still no arms support from Iraq Kurdistan. (It is today's news) This issue is really complex grin

http://www.firatnews.com/news/guncel/ypg-suriye-rejimi-silah-ve-muhimmat-yardimi-yapmadi.htm

I'm not sure how much motivation you have to support the authuritarian ones but it gets clear more and more. The link that you post have no crtics to Iraq Kurdistan, not even one little information about it. it only talks about the Syrian Government.

Go for your future election hope :)

deleted, sorry, wrong thread

tw_

I read it wrong sorry. I will edit it accordingly

tw_

By the way, you know Turkish, You seem to know some stuff about Kurdish movement and Kobane. so I have a question (I asked it earlier actually). Here in this forum we know for example mikail (someone who knows Turkish) is totally opposed to solidarity with Kobane. You also seem to oppose at least a bit to Kobane (I mean it is my impression)? And I am pretty optimistic about Kobane (as another Turkish knowing person)

But what is your idea on why every Anarchist organization in Turkey (well most of the leftists actually, if you exclude nationalist left like communist party etc.) support Kobane (and Rojova as a possible social revolution)? What is your explanation about it? Why such tendency is prevalent among anarchists in Turkey? I mean they can not be all power hungry like me, right? What might they be seeing important in it, though they themselves are surely not parts of Kurdish movement?

I ask you this primarily to give other people who might be reading this forum a glimpse of Turkish politics and political positions in it.

Anarchists, syndicalists, socialists, communists and others who are revolutionaries show solidarity with the working class, in this case with the Syrian, Kurdish, Turkish and Arabic working class - and not solidarity with the PKK/PYD - which are a hierarchical ethnic nationalist capitalist paramilitary party-complex, which do not allow or tolerate independent working class self-organisation.

At the very least, a boycott of all support (even critical support) for the PKK (and all of its auxiliaries) should apply as a general approach of our position - until such a time that relations (about these "self-managed" cross class experiments) and their significance can be made clear internationally, by an independent working class controlled organisation.

The significance of political shift within the PKK can best be entirely explained still within the politics of neostalinism. A perfect comparative example is the tactical experimentalism of South African Communist Party (SACP), which within its neostalinist policy intentionally launched the "ungovernability" campaign to further its credibility as a fighting organisation amongst the working class. It went ahead to propose the creation and advancement of multiple cross class "workers' organisations" in the form of reformist unions, civic associations, womens' and students' organisations (all centrally controlled by the SACP through its Tripartite Alliance) which today represents the single greatest obstacle to revolutionary working class struggle in Southern Africa.

Solidarity with the Syrian, Kurdish, Turkish and Arabic working class not the PKK/PYD

Yeah AES

I am all for that. Personally my political support might go beyond what you propose in your comment (Not because I am nationalist though, but because Kurdish movement might symbolize something beyond that). This is due to my personal experiences and ideas, which of course might not persuade anyone accept me as an objective point. Maybe especially at the start of this debate I might be forcing people too much to persuade on my views (which failed miserably).

However now I get it now, people in this forum (with valuable exceptions maybe) are very critical against even a hint of any sort of nationalism whatsoever in name of worker class politics (This still signifies to me total negation of any politics (at least in some contexts), however I keep my ideas to myself.)

(As you might be noticing) I am not criticizing nearly no one now. I am trying to discuss issues in more historical (my questions to you on history of anarchism and ethnicity questions) or political (like my question to tw_ on how he/she perceives current solidarity of anarchists with Kobane?) terms.

So maybe now we can switch to a discussion to (and I consider these related to actual topic of this page):
1) Different forms of solidarity for working class people in Kobane: What has been done? What can be done? What was good/ what was bad etc?
2) To what extend we must support Kobane? Arms? Direct Democracy mechanisms (if they exist)? Humanitarian aid? Or just refugee help?
3) What are the channels we get correct info on situation of Kobane? Especially from a working class perspective?

NOTE: By the way I am trying to speak as civil as possible but let me say this to you: Your discussion style (that always posting manifestos, does not replying back, posting the same shit in different forum threads by copy-paste and being a total dick against who you think as "class collaborators") is disturbing me as hell, if this was your aim, congratulations you achieved your aim. Please do not do that.

AES

Why did you edit your comment? You could just replied back below?

I had no idea about your comment because I was still correcting my post to accurately reflect my position and experience. You can edit your reply, if needed.

Ok but how do you propose to make solidairty with the people in kobane for example? How do you plan to have "Solidarity with the Syrian, Kurdish, Turkish and Arabic working class" in this context? If you have a workable suggestion I am all for supporting that. Do you know any such campaign for example? Which kinds of support to working class there appeal to you? Do you plan to make it with your organisation (if you are into one)?

Ok no need.

Revolutionaries show solidarity by sharing experience about false hope that neostalinists (SACP, PKK, etc) have used amongst our class, only for them to leave our class deeper entrenched in updated mechanisms of capitalism and apparatus of the state (revolutionaries are not needed for such "advancements"). Supporting, including critical support for oppressors (those who rip us off and boss us around) is not solidarity.

AES:

I do not understand what you mean here:

At the very least, a boycott of all support (even critical support) for the PKK (and all of its auxiliaries) should apply as a general approach of our position - until such a time that relations (about these "self-managed" cross class experiments) and their significance can be made clear internationally, by an independent working class controlled organisation.

Until what time? I do not understand what you exactly mean here?

I do not know so much about Africa, but I am just hoping that "South African Communist Party" is the biggest obstacle in the way of the revolution there. However it still does correlate enough to Kurdish movement here. Because Kurdish movement is a movement of minorities essentially, who were deprived of their "ethnic" rights? For example who will defend those? What is your opinion on those? Who should defend it? Moreover how we can create a movement that both is working class and advocates "collective rights" of Kurds? What is your stance on it?

AES

But you automatically start with a "we". However how do you know Kurdish (working class) population consider you part of this "we" from the start. Especially in the context of your call for solidarity is effectively a call for denying any support to (including even a critical one) people fighting in Kobane for the very lives and homes of the working class in question?
This "we" might be another form of speaking in the name of the Kurdish working class, maybe? How does it differ from party politics of Stalinism?

When you say "advocates collective rights of Kurds" I understand by this that you mean Kurdish workers and also employers, then you are confirming that you are actually a nationalist - not unlike someone who would argue for advocates of "collective rights" of Germans or Russians or Ukrainians, etc (ad nauseam). There is nothing revolutionary about yet another bourgeois "self-management" experiment, other than potentially improving or updating capitalism and state within that region.

I am class conscious. The advancement of the working class against its enemies - capitalism and the state, is the only real we (in the us vs them sense) of interest to me and other revolutionaries.

AES

I am class conscious.

:D
(AES, I am using this assuming english is your first language (otherwise it would not be as funny))

Yeah you are right on what I meant. But from when on the basic right of someone's language is considered to be unrelated (and even oppositional) to working class interests? So basically for example a class struggle in Turkey should effectively eliminate Kurdishness in all its forms right? I will wait for your reply to continue my point.

You seek to recruit sympathy for a cross class ethnic paramilitary party-complex. You are no revolutionary, not unless if you can bring yourself to support a demand for real independent working class organisation (independent of government including all political parties, police, military, judiciary and all other state apparatus and independent from employers and other defenders of capitalism) which means to stand for such a demand against the PKK.

I am a class struggle social revolutionist and not a nationalist, so the nationality of any person is not grounds for exclusion, what is a deciding factor is whether the person identifies with the system of relations of capitalism and the state (and endorses any such structures).

Are you saying there is some impossibility for a working class organisation to be established within that region in such a way that it is independent of capitalism and state (and its functionaries) ?

kurremkarmerruk

So basically for example a class struggle in Turkey should effectively eliminate Kurdishness in all its forms right? I will wait for your reply to continue my point.

That is not at all what AES is saying, and although I think s/he's being bombastic and argue partly through slogans, that's a very disingenuous interpretation kurremkarmerruk. Working class struggles in Turkey would include all kinds of different people, Turks, Kurds, Arabs, whoever else that lives in Turkey and is working class. It is not about affirmation of ones ethnicity or nationality, but about asserting the power of the class. And not make common cause with your national bourgeoisie as you are suggesting. It is perfectly possible to be Kurdish and remain Kurdish (whatever that may mean) and still engage in working class struggle. While that is possible in Turkey now is another question (and from what I've gathered very unlikely).

I consider the arguments I'm making to be the most basic and rudimentary fundamentals of social revolutionary working class organisation.

I am against taking sides in this bourgeois campaign of militarism based on biased and uncritical information and the capitalist media. We are expected to consider taking a favourable or sympathetic view of "national liberation struggles" or in this specific case for the cross class "self-management" experiments of "democratic confederalism", but as a starting point we should require proof of at least one existing working class organisation independent of capitalism and state (and its functionaries) so that impartial, reliable and credible information from such an independent working class organisation can be made available for international social revolutionists to consider forming their positions but no such organisation exists - not in public, not underground, not in exile, not at all - not least because of the dominance and control of the PKK.

AES and Khawaga:

Hey people, please do not read "me", read what I wrote. I am not defending PKK or anything here. I am just asking about a point I made to AES. It is related to subject of working class movement and ethnicity.I asked a simple question: Who will defend most basic collective rights of a minority population in a society. AES said: by asking this question I automatically become a nationalist, so I have no place in a working class movement. I conclude from this so basically if I was a member of excluded, discriminated minority population in a society, revolutionary working class movement of it would need me to eliminate my "whatever minority-ness" to be part of it. Is this correct for you?

Let me turn it to a more concrete example: For example I am from X minority group, I am working class, I am a member of an independent working class organization in the country of Y (majority of people who live in Y are ethnically Ys) X is my mother language, However only Y is allowed to be used in education. OK? My question is: As a member of working class organisation, if I say my child is discriminated against in school as he/she does not know well Y language so basically treated as a moron by his/her teacher and his/her peers and say we should not allow state to do that! Does this issue is related to independent working class organization of country Y, how should this organization react to this demand? What is your opinions? should they exclude this member as a nationalist?

Don't misquote me, I said

"nationality of any person is not grounds for exclusion"

"When you say "advocates collective rights of Kurds" I understand by this that you mean Kurdish workers and also employers, then you are confirming that you are actually a nationalist - not unlike someone who would argue for advocates of "collective rights" of Germans or Russians or Ukrainians, etc (ad nauseam). There is nothing revolutionary about yet another bourgeois "self-management" experiment, other than potentially improving or updating capitalism and state within that region."

You deliberately obscure and confuse my position which is in favour of independent working class organisation - which would obviously be in opposition to racism - such as workers/unwaged organisation against a racially defined target.

The appropriate revolutionary response to racism is to demand independent working class organisation not to endorse enthnic (race) nationalism, such as your position and that of the PKK.

kurremkarmerruk

AES said: by asking this question I automatically become a nationalist, so I have no place in a working class movement. I conclude from this so basically if I was a member of excluded, discriminated minority population in a society, revolutionary working class movement of it would need me to eliminate my "whatever minority-ness" to be part of it. Is this correct for you?

So I was correct in my interpretation of how you understood AES, which precisely was a reading of what you wrote, not of you.

Anyway, the point is that your identity shouldn't matter if it is a working class movement (a normative shouldn't because we all know that in practice the working class is in many cases quite racist, sexist and exclusionary).

I did not quote you. I wrote what I understand from your message. Why do you think I accuse you with anything. I am asking you honestly a question:

Would an independent working class organisation should fight for rights of a minority group that is discriminated against in a society? Or would you consider it as a question unrelated to interests of global working class and do not care?

I honestly want to know your answer, that is all. Why you started to act so defensive all of a sudden?

Khawaga

The comment about reading me was more related to "AES". sorry for including you to that part. So I think you are sympathetic that working class organization should defend the right of that minority group I suppose? (In the context of my example let's say)

You defend social partnership (class collaboration between workers and employers) through ethnic nationalism (based on race grounds) you are a reactionary.

You deliberately obscure and confuse my position which is in favour of independent working class organisation - which would obviously be in opposition to racism, against racially motivated targeting of any working class grouping.

The appropriate revolutionary response to racism is to demand independent working class organisation not to endorse enthnic (race) nationalism, such as your position and that of the PKK.

You have not bothered to answer my question -

Are you saying there is some impossibility for a working class organisation to be established within that region in such a way that it is independent of capitalism and state (and its functionaries) ?

Why you are labeling me still? What did I do to you? Your hatred against class collaborators brings me to tears AES :D ( Khawaga you see what I mean?)

Let's change this to a "conversion" discussion. Ok? I was a secret nationalist. But you found me AES and what you wrote really affected me, OK? I am even thinking to be part of whatever international class organisation you are in OK? But I have a little question, could you just answer that for me please? (By the way "this hypothetical organization" is definitely not PKK, I really do not think so)

Would an independent working class organisation should fight for rights of a minority group that is discriminated against in a society? Or would you consider it as a question unrelated to interests of global working class and do not care?

AES

No I think it could be, it could actually be not exclusive to region, it would be wider in my opinion, if it was what it aimed to be, OK? Now could you answer mine?

You endorse the PKK, which is an ethnic nationalist party-complex, which has a reputation of supressing left or worker organisations. I favour boycotting and opposing all appeals of sympathy for the PKK party-complex (and its fake experimentalism). So instead of support for the PKK, I demand an independent working class organisation which is actually revolutionary and separate from capitalism and the state. I don't intend to speculate about the exact terrain it would cover, how its members would fight racism, etc. but building capitalist hierarchical formations based on a race criteria instead of class, is not the answer.

But you do not answer to me? What scares you so much about my little question? Anyone wishing to comment, answer?

Would an independent working class organisation should fight for rights of a minority group that is discriminated against in a society? Or would you consider it as a question unrelated to interests of global working class and do not care?

I am not tricking you, this organisation. I am referring is not PKK. I really wonder why nobody cares about this real question?

NOTE: AES also please do not speak on my behalf, I can do that just fine. I know what I am supporting.

I have answered you already

AES

You deliberately obscure and confuse my position which is in favour of independent working class organisation - which would obviously be in opposition to racism, against racially motivated targeting of any working class grouping.

Are you refusing that the working class can organise on a class basis against race discrimination ?

Do you support the revolutionary demand for working class organisations to be able to associate independent of capitalism and the state, or do you not accept this demand ?

1) I am not refusing anything I am asking you a simple question to answer.
2) I accept the demand, although on principle basis (otherwise any organisation, that is legal, could not be pro-working class at all.)

I know the basics and history of anarcho-syndicalism, no need to educate me on that, OK?

Anyway so I understand that you (also Khawaga) seem to be sympathetic that such minority "language right" demand could be defended by working class organisations, right? For example just as a demand for 8 hour workday could be defended, or a right to form worker's unions demanded?

Did I understand correctly?

AES

I am not asking you; are you racist or not, Ok? I assume that you are not racist in the first place. I would not speak to you, if you were. My question is what is your opinion on working class movements and "minority rights demands" ?

kurremkarmerruk

Khawaga

The comment about reading me was more related to "AES". sorry for including you to that part. So I think you are sympathetic that working class organization should defend the right of that minority group I suppose? (In the context of my example let's say)

Well, yes. Though I wouldn't call it rights, as rights means that there has to be a state to protect those rights and enforce sanctions on any violations. But naturally, a working class movement would (or rather should) fight for the emancipation of everyone or rather not be discriminatory of anyone (be it Kurds, women,the differently abled and so on), but I would not be sympathetic for a minority to form their own nation state, separate from working class decision making bodies.

There's no need for me to speculate about the correct positions against race discrimination that should be advanced in Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan or elsewhere (I favour a self-organised approach).

So, my arguement is basically in favour of consistent revolutionary theory and practice - which is for independent working class organisations to be established by workers themselves, which are able to associate independent of capitalism and the state (and openly criticise these structures) and also that through such organisations the workers can fight against race discrimination in general and against targetted minorities (without support for ethnic nationalism).

Khawaga

Yeah I agree with you totally, however here is the twist: Let's say in our hypothetical country Y the working class organisations never achieved to form such "a really internationalist working class organisation", OK? So the problems of our minority (ethnicity X) was always considered as secondary issues. Although they form the most oppressed proportions of the working class itself. because of this our minority X in time get alienated to working class movement of Y country as basically it mostly fought for "the benefit of workers in general". However this general was mostly related to industrial workers etc. although minority X supported revolution they basically did not benefit much and their issues were considered secondary ( feudal problems, rural issues, ethnic traditions, language rights etc) OK? So under this conditions if X minority becomes alienated from working class and forms its own organisation whatever it is, would you see the fault in the population X or in the failure of working class movement of Y to form an internationalist movement?

EDIT: AES this is to you also, I saw your post now

I didn't say "a really internationalist working class organisation"
I said "an independent working class organisation"
you again misrepresent my position, these are not the same at all, especially within in this context.

In reality, what is being discussed in this thread and others, is the false proposition that "anarchists and revolutionaries should join the fight against ISIS to defend Kurdish autonomous areas". These 'areas' are not 'revolutionary' (as some falsely suggest) and not autonomous, because they are not controlled by the working class itself, which is deliberately made unable to organise independently by the PKK.

kurremkarmerruk

So under this conditions if X minority becomes alienated from working class and forms its own organisation whatever it is, would you see the fault in the population X or in the failure of working class movement of Y to form an internationalist movement?

The fault would be with Y if X were still being discriminated against (either consciously or unconsciously). Then it would make perfect sense if they wanted to form an exclusive organization. I wouldn't necessarily even fault them for organizing based on ethnicity (even though I would disagree vehemently) because if they were forced to do it, the "general" working class movement would've been organizing based on similar sectarian lines (again be it consciously or unconsciously). After all, this is why some women or people of colour may choose to form their own organization. That's the reason why I used the word should/shouldn't because I frankly doubt it that a working class movement wouldn't harbour prejudices inherited from the capitalist society in which they grew up.

AEs

You could be right on what is discussed here, however please answer who would you see the fault? In the minority X or in the working class of Y who fail to organize a working class organisation that include other ethnicities enough?

kurrem:

Please let me advise, not any kind of duty, a proposal only, you may or not be interested, i don't know.

I've read as much as i can and naturally as much as i can understand about your question. But generally we have all problem when we abstract the things to the level of thoughts which are basically not complex, easy to answer. But also, as most, sometimes all if not consistenly open for the changing informations in its own body, abstractions are problematic themselves. Please, again, do not understand that as kind of attack, or teaching attitude, i'm trying to clearly explain what i'm trying to do.

In the abstraction that you've created there're not so much complexity, it's simlpe, so even if someone is going to answer it, it'll be in the context which is created by your abstraction. So i agree in terms of rejecting that abstraction itself like AES did.

That's not mean that situation of the any invidiual who doesn't have to be a part of any group is not interested of anarchist individuals or collectives/groups. More clearly, if any individual like to have a definition of own with any kind of "nationality" ora as a "race" or as an "identity" or beyond any identity but an expression of collective experience that's been lived that's not problem for me at all, and i don't think this can be any kind of problem except the ones who wants to normalize and standardize in general, if there's an attack to normalize and to control there can be support to abolish that authority.

But in life it's much more complex, i tried to be more clear on my example still it's not detailed... As you might agree, some of the individuals who are attacked in many diffferent forms in very different and painfull ways are having different solutions for their own. And personally i'm not saying that i know all the "good" solutions but, i'm also saying that, i have some answers of course not all. And i'm also saying that i know some of the "bad" answers, only some of them. Because life itself is chaotic and there can be limited certainities that we may know. So, depending on the certainities that i know and some of the i experienced, i found my reasons for not supporting the organisations who likes to aim to controll, oppress. And if i'm/we're lucky, some of those are not clever and dangerous like others are, some they're so clearly define their aims so it's easier to deal with them, like states, easy readible fascists, racists, capitalists and for me industrialists too, here i'm counting the Bookchinists and some anarcho-syndicalists too.

But some times we are also facing with the more complex and not easily identifable ones because of their difference than the ones we are used to, because of limited knowledge of us, because some of them like to have another tactics to control, like manipulations and so on. So for me, PYD and PKK (especially with their last long run to the Bookchin style ideas and sometimes practices) are like -not so much- but still in the middle of those two example that i gave. They are confusing, yes. they -not all but- say they want to have autunomy, independence, self-organisation, some of them talks about direct-democracy, things gets more confusing when we hear the magical words, words that also carry our very own feelings, dreams that are important to us, vital ones.

Later, when feelings are urged by the somehow same signs, i only say, ok that's good, but let's not leave everything to do feelings always. Let's add some more different perspective of our very own, let's try to analize it too, that's not meaning our feelings are bad, nor good only. That's totaly "positive" things are still beyond calculation, no numbers in it. So, with some help from friends, some help from the ones that may be we don't know even, we start to imagine picture more clearly, more detailed, sometimes if we have luck we can look closer. (Sorry that it's taking that long).

Then in the end, we see people are very close to getting killed and some of them shocked, some of them get "mad", some of them get very nervous, they decided to destroy those ones who like to destroy them in their own life spaces, nothing bad about that, that's full of life urge, living urge. Good that any people have that urge to live. But, we start to learn that, some of those ones who are under attack wants to force some of their close ones, if not close at least they want to force some other people who are under attack like them, to fight on their own way. They start to decide for other people to, and not just for a moment as an very temporary thing which may be a kind of mistake, a kind of reflex, in a systematic way. And they have some clear answers, like what to do, how to do, with who, they agree they don't have all information and but still they're "confident" and determined to force other people to do things. So i say no, i agree on we are all under attack, yes it's much more close to you in terms of physically but i ask some questions, i want to do things in my own way, i want to fight in my own way, but it's not allowed not by the ones who likes to destroy all of us only, also by the ones who once there might a possibility to live together with our wills. But no that's not allowed to, so i'm not allowed to do. Also another point, if i'm going to be in more danger if i'm going to have much more very strong possibility to be killed, i want to learn why i'm going to die for too? Am i going to die for the ones who are going to force me their own way of living? But what happened to those ones who are forcing me but not want to kill only to punish if they think it's needed, the ones who were under very hard circumstances, oppressed? Then i decide to find my own way beyond bad (who likes to kill me and my affinities) and good (who will not kill me for now for sure, but will punish me, because basically i'm not like them, they can beat me, force me to do something else, jail me, or force me to leave my own life spaces).

For me seperation is like this is Rojava (in very basic level, too much simplified but still beyond calculations, numbers etc). I see people who likes to force, kill, propably the ones who choose lesser evils, some people who are forced to do things, may be some people who is trying to act in a different way even in that oppressed situation. I can certainly be in support with some of them, but also i'm sure that i can not support some of them too.

And things are getting even more complex...

Hope there's some clearity to help you understand about my questions answers, i think some of them also answer to your question that asked me before. In an different way of answering...

If you like to read, here i'm pasting an article which i think explaining some of points better.

---------------------------------
A Eulogy to Opinion by Alfredo M. Bonanno

Opinion is a vast merchandise that everyone possesses and uses. Its production involves a large portion of the economy, and its consumption takes up much of people’s time. Its main characteristic is clarity.

We hasten to point out that there is no such thing as an unclear opinion. Everything is either yes or no. Different levels of thought or doubt, contradiction and painful confessions of uncertainty are foreign to it. Hence the great strength that opinion gives to those who use it and consume it in making decisions or impose it on the decisions of others.

In a world that is moving at high speed toward positive/negative binary logic, from red button to black, this reduction is an important factor in the development of civil cohabitation itself. What would become of our future if we were to continue to support ourselves on the unresolved cruelty of doubt? How could we be used? How could we produce?

Clarity emerges when the possibility of real choice is reduced. Only those with clear ideas know what to do. But ideas are never clear, so there are those on the scene who clarify them for us, by supplying simple comprehensible instruments: not arguments but quizzes, not studies but alternative binaries. Simply day and night, no sunset or dawn. Thus they solicit us to pronounce ourselves in favor of this or that. They do not show us the various facets of the problem, merely a highly simplified construction. It is a simple affair to pronounce ourselves in favor of a yes or no, but this simplicity hides complexity instead of attempting to understand and explain it. No complexity, correctly comprehended, can in fact be explained except by referring to other complexities. There is no such thing as a solution to be encountered. Joys of the intellect and of the heart are cancelled by binary propositions, and are replaced with the utility of “correct” decisions.

But no one is stupid enough to believe that the world rests on two logical positive and negative binaries. Surely there is a place for understanding, a place where ideas again take over and knowledge regains lost ground. Therefore, the desire arises to delegate this all to others who seem to hold the answers to the elaboration of complexity because they suggest simple solutions to us. They portray this elaboration as something that has taken place elsewhere and therefore represent themselves as witnesses and depositories of science.

So the circle closes. The simplifiers present themselves as those who guarantee the validity of the opinions asked, and their continual correct production in binary form. They seem to be wary of the fact that once opinion — this manipulation of clarity — has destroyed all capacity to understand the intricate tissue that underlies it, the complex unfoldings of the problems of conscience, the fevered activity of symbols and meanings, references and institutions, it destroys the connective tissues of differences. It annihilates them in the binary universe of codification where reality only seems to have two possible solutions, the light on or the light off. The model sums up reality, cancels the nuances of the latter and displays it in pre-wrapped formulas ready for consumption. Life projects no longer exist. Instead symbols take the place of desires and duplicate dreams, making them dreams twice over.

The unlimited amount of information potentially available to us does not allow us to go beyond the sphere of opinion. Just as most of the goods in a market where every possible, useless variety of the same product does not mean wealth and abundance but merely mercantile waste, an increase in information does not produce a qualitative growth in opinion. It does not produce any real capacity to decide what is true or false, good or bad, beautiful or ugly. It merely reduces one of these aspects to a systematic representation of a dominant model.

In reality, there is no good on the one side or bad on the other. Rather there is a whole range of conditions, cases, situations, theories and practices which only a capacity to understand can grasp, a capacity to use the intellect with the necessary presence of sensibility and intuition. Culture is not a mass of information, but a living and often contradictory system, through which we gain knowledge of the world and ourselves. This is a process which is at times painful and hardly ever satisfying, with which we realize the relationships which constitute our life and our capacity to live.

By canceling out all of these nuances, we again find ourselves with a statistical curve in our hands, an illusory course of events produced by a mathematical model, not a fractured and overwhelming reality,

Opinion provides us with certainty on the one hand, but on the other it impoverishes us and deprives us of the capacity to struggle, because we end up convinced that the world is simpler than it is. This is totally in the interest of those who control us. A mass of satisfied subjects convinced that science is on their side, that is what they need in order to realize the projects of domination in the future.

-------------------

There is no reason to suggest that class struggle is inadequate to defeat racial discrimination (class cannot be separated from the struggle to end racism).

In circumstances where such 'national liberation' struggles exist, we should always -

* Restrict our solidarity to the working class only (not with political parties, not reformist unions, not coalitions, not fronts, not cross class 'democratic confederalist cantons', etc);
* Oppose all militarism, end conscription and fight against engagement in capitalist conflicts;
* Demand independent working class organisation that can be freely and openly established, in such a way that workers/unwaged are able to associate independent of, and against capitalism and the state.

[quote=Solidarity Federation IWA, Selfed unit 24]The principal problem of national liberation struggle for the anti- statist anarcho-syndicalist form of organisation is that it is inherently statist. Advocating a more local form of state, the national liberation movement bows to the idea that the state is a desirable institution – just not in the current form. As such, it has the fundamental flaw that, if successful, it will generate a new state - which may or may not be ‘worse’ than the current oppressor, but it will nevertheless be an oppressive mechanism.[/quote]

Whoah! This thread has gone bonkers. But at least among all the muck there seems to have emerged an issue that could be further discussed that seems to have gotten lost - class collaboration.

AES, can I suggest something? Instead of just saying that class collaboration is ongoing, can you show us where bourgeoisie control under the guise of class collaboration is ongoing within the Rojava Cantons and other Canton (within the communal/confederated democratic autonomous areas)? Can you bring some light on this issue with some news/material/texts/discussion/information?

Though I have not read all the information out there about the developments within the cantons, what I have read seems to indicate the lack of economic control in the hands of the bourgeoisie. From the book Democratic Autonomy in North Kurdistan (though not specifically in the Syrian Kurdish cantons, the principals and organizing methods are similar and is what interests me). Anyway, point being, in the book the notes from people who traveled throughout the region and studied the developments.

One research method used was interviewing people from various aspects and stations within the area and society in an attempt to get a balanced view on the goings on. Anyway, as I already said earlier in this thread, What is happening in these areas can be compared, generally and simplistically, to worker owned/IWW collectively owned businesses, economic organizing in Chiapas, or the reorganization of places of production by employees in Argentina after the 2001 crash.

Now, all these places/events/organizations/people, just like the Kurds interviewed state that this is not the solution but an ongoing transformation that is better and critical of traditional "capitalist" models of economic organization. Now, I am not suggesting that what is happening in the cantons is the end-all-be-all but neither are the people within the cantons.

So, if you want to be critical, good, I too am critical. However, the interviews and answers to questions about economic organizations and work within the smaller collectives is very interesting (collective work for the production of use-value not exchange-value and when money is made the collective splits it up among the collective members). Again, this is a transition and not Anarchism/communism over night (and I challenge the most blackened-anarchist and ultra-leftist communism to find me an example historically or currently of automatic Anarchism/communism.) And again, we are dealing with and discussing reality, not theory or slogans. From the readings I am currently doing on the economic end of things within these Communal Kurdish areas, I see more of a challenge to Bourgeoisie domination (wage-labor and extraction of surplus-value and profit from other people's work).

But yes, it will be interesting to see and begin to critically understand more as the organization of the internal "economy" (for lack of a better work, mean, the socially productive work that is also socially consumed) begins to grow and develop. Again, I challenge anyone to find a model or method of organizing the producing & consuming aspect of a collective/community/society that did not deal with this transiting/mixed period. Also, it is within this transition period that working-class power and working-class interests or collectivist interests need to be fortified and defended against any potential re-emergence of privately owned and privately profited methods of reproducing everyday life.

AES your rhetoric about class collaboration could be an important point but in order for it make an impact please provide some sources and information as it relates to class collaborating that dilutes collectivism and strengthens the capitalist relationship within the "communal/confederated democratic autonomous Kurdish areas and cantons" that I and others are discussing. And let me be clear, I at least, and others, I assume, are not looking at the "semi-autonomous Iraqi Krudistan for example, or any semi-autonomous Kurdistan that can be generally understood as something resembling moderate state/society social organizing as some alternative.

K or anyone else feel free to counter or further develop on an issue. Admittedly, I am not from the region and do not have such a close look at the actual inter-workings of politics and regional or cross-regional fluidity of social organizing. I have to rely on reports and interviews and other research (However, I do have faith in the information provided by Ireland WSM, the book, and other leftist/syndicalist journals/reports).

There is also the very valid critique that just because things are being produced and consumed collectively, that does not automatically mean that self-exploitation is not ongoing. For example, collectives, like IWW owned business, are still the the business of making a profit that can be shared among the workers who contribute equally in that production. This is still the creation of exhange-value and its almost like the exploiter/exploited co-exists within the same people. Therefore, ultimately, the mechanism and production method of capitalism to produce surplus-value/profit still remains despite an equal dividing up of said profit. Though a reality and internal contradiction that will one day need to be ended, but I don't see how any collective could end it until becoming completely self-sufficient or dependent on other collectives that can provide each other with things without the exchange of money or some form a things that represents exchange-value.

But since we can't even get pasted having the debate/conversation on whether understanding and somewhat supporting some group with some interesting ideas who are fighting against a very ultra-conservative medieval reactionary group is a generally a "good thing" or not; I don't expect much in talking about the economics/non-economics and criticism of said economics/non-economics.

Hi everyone again, miss me?

AES:
Let me finish my point. So conclusion of my example: Confusing racism with "question of minority ethnicity" is wrong.The analogy between a minority right's movement and national liberation is wrong in this context. Also your analogy between African Communist Party and PKK is again wrong (they do not belong to the same category). Claiming a right to speak your own language can not be considered as a nationalist political ideology in this context (eventhough also "the bosses" could benefit from it). Hiding behind the mask of "I am class conscious" and saying "I know everything and those "unenlightened" people does not know sh*t", is inherently stupid.Uttering demands of

an independent working class organisation which is actually revolutionary and separate from capitalism and the state"

is just a comfort that only non-affected person could afford to reach. Unfortunately I can not afford it as the attitude of Turkish working class/left would have an affect on any future possible cooperation between Turkish and Kurdish working classes. And on who is faulty in this issue: If demands of a working class minority ethnicity has never become part of the working class of dominant ethnicity, then it is fault of that dominant working class and inherent nationalism of their organisations. Therefore your idea that PKK is the cause of lack of class movement is essentailly wrong. PKK is result of failure of working class movement itself. (i.e. it is NOT a cause, claiming so would be reading the story backwards)

Nobody call you to support PKK, however you must know this: After the above mentioned historical failure (not purely because of internal reasons of course), for Kurds it is pretty impossible to believe in pure "working class" organisations, as they have tasted it, they have tried it and historically the results show, such pure working class organisations itself were similarly oppressive against them. From now on my only hope is to see Kurdish working class as a brother/sister to Turkish working class (and not just its "small brother/sister" as it was seen historically) and the way to do this relates to stopping a massacre of Kurdish population there. Otherwise if the left sits silent (especially in Turkey but also globally), Kurdish populations will be further alienated to working class organisations and lost any hope they might have in them.

Khawaga

Yeah I definitely agree so, and PKK is a result of this failure. It sprung after 80's military coup d'etat in Turkey. Which smashed left in Turkey and all forms of working class organisations. However thanks to "violent tactics" of PKK they actually grow bigger in 80's as the whole left shrinkt. They become hope of masses to be free from oppression of Turkish state. I do not sympathize or morally judge the tactics of PKK in this period, but it practically show millions of Kurds that you can actually beat a State, it give them hope for future.

I actually were not familiar with this, I was an uninformed anarchist just like AES and were speaking in slogans mostly. however I must admit I had the chance to know Kurds personally. Anyway my story is this: I was with another anarchist we were discussion PKK, I was probably sounding like "a more moderate version of AES" (as I mostly try not to be dicks against people) He said something like this: "The thing is every Kurd knows if they can call themselves Kurds today, it is because of PKK. When the whole left is smashed and military government launched its forced nationalist-Islamic policies to assimilate every sort of different idea, color, opinion and belief in Turkey to make Turkish society a real "concrete", if PKK did not replied back with violence we would be totally assimilated. Kurdish language, tradition etc would all be wiped out, Kurdish language etc would be totally wiped out from from any public appearance. If there is still discrimination against in Kurds in Turkey and this is still an issue in Turkey, this is thanks to PKK, otherwise we would not exist as Kurds at all."

Do you get my point here? Could I successfully transfer to you what I learned form that conversation? I am not sympathizing authoritarian sides of PKK. I am not discussing its emancipatory sides either here. I am just saying: this is sort of what PKK represents to a Kurdish person. This thing I tried to describe above can not be just reduced to a politics of state. The wish to speak your own language of masses can not be just reduced to formation of a state and dismissed as just nationalism. Ocalan also should be seen in this context and the personal cult around him. And without understanding this fact, it is impossible to move forward for a working class organisation in Turkey.

NOTE: I am personally more optimistic myself for potentials of working class organisations than you I guess. But it is another issue.

tw_

Yeah, I abstracted it to show easily what I meant. It is of course not the most detailed history of emergence of PKK. However it (if you read my comments above) is "a thought experiment" that is abstracted from Turkish political history to make my point clear (and to show false judgements made by others).

The ultimate point of my example was that: it shows that "the collective minority" rights ( I am using this for lack of better word, not because I am a liberal) can not be reduced to nationalism. Doing so will eliminate any possibility for emergence of a working class in this context. I think this is a valid theoratical point that is jumped over by some in this forum (for example: criticism of my comments on right to speak your own language as being nationalist)

if there's an attack to normalize and to control there can be support to abolish that authority.

I definitely think exactly like what you wrote here. There is fundamental right of resistance of oppressed groups and anarchist/communists should support it (at least critically). This will further make working class and its organisations stronger in the long run and will prevent them from being just populist principle-less organisations.

As you might agree, some of the individuals who are attacked in many different forms in very different and painfull ways are having different solutions for their own. And personally i'm not saying that i know all the "good" solutions but, i'm also saying that, i have some answers of course not all. And i'm also saying that i know some of the "bad" answers, only some of them.

I totally agree with you here, I can also add there might be forms of oppression that might not be directly translated to class politics (they mght need some translation, a mediation to do so) (I think you agree with me here also)

They are confusing, yes. they -not all but- say they want to have autunomy, independence, self-organisation, some of them talks about direct-democracy, things gets more confusing when we hear the magical words, words that also carry our very own feelings, dreams that are important to us, vital ones.

Yeah life is really strange and wonderful, isn't it? :D (I really enjoyed/liked what you wrote here and following paragraphs)

I will stop making extensive quotes from your writing here, not to take too long. I agree with your anarchistic sensibilities 1) against those who think they can decide for other people (I agree strongly here) 2) towards living the life in your own way (less strongly here)

I think I can not say anything more to you. I am satisfied with our discussion. I just wish to express that if you have possibility to communicate with Kurdish people connected to Kurdish movement (including those who used to be connected to, for example some Kurdish Anarchistics) I recommend you to do so: You might be surprised how much you might like them. You might even find more people to be affiliated with (however just do not approach them with wrong prejudices and pre-given judgments, like everyone else, they hate it :D)

Marx-Trek (and on second consideration: ANYONE interested in Kurdish movement and economy and class issues)

Yeah I am responsible for going so out of topic here. I was just trying to emphasize what I think is discussed wrongly in context of Kurds. However my little thought experiment took a dozens of comments to finish :D (but not just because of me)

On the current dominant form of economical system in Rojova: I really do not know for sure. But it is definitely the most important thing on the level of ideology for me (on par with direct democracy)

In Turkey, PKK (especially in rural places) tend to support a local self-sufficient communes to be formed in which everyone gives half of its surplus to commune and from it commune decides (by participation of everyone) to what to do with it. Help someone who is in need of help, solve public problems, buy means of production to commune etc... Kurdish movement provides assistance to these communes (for example bring doctors there etc.) some of this communes also possibly support guerrillas. In turkey it is rumored there are at least 40 of them. I also remember they even organized a football tournament among themselves and a Kurdish pm made the first kick. :D However most of the time these communes do not wish to become public due to possible oppression of state. This is in parallel to communalistic economy of Bookchin. I am sure (also Zaher's report says so) this is pretty much the same for all rural places in Rojova Cantons.

However cities are a different story. I know Kurdish organisations (dependent or independent) gather money and do a lot of social stuff etc. however there seems to be not much difference from capitalism. For example Amed (The capital of Kurdistan), whose municipal leader is from Kurdish parties, is rapidly being rejuvenated, recently they opened their first shopping mall. In cities, it is obvious there is division along the class lines among Kurds. Even clashes occur. For example a demo in Amed in 2011 or 2010 was reportedly not only resulted with clashes with cops but also stoning of shops belonged to people in Kurdish movement. I really would like to know the situation of cities in Canton for example (if the term city is applicable there) I think the issue of city is vital as it would really show the class war in Kurdish society. If the Kurdish movement is honest in its Bookchinian politics it must provide a solution that will prevent accumulation of surplus in private hands as it does in rural places. If I translate this to Ocalan's vocabulary: Kurdish movement needs to find a way to realize democratic autonomy not just in politics but also in economy as well.

I know this is Turkish but you could use google translate and get the names (and localities) of anarchist organisations that support Autonomy experiment in Rojova.

"Solidarity of Anarchists from all over the World with Rojova"

http://meydangazetesi.org/gundem/2014/10/dunya-anarsistlerinden-kobane-dayanismasi/

Meydan newspaper, is an anarchist newspaper from Turkey. They made an interview with DAF on Rojova. I might made a little surprise for you with it - if you know what I mean - :D Expect it this weekend, maybe? :D

That newspaper is also published by DAF, so they're interestingly naming the title, actually it's an interview by DAF with DAF.

Yeah I was also suspicious of that :D However it still represents what DAF thinks about Rojova. Anyway are they (Meyadan newspaper) directly related to DAF or are they another group that is similar in mind with DAF/ support DAF etc ?

EDIT2: They claim not to be the same group by the way.

I found this:
Global Rally Against ISIS, For Kobane & For Humanity : Nov 1st 2014
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/10/518513.html
(see the link for text and supporters)

Keeping this a bit seperate from the more specific arguments about 'fighting or fleeing' etc....

I think Marx-Trek maybe gets to some point of substance which illustrates where some of the more fundamental political differences arise in these discussions in their reference to the 'democratic forms' and 'economic co-operative' measures undertaken being referred to as a ''transition period' but then transitional to what?? It may be better just now for those involved than 'traditional capitalist organisations' though as Marx-Trek seems to accept they are still essentially capitalist, but in what direction is it or can it move. Myself and others have I think expressed the view that in the context of global capitalism, a world and region dominated by superior imperialist powers and local Kurdish political forces still of an essentially nationalist nature that such 'measures' could only survive and evolve towards communism, (outside of a remotely unlikely communist revolution in the imperialist heartlands), as a transition towards a more stable capitalist autonomous entity with all the more traditional features of the political state even if with a democratic veneer. 'Internal economies' cannot survive in isolation from and opposition to the rest of the world let alone their immediate neighbours. Not suggesting any direct comparison but bear in mind the experience of the Israeli kibutzim, so radical and positive in many ways, but at the forefront in practice of the Israeli State's colonising expansion and it's service to western imperialism. Of course if people think there is any sustainable solution to the common problems of humanity short of world communism perhaps none of this matters?

Given the references to the experience of 'Zapatismo/Chiapas' and to Bookchins anarchist 'confederalism' apparently as some kind of argument in support of the Rojova experiment I should say that I and others in the communist class struggle camp have also been very critical of both of these as strategies supposedly relevant to our emancipation from capitalism, references to which can be found in the library here. Communist critiques of 'democracy' and 'rights' are probably also relevant to our different understanding of various social movements including those in Kurdistan.

Spikymike, yes like Lenin said, a socialist island cannot survive in the sea of capitalism. I agree, that a small area cannot produce a self-sustaining complete anti-capitalist/post-capitalist society without world wide revolution. I am critical of such conclusion not because I do not agree or do not want to see a world wide revolution, but because economic/material developments and various serious Marxists theories and research point to some other mode or "revolutionary organizing".

I also think that there are some serious political/theoretical differences, which is OK.

"Transitioning to what?" Well, what was meant about transitioning, was that the political and social organizing within the Cantons is a transition from non-collectivist means of organizing "society" towards more collectivist means of organizing and maintaining. Other examples that were given were IWW/worker owned business means of organizing, factory reorganization post-2001 Argentina crash, etc... And yes, we both agree that these methods or reorganizing are not solutions to capitalism. But I appear to be missing some point that makes any of these methods of organizing less valid or problematic. Spikymike, what is your end conclusion? Do not support these things because they do not create total revolution, support or look at this as something interesting, or something else?

I read your post, I did not see a conclusion, or are you just stating that what is happening in the Cantons is not the solution for total revolution?

Interesting, so now the international media appears to be calling what is happening in Kobane as a US-led campaign against ISIL.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/10/kobane-explained-what-so-special-about-it-201410216033364111.html

KAF (DAF?), correction/question Iraqi Kurdish anarchists? Interview: http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27520

Also, for the information that I read about he self-organizing going on in the Cantons and collectives does not indicate that there is influence coming directly from the political parties and political organs in the area on how to run the collectives. What seems to be happening in a general agreement and support for building up of collectives and the Syrian Kurdish movement and armed group is defending and fighting to maintain these groups. Now I will admit and be critical of the maintaining of political parties. However, so long as these political parties are mere representatives or relays of information and communication between people then there is a clear difference between the parties themselves and their roles within the region (counter to what we experience with say social democratic parties, left-wing parties, green parties, etc...). Sure there is risk of failure and the collapse of collective local control over everyday life and restoring of hierarchical modes of control and social organization, but when has this not been the issue? That danger seems to be one of the key concerns since the beginning of class based struggle for liberation. So yes, I am concerned, you are concerned, everyone is concerned but i put more stock in the Canton's "citizens" who are reorganizing aspects of their social lives to have a better or more nuanced understanding of their lives and will determine their next move accordingly (success is never a guarantee).

As for Zapatismo, of course there are similarities just as there are differences. It's going to be very interesting to see how the Cantons and organizing methods emerge and change. Perhaps they can take the experiences from the Zapatatistas. It would be interesting to do a comparative analysis of how the armed wing of the Zapatatistas interact with the areas zapatista "good government" zones and the armed group and its relationship to the collectives in the Cantons. Also, it would be interesting to further look at the relationship to what could resemble the politics/politicians of Zapatatista zones and Canton politicians.

Marx Trek

This is KAF (kurdistan anarchist forum ) DAF is sth else. They also mention: one of us made a trip to Syrian Kurdistan (Zaher, I guess) however, they do not speak about it much. They rather focus on Iraq kurdistan and how oppressive KDP is. This article is also on libcom but uploaded two times (with wrong reference links).

Marx-Trek,

My personal opposition or support of the various democratic and communalist measures in Kurdistan has no practical effect either way (people there will do what they have to in order to survive given very limited choices) but my comments here and on other threads taken together are more an effort to counter some of the misplaced understanding of the significance of such measures either as a challenge to capitalism locally in the here and now or more importantly as a strategy to be adopted more widely by others. The different contexts and timing of such or similar measures (in Argentina, Mexico, USA, Middle East) is what will determine or has determined their significance and direction. Communist minorities wherever they are will equally make choices in circumstances mostly outside their control but must maintain their independent critical voice something that has not proved easy against the forces of both capitalist democracy and dictatorship.

K,

Exactly, that is what I found interesting of the article, the fact that they did not really discuss the Cantons and instead focused on the Iraqi Kurdish region and the politics involved therein. The article read almost like a critical yet tacit understanding that is happening the the Syrian Kurdish regions and within the collectives was something new, interesting, and beneficial (not blindly accusations or clear unwavering support). I want to provide the article because it raise some of the issues that have been raised and criticized on this thread but the article did so in a less dramatic fashion.

Spikymike,

Fair enough, you do not have a position on either lend general verbal support or any other kind of support to what is happening within the collectives and communalist efforts in the Cantons in the Kurdish regions. I on the other hand do not take such a passive view and do lend my verbal support to those specific efforts and the fighting efforts of the YPG (as a political fighting force) that has chosen to defend its own interests and the interests and lives within these collectives and communalist areas. Now, what will happen in the future, only time will tell, and the developments that will commence in the region is for the collectives and the communlist regions to decide for themselves.

Depending on how things develop and what happens or how the political and daily relationship is going to be between the political parties, fighting forces that are attached to parties, and the collective communities will determine how much stock is to be put in the political shift that has happened within YPG and its mentor the PKK. Here I must point out that I have read, I believe in both the book Democratic Autonomy in North Kurdistan and the anarchismo article linked above, both documents produced by people having been in the region state that the YPG does strong political/ideological/historical ties and allies with the PKK but the YPG is currently distinct. Nonetheless, the YPG does act in conjunction with the PKK because it agrees with the larger picture it would seem.

So to your point,

The different contexts and timing of such or similar measures (in Argentina, Mexico, USA, Middle East) is what will determine or has determined their significance and direction.

Exactly right.

And you go on and make this point,

Communist minorities wherever they are will equally make choices in circumstances mostly outside their control but must maintain their independent critical voice something that has not proved easy against the forces of both capitalist democracy and dictatorship.

I agree anarchist/communist/leftist/autonomist/libertarian-socialist/etc... minorities do have an uphill battle in the struggle against the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, market forces, and despotic dictatorship (hence or ongoing struggle since the emergence of capitalist relations). And yes, we as political actors must keep independent critical voices and we must struggle to keep our voices independent and hope that our voices are heard. However, I do not understand how this is in someway not being done, especially on this thread? We are not being censored, we are not being blocked from commenting, and everyone is allowed to partake in this spirited debate about: the PKK; ISISl; YPG; Rojava Canton and other Cantons; the collective organizing going on; the changes of political theories within these movements; and the implications of historical understandings and the geopolitics at play that may threaten it all.

Again, I am not offering up the developments in the Syrian Kurdish region or the collectivist efforts within the general Kurdish region as the end-all-be-all solution to global financial neoliberal capitalist social relations and means of production and reproduction of everyday life. And I concede to the fact that what is going on in these regions is not some ideal socialist experiment that resembles a socialist/anarchist/communist island surrounded by a sea of capitalism, as Lenin so put in a few years back. However, I am offering up the efforts within the region as an effort by collectives that are attempting to manage their daily lives in a more collectivist/communal manner for the benefit of themselves and the region. I am offering up what is happening in the region as a shift in politics and economics as usual. And I am offering up what is happening in the region as a political shift from what was once a successful and popular Cold War type socialist effort to a more libertarian and communal non-Cold War type socialist effort.

I believe that such open and seemingly happening shifts in this region are interesting on so many levels:

1. Interesting to see such an effort on the forward march in a region currently dominated by factional/tribal/zealous militarized groups.

2. It is interesting that such a local on the group effort has had such success and proves that the mightiest military in the world is unwilling, not that they are unable, to destroy the "cancer" that is ISIS (the YPG efforts are a living example and proof that US/NATO/European/Western foreign policy is not humanitarian or altruistic but economic, political, and strategic).

3, And most important of all, this collectivist, communal, and fighting effort has strong indications that they are no longer only paying lip service to "socialist aspirations" but instead the region is organizing itself based on collective principals. The people involved in the region have shown through action and non-action (indicating that the armed groups are not going in and forcing/extorting/etc.. these collectives) that efforts to challenge individualist everyday life in favor collective work, consumption, and reproduction of everyday life.

Finally,

4. Yes, I believe these efforts are worth our time to look deep at and to critically understand. And I will take a further step and lend my verbal support and say what is happening here appears to be generally a positive thing and I hope the best for the Cantons and collectives.

Also, these efforts and political developments can be viewed favorably, critically yet favorably, because it shatters the bilateral monopoly on self-defense and political violence. No longer does our consciousness have sift through the mud that is the geopolitics of the US/Europe/West and Al Quida/ISIS/Hamas/Hezbollah/etc... Instead you have a fighting force that says it is supportive of more libertarian-socialist means of organizing, there are collectives within the region, etc... And people (anarchists, syndicalists, left wingers) have traveled to the region and opened up communication with people in the region), so I ask what is not to be critically optimistic about?

I say, great! Let them proceed and keep building a stronghold until the rest of us can also build something up.

NOTE (a theoretical/hypothetical daydream scenario) :

It would be amazing to see such a region social experiment emerge, grow, and hopefully develop closer ties be made with other autonomous areas, like Chiapas for example.. Also, since a hand of solidarity has been extended from the PFLP, perhaps this democratic autonomus method (hopefully strengthened with more overt class consciousness as it begins to relate to more urban areas (a hope, effort, and concern even expressed in the book, Democratic Autonomy) can have an larger impact in the Middle East. There is a social and cultural history of communal living within the many Middle Easts, within Islam, and within the traditions that has not been lost to modernity in the same manner as in the West. Perhaps, a more generalized modern collective means of everyday life can begin to emerge and one day create a counter power to the domination of capitalism and capital's social relations so prevalent in the West. This is the optimistic view I hold. And I would argue that this view, despite it being optimistic and realize the uphill battle it would take, is a more plausible realistic possibility for intensifying the struggle against capitalist social domination. Because, lets be fair here, the anarchists/communist/left-libertarian/autonomous-leftist efforts in the US and Europe have only amount to a much of great amazing analysis/writings, marches, and militant fights against austerity, fascists street groups, and globalization, and small temporary very localized efforts of collective organizing, and anarcho-syndicalist unionizing. Not to take anything away from our own efforts here in the West, these are our victories and I am proud of those efforts. However, I do share in the disappointed confusion expressed by the Kurdish collectives interviewed by western militants who come to learn what is happening in the Kurdish region, when Kurdish collectivists ask what collective developments are ongoing in Europe and the question is met with a long silent pause before the smaller examples listed above are given that in any real sense cannot be compared to regional collective organizing efforts.

So, yes, being critical is a must however, I find it worthwhile to be critically supportive and optimistic of what is happening in the these collective Kurdish regions.

Marx-Trek, To be clear by an 'independent critical and communist voice' I do of course mean independent and in opposition to the PKK, PFLP, IRA and the other array of current or past left-wing nationalist political groups you have referred to elswhere not just those we may agree on. Otherwise I think we understand each others position well enough.

Yes, we agree on what you and I are referring to as "independent critical and communist voices" because I too mean such a voice to be independent of the PKK, PFLP, and obviously the IRA or any other past left-wing national liberation group/party/army/militia/cell/cadre. My reference to such past or current groups are NOT statements of complete support but more as they relate in context to the larger conversation.

so marx trek you support the self-management efforts of the DSA/Tev-Dem and the cooperative/barter economy which by the way it is not clear if they are independent of the PYD/YPG...you and K quote the KAF article that was posted on here and anarkismo about the first hand accounts but if you ACTUALLY READ those it is very unclear if they were autonomous bottom up movement from the people or party facilitated especially considering the only party allowed in them are the PYD...which is what i think causes the confusion. they are essentially a one party democratic governance (potentially a state without calling it a state) where only their party and civil society groups and members of other parties (but not as politicos for their parties) are able to operate.

anyway in regards the economy cooperative self-managmentism IS the end goal of democratic confederalism. they are a transitional government towards that end goal, there is nothing programmatic anywhere about a clear libertarian/anarchist/ communist aim. so the critique is it will just be an island of "utopia" within capitalism and they have no perspective on needing world revolution or ending the current nation state that they are currently within. at most it is interesting experiments bound to fail without further development of an independent working class organizational and internationalist program.

like the zapatistas it might be relatively "better" but there is the constant threat of the surrounding state(s) crushing them.

anyway now is more interesting if what mikhail brought up which is that it seems the PYD and Iraqi Kurdish parties might be getting equal representation within the transitional government of the DSA or overall political process there. if so that is a clear case of oppurtunism, and drift towards even more openly pro-capitalist democratic liberalism.

anyway now is more interesting if what mikhail brought up which is that it seems the PYD and Iraqi Kurdish parties might be getting equal representation within the transitional government of the DSA or overall political process there. if so that is a clear case of oppurtunism, and drift towards even more openly pro-capitalist democratic liberalism.

The coalition government that PYD and Barzanist parties formed in Rojeva is not even "democratic" in a liberal sense of the term, because it is not even formed by any kind of representative body but by the two party leaderships.

Beyond all the confusions and misrepresentations one thing is very clear: Rojeva is managed by a Kurdish national coalition, composed of Kurdish nationalist parties, which serve the interests of Kurdish nationalism.

All the talks about rank-and-file democracy is secondary to this question; in fact any form of representative institution in this very small region with its small population could ultimately resemble (in a crude and formalistic sense) a "democratic" form of government.

klas batalo

at most it is interesting experiments bound to fail without further development of an independent working class organizational and internationalist program.

Yeah, because those two works every time, aren't they? I even do not want to comment more on this sort of thinking.

yeah i agree mikhail i highly doubt the Tev-Dem and People's Assembly gave a mandate from below to the DSA or PYD to negotiate this alliance with the Iraqi Kurds.

A recent development; one anarchist friend from Turkey reported that an article by a leftist intellectual (Demir Kucukaydin, who till now supported the PKK) instigated a debate inside the pro-PKK left; according to Kucukaydin, the recent "Duhok agreement" between the PYD/PKK and Barzanist parties undermined the revolutionary content of Rojeva "revolution" while physically saving Kobane. (here is the link to Turkish version of the article: http://blog.radikal.com.tr/politika/kobane-dustu-76687 )

Of course the article is exaggerating the situation, considering the fact that the PKK was from the beginning a nationalist party open to collaboration with other Kurdish national groups and bourgeois factions. However, it is an important development since the article and the ensuing debate, even though it is taking place in a small left milieu, signifies the surfacing of doubts and suppressed critiques of the extreme left in Turkey about the so-called Rojeva "revolution".

It is clear that there is no visible indication about a social revolution taking place in Rojeva. Further, what is obvious is that especially after the Duhok agreement the war in Iraq and Syria is taking (more openly) the form of a national war between Kurds and Arabs.

Further, in Turkey HDP, Ocalan and the AKP government are talking about advancing the peace process with a closer collaboration between the government and Kurdish national movement. HDP MP Sirri Sureyya Onder, who also acts as a negotiation delegate between Ocalan, PKK and the Turkish government, suggested in a recent article that those who don't want peace between PKK and Turkey are trying to lay the grounds for a military coup in Turkey. Onder's subtle warning seems to be directed both to the pro-PKK left (which seems to be gradually distancing itself from PKK - at least parts of it) and conservatives who are traditionally wary of Kemalist reflexes of the army; Everything is vague and obscure in the dark corridors of the secret diplomacy. Neither the PKK nor Turkey is telling anything to the public about their secret dealings and intentions. However, it is clear that there are elements of both Kurdish and Turkish national leaderships, which want to act closer and strengthen ties.

Eventually, in the ongoing bloody Kurdish and Arab war Turkey is trying deepen the war by forcing PKK into an alliance against Esad and Shiite Arabs. In the middle east, peace in one front means war in another front.

Congratulations mikail, you explain the current Turkish politics just like mainstream pro-AKP media.. Maybe you could contribute them with a weekly column?

you are hysterical man:D What makes Demir Kucukaydin an "extreme left"? How do you know Demir Kucukaydin just now criticized kurdish movement? (He is a leftist intellectual and member of HDP he criticizes it all the time with different degrees of persuasive power, what is so new about it?)

signifies the surfacing of doubts and suppressed critiques of the extreme left in Turkey about the so-called Rojeva "revolution".

Who does this suppression, is it self-suppression? Why people can not be just disturbed by Duhok agreement? Must it have an surpassed and hidden history behind it?

It is clear that there is no visible indication about a social revolution taking place in Rojeva.

Yeah for sure!

Ocalan, PKK and the Turkish government, suggested in a recent article that those who don't want peace between PKK and Turkey are trying to lay the grounds for a military coup in Turkey. Onder's subtle warning seems to be directed both to the pro-PKK left (which seems to be gradually distancing itself from PKK) and conservatives who are traditionally wary of Kemalist reflexes of the army

I guess we are not speaking about the same country? What socialist movement is distancing itself from Kurdish left that was pro-Kurdish before? Can you give me at least one example? Or what you mean is something like a "Geist" that your are getting your projections at? I hope you will not give example of Turkish Communist Party, which pretty much thinks same like you in the issue of Kurdish movement and was already distant to that from the start (By the way do you wish to discuss this, why you -an internationalist- agrees with a reformist national "communist" party on Kurdish issue?)

However, it is clear that there are elements of both Kurdish and Turkish national leaderships, which want to act closer and strengthen ties.

Yeah if you report everything so one-sidedly, it might appear. what do you think about strong debate between Sirri and AKP representative? Might there be an actual power struggle who will won "the peace process"? Why Salih Muslim still speaks very critical of Tayyip and Turkey??

Eventually, in the ongoing bloody Kurdish and Arab war Turkey is trying deepen the war by forcing PKK into an alliance against Esad and Shiite Arabs. In the middle east, peace in one front means war in another front.

Yeah so well all Middle East is doomed until the arrival of International communists, I guess.

NOTE: Mikail you turn everything into simple propaganda, you also provoke me to write in an ideological way. It appears as if you would be glad if the Kurds are really just Kurds and if all the war in Syria is for nothing and everyone all who died died there in vain. Moreover I am double pissed against you as a Turkish person hiding behind the magical mask of internationalism, worker class etc.you do nothing but equalize your own State with a social movement of people who were oppressed by it. Because of this I feel discouraged to speak to you in a "at least sort of" objective manner, even on issues as important as "Duhok agreement".

kurremkarmerruk

Moreover I am double pissed against you as a Turkish person...

So criticism is not ok from anyone Turkish (not Kurdish) from your ethnic nationalist viewpoint

AES (and Mikail)

If you want to understand it like that, you can do it. However what I meant was that national prejudices and conventions ( just like patriarchy or homophobia) might still be active in people's thinking even at times they think they are acting international and/or speak from a point that is considered above and beyond it. (and according to me this is very common on the issue of Kurds in Turkish people thanks to mainly state propaganda and also years of civil war )

Let's discuss something else: Why for example class based/internationalist accounts of the PKK and Rojova look so similar to Communist party of Turkey (TKP)? (which is divided into two now, but it does not mater much what ı am describing is their general tendency) TKP is actually what might be similar to South African Communist Party. It is very hierarchical and Stalinist however tries to appear more democratic. It is critical of Kurdish movement and distant from it. It is inherently non aggressive against cops (but it is willing to fight against Kurds) It also supported Rojova very slightly on the basis of humanitarian aid. and even took that back with US involvement. It is also suspicious of Islamism of PKK. It is also suspicious of "peace process" as agreement of Kurdish and Turkish bourgeoisie. (all of these were uttered by at least one of you) Why your positions look very similar to this reformist national electoral party? What is you idea on that? Are traditional communist parties are more "in" than for example combative, direct action oriented revolutionary anarchists (DAF) (who actually went there by the way) for you ?

I instantly regret what I wrote above, forget my question, I am just giving more reason for you to write down what you have in mind without us having any real conversation.

Good night

Klas,

Here is the thing. This has already been discussed, rediscussed, and then discussed again. Again, I am not suggesting that the Cantons, the areas of interest, the specific places we have been talking about and the political/economic changes we have been discussing are Anarchist or Communists. I am not saying that this is the end all be all or even the best solution to have ever come about. I do not know how to be any clearer about that.

To put it very very simply here, I am look at what is happening within these areas of interests that we have been discussing as something that is interesting in a positive way and hope that these areas and people within these areas build on what they have and begin to organize on a bottom-up autonomous manner more and more...yes, what I see is a positive thing.

Again, I acknowledge the problems, the contradictions, and all the rest that comes with the positive things I have read about and heard about. Frankly, I do not understand why my position is so confusing or even all the difficult to understand. I am not dealing in absolutes and I feel as if your counter arguments misrepresent my position and point being made. I am not the one that is saying that the PKK is the best party ever and needs to be followed. I am not the one saying that Ocalan is the greatest leader ever. I am not saying that there are not problems, issues, or contradictions on the ground in these areas. I am not the one saying that this is the solution and it will never fall or be reduced back to a nationalist/individualist/moderate/centrist/nation-state like left-wing reformist area. I am not the one suggesting that working-class consciousness is being exemplified here in this region (because as far as I can tell the region, the organizing, and the people in this area appear to be more rural and are working together on a collective subsistance level, NOT industrial workers or post-industrial communist urbanites communizing their daily lives).

Since I, here deny having said these things, and do not hold any of this as my position, why, unless I am misreading your statements or you are not clearly addressing your issues, but why I am having to answer to issues I did not address?

Do problems in social organizing exist, of course they do, which is kind of the whole point in attempting to organize society on other grounds. I am I clear on what influence and positions of power the armed wings has over the collectives, yes I am concerned. However, as I said above, I have not read about armed YPG groups roving the country side extorting villages and peasant farmers or extorting people for money and labor.

Mikail,

I attempted to translate the article you post, and I agree with you the article is vague and reads mostly like rants about this and that being bad and quoting the constitution or statements and them simply saying that this is not the cause.

And again, as I have said before, if all this comes crashing down it comes crashing down or if the Cantons fold and the groups and people in the area are reoganized along ole lines under the old PKK, fine, shit it happened.

All criticisms, concerns, and issues, becsdes the irrational commentators on here (who I am not concerned with), yes, I agree I too am concerned and interested in seeing how this will change and develop for better or for worse.

So whats the point? Are we really just restating that I am generally more optimistic (and hope these developments lead to a more Zapatatista like organizational structure), and others are more cynical andd does not contain more overt class based ideological autonomy?

Finally, I do not buy the argument that this is going to fail and therefore its not good enough because in all seriousness until we win it all fails and our little islands are always surrounded by the seas of capitalism until we drawn that ocean. So, on this point of failing, sure, but I don't buy into such absolute logical type argument.

So yes, put simply, interesting things are happening and those things seem to be emerging and developing goo ideas and practices, good I am glad. The problems can be discussed but I am not interested in being locked into a position of having to defend the PKK or other things that I to find problematic. So please, again, I am not an undying PKK supporter so dont try and make the some spoke person or representative of the PKK.

-I edited this post out, sorry-

I won't comment, just wished to report it:

http://www.radikal.com.tr/turkiye/erdogan_imrali_durumdan_rahatsiz-1221319

Interview with Tayyip Erdogan (President of Turkey)
26/10/2014 08:20

Q: On peace process:
Of course PKK does not want peace in Turkey. Its legal side (HDP) also does not want it. This is like two plus two equals four.

We do not like Obama conducting weapon shipments to region... Because PYD just like PKK is a terrorist organisation.

Kobane is an empty city now... we host 200.000 refugees.

Q: Salih Muslim openly says nobody could make us fight the regime in Syria
PYD was firstly supported by the regime, then regime parted its way with PYD... Obama called me and said Kobane will fall in 2-3 days... Everyones calculations are different of course. What does PYD think? PYD does not Peshmerga to come. It does not want the Peshemerga, as persmerga could control he region. PYD thinks its tricks will be disrupted. That is why they do not want peshmerga.

PYD did not wished 1300 FSA members at first later, they changed their mind. but this time they said lets open a new front for them. This is games, this is tricks.

Is Kobane Kurdish? or is it Arab? If you look at the origins, even its name says "Ayn’el Arap’" It is later transformed to Kobane. I do not want to get involved in this discussion.

FSA will distrub the tricks of PYD. PYD is not honest.

Listening to it now: Stateless Democracy: The Revolution in Rojava Kurdistan
http://vimeo.com/109625788

K, thanks for the links, I will have a listen later.

Thanks, as it was long I listened while doing some other work. My impression is this: Dirik does not speak much new stuff (however addresses some new rumors: IS militants are afraid of being killed by women fighter as it might prevent them from going to heaven :D ) I do not remember what the middle aged Kurdish women said. The third guy "Kurdish expert" was kind of interesting as he mentions his meeting with council movement in Turkey by which I think he means "KCK". It might be interesting to someone who does not know them much. The music at the end is nice :D

However actually the second part is more interesting: http://vimeo.com/109633149 It is discussion of all three with someone from green party and questions from the audience. I recommend to listen to it more. (though it is not super spectacular again)

This is my summary if you do not want top spent 200 minutes of your life watching them. :D Best wishes

http://anarsistfaaliyet.org/english/an-interview-with-revolutionary-anarchist-action-on-kobane-we-are-kawa-against-dehaks/

Though its VICE news, which usually gets it wrong by over generalizing, at least points out here that various militias are fighting in the region that the YPG/YPJ are within. Seems that local town militant groups and armed farmers are fighting autonomously (and not under to the total control as some suggested):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2zxlFQxkQ4

Vauw!.. this interview is extremely interesting and addresses many issues I have in mind (especially related to how the self-government will be realized, particularly after Duhok Agreement)

http://kurdishquestion.com/kurdistan/west-kurdistan/the-duhok-agreement-an-interview-with-aldar-xelil/358-the-duhok-agreement-an-interview-with-aldar-xelil.html

Here is what I found notable:

1) On issue of Duhok agreement being a "kurdish agreement" Xelil says the Kurdish assembly (planned to be organized after the agreement) will be "a consultative assembly". (The legislative assambly is still seperate from this). So It will be the field where different Kurdish parties will discuss staff and determine their policies etc. BUT it is not a legislative assembly of Kurds. I think this is very important to note, especially on the national/non-national character of the authority in the region.

2) TEV-DEM made Barzani related parties to be parts of the administration of Democratic Autonomy. This is significant news and I guess PYD movement will gain significantly by participation of Barzani related Kurds in local councils (and higher councils). As this will make councils much more "people's councils", increasing their legitimacy in the long run. (And also TEV-DEM's legitimacy as they are the founders and also PYD who is the political supporter of them.)

3) However "the elections this agreement is no longer binding, because the elections are the main foundation." So after the war in the next election the agreement will finish. Power might be transformed according to its results. I think this is the "guarantee" that Barzani parties put in the agreement for themselves, to change and challenge decentralization in the future, if they could.

4) There is no agreement on military issues. This agreement must be made between YPG and Barzani (Peshemerga) I know that Barzani wished to reach an agreement also on this, however TEC-DEM was rejecting that as they are a civil organization and they can not decide on it. I think Barzani backed up on this point (at least relatively).

5) Signs of non-total-conformity with Barzani parties can still be seen in the interview. (see: some comments on previous position of ENKS) It is obvious that Barzani changed its policies (much more than PYD did) after his inability to get the upper hand in Syria and as the IS emerged.

6) Especially the last question shows how much PYD gained advantage over FSA and Turkey. Possibly in the future Rojava administration will be called to every meeting to decide on the Syria after the war. I know a lot of people will wish to read this as "they will cooperate with imperial powers or Turkish bourgeoisie or formation of a Kurdish nationalism with Barzani". But I think the truth is PYD won this "right" by being successful (in terms of military, politics and social) and this will give them much power to realize its democratic autonomy project in an officially recognized manner both in transnational and national level.

Just found this wordpress: http://rojavareport.wordpress.com/

K, have you seen this site? I am glancing it, it appears to be very ideological but seems to have positive conclusions on Rojava. I read the article concerning Imperialism, it was a clever way to counter the imperialist collaborator argument.

TEV-DEM is the collection of political representatives who agreed on the Duhok Agreement (which is basically or is the same thing as the Rojava Constitution right?) I got a little mixed up on words and names meaning the same thing.

Hi folks. I got an email from DAF (Devrimci Anarşist Faaliyet, translates to Revolutionary Anarchist Action, they're a group in Turkey) with a link to their recent interview on Rojava: http://anarsistfaaliyet.org/english/an-interview-with-revolutionary-anarchist-action-on-kobane-we-are-kawa-against-dehaks/

They also wrote this message to me:

If you share the interview in forum of Libcom. I think it will be answer to some doubts about kurdish movement. More we are now trying to prepare an article about the critics of some anarchists to Kobanê. I will also share this article with you...