The Anarchist Federation looks at the so-called "revolution" in Syrian Kurdistan, and the role of the PKK and compares the reality with the rhetoric.
Ocalan's face on flags
The following statement addresses the situation in which Devrimci Anarşist Faaliyet (DAF), Revolutionary Anarchist Action, are involved on the Turkish/Syrian border in opposition to IS. This is a struggle which, if lost, will probably result in far greater repression and tyranny than workers in the region already face, in towns and on the land. It is also one in which class-consciousness and the class struggle must remain at the forefront of anarchist responses. Anarchists on the ground are fighting in a less-than-ideal situation, not least given that the state forces of Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and the US, also claim to combat IS. We continue to offer practical solidarity through the International of Anarchist Federations (IFA/IAF). We also offer our own evaluation of the situation.
The Anarchist Federation is only too aware of the support that many anarchists, including those who describe themselves as anarchist communists, anarcho-syndicalists and class struggle anarchists, are offering the “Rojava Revolution”. This includes lauding the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) as a party that has somehow morphed from being an authoritarian nationalist party into being a near-anarchist catalyst for social revolution in the region, and describing the situation in Rojava as similar to the revolutionary situation in Spain in 1936 (David Graeber, as well as Derek Wall of the Green Party left).
Those who wish to hold on to their principles and to keep a clear head, need to examine the facts. The PKK at its birth adopted a leftist nationalist stance. This leftism was very much of the Stalinist variety. In 1984 it began an armed struggle against the Turkish state. With the capture of Abdullah Ocalan, its leader, by the Turkish state, a new period in the evolution of the PKK began. In line with leaders of other parties of the same ilk, Ocalan was and is seen as a charismatic figure to which the leadership elements and the base of the party pay obedience. Ocalan is described as “the sun” around which the various political and military organisations revolve. This situation has not changed with his apparent adoption of Bookchinite confederal municipalism. Ocalan deliberately modelled himself on Stalin right down to the personality cult. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites, Ocalan and the PKK began to manouevre, to change positions, no longer being able to look towards a discredited state capitalism.
When the PKK military forces were compelled to move over the border to Syria, they met problems with the Kurdish peasantry there, many of whom still held to Muslim religious beliefs at odds with PKK leftism. This impelled Ocalan to talk about Kurdistan as “the cradle of international Islam”. At the same time the PKK entered into a tacit alliance with Syria’s Assad regime, an enemy of the Turkish state.
Ocalan then completed another turn and talked about becoming Turkey’s “most powerful ally” and that “the war on behalf of borders and classes has come to an end”. When this failed to impress his captors, Ocalan then took another turn, recommending that Bookchin must be read and his ideas practised. This initiated an intensive marketing campaign by the PKK towards Western leftists and anarchists in order to look for support and allies.
Apart from the strange occurrence of the PKK, after decades of Stalinised nationalism, apparently turning overnight into some sort of organisation advocating Bookchinite libertarian municipalism, it should be pointed out that this came not from the grassroots of the PKK but was handed down by Ocalan through the PKK command structure. In fact, whilst Ocalan and the PKK might be posing as born again libertarians, it should be remembered that the PKK, whilst facing towards the West as advocates of direct democracy and of secularism, at the same time advocates the setting up of Democratic Islam Congresses to accommodate the Islamists and to religiously legitimise the PKK. This was also at the instigation of Ocalan. In a letter that Ocalan sent to the Democratic Islam Congress he referred to his “brother believers” and goes on to say that “we cannot be defined by western concepts such as communism and atheism". Further he then talks favourably about the Islamisation of Kurdistan. So much for secularism!
As to any change in the structure of the PKK from an extremely centralised structure with Ocalan at the tip of the pyramid into a libertarian federalist organisation controlled by the membership, there is no evidence whatsoever that this has happened. The PKK’s “Democratic Confederalism” is described by Ocalan as “a system which takes into consideration the religious, ethnic and class differences in society", in other words the class system is not being questioned at all. The Koma Civakên Kurdistan (KCK) (Group of Communities in Kurdistan) an organization founded by the PKK to implement the Democratic Confederalism programme, defends private property in its Contract (the key document in the aforesaid programme). This is under Article 8, “Personal, Political Rights and Freedoms". Section C of article 10, "Basic Responsibilities" defines the constitutional basis of mandatory military service:"In the case of a war of legitimate defense, as a requirement of patriotism, there is the responsibility to actively join the defense of the homeland and basic rights and freedoms”.
Zafer Onat, a libertarian communist in the region remarks “While the Contract states that the aim is not political power, we also understand that the destruction of the state apparatus is also not aimed [at], meaning the goal is autonomy within existing nation states. When the Contract is viewed in its entirety, the goal that is presented is not to be seen beyond a bourgeois democratic system that is called democratic confederalism”.
Anarchists can remember Gaddafi’s Green Book, which in rhetoric had far more radical language, where it says: “All that the masses need do now is to struggle to put an end to all forms of dictatorial rule in the world today, to all forms of what is falsely called democracy - from parliaments to the sect, the tribe, the class and to the one-party, the two-party and the multi-party systems.... No democracy without popular congresses and committees everywhere. ... Democracy is the supervision of the people by the people.” But did anyone seriously believe that this was actually being implemented under the repressive regime of Gaddafi?
The uprising against the Assad regime meant that in the course of events, that regime ceased hostilities against the Syrian branch of the PKK, the PYD (Democratic Union Party). This was in order to concentrate on fighting its other opponents, the Free Syrian Army, etc. How seriously should we take the claims about the Rojava Revolution in the Kurdish part of Syria?
We should be clear that the PYD has set up a parliament structure, the Auto-Administration, which it controls with allied parties. It passed a conscription law in July compelling families in the region to send one of their 18-30 year-old members to serve in the defence corps of the PYD, for a period of six months, either continuously or intermittently over a one year period. “Non-adherence” to this law was subject to punishment as stipulated in the law. This law was passed without consulting with other political formations in Rojava and explicitly drafts Kurds into armed groups completely under the control of the PYD. At the same time the PYD is treating other Kurdish political formations in Rojava in an authoritarian totalitarian way, backed up by its use of armed force. It marginalises them and refuses entry into any decision making.
The so-called cantonal assemblies and grassroots bodies are themselves under the sway of the PYD and the Auto-Administration can either approve or block any decisions by these bodies. There is no real direct democracy here, workers and peasants do not control these bodies. At the same time no genuine workers and peasants militias have developed, all of the armed groups are under the control of the PYD. Furthermore, there is no socialisation and collectivisation of the land and the workplaces, as happened, for example, in Spain in 1936. The PKK/PYD marketing campaign has presented the situation in Rojava as one of progressive revolution, but the working class and the peasantry have no autonomous organisation. Whilst there is a quota of 40% representation of women within these local councils/communes/committees, it can be seen from the above that the local structures are in fact not much different from municipal councils in the West, where they act in their role as the local state as support for and in connection with the central state and parliament. Indeed, while some compare the “Rojava Revolution” to Spain 1936 perhaps a better analogy would be the Bolsheviks in 1917 which many anarchists, both internationally and inside Russia, mistakenly supported initially as a truly revolutionary force.
As regards the women’s armed groups, whilst there are signs of feminist influences within them, it should be remembered that the women’s fighting groups are segregated from male units, with no mixed fighting groups. Gaddafi and Saddam both had women’s military brigades, but that did not mean that there was women’s liberation in Libya and Iraq. Similarly women’s military brigades exist in Iran with no sign of emancipation of women. For that matter, ISIS has all-female brigades called al-Khansaa and Umm al-Rayan.
As Zafer Onat remarks: ”First of all we must identify that the Rojava process has progressive features such as an important leap in the direction of women's liberation, that a secular, pro-social justice, pluralist democratic structure is attempting to be constructed and that other ethnic and religious groups are given a part in the administration. However, the fact that the newly emerging structure does not aim at the elimination of private property, that is the abolition of classes, that the tribal system remains and that tribal leaders partake in the administration shows that the aim is not the removal of feudal or capitalist relations of production but is instead in their own words 'the construction of a democratic nation''.”
As Syrian-Kurdish anarchist Shiar Neyo comments: “From the PYD’s point of view, this was a golden opportunity to impose its authority and expand its sphere of influence in the Kurdish areas in Syria. This political pragmatism and thirst for power are two important factors in understanding the party’s dealings with the regime, the revolution, the FSA, and even the Kurds themselves. They also help explain many phenomena that seem to bewilder some commentators and analysts, such as the suppression by PYD forces of independent activists and those critical of the party’s policies, in much the same vein as the Baathist regime did. By way of example, one can cite in this regard the Amuda massacre in July 2013, in which the People’s Protection Units (YPG) opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, or the closure of the new independent radio station Arta in February 2014, under the pretext that it was not ‘licensed’. The PYD’s forces have also assaulted members of other Kurdish political parties and arrested some of them under a variety of excuses; they have been controlling food and financial resources in the Kurdish areas and distributing them in an unjust manner on the basis of partisan favouritism, and so on and so forth. Such practices remind people, rightly, of the oppressive practices of the Assad regime.”
What we are saying might not be popular at the moment, but we feel that our analysis will be borne out by unfolding events.
Our proposed actions
1.Argue for fully open borders for refugees and aid to these refugees. Highlight the conditions in the refugee camps and of Syrian refugees in Turkish cities forced to beg or to turn to petty criminal activities in order to live.
2. Provide humanitarian aid to Rojava via IFA, which has direct contact with DAF.
3. Encourage and support any independent action of workers and peasants in the Rojava region. Argue against any nationalist agitation and for the unity of Kurdish, Arab, Muslim, Christian and Yezidi workers and peasants. Any such independent initiatives must free themselves from PKK/PYD control, and equally from aid by the Western allies, from their clients like the Free Syrian Army, Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the Turkish state.
The Anarchist Federation, 1st December 2014.
---
For references, and statements & discussion elsewhere:
References:
Servet Düşmanı (Enemy of Wealth) anarchist website, Turkey- Rojava: Fantasies and Realities [article by Zafer Onat, in several language translations]: http://www.servetdusmani.org/rojava-fantasies-and-realities/
Tahrir-International Collective Network website: On the Syrian Revolution and the Kurdish Issue – an interview with Syrian-Kurdish activist and journalist Shiar Nayo: http://tahriricn.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/syria-on-the-syrian-revolution-and-the-kurdish-issue-an-interview-with-syrian-kurdish-activist-and-journalist-shiar-nayo/
Statements:
International of Anarchist Federations: http://i-f-a.org/index.php/news [several statements by KAF (Kurdish Anarchist Forum, UK and Europe) and DAF (Revolutionary Anarchist Action, Turkey), including translations]
http://anarsistfaaliyet.org/ (DAF website)
https://libcom.org/tags/kurdistan-anarchist-forum (KAF related articles)
Further discussion:
Workers Solidarity Alliance, USA: http://ideasandaction.info/2014/10/rojava-anarcho-syndicalist-perspective/ [anarcho-syndicalist individual, critical of national liberation context]
Anarkismo, platformist network: http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27540 [reply to the WSA position with many comments]
Comments
Have to say, I was not
Have to say, I was not surprise at the reaction to the 'Rojava revolution' by non class-struggle anarchist particularly those who emerged from the summit hopping milieu. Most of the class struggle peeps I know saw through it pretty quickly
This is an ill-informed
This is an ill-informed evaluation of the Kurdish movement in general. It feels like Turkish stalinists are critiquing the federalist ecologist, feminist and communalist Middle Eastern Peoples' movement :) which consists of Araps,Christians, Assyriansand others...Kurdish movement is not a nationalist liberation movement.It is a federalist project based on communalism,feminism, ecology and equality of every religion, ethnic identities in theory and practice. It is a class struggle as well since it is based on class free organisation of the society. Ordinary people can participate directly to the every aspect of life. There is no division of labour.
I think even the BBC documentary, "Rojava: Syria's secret revolution" assesment of rojava is more realistic than this one.
alakarga wrote: This is an
alakarga
:O
Did you actually read the article? "It feels like Turkish stalinists are critiquing the..." etc... etc... You must surely see the irony given the PKK's Stalinist past?
We also supplied references
We also supplied references with the original statement so you can see where the quotes are from:
http://www.afed.org.uk/blog/international/435-anarchist-federation-statement-on-rojava-december-2014.html
(references can be found at the end).
This includes the origins of the quotes from Zafer Onat & Shiar Neyo.
Plus there are links to other relevant material and discussion.
I think more could have been
I think more could have been said of why there is now a conflict with Isis, what is the basis of that conflict, but ill-informed?
Its a well put together piece.
I have concerns about the
I have concerns about the AF's reading comprehension.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/rahman-dag/democratic-islam-congress-and-middle-east
Human Rights Watch on Amuda
Human Rights Watch on Amuda (Includes YPG statement admitting fault) (fixed link)
Al-Monitor article on Amuda with video.
Flint is this what you tried
Flint is this what you tried to link tohttp://m.hrw.org/ru/node/126064/section/13
I thought the article was
I thought the article was good, but where it says
It could have spelled out the groups it was talking about, for those that maybe unaware. It also could have included a criticism of the IFA statement that lacked any class outlook, as well as those IFA groups that have called for the defence of Rojava.
Yes a good statement - but
Yes a good statement - but for those looking for a more in depth analysis I have previously recomended this text (which has so far garnered few responses) as a useful addition to our understanding of the relationship between the forces of global capitalism and current conflicts in the Middle East including the evolution of the Kurdish political movement:
http://libcom.org/news/kurdish-question-isis-usa-etc-17112014
I think it is worth reading:
I think it is worth reading: The No State Solution: Institutionalizing Libertarian Socialism in Kurdistan
http://newpol.org/content/no-state-solution-institutionalizing-libertarian-socialism-kurdistan
PKK propaganda machine hard
PKK propaganda machine hard at work.
alakarga. Stop spreading
alakarga. Stop spreading fucking impostor lies:
http://newpol.org/content/no-state-solution-institutionalizing-libertarian-socialism-kurdistan
I don't believe this bullshit!
Burgers, how could you be so
Burgers, how could you be so sure about af's statement not a propaganda. We also have several informants from the rwgion, academics, anarxhists, socialists, feminists. We can read in Turkish as well. We better know the situation than you guys sitting in front of your PCs.
Actually,we have to be confident about the anarchists principles. They are simple and it works. The Kurdish movement has 30 years of resistance experience. They are not stupid. The application of the anarchist principles in the region is the only alternative to build up solidarity networks amongst various ethnic, religious groups. How do you think those people speaking several different languages, believing different religions, belong to different ethnic groups come to gether and form unities which are class free organisation of the society. Is it the nationalism that is operating here? Could nationalism provide a solution to the oppressed people in the region? The ideological shift within the Kurdish resistance come out of necessity, principles of anarchism is the only way to build up mutual aid structures.
The Kurdish movement have always been accused of for not being sincere, which is a form of racism and denotes the Turkish supremacy. They were always put in a position to prove themselves by either Turkish nationalists or stalinists
I didn't like the af's statement. There should have been made more research before publishing such a statement. As being Turkish I receive contrary experiences from anarchist comrades
Yeah, hope this statement
Yeah, hope this statement proves as accurate as the AF statement on the Zapatistas all those years back :-p
This straw man of some anarchists comparing Rojava to Spain in 36, (Just because Graeber said it) is designed to draw us away from what is actually happening on the ground, towards their own historical allusion of Bolshevism - which is completely juvenile. Neither historical event is directly comparable. The statement is billious sectarianism and to conflate the Rojava revolution and the PKK is another hackneyed polemical sleight of hand. We can support Rojava, the YPG/J and even the PKK, with conditions without becoming cheerleaders for Ocalan. To do otherwise is the smug ideological elitism of a self congratulatory coterie of pseudo intellectuals.
Also, the congratulatory statement above about class struggle anarchists vs summit hopping anarchists is another false dichotomy. Many did both. FWIW, the anarkismo current's position is significantly different from the AF.
AES - Of course the issue
AES - Of course the issue then would be maintaining equivalent exchange without traditional forms of money which is certainly possible without any real challenge to capitalism as in subsistance economies, various war-time economies in the past, under the regimes of Stalin and Pol-Pot for instance or simply within very small family-type economic units that are still dominated externally by an exchange economy. Any one or a mixture of these might apply in Rojava but I couldn't say.
The context of the article is
The context of the article is moneyless anarchist communes (which is not referenced with evidence) - so I don't believe it.
Sure, I know of moneyless subsistance (which is still not uncommon in remote regions of Africa, for example) but that would usually not be presented as revolutionary or anarchist.
These are very different contexts.
alakarga wrote: Burgers, how
alakarga
Because there are people also in the region that disagree with your PKK propaganda and put forward a clear class and internationalist view like the following article http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2014-10-31/the-bloodbath-in-syria-class-war-or-ethnic-war
Flava O Flav wrote: The
Flava O Flav
Classical Trotskyism, even Leon would be proud of the modern day platformists.
Lol. I don't know how to take
Lol. I don't know how to take that. On the one hand, I should be offended by the slur of "Trotskism", on the other, I'm pretty sure Trotsky would have had a better analysis of Rojava than the AF. If I take the compliment though, do I fall for the AF tactic of sterile historical reenactment?
Let me be clear, if anarchist engagement with the people of the region is small groups of anarchist prophets telling them why they are wrong and what they should be doing, it is doomed to failure. If on the other hand anarchists support their fight against ISIS, they are in a position to open a dialogue with those people. It's all very easy to say, this revolution is not pure enough, we shall sit on our hands and dispense our wisdom from afar. It is harder to engage with real life events. But that is what must be done. In this respect the Trotskyist slur is more appropriate to the AF, not because they are quasi Trotskyist or anything, they are not of course, but because their position is based on a one size fits all ideological position that neither engages with events as they unfold, nor makes any attempt to promote anarchist ideas, beyond dusting off the age old principles and being quietly content that their work is done.
Burgers, ICT got it almost
Burgers, ICT got it almost all the wrong. I wrote about peoples' movement. According to ICT here is the gang members gathering: İşte Abdullah Öcalan Newroz Mesajı 2014 Sırrı Sür…: http://youtu.be/A_8-HzE7Xq8 I agree what the article says about the crimes of PKK in the past, but the rest is shit
Anarchist Federation
Anarchist Federation
It does seem to be rattling the PKK groupies' cages.
Same thing they said in 1994
Same thing they said in 1994 when the Zapatistas emerged. That proved insightful, didn't it?
Flava O Flav wrote: Let me be
Flava O Flav
Did you read the three proposals for action in this statement, or do you have a template purist vs 'practical' strawman saved in Word for moments like this?
Flava O Flav wrote: Same
Flava O Flav
Indeed. The AF were spot on in '94 about the Zapatists.
Yeah I did. It's completely
Yeah I did. It's completely insufficient.
1. Argue with who? I broadly agree with the sentiment, but it is unclear how this would be achieved.
2. Humanitarian aid, lovely. But are we just to sit back and wait for people to become refugees because of the assualt by isis and then throw them some food? What about assisting the fight against ISIS?
3. Is exactly what I was saying above. Translate as - wait until the people of Rojava do something we agree with, then encourage it. Independent of what? Of the self governing bodies they have established? Or do they have to wave red and black flags first?
This statement by AF thinks
This statement by AF thinks like state. Total bullshit.
Tell that to the people of
Tell that to the people of Chiapas, comrade. Still no comment on the sheer number of strawman arguments in the statement or its lack of analysis of imperialism.
Flava O Flav wrote: What
Flava O Flav
So when are you going over to fight?
Flava O Flav wrote: Yeah I
Flava O Flav
Interesting logic here, why didnt you join the Mehdi army 10 years ago? Another example of a supposedly socially revolutionary group made up of the poorest and unemployed Shia of Iraq. With its social programs the Mehdi army did manage to improve the lives of millions of poor shia in iraq. From its beginning it was savagely attacked by the coalition forces. It was the precursor to what it now called ISIS.
Serge Forward wrote: Flava O
Serge Forward
Do you have a link to the article I only remember the Wildcat article.
Interesting logic indeed.
Interesting logic indeed.
Wow looks like the trolls are
Wow looks like the trolls are working overtime on this thread
Troll = someone who
Troll = someone who criticises the AF now? Who is acting like Trots here?
Where I do agree with Flava
Where I do agree with Flava is that both the Zapatists and Rojava do have much in common. They are both at best attempts at a version of radical social democracy coupled with regionalism and therefore should not be supported.
AF members should have no
AF members should have no idea about what they wrote indeed. Lots of liberal arguemnets mentioning bad Kurds, good working class Kurds. What a state minded peoples' statement it is. They do not know what working class movement is, what nationalism is, how religion could be articulated into struggles etc.. Lots of shit in it.
Burgers wrote: Where I do
Burgers
Lets assume for a moment that you are correct in the assertion about radical social democracy (needless to say I disagree) - does it follow that you would not critically support their fight against ISIS?
Flava, can you show examples
Flava, can you show examples of how this platformist critical support can be understood (the criticism and the support)? and who exactly is that support with (and are there specific distinctions and exceptions)?
Flava O Flav wrote: Burgers
Flava O Flav
On that logic do WSM believe that the allies should have been supported against Hitler?
Clearly not because it was a imperialist war and so is this war, but here is two of the key issues in this argument. Imperialism and whether you should support the smaller imperialists over the bigger ones and nationalism and why (unlike WSM) communists reject it in all it's forms.
Flava O Flav wrote: does it
Flava O Flav
What is that "critical support" many on the left like to talk about? Surely a mature and serious person should never suspend critical thinking, regardless of whether they support the thing in question or not?
Gepetto wrote: Flava O Flav
Gepetto
AFAICS, it's a bit like tactical voting, except minus the voting...and the tactics.
Of course, the counter-argument - hauled out of the back of the cupboard like an old, moudly cardboard cut-out - is to claim everyone else is purist and isolated from the working class. Whereas, of course, stating positions on a geopolitical conflict in a different continent on the internet/in your glossy mag is getting stuck in.
I'm so sick of this bullshit. It's almost 6 years since the weakest advocates of platformism were forced to back down on Libcom due to their utter lack of comprehension of the notions of 'critique', 'support', 'internationalism', etc, (cf: Chávez, Irish Republicanism) and now they're back to defend a group whose leadership has openly racist positions.
Flava O Flav
Flava O Flav
Oh my, it's like when tankies say: "Hurr hurr how could workers oppress themselves you silly"
AES wrote: Flava, can you
AES
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27540
Caiman del Barrio wrote: I'm
Caiman del Barrio
Just as I'm sick of the black-and-white, moralistic worldview which says: "If you don't critically support Rojava against ISIS then you simply have no heart and don't care for the Kurds!"
If anti-working class, nationalist and Stalinist racket is the only thing that stands between you and the genocidal Islamic fundamentalists, then it just makes your situation even more tragic.
Why does the AF have
Why does the AF have relations with as disgusting an organization as the DAF anyway, is the only question that comes to mind. Surely the AF can find better than these people.
Caiman del Barrio wrote: I'm
Caiman del Barrio
Forced to back down, or gave up talking to a brick wall? It's not as if there was a group discussion on that. Our position on anti-imperialism in Ireland hasn't changed and is spot on, and illustrates my point about a large section of the UK anarchist movement having no analysis of Imperialism.
What is the basis of your contention that we're defending a group whose leadership has "racist" opinions?
On what someone said above about defending "radical social democracy" against ISIS being the same as supporting the allies against the Nazis, again total lack of analysis of Imperialism. Like those two things are the same.
Wait, you talk about opposing
Wait, you talk about opposing imperialism and about your opponents not having analysis of imperialism, while you support a proxy of US imperialism? :D
Gepetto wrote: Flava O Flav
Gepetto
Yeah, that's exactly what it's like. How about this, you tell me what this independence means, what would be acceptable for the people of Rojava to do, and how they could arm themselves. Are people honestly saying that it makes no difference if ISIS takes control of the region? If they think it does but there's another option, what exactly is that option, other than to pray for anarchist santa to bring some independent guns free of foreign ideologies?
For the people here who support the statement, what would be worthy of your support?
Gepetto wrote: Wait, you talk
Gepetto
A proxy of US Imperialism that is classified as a terrorist organisation :-/
This is all a tad ridiculous
This is all a tad ridiculous isn't it? Putting aside all the arguments about whether or not we should support one side over another in an immensely complicated conflict that I'm sure most of us including myself do not have even the most fundamental grasp of, what in god's name are we supposed to do about ISIS? A ragtag group of a hundred something anarchists talking away on the internet, what, are 12 of us going to pack our bags and join the PKK? That'll show ISIS!
For god's sake we can't even form anything even closely resembling a social movement, what the hell are we supposed to do about ISIS?
Soapy wrote: This is all a
Soapy
A salient point. I would have thought that would support my position here. If we were capable of forming an anarchist international militia of thousands that would be able to link up with thousands of anarchists in the region in support of a genuinely anarchist revolution, there'd be no need for this thread whatsoever.
So platformist "critical"
So platformist "critical" support of PKK/PYD, who are preparing alliance with al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda in Syria) is the path of anti-imperialism and anarchism?
[quote=mikail firtinaci]Saleh Muslim (PYD's leader) says "Kurds are ready to work with the Al-Nusra Front"*, if they lift their siege on Afrin: http://www.yuksekovahaber.com/haber/salih-muslim-el-nusrayla-calisabiliriz-143753.htm *Al-Nusra front is an islamist paramilitary group.[/quote]
Leo wrote: Why does the AF
Leo
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong but I'm not sure if the AF does have relations with DAF. However, sections of the broader IAF do have relations with them. Incidentally, I don't think DAF is a "disgusting" organisation, but an organisation we have some serious disagreements with. If you know of any groups "better than these people" please let us know about them or ask them to get in touch with us.
You should also know that the IAF is not a monolithic organisation but is more of a class struggle anarchist alliance of federations. It's not set up like the ICC where each section will have exactly the same politics.
Oh, someone else asked earlier, why we (the AF) didn't condemn the earlier CRIFA statement. Well, our statement does contradict pretty much all the main points in that document, so job done.
Flava O Flav, you talk about strawmen but you have constructed more strawmen on here than you can shake a stick at (or set light to). I appreciate that our failure to throw in our lot with left-nationalists might ranckle somewhat but that's the way we in the AF roll.
Serge Forward wrote: Leo
[quote=Serge Forward]Leo
Well so far you've only answered me with one liners and vague assertions, so I'm not sure what exactly you are arguing for. You might answer some of the questions I asked in the above post.
AES wrote: So platformist
AES
[/quote]
Flava, will WSM/anarkismo continue support for PKK/PYD when in an alliance with al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda in Syria) - genuine question?
AES wrote: AES wrote: So
AES
Flava, will WSM contine support for PKK/PYD when in an alliance with al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda in Syria) - genuine question?[/quote]
WSM does not support the PKK any more than it supported the IRA.
I'm quoting some paragraphs from the anarkismo reponse to the previous anarcho-syndicalist statement:
"None of this means blindly supporting the PKK. We disagree with the purism of the “K.B.” article, but we do not go to the opposite extreme, liquidating our politics. We would agree that anarchists should not liquidate our politics behind any non-anarchist force – becoming cheerleaders and blind supporters, or silencing our criticisms or closing down our independent activities. However, whereas “K.B.” seeks to do this by isolating the anarchists from other forces, we seek to do this by engaging, as an independent current, with other forces.
This does mean making our own views clear, pushing our own project, and seeking our own influence. Such influence cannot come from purist isolation, nor can it come from liquidationist cheerleading. It entails critical engagement: we are with the PKK and the Rojava revolution against the forces of the Islamic State/ISIS, of Turkey and of Western imperialism, but we are also not a PKK auxiliary.
Therefore, despite our disagreements with “K.B’s” position, we in fact agree that there are points he or she raises that are worth soberly engaging.
“K.B.” notes that there are parallel – and potentially rival – structures and projects in Rojava and contestation around these. By some accounts – including a document that basically forms the Constitution of Rojava [6] – there are two types of systems/structures in place based on what seem to be diverging ideas that are running concurrently. One structure is a type of representative parliament with something akin to a cabinet; the other being democratic confederalism of a sort based on assemblies, councils and communes. There does also appear to be the possibility of tension arising between these two types of systems going forward too, if Rojava survives.
So there is a faction in Rojava politics, including in the leadership of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), that want what amounts to a state structure – rather than the more radical PKK vision. In practice they are trying to implement representative democracy based on a parliament, with basic human rights, where an executive will have quite a lot of power, but tactically they can’t call it a state as it appears the idea of democratic confederalism is widely held as an ideal amongst many Kurds.
But it is also still possible that Rojava could become a system based on democratic confederalism because assemblies, councils and communes do exist (and because clearly there are also people that want this). So it doesn’t seem to us that we should close our eyes to the fact that such tensions and possibly conflicting outcomes do exist and will exist as part of any revolution. Which one will gain the upper hand if Rojava survives, though, is open to question and depends on which forces gain the upper hand in the process, if they are not all wiped out by ISIS or the pashmerga (the armed units of the KRG)."
It goes without saying that we would be critical of any alliance with Al-Nusra front, but I would argue that that doesn't automatically mean that the PKK have become Islamists overnight.
Flava O Flav wrote: WSM does
Flava O Flav
Which it did also, the AWG would be proud.
I have already read and I
I have already read and I disagree with the platformist critical support of "progressive" capitalist and nationalist political parties.
Flava O Flav
That would just expose that instead of being anti-imperialist your position is validating repressive political apparatus for opportunism.
Burgers wrote: Flava O Flav
Burgers
What do you base that on burgers?
I'll make it easy for you and link to our entire archive of articles on Irish Republicanism.
http://www.wsm.ie/republicanism
And our position paper on the partition of Ireland:
http://www.wsm.ie/c/partition-ireland-anarchism
Should be no problem for you to quote us supporting the IRA from that.
AES wrote: I have already
AES
Hmmm no. It would just mean that sometimes organisations in the desperation of war will find allies in the most unlikely of places. It would be a mistake for them to do that, but would not mean that they had suddenly become indistinguishable from Al-Qaeda.
Or, (without jingoism) the
Or, (without jingoism) the coercive tragedy appeal of evil ISIS is matched by the entrance of al-Qaeda.
AES wrote: Or, (without
AES
Also, genuine question, are there any other sources other than that particualar Turkish local paper for that story?
Anarchist Federation you do
Anarchist Federation you do not take any action, please. It would only benefit ISIS. And please do not trust your Turkish fellows.
Ya uluslararası anarşist örgütlere sızmış Türkler size söylüyorum. Oğlum yazık lan, anarşistleri MAL DEYNEĞİ Türk solcularına çevirmişsiniz.
The article was from this
The article was from this morning, we will know more soon enough.
"Our goal is one. Now we can work together" is quite a starting point for Saleh Muslim (PYD's co-leader) to al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda in Syria).
[auto-translation]
Koray
Flava wrote: Hmmm no. It
Flava
So just like how they found an ally in the US? Born out of desparation of war, sure, and also understandable when your own lives are at stake, but how far can you take "critical" support? And what the fuck does that mean anyway? I was a member of a platformist organization that had that in their program, when I asked what the that meant, nobody could answer. I still don't know what it means but if it means poo-pooing any actual critique of "grassroots movement against imperialism" for their alliance with super-power and unsavoury Islamists, then what is so critical about the support? I really don't get it. Where is the critique? It all seems like cheerleading to me.
Khawaga wrote: Flava
Khawaga
I've been asked this question twice in this thread. First time I linked to an anarkismo text, second time I quoted the pertinent paragraphs. Also the WSM position paper on the partition of Ireland is an application of this general principle and I linked to that above too.
My point is though, that you
My point is though, that you can't really trust the Turkish media. I mean even in the supposed liberal democracy i live in, the media is basically state and business propaganda. I can't imagine that under Erdogan the press has many fine examples of independent journalism, and I do want to know as it would be important to criticise that.
Flava, linking to other sites
Flava, linking to other sites doesn't really answer the question. It just sidesteps it. Also, who is trusting the Turkish media any more than the US, European or pro PKK media?
*
*
AES wrote: The article was
AES
Here Koray claimed that there are Turks who infiltrated into international anarchist organizations turning them into something similar to Turkish leftist organizations. You see the logic at play here...
Soapy wrote: Flava O Flav
Soapy
Bit of a derail, but what makes you say Mahdi army was a precursor to ISIS?
Flava O Flav wrote: This
Flava O Flav
It's not really a straw man when it's an actual position put forward, including by a best-selling anarchist public intellectual, and heavy circulation of images like this on facebook (including by friends/comrades):
Anyway, if anyone actually knows anything about what's going on the ground, please contribute here. Otherwise it sounds like "what is actually happening on the ground" is just another piece of corpse-mouthed ideological rhetoric.
Joseph Kay wrote: Flava O
Joseph Kay
The best one was the one in which anarchist improvised armored vehicles from 1936 were compared to the ones used by Kurds today, as if that meant anything. You couldn't get more tankie-ist.
Joseph Kay wrote: Anyway, if
Joseph Kay
Ironic because that's pretty much what I thought of the AF statement. I mean a key thing is that not even the AF statement denies there have been concrete gains for women, that is something that has been happening on the ground.
Gepetto wrote: Joseph Kay
Gepetto
Why not just write a critique of Graeber though. He's hardly representative of much outside of himself and his followers. I mean, he isn't really a stick to beat non-IFA organised anarchism with.
Mikail you understood what I
Mikail you understood what I meant but you reflect it wrongly.
Tabii ki sızma derken işin esprisindeyim. Sızıp oralara ulusalcılık aşılamaya çalışan gizli bir grup olduğunuzu düşünmüyorum tabii ki. Bu kadar salak değil Kürtler, sevinme. Demek istediğim hücrelerinize sinmiş PKK düşmanlığını bir şekilde beraber olduğunuz anarşist gruplara da yansıttığınız. Bu yazdığımı da çevirirsin gerçeğin peşindeysen.
By the way the source of
By the way the source of Muslim' s speech is RUDAW, a news agency related with Barzani and their relationship with PKK/PYD is bad. Yuksekovahaber took it from RUDAW. This speech is understandable if Muslim said sth like a ceasefire with Nusra, but it is also claimed that he said Nusra wants a democratic Syria. I think Muslim does not say sth like this. Muslim has not confirmed it yet, also ANF (Firat News Agency, related with PKK) has not published anything about this speech.
Soapy what was precursor to
Soapy what was precursor to what?
Spassmaschine wrote: Soapy
Spassmaschine
Yes, I don't think this is accurate. The Mahdi Army is a Shia group and certainly not an ally or predecessor of ISIS and it's fierce Sunni sectarianism. But I think the broader point does stand up, that the logic of PKK/PYD cheerleaders could just as well be used to justify anarchist support for the Iraqi "resistance" in its fight against US imperialism.
Quote: Incidentally, I don't
With some of them, I have, several times. They weren't interested, they're not really impressed by the IAF. With others, like the group the guy you're quoting is involved, you should try your luck. Contacts with DAF doesn't help. DAF is a disgusting organization for the better parts of anarchists in Turkey: it is seen as a deeply authoritarian, macho and leftist group and I don't find this to be an inaccurate critique.
No, I know. It's an organization with sections who support armed nationalist groups and others who are embarrassed about this.
Leo, are you able to write a
Leo, are you able to write a sentence that isn't full of sneer? It's a pity because much of what you say makes sense to me, but the way you say it is arse.
I keep trying to ignore the
I keep trying to ignore the "Our proposed actions" as I think the statement is a genuine attempt to put distance between AF and the "Rojava revolution" crowd, but the idea of giving money to a organisation that is actively supporting the war is problematic to put it mildly.
I agree with your last point,
I agree with your last point, Burgers, but I don't think the last section of the statement should be ignored, because it points to a rather deep problem.
I think the main part of the statement is very clear on the leftist, nationalist nature of the PKK and it shows that the turn towards Bookchinism and ‘confederal democracy’ was initiated from above by its great leader Ocalan, who has also made similar approaches to the Assad regime, the Turkish state and towards Islam . The AF has the courage to admit that the position it is taking up will not be popular given the large number of anarchists being drawn into the support for the ‘Rojava revolution’.
But here we see a total incoherence within the same ‘international’ tendency. The AF statement contains no criticism whatever of the DAF and in its list of ‘concrete’ actions proposed at the end of statement is the call to “provide humanitarian aid to Rojava via IFA, which has direct contact with DAF”. This seems to be a concession to the pressure of “we must do something now”, which is very strong in the anarchist milieu, even if the aid (whether military or humanitarian) organised by a small group in Turkey can only play into the hands of bigger organisations, such as the PKK. And this is in reality what the DAF is proposing, since it has offered volunteers to fight in the PKK-controlled ‘Peoples Protection Units’ or YPG.
The AF also writes that it aims to “encourage and support any independent action of workers and peasants in the Rojava region. Argue against any nationalist agitation and for the unity of Kurdish, Arab, Muslim, Christian and Yezidi workers and peasants. Any such independent initiatives must free themselves from PKK/PYD control, and equally from aid by the Western allies, from their clients like the Free Syrian Army, Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the Turkish state”. But it could hardly do so without also arguing against the pro-PKK positions of the DAF itself. .
The problem here is not simply one of 'disagreements' between groups of the IAF, but, as Leo points out, of basic class lines between nationalism and internationalism, which could only be 'compatible' in an 'International Federation' which is actually opposed to political coherence and where a real confrontation of differences does not exist.
What's more, the difference seems wider than just between the AF and the DAF itself: as far as I can see, the IAF itself has published all the statements of the DAF without criticism.
It would also be useful to know whether there have been discussions/disagreements about these issues within the AF itself.
What, the way that
What, the way that discussions/disagreements within the ICC are always made public you mean????
Dilar Dirik is an activist of
Dilar Dirik is an activist of the Kurdish Women’s Movement and a PhD candidate in the Sociology Department of the University of Cambridge. Her lecture at the 4th New World Summit is entitled “Stateless Democracy: How the Kurdish Women Movement Liberated Democracy from the State”
http://vimeo.com/107639261
Alf wrote: I agree with your
Alf
Ignored wasn't really the right word, more look positive on the points I agree with in the article, rather than simply focusing on the negative points, which I agree with you on and have said elsewhere.
Battlescarred, I was afraid I
Battlescarred, I was afraid I might get that response, and I'm not going to provide a link to all the articles about our own internal debates and crises because it would probably derail the discussion. Given the extent of the disagreements with in the anarchist movement and the federal structure of the AF, I think it's justified to ask whether the AF statement represents the position of the whole organisation.
Serge Forward wrote: You
Serge Forward
I don't think left communist organisations are monolithic, but are based on class and internationalist positions, within that framework you can have differences.
Where the problem arises with anarchist organisation is when different local/regional/national groups all take different positions on something that is so fundamental like imperialist war.
If I remember correct, Kropotkin was booted from Freedom because of his pro war stance and rightly so. Dare I say this, maybe AF should look at booting the IFA for it's own pro-war stance.
IFA publishing this should make AF member who hold there A&P's dear, think twice about the International they belong to.
Alf wrote: Battlescarred, I
Alf
well, it was approved by the whole organisation with no dissenters so....
As to the IAF/IFA we will
As to the IAF/IFA we will argue this position at forthcoming international meetings hoping to convince rather than flounce at the drop of a hat. After that, we shall see...
As to some of the angry responses and in some cases totally uncritical worship of Ocalan we've had on Facebook you wouldn't credit it (or perhaps you would) Encouraged though by one person who said on FB that she had changed her mind about Rojava after reading our statement
I've no particular interest
I've no particular interest in supporting the various aspiring states in this conflict, but I do wonder about the state of the class struggle within the areas controlled by ISIS and the PKK. Like, is there anything interesting going on there? Workers refusing to pay rent maybe? Strike waves? Anything class struggle types should be aware of? If not then we seem to be discussing the relative merits of different forms of the state capital nexus. Which is worthwhile, but not a discussion about revolutionary potentials.
The form of these councils we hear so much about in PKK controlled areas is only one consideration (though the claims made about the form sometimes seem hard to believe). It's the membership and content that really concerns me. Are they engaged in socialising the means of life? Are they self conscious workers' organisations. Are they dismantling the commodity economy? Or are they engaged in institutionalising a left wing nationalism entirely consistent with class society and the rule of capital and the state? Could a genuinely socialist society even survive a year in the international situation Rojava is subject to?
I know those seem like leading questions, but I feel like that has a lot to do with the context in which they are asked. Any communist ought to be asking those about any situation they have hopes for, so if they seem leading in this context, maybe that tells us something.
I hope that this post does not sound callous about the horrific situation. Of course I hope that situation ends as soon as possible. But I also hope it ends due to class conflict ripping apart the ability of the states and proto-states to send people to kill and be killed rather than one of them establishing some sort of territorial hegemony, which seems likely to end in massacre, whoever wins. I'm not optimistic about it, but I still want to emphasise the communist position on the issue.
Battlescarred I wasn't
Battlescarred I wasn't suggesting you should go out without a principled fight. Good luck.
Burgers, yes that is a
Burgers, yes that is a shockingly shit article you have quoted, which frankly has no place in a revolutionary anarchist website or publication and would be more appropriate for a Maoist sect. I also take your point about left communist organisations and monolithism. On the AF's apparent lack of monolithickyness...
Yes that is somewhat problematic but I kind of look at it as a challenge that goes with the territory, because by and large, the AF benefits from being a member federation of IAF and the IAF reciprocally benefits from having us as a member organisation. I would much rather we were part of a wider class struggle anarchist movement with occasional shit that has to be sorted, than part of a narrower group that has very sorted politics but maybe has more limited opportunity for practical political engagement.
Battlescarred wrote: As to
Battlescarred
Missed this point but it's bang on.
Serge Forward wrote: Yes
Serge Forward
Serge this is where we disagree, for me it's not simply "occasional shit", this is about capitalism's war and which side of the class lines you stand on. Time and time again war divides up the revolutionaries from the leftist, be it the first, second world wars or the thousands of civil/local/regional wars. To stay within a organisation that was clearly crossing class lines and siding with a section of the ruling class in a imperialist war, once the argument had been had, would be at best opportunist.
I know we disagree but I
I know we disagree but I still love you ;)
Huddersfield Anarchst League
Huddersfield Anarchst League and Plan C should be added to libertarian groups cheerleading for Ocalan and the PKK with the latter organising an event Rojava: Stateless Democracy & Democratic Autonomy - a Plan C infoday on Dec 14th in London
Yes I heard a rumour that
Yes I heard a rumour that Plan C are campaigning for the PKK to be unlisted.
As an aside I understand not
As an aside I understand not everyone in Plan C agrees with this approach but then there is little in the way of politicle consistency amongst the various Plan C groups. The otherwise good explanation by a Plan C speaker of 'Six myths about what is wrong with Capitalism' at the recent Manchester Anarchist bookfair seemed on the face of it to contradict their published statements on the Kurdish issue but I didn't get an opportunity to point that out.
alakarga. You may not be
alakarga.
You may not be aware that the video recording of Dilar Dirik has previously be been posted a link on this site and has been commented on by myself and others on previous discussion threads here.
I was surprised at a couple
I was surprised at a couple of remarks on Twitter by Plan C on the 'Rojava Revolution'.
Maybe they're going for a Plan N?
Here's some blurb from the
Here's some blurb from the Plan C Facebook event for a bit more context:
"Rojava: Stateless Democracy & Democratic Autonomy - a Plan C infoday"
"The political revolution in Rojava is a vital social experiment in non-state revolutionary politics, all the more significant as it comes from forty years of Kurdish political evolution and militancy and in the midst of a civil war. The experiments in Rojava is a part of a flowering of anti-statist revolutionary politics in recent decades, all of which are part of our political tradition."
"The social revolution in Rojava involves a radical interpretation of participative democracy, one combined with anarchist and libertarian socialist perspectives. Priority has been placed on developing strong autonomous social institutions and bringing gender to the centre of analysis and daily practice. It is a living example of the kind of changes we think are necessary and that we wish to see."
Well indeed what is Plan C's
Well indeed what is Plan C's 'political tradition'? Unfortunately I suspect it is more aligned to the worst of the 'Autonomist Marxist' tradition of faith in 'the multitude' rather than it's best insignts on 'working class composition' and 'communism'. You don't have to rubbish everything people might be trying to do to survive in the difficult circumstances of this civil war but too many people are simply projecting their own desired but frustrated future onto a situation far away which in reality it cannot deliver.
I think that the statement is
I think that the statement is fairly clear on the class nature of the PKK and its affiliates, and is also clear on the fact that what is happening in Rojava is not a "revolution" nor anything vaguely approaching it - on the contrary in my opinion. I don't know why the article leads with a photograph of nationalist women fighters in a sort of semi-heroic pose given the analysis, here and more generally, of the role of women in imperialist war and the particular way that the PKK has used the role of women in the war as arms of recruitment and support.
Serge above suggests that he agrees with what Leo says, but doesn't like his tone. The fact is that Serge's position is diametrically opposed to Leo's and this is shown in his response to Burgers. For Serge it's better to be in some sort of heterogeneous united front (why?) with "occasional shit", the "occasional shit" in this case being a profound political disagreements that you ignore rather than taking a clear class position on imperialist war. But, unless Serge has changed position, the posts expressed before show a tendency to see Isis as a "greater evil" and thus support other forms and expressions of imperialism "resisting" it. This is typical of united or popular front support for capitalism and its wars..
Always nice to see Baboon
Always nice to see Baboon pull the Top Communist Trump Card :D
Yes, I do see ISIS as somewhat worse than the PKK, just as Hitler was worse than the Home Guard or Ronald Reagan was worse than the Sandinistas. So what? I never supported the Sandinistas either... although I admit I do have a fondness for re-runs of Dad's Army on telly.
As for the IAF, you make it sound as if it's in permanent state of conflict but, in truth, such profound political disagreement is rare. In this instance, we'll hammer the matter out between us without chucking dummies out of the pram. If it can't be resolved, then as Battlescarred says, we'll see.
On the 'semi-heroic pose' picture, you may well have a point, though I doubt that was the intention of whoever posted the statement on here.
Hello, what is the AF
Hello, what is the AF statement on EZLN everyone's talking about? Is it this one? http://libcom.org/history/1994-the-zapatista-uprising
baboon wrote: I don't know
baboon
Me neither. I posted the article without a photograph of any kind. Presumably it was added by one of the admins.
Add this one, chief. I'm sure
Add this one, chief. I'm sure baboon will approve:
Or this incisive bit of
Or this incisive bit of political commentary, on a par with the Barcelona 1936 image someone posted earlier in the thread:
Caiman del Barrio
Caiman del Barrio
No that's not it.
Organise! #34 I believe.
Organise! #34 I believe. Don't think there's an online version though.
I found the article
I found the article interesting and being new to much of what is going on in Syria etc. makes me want to find out more. I support the content of the article, as best as I understand the situation but have a couple of questions relating to the proposals.
I'm assuming, like every anarchist and communist, that this statement is a democratically agreed position from AFed? That it is the culmination of an internal discussion process where a consensus has been agreed. If so, then possibly these "proposed actions" are actions no longer "proposed" but ratified and the practical application is underway within AFed? Or are they proposals for the rest of the libertarian world to join together?
Also, I'm not trying to pour cold water on these proposals, but I've seen very similar emerging from every kind of liberal - the most obvious are members of TUC unions, Green Party and Labour Party, and just to show how similar they are, here's the first 2 ratified proposals from South Lanarkshire Unison branch:
1) the borders between Rojava, Turkey and Iraq remain open and secure in order for the free and safe passage of medical equipment, food and other essential aid, as well as of refugees and internally displaced people;
2) International aid organisations be granted safe route into Rojava to provide humanitarian aid to the thousands of refugees from other parts of Syria who have fled to Rojava seeing it as a safe haven from the chaos.
Change international aid organisations for the IFA and are these by and large the same proposals? There is also a very similar proposal from Labour Party members relating to the AFed's third proposal. If these are proposals for non-members of AFed to unite around, they aren't unique to anarchists.
Quote: Leo, are you able to
I'm not interested in looking cute, sorry.
If much of what I say indeed does make sense to you, you should know that it's not me who you should be angry at.
Serge Forward
Serge Forward
Do you have it. And access to a scanner per chance?
No, Flava. I gave all my back
No, Flava. I gave all my back issues, going right back to Virus #1, to the Sparrows Nest archive.
Leo, what makes you think I'm angry? :x :x :x
There's some info at the link
There's some info at the link below about Anarchist Federation's Organise! magazine, issues 14 to 39. The list includes the "1910 VIVE ZAPATA First time tragedy - 1994 VIVE ZAPATA Second Time...?" article in Issue No. 34.
"Unfortunately these issues are not online apart from selected articles - one day we will scan them all in! In the meantime, if you are interested in a particular article we can photocopy it for you for a small donation to cover copying and postage."
So maybe if Flava O Flav stuffs a fat bundle of notes into the AF's war chest then a photocopy of the article could arranged.
http://www.afed.org.uk/org/org_index14to39.html
We are engaged in dialogue
We are engaged in dialogue with self-professed libertarians in many places. We are contact with DAF through IFA even if we are critical as AF as we take the situation in Rojava seriously. IFA will continue to discuss its position on Rojava and be assured this includes practical solidarity we can support, and have done already. Our consensus on Rojava is consistent with our principles of opposition to marxist-leninist parties and a critique of anti-imperialism. Any meaningful collaboration with anarchist groups comes from mutual understanding of principles which will hopefully develop through closer contact. Being part of IFA helps this considerably.
As this has been raised the IFA is also in discussion about the recent La Sexta International initiative of the Zapatistas and we are also considering our collective response to that and we are certainly not ignoring or dismissing that struggle either. Through IFA, we are paying attention to the latest Zapatista statements which have taken a libertarian turn and we do that in discussion with our anarchist contacts in Mexico, since there are differences of opinion there. (no problem, a scanned copy of the historical article in Organise! 34 can be sorted out soonish, in next week or so).
So the AFed statement is a
So the AFed statement is a consensus agreement involving all members of AFed through internal democratic mechanisms? Then if so, can someone state whether these proposals are for AFed members only and are they underway in any practical sense? Will other self-professed libertarians be asked to help AFed - through IFA - to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Rojava?
Glad also that the question
Glad also that the question of the picture caption is cleared up and changed by the libcom admins and everyone likes the new one :)
It is true the statement is quite long and actually this is the main reason for not including lengthy paragraphs on Turkish & Syrian states, ISIS or western forces, opposition to which is taken as given. In fact we had a background section ready to go but we decided not to include it. Hope this will help to counteract the idea that because we chose mainly to critique marxist-leninist groups in the region we are somehow not adequately critical of the national states in the region or of ISIS itself!
It should be clear that the AF statement is very much aimed at furthering debate in the anarchist movement, and still alive is the question of anti-imperialism that arises whenever there are liberation movements (which are inevitably states in waiting in our analysis). So we have produced other similar critiques before notably about politics in S.Africa and N.Ireland, positions on which have played out in the long-term is disagreements between groups like ourselves and groups that have aligned to the Anarkismo statement. We also produced statements about Yugoslavia break-up including Kosovo/a, where the taking of sides on the latter went so far as to take some anarchists to supporting NATO intervention, but thankfully this does not happen so often so we generally don't need to spend too much time critiquing western forces in our statements.
In terms of activity we have not ignored struggles where there are bourgeous forces taking the lead and so the AF, and ACF before it, was active in the anti-Apartheid movement, Troops Out and present day demonstrations about Rojava. Being in IFA mean we are now in a position to engage even better with libertarian groups and movements in other countries who need supporting, and where face-to-face dialogue can only help increase mutual understanding and consensus.
Quote: plasmatelly> So the
Yes it is a consensus statement from one of our regular meetings produced after considerable internal discussion. Some IFA groups in particular have close regular contact with DAF and money has been raised through IFA. There was an open call at the end of this statement which is a bank account with one IFA group:
http://i-f-a.org/index.php/statements/556-against-the-terror-of-the-state-and-religion-freedom-for-the-people
which is still open and so you are free to transfer funds to it.
Forgive us if we don't give more details on an open forum but you can get in touch with the IFA secretariat (or the AF) if you wish to talk further and say who you are affiliated to and how you want to help. The email address can be found on http://i-f-a.org
Ok fair enough, was just a
Ok fair enough, was just a bit unclear. Tbh, I'm not a fan of statements per se, however I'm light of some of the misplaced support in a minority of anarchist corners for the PKK, it isn't unwelcome.
I'm all for articles that
I'm all for articles that criticise in a way that's honest, accurate and done in good faith, but this one aims solely to undermine and destroy solidarity with comrades in Rojava.
Things I found particularly problematic:
- The arrogant and imperialist way in which major cultural/social shifts don't count as revolution (e.g. 'the so-called “Revolution”') if they don't conform to the writers' classical Marxist formula; “but the means of production are not in the hands of the workers!!!”
- The patronising advice at the bottom, i.e. "Argue against any nationalist agitation and for the unity of Kurdish, Arab, Muslim, Christian and Yezidi workers and peasants." What, are Afed gonna go there and tell them that?
- The factual inaccuracies: that there are no mixed people's protection units; the disingenuous equation of the YPJ with Daesh's women's brigades, which as far as I can make out are sharia police units that have been established to prevent men touching women whilst enforcing their bullshit misogynist laws - and are not fighting units.
- People who clearly are not all that knowledgeable about the situation writing an article that will probably sew enough seeds of doubt to make people not bother doing solidarity stuff (ok, it's hardly going to make a shred of difference to people putting their bodies on the line in Rojava, but I nevertheless find it embarassing to see so much fence-sitting from these people who call themselves anarchists).
The statement certainly seems
The statement certainly seems to have rubbed some people up the wrong way on facebook:
Wow, cage rattled good style.
Wow, cage rattled good style. We must be doing something right then.
Ed wrote: The statement
Ed
How one does cheerlead (wait, wait, I mean, CRITICALLY SUPPORT) armed nationalist gangs, accuses people who aren't so enthusiastic of some kind of racism or "colonial mentality", and compares them to MAOISTS? Oh irony.
Anyway this FB page is really shit, they support "Peoples' Republics" in Eastern Ukraine if I'm not mistaken. Burn, plow and salt the earth.
The funniest thing here, of
The funniest thing here, of course not surprising for your square-headed sectarian behaviour, is the fact that the anger and the reaction of outside people actually make you feel happy and doing the right thing. There was an offensive comment about the "summit anarchist" that literally made me laugh out loud. So, you are the actual, real, like proper anarchists? Do you give certificates? I guess unicorns, shitting rainbows, as your new stickers look like describe perfectly how "everything is possible" in your mighty organisation. Colonialism especially - both in the case of the Zapatistas and Rojava. Who do you even think you are, armchair rats, to tell what is revolution and what not? You shit yourselves seeing the TSG but you are so brave on the internet, such real anarchists: "Burn, plow and salt the earth". Do you even realise how marginal and insignificant for society you are? Do you realise that your group and mentality is condemned by history to slow and hopefully painful death and oblivion? The Zapatistas and the YPG will be there to inspire generations. You? In the trash of reactionary, sectarian, detached from reality and from action white privileged western pseudo-anarchists.
Btw, when telling the Kurdish
Btw, when telling the Kurdish people how to do their revolution and how to leave the YPG and give up arms, coming from the West, did you actually think with your ideologically-crippled brains that any of these things means a certain death. I guess this doesn't matter when we're talking about something which is not happening on your street and your white asses are save. Stop writing sci-fi, "anarchists". BTW, would really love to greet you with a poem, it describes you quite well:
"He is taking a course on Marxist ideology.
He says, “The only real solution is to smash the system and start again.”
His thumb is caressing the most bourgeois copy of the Communist Manifesto that I have ever seen,
He bought it at Barnes and Noble for twenty-nine U.S. American dollars and ninety-nine cents,
Its hard cover shows a dark man with a scarved face
Waving a gigantic red flag against a fictional smoky background.
The matte finish is fucking gorgeous.
He wants to be congratulated for paying Harvard sixty thousand dollars
To teach him that the system is unfair.
He pulls his iPhone from his imported Marino wool jacket, and leaves.
What people can’t possibly tell from the footage on TV
Is that the water cannon feels like getting whipped with a burning switch.
Where I come from, they fill it with sewer water and hope that they get you in the face with your mouth open
So that the hepatitis will keep you in bed for the next protest.
What you can’t tell from Harvard square,
Is that when the tear gas bursts from nowhere to everywhere all at once,
It scrapes your insides like barbed wire, sawing at your lungs.
Tear gas is such a benign term for it,
If you have never breathed it in you would think it was a nostalgic experience.
What you can’t learn at Barnes and Noble,
Is that when they rush you, survival is to run,
I am never as fast as when the police are chasing me.
I know what happens to women in the holding cells down there and yet…
We still do it.
I inherited my communist manifesto,
It has no cover—
Because my mother ripped it off when she hid it in the dust jacket of “Don Quixote”
The day before the soldiers destroyed her apartment,
Looking for subversive propaganda.
She burned the cover, could not bring herself to burn the pages,
Hoped to God the soldiers couldn’t read,
They never found it.
So she was not killed for it, but her body bore the scars of the torture chamber,
For wanting her children to have a better life than she did,
Don’t talk to me about revolution.
I know what the price of smashing the system really is, my people already tried that.
The price of uprise is paid in blood,
And not Harvard blood.
The blood that ran through the streets of Santiago,
The blood thrown alive from Argentine helicopters into the Atlantic.
It is easy to say “revolution” from the comfort of a New England library.
It is easy to offer flesh to the cause,
When it is not yours to give."
—Catalina Ferro, “Manifesto”
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=902978316378918&set=vb.326149914061764&type=2&theater
Quote: white privileged
:D
Yeah and people criticising
Yeah and people criticising Israel are also driven by latent anti-Semitism.
Quote: Do you even realise
Pot, met Kettle.
Strange to see people far
Strange to see people far away from Rojava whose only involvement in the "revolution" is cheerleading it on the Internet accuse the AF of being armchair critics. Perhaps anarchists need to put their lives on the line for (at best) social democracy led by a nationalist party before they criticize it.
Petar Stanchev Sanchez
Petar Stanchev Sanchez
It may come as a surprise to you, but Kurds are white too.
Devrim
Quote: I nevertheless find it
When the choice is Stalinist nationalism on one side and fundamentalist religion on the other, how dare you not take a side, sir?!
Anyway, this statement reads to me like AF is wanting to communicate mostly with other anarchists and, in particular, it's sibling organisations in the IFA. The idea that they wrote this statement as a way to tell people on the ground in Rojava to act strikes me immediately as a strawman (or that someone hasn't actually read the statement).
Chilli Sauce wrote: Quote: I
Chilli Sauce
Comrade Sauce is bang on. I think it should be read more as an ey up anarchists, there's no need for a farcical repitition of the anarchist movement's earlier little 1914 tragedy. I think the DAF are well meaning but they are playing the role of 'useful idiot' for the PKK... so are those associated with Anarkismo, as are certain elements within the IAF. It is particularly these last that our statement is primarily aimed at.
Oh, and those from the ICC berating us for not writing a clone ICC statement either... sorry, it's just not us. Besides that, it'd probably put most IAF feds off a bit.
Devrim wrote: Petar Stanchev
Devrim
Not to your average German racist.
In a long thread of political stupidity it seems churlish to draw attention to one particular instance. But the idea that "white" has some objective definition external to racism seems particularly obtuse.
ocelot wrote: Not to your
ocelot
The attempt by mainly Americans to try to impose the racial schema of the U.S. left onto the entire world is just something that annoys me a little. Ethnic/sectarian strife here in the Middle East has nothing to do with 'colour' whatsoever. I don't quite see what the relevance is. Nevertheless, you are right. It's not really related to the thread.
Devrim
I don't know Devrim. While I
I don't know Devrim. While I certainly can't claim to know the situation as well as you, when I was in Turkey there did seem to be a prejudice against darker-skinned Turks. I get this was because they looked more Arab, but it didn't seem to me that color was totally absent from the equation.
That said, I largely agree with your point about American activists trying to impose their understanding on a situation half a world a way - and I say that as someone who didn't realize Turks were white until I moved to the country.
"It may come as a surprise to
"It may come as a surprise to you, but Kurds are white too.
Devrim"
I guess your comment defies itself without any need of further explanation, however, gonna give you a hint. Racism and colonial mentality are not constructed around just skin colour. If you think so, you definitely lack basic understanding on how racism works. Racism is a social and political construct, developed during the colonial times, where privilege and domination has been build around the dichotomy Europe/US/Rich North and the rest of the world that has been colonised. It describes complex social relations where the people of the global economic and historic south have been marginalised and imposed domination by the West and this logic is reproduced inside the Western societies as well. In this context, your whiteness has hardly anything to do with the Kurdish whiteness. I can give you enough examples of your privilege, but I hope you already got it. If anarchists can't get such basic concepts in their struggle to dismantle oppression and domination, they should probably not call themselves anarchists.
"Strange to see people far
"Strange to see people far away from Rojava whose only involvement in the "revolution" is cheerleading it on the Internet accuse the AF of being armchair critics. Perhaps anarchists need to put their lives on the line for (at best) social democracy led by a nationalist party before they criticize it."
I am quite curious how you know what one's involvement is :)
Anarchists are putting their lives on the front-line. AFED calls them "useful idiots" from the ivory tower of their ideological sectarianism. Such a pity AFED are not even "useful" to the ideas they tend to propagate. Stop living somewhere between the end of XIX century and the beginning of the XXth, otherwise you are just a historical nonsense, incapable of addressing and challenging any of the structural issues we face under capitalism. I guess you can go on living in your unicorn-bakunin world but you might also question your approach and try to be at least adequate. At least.
"When the choice is Stalinist nationalism on one side and fundamentalist religion on the other, how dare you not take a side, sir?!"
They are actually taking side. The side of the oppressor. Talking of "Stalinist nationalism" demonstrates how easily people living in their imaginary ideological world tend to put labels without even going into deeper research of the issue they are talking about. It kind of reminds me of the Mexican anarchists during the revolution who were at the end lead into slaughtering peasants, because they believed the peasants represent the bourgeoisie and reaction. This is where such use of anarchist ideas leads to.
Quote: AFED calls them
Yeah, so that's not what happened. Talk about "imaginary ideological worlds"....
Quote: unicorn-bakunin
Photoshop please!
Chilli Sauce
Chilli Sauce
I am the AFED and the AFED is me. This must be how it feels to be that Ocalan chap.
Fuck sake, Petar Stantev Sanchez, how many straw man points and made up shite can you fit into one post? I dunno but you've probably set a new record.
Meanwhile, in a far off
Meanwhile, in a far off world, well a website, anarchists are doing what they can to lend a hand to the Media Centre of the Progressive Revolutionary Fighters:
http://325.nostate.net/?tag=progressive-revolutionary-fighters-y-p-g
BAKUNICORN!!!!
BAKUNICORN!!!!
Chili
Chili
Now that's a eureka moment if I've ever seen one.
I want a badge.
I want a badge.
Petar Stanchev Sanchez
Petar Stanchev Sanchez
Look, I'm open to the idea there's interesting social experiments going on in Rojava (revolution seems to be stretching it), but this is the kind of contentless rhetoric deployed by every side in every conflict ever. 'You're either with us or you're with the other guys, you can't criticise when there's bullets flying, brave fighters vs armchair critics' etc.
If there's a political case to offer solidarity to what's happening in Rojava - beyond the stuff AFed are already doing, and presumably beyond internet posting too - then make it. This kind of name-calling and empty rhetoric just suggests there's no substance to it. Again, if anyone has any info on the class structure/economy (broadly understood, so including e.g. patriarchal relations) before the war and since 'the revolution', please post it up here.
Eta: scare quotes for ideological correctness
Joseph Kay wrote: since the
Joseph Kay
But there has been no revolution, social democracy is not revolutionary.
Joseph Key wrote: If there's
Joseph Key
"They protect people from genocidal fundamentalists, what more do you want?!"
Burgers wrote: Joseph Kay
Burgers
Thanks for that, i missed the scare quotes and will report to the wall for immediate re-education :D
Fwiw I'm not sure 'social democracy' really captures what's happening in Rojava (or Chiapas) either. Is it a system of political and economic representation of wage labourers within a redistributive state? It's not obvious that categories from 20th century Europe/America map in any sensible way onto more rural/'underdeveloped' regions nor indigenous populations thereof (in the case of Chiapas).
That doesn't make it a revolution, but dismissing stuff by bad analogy isn't that much better than cheering it on out of a vague sense of doing something. Neither gives any hint of knowing what's actually going on, though admittedly the burden is on those claiming a revolution is in progress to demonstrate that, rather than on critics to disprove it.
Gepetto wrote: "They protect
Gepetto
Gepetto, where is the quote from?
Petar Stanchev Sanchez
Petar Stanchev Sanchez
I would assume that those actually in Rojava would be able to describe the "revolution" in greater detail than the references to PYD programmatic statements and vague talk of neighborhood assemblies that the PKK's internet cheerleaders are so fond of when they're not engaging in lengthy moralizing devoid of class analysis--perhaps anarchists have also been awful armchair critics for doubting the revolutionary nature of the struggle of the MPLA/FARC/Shining Path/Ba'athists/Nasserists/Gadaffi/FLN against the oppressors of the Angolan/Colombian/Peruvian/Syrian/Iraqi/Egyptian/Libyan/Algerian people?
Petar Stanchev Sanchez
Petar Stanchev Sanchez
You know that parts of the US were colonies, along with some European territories, right? When would you define the beginning of colonialism?
P.S 13 hours in MSPaint
Another statement
Another statement http://rabble.org.uk/why-we-are-with-the-fighters/
gamerunknown wrote: Petar
gamerunknown
Don't want no black/brown unicorns polluting my white anarkeez club.
The Rabble website also has
The Rabble website also has info on 'anti-speciesism' with an article called "Istanbul Actions for World Vegan Day" "31 Turkeys Liberated" and "How You Can Help Kobane".
Strangely, the last article is listed as 'Tagged: anti-speciesism, kurdistan'
http://rabble.org.uk/tag/anti-speciesism/
For information - not an
For information - not an endorsement
[quote=MACG withdraws from Australians for Kurdistan]
This statement was prepared for the public meeting on “Beyond Kobanê – Behind the revolution in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan)”, which was held at Victorian Trades Hall on Wednesday 3 December by Australians for Kurdistan. Most of it was read at the meeting, but due to time constraints, the latter part was curtailed. The parts in italics were not able to be read. There has been minor editing for publication.
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group has decided not to participate any further in Australians for Kurdistan. We have decided this, despite our support for the right of the Kurdish people to national self-determination and despite our support for the Rojava Revolution. We also have our doubts about the depth of the social transformation that has occurred in West Kurdistan, though we definitely support the social transformation that has occurred and the direction it has taken. Because our reservations about the extent of the Rojava Revolution so far take the form of doubts rather than criticisms, I will not pursue them further in this meeting.
The reasons the MACG has decided to withdraw from AfK are concerned with its fundamental strategy – that of alliance with imperialism. While AfK see themselves as “Australians”, the MACG is proudly un-Australian. Appeals to the Australian government to support the Kurdish struggle in Rojava on the grounds of humanitarianism and “anti-terrorism”, and co-incidence with Australian foreign policy, are profoundly incorrect and will be counter-productive.
Even more serious is the orientation towards the United States. The PYD is appealing to Obama, to be his “boots on the ground” in West Asia, and AfK is appealing to Obama to arm the YPG-YPJ. The MACG fully supports the struggle of the YPG-YPJ against Da’esh (a.k.a. the “Islamic State”) and we recognise the YPG-YPJ’s right to get arms from wherever they may be obtained – even from the imperialists. This right, though, is conditional on no concessions being made to imperialism on points of principle. We believe, however, that public political agitation for imperialist States to arm the YPG-YPJ will only serve to build support for imperialist military intervention in West Asia and its political domination of the region.
The MACG’s opposition to imperialist intervention in West Asia is completely in harmony with our support for the struggle against Da’esh. In fact, imperialist intervention is the number one recruitment tool for Da’esh. In the first month of US air strikes in Syria and Iraq, they killed 500 Da’esh jihadis. Da’esh, however, recruited 10,000. In addition, many groups in Syria which had previously been fighting against Da’esh have now turned around and allied with it. Da’esh has become a hydra. Imperialist intervention in West Asia only strengthens it – to destroy Da’esh, the US would have to destroy the entire region and kill millions of people.
For the Kurds, only defeat can come from alliance with imperialism. The only way for the Rojava Revolution to triumph and for Da’esh to be defeated is for the Kurds to stand at the head of the struggle of the people of West Asia against imperialism, religious reaction and the corrupt and brutal States of the region. It is only through class struggle by the working class and its allies that this can be taken forward. Alliance with imperialism by the PYD will eventually see Da’esh strengthened until it overwhelms the YPG-YPJ, but a class struggle strategy gives the Rojava Revolution a fighting chance.
The MACG will continue to provide solidarity for the Rojava Revolution, but we will do so in a manner consistent with our libertarian communist principles. We will attempt to rally the working class, here and internationally, to the struggle against both Da’esh and imperialism and will will also try to hold the PYD to the social vision about which it speaks.[/quote]
Before I address the
Before I address the statement, or some of the arguments in this thread, my initial reaction to reading this thread impelled me to write the following. A sarcastic strawman, no doubt, but still containing within it some pointers to the problems I see with the ultraleft sectarian knee-jerk response to Rojava , Zapatistas, or pretty much anything really...
---
For the ultraleft sectarian the end of capitalist history has always-already been reached. Whether announced by the outbreak of WW1 in 1914 or the advent of neoliberalism in 1979, capitalism once had developmental dynamics, but no longer does so.
In the era of the end of capitalist history, all of the world's proletariat are always-already fully subsumed under capitalist social relations. There were once pre-capitalist social relations, but there no longer are any anywhere on the global surface of a unified, one-world capitalist system. A smooth space of universal proletarian-capitalist wage relations and none other.
Mongol horse herders, Guarani Indians, Mountain Kurds, Sahel pastoralists. From now on the only acceptable form of their emancipatory activity is to find or invent employers to strike against. The only mistake of the Pacific islander cargo cultists was to build runways rather than factories from sticks and bamboo. Then they could have occupied them and experienced the full joy of proletarian emancipation. All according to the prescribed forms long-established in the past of the one true communist movement.
We are faced with a world where everything that is not "communist" is bourgeois, and therefore reactionary. Any distinction between reactionary and progressive no longer has any meaning. There is nowhere to move towards, no development to promote, because history is now motionless, poised eternally on the brink of glorious communist revolution.
There is no longer any distinction to be made between communism as dogma, "a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself" and "the real movement which abolishes the present state of things", because the former is the latter and vice versa. This inversion of Marx we call the New True Marxism.
History is unilinear and moves along a monorail between its stages. The only thing wrong with the Menshevik view of history was their failure to recognise that the global proletariat has already arrived at the last capitalist station.
The notion that might arise amongst any until-recently pre-capitalist peoples that primitive accumulation and formal subsumption have taken away their past without providing a viable future in the historically-necessary foothills of real subsumption, and that therefore, going back being an impossibility, and with no visible way forward (other than looming ethnocide), a sideways movement might be desirable. Such a notion is erroneous. All attempts to move in any direction other than forwards - even if to destruction - is strictly forbidden by the unilinear view of history.
The notion that feminism or ecologism might have any content other than the purely bourgeois, is again anathema. Feminism already exists in the capitalist world, therefore, like anything else that is not the proper, economistic "state of affairs to which reality will have to adjust itself" is reactionary. Forced marriages, child brides, honour killings, blood feuds, none of these are of any strategic interest to communists, mere sentimental humanitarianism aside.
Accepting the strict division between the economic and the political, social revolution can only be revolution in purely economic categories. The economic categories of capitalism, by definition, being omnipresent, any contrary evidence notwithstanding. Radical transformation in social relations - such as the patriarchal bondage of women, for example - are automatically excluded from the category of social revolution, because only the one-sidedly economic categories of full-subsumption capitalism are genuine or meaningful social relations.
Historical materialism is not a practice of analysis that examines the dynamics of clashing and contradictory encounters of different modes of production, but a confession of faith that we live in the end-time of capitalism awaiting its long-fated chiliasm and all else is reaction.
Above all, true communists hold to two primary principles. First that any attempt to create communism in one country or region is reactionary. Second that any attempted “progressive” social change in any location that does not aim to create communism in one country or region is also reactionary. Catch 22.
That'll show those windmills
That'll show those windmills Ocelot.
Ocelot, yes, a fair bit of
Ocelot, yes, a fair bit of straw-manning in your post. Possibly some of what you say may ring true with certain elements on the communist left but I think it has fuck all to do with that particular AF statement.
The problem I see with a lot of the anarchists doing the 'Rojava revolution' cheerleading is that it stems from the actual kneejerk 'people are fighting... fighting is good... we must do something to support those fighting...' school of thought. This mindset runs right the way through that Rabble LDN statement, as it does with many of the other Rojava cheerleaders who come to post on here. By the same token, the AF/ACF should have supported the Provisional IRA back in the day (it didn't), neither did we choose between Saddam or Bush, Washington or Moscow and we will not be choosing sides between the anti-fascist fascists or the fascist anti-fascists currently fighting in Ukraine.
Fighting is sometimes right while other times it plays into the hands of the boss class. It also depends who is fighting and what for. But we don't automatically support someone simply because they are fighting. Meanwhile, that Rabble LDN seem to think the act of fighting is good enough. They actually admit that:
but they then go on to say why supporting PKK fighters is still the right thing to do. That is just total arse and I'm not entirely sure whether they are a bunch of idiots or a gang of cynical cunts.
Anyway, feel free to send virtual white feathers my way. I'll wear it with pride.
Solid post, Serge. I'll
Solid post, Serge. I'll drink (a good American beer) to that.
Serge by all means substitute
Serge by all means substitute Rabble LDN for a critique of my own, the wsm's or other Anarkismo groups actual positions. Because, like, they're indistinguishable right?
Seriously, the tactic of finding the most idiotic "cheerleader" position, and saying everything that takes a different political position to the above is equivalent to it, is an indication of your lack of confidence in your ability to defend your position against serious critique.
For the record, I am not a "cheerleader". My legs don't look great in a mini-skirt and the pompoms give me asthma. I have no more illusions than the DAF in the top-down, authoritarian command structure of the PKK or the malign influence of Ocalan-deification within it.
However I have visited Istanbul a fair amount and discussed these matters with DAF comrades and I understand their reasons and decision to engage with some of the KCK-related activity (obviously not including the HDP/BDP electoral stuff). (My discussions with them date back to March, so prior to the military conflict around Kobane).
I'm not really the person to speak for the DAF, but as far as I understand it their position is:
Firstly, as a response to the history of "the Kurdish" problem, as a major dividing factor in Turkish society, repeatedly leveraged to destroy nascent tendencies for class solidarity in the past by playing the nationalist card.
Secondly, seeing an opportunity in the (relative) break in hostilities afforded by the ceasefire and peace process to try and build some links across that divide.
Thirdly, despite scepticism towards any genuine change in the authoritarian habits of the senior PKK leadership, the opportunity to engage in educational events where KCK movement participants are studying/discussing anarchist and related ideas (prefigurative practice, ecology, feminism, etc) on a basis of putting forward their own ideas and listening to the response and learning from peoples take on those discussions.
Fourthly, probably most importantly, the recognition of the importance the Gezi Park protests had in changing the political climate, both locally in Istanbul and nationally. And the recognition that had the PKK-afffiliated Kurdish militants not, at the earliest stage, decided to disobey their initial orders from on high and get engaged, the protests would have been snuffed out at the very start. The practical experience of working side by side with these militants in the Gezi process, was what swung the argument for taking the gamble of furthering that engagement by collaborating (selectively) in KCK-related initiatives, whether educational, social or activist.
In my discussions with them, they were clear that the decision to engage was, necessarily, a gamble (un enjeu) given that there was no way of predicting ahead of time what the outcome would be. But they assessed that the greater risk was to do nothing and implicitly resign themselves to being a small Turkish anarchist ghetto with no genuine ambition to effect real social change in wider society.
So, this is the first contradiction in the AF statement above. Point 2 of the proposed actions is to provide material support for the DAF, despite the fact that they are publicly taking a line of action that is diametrically opposed to the "position" outlined in the rest of the document. This contradiction has already been pointed out by the Turkish ICC (and supporters) in the thread above, albeit from the opposite side. Leo is at least to be commended for the honesty of his open hatred for the DAF comrades, although I don't think the more polite manners of Mikail or Devrim mean a particularly different underlying opinion.
As far as contradictions go, this is in some ways an "external" one, in that the AF can blame the support for the DAF on the IFA, with vague hints that if the latter cannot be made to "see the light" on this question at the next conference, then "we'll see...", as the euphemism goes.
The more problematic, "internal" contradiction of the above position, is the implicit dismissal of feminism as an issue of any social significance to "real revolutionaries", from an organisation that in another frame was one of the principle supporters of the AFem 2014 conference and considers itself an intersectional anarchist organisation. I'll expand on that assertion when I next get a time-box to post.
I'm away from tomorrow, back
I'm away from tomorrow, back Sunday, but will certainly have something to say about this discussion early next week. It's good that the differences are emerging more transparently.
An ICC article on the sharpening divisions among various anarchist groups and individuals on the Kurdish issue will be available soon.
I really cant hold myself
I really cant hold myself back anymore. Although I really do not want to discuss this issue and further be labeled as a nationalist. I really need to adress something.
First Joseph Kay stated it "it is supporters responsibility to support their claims" now Serge says: all supporters just say "figting is good". But this is not at all what is discussed in relevant forums or comments or articles at all (it is just one tiny part of it). However any evidence provided is just dismissed by "non-supporters" completely. The MOST OBVIOUS ONE being Zahers account of his trip.why nobody referenses this guy's article who formerly have a negative view of PKK writes such a positive article after a trip? This question is systematically ignored by everyone here. Instead we are debating accuracy of statements and articles of people who never see Syria let alone experiencing what is now being built there. So in short there is already enough evidence which shows possible importance of Rojava for anarchists, though people do not want to see it but just want to focus on how the actions of some supporters in the west are just thoughtlessly action loving.
Joseph Kay wrote: First
Joseph Kay
Well, I did, on the thread I started 2 months ago and linked above.
Alf
PKK/PYD seize territory; anarchists trade polemics; left communists write about anarchists trading polemics. Now I'm writing about that. King of meta-politics 8-)
ocelot wrote: I'll expand on
ocelot
Christ, no, please don't.
Losing the will to live aside, I apologise if I inadvertantly lumped your position, the WSM's and anyone else's position together with that of the dreadful Rabble LDN.
PS: I'm told I look good in mini skirt and pompoms ;)
The reference of the afed
The reference of the afed statement says Servet Düşmanı (Enemy of Wealth) is an anarchist web-side, which is not true. It is left- communist web page. The same argument made decades ago against the zapatistas replicated here. "Ohh ezln, a nationalistic organisation" they said. There is no nationalism as such that all religions and languages, and etnicities equally and peacefully live. In Rojava, Christians, Muslims, Arabs, Assyrians, Yezidis, Kurds and others equally live and participate in social affairs. Kurds in Turkey are a part of the same composition.How come you mindless AFed members talk about nationalism. Such occusations in Turkey arised by (left) liberals, state officials,stalinists.
The statement is a shame for AFed.
Quote: There is no
That doesn't equal an absence of nationalism.
And, interestingly, class isn't mentioned at all on your list.
That doesn't equal an absence
That doesn't equal an absence of nationalism.
And, interestingly, class isn't mentioned at all on your list.[/quote
There is Turkish nationalism, you are right. It is equal actually.
For class, you may like to read the comments list
Nationalism divides humankind
Nationalism divides humankind with superiority vs inferiority, where peace and equality can not be sustained.
The article mentioned above
The article mentioned above is now online
http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201412/11625/anarchism-and-imperialist-war-nationalism-or-internationalism
Alakarga is misinformed.
Alakarga is misinformed. Servet Dusmani is not a left communist journal. Members of the Red & Black Istanbul (an anarchist-communist group in Istanbul) also write on SD. In fact I am the only left communist who wrote for SD. Zafer Onat, whose text AF quoted in their statement, is an anarchist communist and a member of the RBI.
Alf wrote: The article
Alf
And just repeats the old bollox about the petty bourgeois origins of anarchism. A worthless and snide article.
alakarga wrote: Nationalism
alakarga
Nope, that's still not what defines nationalism. Nationalism is the division of humanity by nations - artificial constructs which came about as a result of class society.
Despite even the best intentions of nationalists - Ghandi, the IRA, whatever - nationalism is always based on (a) the concept of the other and (b) always based on the premise that there is some shared interest between classes in a given nation.
While I don't have the time
While I don't have the time right now to complete my exposition of the second main contradiction of the AF statement, (which Serge will be delighted to know will definitely be appearing :P ). I thought I'd throw this tidbit from my fact-checking the Zafer Onat piece, for anyone interested.
Zafer
With the rather haphazard guidance of google translate (still not good at Turkish) I managed to narrow down the statements that Zafer was making reference to in relation to class and private property, from the KCK's contract/agreement doc (Turkish original).
To the following two sections, which I asked a Turkish translater comrade to do me a really quick hack translation of - (NB comments in bold after translation of first quote are hers)
(from Introduction)
5. Ortadoğu’nun ağırlaşan tarihsel ve toplumsal sorunlarının çözümü içinde demokratik konfederalizm sistemi geçerlidir. Kapitalist sistem ve emperyal güçlerin dayatmaları demokrasiyi geliştiremez, ancak demokrasiyi istismar edebilir. Demokratik konfederal sistemde tabandan gelişen demokratik seçeneği egemen kılmak esastır. Bu sistem toplumsal temelde etnik, dini ve sınıfsal farklılıkları gözeten bir sistemdir.
=>
5. System of democratic confederalism is operative (doable) in solution of the historical and social problems which have been deteriorating. Implosion of the capitalist system and imperialist powers can not develop democracy, it would rather abuse it. It is fundamental in the democratic federation system that the democratic option developing from the grassroots prevail. This system is the kind of system which, in principle, pursue/pay regards to the ethnic, religious and class differences of the society.(problematic indeed, clarification from the author would be useful)
from Article 8
Madde 8
Sosyal, Ekonomik ve Kültürel Hak ve Özgürlükler
[...]
f-Herkesin yetenek ve yetkinleşme düzeyine göre toplumsal üretime katılma ve toplumsal yaşamda kendini ifade etme hakkı vardır. Kar ve metalaşmaya dayalı olmayan, kullanım değeri ve demokratik paylaşıma dayalı üretim ve mülkiyet hakkına sahiptir.
=>
Article 8
Social, Economic and Cultural Rights and Freedoms
[...]
f. Everybody have the right to participate in the social production and to express themselves in the social life according to their level ability and competency. [People] have the right to produce and [have] property which is based on intrinsic value (use) and democratic share and not for profit and commodification.
---
So make of that what you will. Also if Turkish speakers on the thread want to propose an improved translation for either passage, please do so.
In passing, I should say that while I disagree with some of Zafer's conclusions (we appear to have a different view of what puts the "bourgeois" into "bourgeois democracy" but that's a valid political difference), I find his piece rather more balanced and nuanced than the AF statement which selectively quotes from it. For example I find nothing to disagree with in his final paragraph:
But NB he is reiterating a position that Rojava , while not the equivaluent to Barcelona July 1936 as some would have it, is nonetheless progressive and worth defending, physically and politically. In marked contrast to the AF position above, which grudgingly accepts only "humanitarian assistance" as valid support.
So maybe Zafer Onat is a "cheerleader" too?
ocelot wrote: While I don't
ocelot wrote:
While I don't have the time right now to complete my exposition of the second main contradiction of the AF statement, (which Serge will be delighted to know will definitely be appearing tongue).
The AF awaits ocelot's exposition of
Any idea of when you will have it written and posted on Libcom?
A wee bit busy with IRL
A wee bit busy with IRL political issues right now (see here for explanation). But as soon as I can manage, promise.
Battlescarred wrote: Alf
Battlescarred
You missed this gem, though:
Which basically sums up ICC "politics". Scare quotes as politics is a guide to action, which as we know, the ICC doesn't involve itself with. Hence moral indignation is what remains.
Oh yeah, and thanks for the name-check guys! (LOL)
Since when did a "lack of a
Since when did a "lack of a moral indignation" have anything to do with the harsh materialist politics of the ICC? I smell the ripe stench of hypocrisy and cant.
So wait, are you actually
So wait, are you actually going to join in with Ocelot in his rants against the ICC article for its opposition to Kurdish nationalism just because there were things in it you disagreed with on anarchism?
Moral indignation, as opposed
Moral indignation, as opposed to the timeless anarchist moralism of Proudhon say, is, has been and will be an element of proletarian struggle. The context of it in the ICC article above appears to me to show how the anarchist "family" overlooks and condones all sorts of concessions and support to the bourgeoisie within its ranks up to and including support for imperialist war. This is the main point of the article so any response might take this into account rather than avoiding the issue.
I appreciate that anarchist elements will want to discuss with one another on particular questions about imperialist war, but it's had since 1914, 1936 and certainly since 1939-45 to do this and rather than any clarification there just appears more confusion and more support for the ruling class and its wars overall.
The Rojava "experiment" is being carried out by nationalists fighting in an imperialist war - what do you think that the result of this "experiment" can possibly be?
Baboon makes some good
Baboon makes some good points.
Based on a few posts I have seen (at least one earlier on this thread that I can think of and probably several others that I vaguely recall) people who are arguing that we support the PKK/Rojava have said they believe anarchists from around the world should somehow manage to make their way to Rojava and join the PKK. There are a few reasons why this is completely absurd.
1. Everyone is going to get to Rojava. How?
2. A bunch of (mostly white) privileged westerners believing that they are fighting for justice are going to go help kill some of the most oppressed people in the entire world. Ring any bells?
3. The fight in Rojava is so completely detached from people's lives in the west that if this was publicized it would make us seem so amazingly alienated from real concerns that we would become even more of a joke than we already are.
But hey to whomever out there reads this and still thinks that they want to join the PKK, please, by all means go to Rojava. Those who survive can write up good reports on how stupid they were to leave everything behind to join a group of armed fighters who by many accounts are simply nationalists.
Soapy wrote: some of the most
Soapy
Whom?
Putting aside the slaughter
Putting aside the slaughter of the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War and subsequent bombing campaign, and the 2003 invasion, since the US led sanctions regime began in the early 1990s the Sunni of Iraq have had to live in a country with social indicators such as life expectancy and malnutrition being at levels no better than the poorest countries in Africa. After the 2003 invasion, government rations for the tens of millions of Iraqis who rely on the government for food, already very low, were cut in half. Social services such as electricity, sewage, and health care were eroded even further from the levels they were at during the sanctions regime, something which is pretty amazing considering how horrible life had become already. After that the Iraq civil war of 2006-2007 saw millions of Sunni terrorized, slaughtered and ethnically cleansed
The Sunni of Syria have also lived in miserable poverty for some time. A massive drought in 2011 drove things over the edge for many farmers.
Oh no, not the old bollox
Oh no, not the old bollox about Proudhon now from the ICC and their supporters. Anyone who's ever talked to the AF about Proudhon knows where we stand on that and anyway Proudhon may have had more of an excuse for his moralism in the early 19th century than the ICC with their "moral indignation" in the 21st century. I would have thought that our resolution to overthrow capitalism is driven by an analysis of its workings rather than some sort of "moral indignation" more akin to 19th century liberalism than to class politics.
Leo wrote: So wait, are you
Leo
Ah, you've excelled yourself. The good old Stalinist amalgam tactic now eh? So we object to the ICC's rant against anarchism which thus puts is in the same box as Ocelot's support of Kurdish nationalism. Wonderful!
Well, that ICC charm
Well, that ICC charm offensive didn't last, did it... and that Leo is a catty little bleeder :D
Battlescarred
Linking the politics of the AF to Proudhon's ideas is about as useful as comparing the ICC with the politics of Ferdinand Lassale. Hmm... on second thoughts, we could always challenge them to a duel ;)
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I know, what charm offensive?
Leo wrote: So wait, are you
Leo
Yes.
Well actually, a plague on both of your...positions as far as I'm concerned.
Soapy wrote: the Sunni of
Soapy
This is the fallacy of division. You referred to the "poorest countries in Africa" as a comparison: Angola is one of the poorest countries in Africa, Isabel dos Santos is a member of one of the poorest countries in Africa, it does not follow that Isabel dos Santos is oppressed. The individuals that are being fought against in Rojava are contributing to structural oppression there, even if those resisting would replicate certain forms of oppression.
Quote: Ah, you've excelled
Bullshit. This is straw-man. I never objected to you expressing your disagreements with the ICC position about anarchism. I objected to the fraternal dialogue you exchanged with the supporters of Kurdish nationalism over it.
Perhaps this sort of behavior is why you ended up in an international full of PKK supporters.
Nope. Not a straw man and
Nope. Not a straw man and Battlescarred has you bang to rights. In short, you are an unpleasant get, Leo, and your argument technique is fucking gobshite. Be nice for a change and you might find we have more in common than what divides us... that is, if you're in any way mithered about such things as common ground.
Quote: Nope. Not a straw man
Really? Did I say Battlescarred was in the same box as the PKK supporters for criticizing the position in the ICC article about anarchism? No. This is what Battlescarred claimed I said, and it was not true.
Was he fraternalizing with pro-PKK individuals over their disdain for the ICC? You can read back the posts in the previous page to see he was. He can fraternalize with whoever he wants, and I can criticize whatever I choose to.
I'm not interested in being nice to people who aren't nice to me - especially if they called me Stalinist out of the blue. As far as I recall, Battlescarred considered this a slander when someone else was called a Stalinist.
At least I don't swear at anyone I'm pissed off at anymore. This is probably as good as it's gonna get.
I know that we have, at least with anarchists who don't support groups like the PKK, more in common than what divides us. I didn't even express any agreement that anarchism is petty bourgeois in its core. I was merely raising an objection, and suddenly I became a Stalinist. How nice do you expect me to be? How nice would you be if you were in my shoes?
Well, I've been involved in common activities with anarchists where I live for over five years, so...
Oh, if it gets your rocks
Oh, if it gets your rocks off, you unpleasant, humourless toy-town Bolshevik. Amazing that the ICC looks for differences when we have more in common over Rojava than with the platformists and insurrectionalists and bleeding heart white skin privilege theoryoids. Ah well, as Serge says, bye bye to the ICC charm offensive.
Oh and as for " moral indignation" shouldn't that actually to the "something must be done" hand wringing supporters of the PKK which is EXACTLY what they are about, substituting that self same "moral indignation" for cool clear analysis. Shame on you Amos and the ICC.
gamerunknown wrote: Soapy
gamerunknown
What are you talking about?
Can you be a bit clearer? Which individuals are you describing and which 'those' are resisting?
rat wrote: What are you
rat
Soapy
rat
To the latter, Hêzên Parastina Gel, Yekîneyên Parastina Jinê & Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, to the former, ad-Dawlah al-Islāmīyah fil 'Irāq wa ash-Shām, Jabhat an-Nuṣrah li-Ahli ash-Shām and others ... I'm assuming.
rat
Well, most of those resisting the latter factions would preserve the state and all its associated trappings, but they would likely not contribute in the same degree to the imposition of patriarchal or theocratic values (which are among the structural oppressions that the latter factions would insist on).
Can you be a bit
Can you be a bit clearer?
What are you talking about?
Can we self-moderate the
Can we self-moderate the needless insults. This has been a productive thread till now!
rat wrote: Can you be a bit
rat
To provide one example, Jabhat an-Nuṣrah li-Ahli ash-Shām stated they were intent on "bringing the law of Allah back to His land" in a video from January 2012 according to this source.
The Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, to whom the Yekîneyên Parastina Gel are affiliated, claim:
The Jabhat an-Nuṣrah li-Ahli ash-Shām and Yekîneyên Parastina Gel are apparently engaged in conflict here.
I don't regard the Jabhat an-Nuṣrah li-Ahli ash-Shām combatants the Yekîneyên Parastina Gel forces are fighting as among the most oppressed people in the world.
Thanks for clarification and
Thanks for clarification and the links.
Please everyone, stop talking
Please everyone, stop talking to and about the ICC. They wrote an utter piece of garbage navel-gazing based on a forum thread, ffs, and Leo's shitslinging is most likely an attempt to deflect attention from their utter marginality, even in terms of this here debate. Clearly not worthy of our engagement.
tl;dr don't feed the tankie trolls.