Anarchist Federation statement on Rojava: December 2014

I raised an objection and suddenly I'm a shitslinging troll making a covert, conspiratorial attempt to deflect attention from my organization's marginality.

Are you seriously the one to call me a tankie?

I didn't expect this much slander when I voiced a simple criticism to one of the old-time members of the forum, but I suppose I should have expected way worse after what's been done to the TPTG on this website.

A bit of a diversion here to start with but moral indignation has always been an element of the class struggle. It isn’t like the “moral indignation” of the ruling class which is vomited out every day through its media and is nothing but bourgeois hypocrisy. For the proletariat, it was one of the factors that played a role in the construction and development of the trade unions and it also played a role in the demands that they were based upon: demands not to be treated like animals; demands for less crushing workloads and conditions; against the forced labour of children and so on. Similar for the proletarian indignation against slavery, particularly expressed by strikes of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of cotton workers in Lancashire against the interests of the British bourgeoisie and at great cost to themselves. The same, in different circumstances, for the Indignados of Spain recently, protesting with anger and combativity, against the attacks and no-future of capital – indignation that was part of a wider movement. It is part of class consciousness. And moral indignation has its place among revolutionary organisations particularly when faced with support for imperialist war from those labelling themselves “revolutionaries”, “working class”, etc. I’m not talking about the recruiting sergeants for the nationalists of the PKK who have kept up their propaganda on here, but those who seriously consider that the war in the Middle East is one that workers should support. The motives for support for this war are various; it may be that one of the grounds for support is that women are fighting (long live the Suffragettes and their support for imperialist war). Or that one local authority is being run by some PKK fighters – I think that individuals and, even more so, revolutionary organisations, are entitled to be indignant that such spurious and shaky ground should give rise to support for imperialist war. I don’t think that there’s enough indignation about this betrayal of the working class from many anarchist elements.

But this isn’t the main question here: the main question is one of the most important, if not the most important question for the working class today and into the future – the question of nationalism and imperialist war. If the working class is dragged onto the terrain of nationalism and war, with whatever help a number of anarchist elements can contribute, its potential for class struggle will be seriously disadvantaged. I welcome the statement by AF in this respect even if I don’t think that closes all doors to ambiguity. The deepening of militarist barbarism and the spread of imperialist war is now being forced on the bourgeoisie by the insoluble contradictions of capitalism and the generalisation of war is the only capitalist “option” and “solution”. Soapy I think called it “madness” or something like it and it is certainly irrational and growing ever-more irrational with greater degrees of uncertainty.

To see any capitalist factions involved in the generalisation of imperialist war as somehow more “friendly” to the working class, somehow more amenable, acceptable, a “lesser evil” in a phrase, is a profound mistake and a class line crossed. The major powers, those responsible for all the wars in the world today, are the most ruthless, much more ruthless and calculatingly intelligent than Isis for example, will not hesitate to cut down the working class once it has been mobilised by nationalism into war.

Calling for support for proto-state factions involved in imperialist war in Kobani or Rojava (why not Hezbollah, Hamas and all the other lefty sounding nationalist gangsters?) because there are women in uniform or there’s a municipal equality of suffering in a war zone, is just the other side of calling for support to Isis. If it wasn’t clear before then it should be now: the bourgeoisie is driven to imperialist war all over the globe and it is important for the working class not to be dragged onto the rotten and disastrous terrain of nationalism. Many elements of anarchism, not for the first time, are now supporting mobilisation for imperialist war.

I am not personally so concerned about the ICC statement and those of us who are anarchists can surely take some of the criticism of incoherence in the 'movement' whether or not we agree about whether it was a nice/comradely thing to do. I think we have been more than clear enough about the existance of differences within our international which are obvious from the content of various statements and we will continue to work out activity that is acceptable to us politically as AF. For sure the anarchist positions on Rojava we are seeing overall are sadly very diverse (since a class analysis is not always being applied) but, as ever, what we are doing in IFA is aimed towards consensus of class struggle anarchist communist organisations if not perfectly aligned at the moment and this also means we will continue to liaise with DAF and KAF (neither of which are are part of IFA) and no IFA fed will support the PKK or marxist-leninist parties.
Personally, I can also take the point that we have not explored the anarchafeminist angle very deeply in this statement which was only aimed at saying that since women's militias have arisen within authoritarian elements which, just by virtue of their having women's organisation within them, does not mean we will support them (as per our Aims and Principles). Looking at women's organisation in the region more generally (and within the anarchist organisations there) could well be the subject of a future article and I don't think it should be used as a serious point of criticism of the statement (anymore than the lack of background on the Turkish state or IS). Still is it worth pointing out omissions as we are aiming to be intersectional as an organisation.

ocelot

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.

Hopefully ocelot will also expand on the assertion that the AF is an intersectional anarchist organisation.

The ICC article doesn't say that the AF has the same politics as Proudhon. It praises the courage of the AF for going against the stream by sticking to an internationalist stance over Rojava. But it also strongly criticises the incoherence of the anarchist federations (both IWA and IAF) for holding proletarian and bourgeois positions at the same time.
In our view, this incoherence needs to be explained theoretically and historically. All proletarian movements and organisations in this society (including revolutionary marxist organisations) are constantly assailed by the influence of non-proletarian classes, whether from the ruling class or intermediate strata such as the petty bourgeoisie. The effort to reconcile the irreconcilable is a characteristic of these strata, caught between the two major historical classes in capitalist society.
The article clearly states that within anarchism there are currents which are proletarian and internationalist. There are others which have become openly bourgeois and leftist. But the ideology of the intermediate or non-proletarian social layers which was there from the beginning of anarchism (and we would apply this to Bakunin as much as to Proudhon) continues to have a major influence precisely because it has never really been confronted. Even raising the question seems to provoke considerable anger.

little_brother, I thought that the part of the statement, though short, was relatively clear on the question women fighters and my criticism was of general positions expressed elsewhere on this thread on this question.

Perhaps Ocelot's post on this thread (Dec 10th 11.44) with it's broadside attack on what he perceives as a fundamental faultline in the ultra-left communist analysis of capitalist periodisation (and it's influence on anarchism), leading to an inabillity to relate to movements short of conscious working class communism could be reposted on a seperate thread and discussed along with perhaps the ICC notion in their linked article of the best anarchists being those ''..who have been able to integrate certain elements from the theoretical method of marxism.'' Both statements to my mind have some elements of truth to them but are misleading oversimplifications which need some unpacking.

I agree that this thread should continue as it is raising some fundamental issues. Will try to contribute in due course.

Ocelot wrote on December 10

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.

Haven't we learned from history and what happened in Russia that we can't have communism in one country? Getting rid of capitalism has to be done and achieved globally before we can even start building the new communist society which'll take us years anyway. The proletarian revolution was successful in Russia in that it seized control of the country and took over political rule via the soviets. This was the dictatorship of the proletariat. But this dictatorship became marooned with the failure of the revolutuonary wave in the the rest of the world and particularly in Germany. Stalin coined the phrase "communism in one country" to defend and disguise his exploitative capitalist regime. Should some "progressive" latter day bourgeois movement claim to have established communism in Syria or somewhere, this will also be a lie. Communism can only be achieved on a global basis.

With regard to "progressive social change"; that is to say reformism. Progressive social reforms were available for the working class while capitalism was a growing and developing system. But this state of affairs ceased long ago. Even reforms generously provided by the charitable bourgeoisie in pursuit of its own interests, as ever, like the National Health Service in the UK, are now being snatched back as a result of austerity.

Progressive social change, as it was understood by the bourgeoisie, never intended to create communism anywhere, not even in one country. But for the working class progressive social change will start with the total eradication of capitalist relations of production world wide, not confined to one country or one region, such as the PKK and other stalinistiic political movements may want us to believe.

There is no "Catch 22" at work here Ocelot; but you have made one up yourself. Yes, anything that isn't "progressive"is probably reactionary. But there's nothing left about capitalism that anyone can be progressive about or with. It's collapsing all round and sinking into a stinking barbaric abyss.

Neither is the revolutionary working class interested in being progressive but in getting rid of this foul system altogether. That goes far beyond mere reformism, but posits a whole new and vastly superior way of living for the whole of humanity. And it isn't difficult to see that the whole horrible mess around Rojava contributes nothing positive to the communist endeavor at all. Just blood, death and confusion.

jojo

Haven't we learned from history and what happened in Russia that we can't have communism in one country? Getting rid of capitalism has to be done and achieved globally before we can even start building the new communist society which'll take us years anyway. The proletarian revolution was successful in Russia in that it seized control of the country and took over political rule via the soviets. This was the dictatorship of the proletariat. But this dictatorship became marooned with the failure of the revolutuonary wave in the the rest of the world and particularly in Germany. Stalin coined the phrase "communism in one country" to defend and disguise his exploitative capitalist regime.

Revolution in Russia had been crushed approximately in the same time when revolution in Germany failed (1919) not when Stalin took the power. In Russia it was bolsheviks with their "dictatorship of the proletariat" (or rather in practice dictatorship of the party) who crushed this revolution. It took 2 years up to 1921 to crush every last bit of it but counter-revolution started much earlier. Your argument that the reason for failure of Russian Revolution was "maroonig" or theory of "communism in one country" is false.
I'm not saying this because of my support for "Rojava revolution", PKK or any similar organization, I do not believe what is happening there is real revolution much of it seems to be propaganda even if its true there are some bottom-up elements (which should be supported perhaps) - but this is central problem here not "communism in one country" theory.

jojo

Getting rid of capitalism has to be done and achieved globally before we can even start building the new communist society which'll take us years anyway.

Could you explain what does it mean in practice? If bigger revolutionary movements from some countries should wait for smaller ones? Abstain from developing too much so no to start revolution too quickly? Not to act in revolutionary situation? (its obvious they would lose support) How do you propose to manage its development globally? What with countries where there's no revolutionary movement at all or so small that maybe not worth mentioning? (I live in one of them I think)
What you are saying on global revolution looks good but only on paper or in the internet.
Not to mention time needed. Movements, views develop and disappear in time. Revolutionary movement waiting for others in such manner will be long gone when in some other country another movement will be ready.

So it seems Ocelot (and I indirectly) have prompted this discussion to widen out well beyond it's starting point - so be it.

augusty... asks some valid questions but I would say that the failure of the 'Russian Revolution' must be seen in the context of both the objective development of capitalism (including it's class composition) in Russia and on a world scale at that point in history and the impact of that development on the (imature?) level of working class consciousness reflected in the different wings of working class political organisation.

There is more to Ocelot's post than the concluding paragraph but we should be careful not to get confused with the different uses of the word 'progressive'. I would say I think with jojo that there is no possibility of developing communism in one country or region of the world but as augusty.. suggests a social movement with the potential to develop a communist society on a world scale has to start somewhere and I would add in my opinion is unlikely in it's initial stages to be a fully formed and conscious mass organisation of the working class as perhaps perceived by many in the past as a mass socialist party or mass based anarcho-syndicalist union - times have changed. Quite apart from that organised communists have always understood and have tried to relate to different 'progressive' elements of working class struggle even if that has generally been as part of essentially defensive struggles.

There is also the question of what we mean when we describe global capitalism as the world dominant system. It is certainly true that compared with the day when Marx and Bakunin were around that much of the way capitalism operates can best be represented and understood in terms of a global shift from the 'formal to the real domination of capital/subsumption of labour' both economically and socially. But that doesn't impact to the same degree in a direct way on everyone around the world where many still live in traditional peasant or tribal relations dominanted only externally by world capitalism and forced to defend themselves as best they can from the ravagesof a capitalism that today can offer no 'progressive' way forward for such people (and surely with our support where we can?).

As far as any of this relates to the original differences over our assessment of the PKK and the so-called 'Rojava revolution' it is quite possible for communists to reject the mistaken claims that such represents any beginning of an attack on capitalism as such in the context of local and world imperialism without necessarily rejecting everything people there might decide to do simply to defend themselves in desperate circumstances. It is almost certainly true that communist minorities internationally are in no position to effect any postive change in this situation and that like others we are mostly left only with 'humanitarian' efforts and such is not to be condemned in my opinion.

Like other communists I do not believe that anything short of a world human community ie communism, can provide any permanent solution to the problems of humanity faced with the inbuilt tendency of capitalism to dehumanise and destroy our world, which means we will always be the critics (even when we are ourselves involved in them) of movements that either seek to stabilise or compromise with capitalism - that is our lot!

Perhaps more to say on this later.

And just to add on my previous reference to the ICC's claim that the best anarchists are those ''...who have been able to integrate certain elements from the theoretical method of marxism.'' - I agree with this statement but that doesn't necessarily mean the particular version of marxism as expressed in the work of the ICC or even Left communism more generally as there are many other genuine communist contributions to a Marxism that is relevant to our understanding of modern global capitalism.

Jojo #
I agreed with much of this post, though this is very strange history:
‘The proletarian revolution was successful in Russia in that it seized control of the country and took over political rule via the soviets. This was the dictatorship of the proletariat. But this dictatorship became marooned with the failure of the revolutionary wave in the rest of the world and particularly in Germany.’

The soviets after the Bolshevik coup is not my understanding of ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’. This is a Leninist fantasy. His party destroyed the soviets, unless of course you think a one party state equals ‘worker’s power’. My understanding is that there was never a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, after the downfall of the Tzar there was ‘dual power’ with the provisional government and the soviets, followed by a one party dictatorship – hello, Lenin, et al.

Spikymike

augusty... asks some valid questions but I would say that the failure of the 'Russian Revolution' must be seen in the context of both the objective development of capitalism (including it's class composition) in Russia and on a world scale at that point in history and the impact of that development on the (imature?) level of working class consciousness reflected in the different wings of working class political organisation.

Revolution in Russia formally ended in December 1919 with Lenin's decree on Central Council which de facto abolished comitees as organs of workers' power with soviets disabled even earlier. In reality it lasted for some time after that but systematically destroyed by force.

Working class consciousness wasn't so much issue at the time as it was high enough to led bolsheviks including Lenin to imitate anarchists ("State and Revolution", some initial decrees etc.) to win support. But when their party (led not by workers nor peasants as one could think but bourgeoisie, Lenin and Trotsky included) established itself as ruling party all of this ended very quickly. I wouldn't call their party "working class political organisation".

Revolution in Russia never had the chance to develop to the point when "revolution in one country" vs global revolution would become an issue. It's mainly an excuse used by leninists to divert attention from bolscheviks' counter-revolution, so one should be careful when reading marxists texts on this. Leninism influenced some other marxists too.

So in my opinion no one know for sure if "revolution in one country" is possible or not even there are theoretical reasons for that, there no confirmation in facts. But still there must be revolution in one country first to discuss its possibility of survival, which leads to Rojava again...

Cool story, bros. Well done for dragging this into the comfort zone of pedantic cockwaving over 100 year old events.

augusty..., I think you will see from other of my contributions on this site that I am no fan of the Bolshevik leadership or leninist ideology though we might disagree on the naure of the bolshevik rank and file. Our point of agreement goes so far as the need to understand the significance of the fact that any future revolutionary movement with the potential to overthrow capitalist social relations must begin somewhere and will inevitably have some location, but in todays interconnected world I cannot forsee that being some kind of country by country, state by state addition of previously formed communist societies but a rather more rapid cross border world movement of the working class. As to the potential or otherwise of socialism/communism evolving from the working class insurrectionary movement in Russia in 1917 and the relationship practically and theoretically with the events in Germany and other parts of central and eastern europe at that time, that has been discussed more recently on a thread here about the German Revolution which is worth a look.

Here is our last contribution about this issue:
http://libcom.org/news/rojava-people%E2%80%99s-war-not-class-war-25122014

Caiman del Barrio

Cool story, bros. Well done for dragging this into the comfort zone of pedantic cockwaving over 100 year old events.

what for some is "pedantic cockwaving over 100 year old events" for others is historical knowledge which can reveal something about contemporary events too. For instance what PKK is doing in terms of propaganda is very similar to bolsheviks' propaganda. On the one hand abolition of the state, soviets, on the other hand communalism, state without the state etc. One can see many similarities like this.

Spikymike

Our point of agreement goes so far as the need to understand the significance of the fact that any future revolutionary movement with the potential to overthrow capitalist social relations must begin somewhere and will inevitably have some location, but in todays interconnected world I cannot forsee that being some kind of country by country, state by state addition of previously formed communist societies but a rather more rapid cross border world movement of the working class.

I agree with you but there is also possibility of ruling class making this interconnected world fragmented again in old nation-state fashion when situation will become more revolutionary (and there are signs it' s ongoing process in EU, see for instance talk about suspension of Schengen Agreement, more nationalist politics by mainstream parties not openly nationalist )

btw some people who identify themselves as "left communists" use this theory of "communism in one country" vs global communism as argument against some particular ongoing events in Rojava. It cannot be used like this even if it would be true that revolution in Russia failed because of this (which is not) It can be an explanation of past events only - no one knows what will happen in the future. It can trigger something else.

A good antinationalist analysis. No to all hierarchical structures and turncoat Stalinists who want only money from "rich" West and become in the same time NATO allies! Salud Y Anarquia companeros

Hi ocelot,
just wondering if you've had a time-box opportunity to expand on your assertions yet?
Cheers,
rat.

ocelot

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.

rat

Hi ocelot,
just wondering if you've had a time-box opportunity to expand on your assertions yet?
Cheers,
rat.

ocelot

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.

If you don't back the PKK, you is a misogynist innit :D

rat

Hi ocelot,
just wondering if you've had a time-box opportunity to expand on your assertions yet?
Cheers,
rat.

ocelot

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.

Yeah, pretty busy before the holidays with daily local anti-Water meters actions (since resumed). I did write something, but as often happens with pieces written in fits and starts, rather than in one sitting, it kinda ballooned and meandered somewhat off the original point of departure and became more of a reflection on the questions raised by the situation, rather than a direct response to the above AF piece. On reviewing the material, I'm not sure how useful it is at this stage. I think I'd rather rewrite a piece specifically focusing on how class relations in Kurdish society are mediated by tribalist structures (and the need to distinguish between tribalism and feudalism) such that the advancement of class struggle/recomposition in Kurdish society needs a strategy for undermining tribalism. But anyway, I'll probably do that elsewhere.

Having added all those disclaimers, in case anybody still wants to read them, here are my notes.
-----

From AF A&P’s (for benefit of non-members)

2 Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class by the ruling class. But inequality and exploitation are also expressed in terms of race, gender, sexuality, health, ability and age, and in these ways one section of the working class oppresses another. This divides us, causing a lack of class unity in struggle that benefits the ruling class. Oppressed groups are strengthened by autonomous action which challenges social and economic power relationships. To achieve our goal we must relinquish power over each other on a personal as well as a political level.

3 We believe that fighting systems of oppression that divide the working class, such as racism and sexism, is essential to class struggle. Anarchist-Communism cannot be achieved while these inequalities still exist. In order to be effective in our various struggles against oppression, both within society and within the working class, we at times need to organise independently as people who are oppressed according to gender, sexuality, ethnicity or ability. We do this as working class people, as cross-class movements hide real class differences and achieve little for us. Full emancipation cannot be achieved without the abolition of capitalism.

So, in summary, anarchist opposition to race, gender and other based oppressions, is not merely ethical or moral, but based on an understanding of the need to complement the operaist/autonomist concept of class recomposition with the anarchist concept of prefiguration. That is, that the project of recomposition is not just directed by the current technical composition of social production in an instrumental way (which would run the danger of being circular - i.e. whatever recomposition led to the effect of increased class conflict and antagonism, without any consideration of potential for rupture, i.e. going beyond increased conflict to something progressive, rather than fascist, for e.g.), but needs to be combined with the prefigurative aims of reducing the internal differentiations and divisions of the class. This clearly links the struggle for the recomposition of the class and that against gender oppression. The real class line is the line for the most effective recomposition of the class.

However, if all hitherto existing class societies, including capitalism, have been patriarchal to some extent, that doesn’t mean that they have been equally so. This is particularly in those cases where the forcible encounter between a prior system of pre-capitalist social relations and contemporary capitalism is recent, or even to some extent, ongoing.

In that light it is useful to distinguish between the political structures of domination (including various state forms), the relations (and forces) of social production, and the relations of collective reproduction, including cultural.

To take the paradigmatic case of the emergence of the English working class from the revolutionising of the relations of production effected by the agricultural and industrial revolutions, the destructive force of that process effectively created a rupture in the socio-cultural aspect of self-reproduction. As Marx noted in volume 1, the urban proletariat of the industrial areas, for e..g the Midlands and the Potteries, were so afflicted that life expectancy dropped below 30 years, and had there not been a constant inward migration, the urban industrial areas would have depopulated, as reproduction was insufficient to sustain life. In that crucible, the revolution of productive relations created a virtual socio-cultural tabula rasa upon which new, specifically urban industrial proletarian cultures emerged.

With the colonial expansion of formal capitalist subsumption to other corners of the globe, we need to invoke the effects of combined and uneven development. In certain marginalised areas, the revolution in relations of production occurred only partially, if at all. Other than in the negative sense of undermining the conditions of the direct producers of the pre-capitalist social formations subjected to colonial rule. In such conditions the disruptive force of the changes in the relations and forces of production was not sufficient to wipe away the cultural forms of the prior existing social formation. In areas like Afghanistan and the FATA areas of Pakistan, particularly the Pashtun and Baluchi areas, the pre-capitalist patriarchal “honour” culture remains as strong as the state remains weak, or notional.

The same applies, AFAICS, to the situation of the bulk of Kurds in the Kurdistan region. In both Turkey, Syria and Iran (and up until post “Desert Storm”, Iraq) the Kurdish regions have been deprioritised for industrial development by the different state governments. In the traditional Bolshevik/Stalinist unilinear view of history, this would be due to a blockage of the dominant political structure, which should be remedied by a national independence struggle, followed by building heavy industry, dams, and the ultimate symbol of Stalinist developmentalism - your very own national tractor factory.

But, on the feminist question, before starting in Rojava 2014 or 2012, let’s go back a bit to the main inspiration for the PKK’s turn from conventional Stalinism/Maoism to something else -

Back in 1 Jan 1994 when the Zapatistas announced their uprising, as well as the First Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle they also announced a number of their “revolutionary laws” including the Women’s Revolutionary law.

* First, women have the right to participate in the revolutionary struggle in the place and at the level that their capacity and will dictates without any discrimination based on race, creed, color, or political affiliation.

* Second, women have the right to work and to receive a just salary.

* Third, women have the right to decide on the number of children they have and take care of.

* Fourth, women have the right to participate in community affairs and hold leadership positions if they are freely and democratically elected.

* Fifth, women have the right to primary care in terms of their health and nutrition.

* Sixth, women have the right to education.

* Seventh, women have the right to choose who they are with (i.e. choose their romantic/sexual partners) and should not be obligated to marry by force.

* Eighth, no woman should be beaten or physically mistreated by either family members or strangers. Rape and attempted rape should be severely punished.

* Ninth, women can hold leadership positions in the organization and hold military rank in the revolutionary armed forces.

* Ten, women have all the rights and obligations set out by the revolutionary laws and regulations

Now to the hardcore sectarian, the second point’s acceptance of the existence of wage labour may well mean that the entire law can be dismissed as “bourgeois”. But from a social transformation perspective, the law is clearly a declaration of intent to confront the patriarchal barriers to full participation in society, faced by indigenous women. The situation of women in the indigenous communities of the Lacandon jungle (and the Chiapas Highlands from which many had recently migrated) was atrocious. Married, usually against their will, at a very young age (13-14 or younger) denied education, the opportunity to learn spanish (and thus economic interaction with the wider world) and generally kept barefoot and illiterate in the role of child-bearing, cooking and housecleaning, subject to chronic domestic violence and rape, the idea that they could take part in the deliberative and decision making processes of their communities was out of the question. Until, that is, the Zapatistas saw an existential need to put it back into question. [...]

Revolution and historical materialism

To understand the relationship between liberalism and nationalism, we first need to understand what liberalism is. Abstractly, liberalism is freedom from collective social values or norms. Historically it was a reaction to the religious wars of Western Europe. Whereas protestantism aimed to free theology from the authority of the church, liberalism aimed to free thought from the authority of theology, religion and tradition. Of course there was a lot that was progressive in this process of freeing thought from religion, tradition and superstition and basing policy discussion on rational and scientific argument. But the transformation of religious faith from being a public matter to a private matter implies the invention of the public and private as distinct spheres. In other words, liberalism defers the problem of deciding between competing value systems by relying on the state and the market as final arbiters. (At a very abstract level you could say that the subsumption of social relations to the unitary logic of capital’s self-reproducing value, progressively displaces the possibility of collective human social values). The irony of the term “bourgeois liberal values” is that, like the British constitution, it’s a signifier for which there is no signified and never was.

The tendential effect of liberalism to undermine any notion of collective norms or values and identification of individuals with a wider collectivity, is one of the contradictions of the bourgeois order, given social production presupposes sociality, cooperation as well as competition. Hence nationalism emerged in the modern era as the specifically bourgeois recreation of collective social values and norms, in response to the normative vacuum left by liberalism’s secular conquest of religion. In place of religion’s imagined god is the authority of nationalism’s imagined “People”. Liberalism and nationalism are not contesting ideologies then, but the latter is born directly out of the contradiction of the former. And not just in the abstract but in the ebb and flow of contemporary capitalism. During periods of social peace combining unobstructed accumulation of capital with high employment, stable or rising real material wages, society liberalises. The integrative processes of social production itself tie the social tissue together, even as norms and values become fragmented, individualised or even disappear altogether (beneath a veneer of behavioural conformism). But in periods of crisis in production, employment, social reproduction, and/or accumulation, that integrative role is undermined and a compensatory rise of nationalism - as the conventionally accepted vehicle for the reimposition of collective social values and norms - follows organically. But not only nationalism, of course, aside from a resurgence of religion or other competing anachronistic forms, class consciousness is also stimulated by the inevitable use of class power to shift the cost of the crisis onto the non-owning class.

But in marginal areas where the capitalist technical composition of the social production process is insufficient to play the role of social integrator, and where industrialisation and proletarianisation, beyond simple dispossession, has been too weak to erase and overcode the reproductive social relations of the preexisting mode of production, the problem of finding a means of reproducing collective social values to overcome crises of reproduction, are not provided by the normal functioning of capital. Liberalism, as discussed, has no collective values to offer, and the lack of bourgeois social recomposition means the grounds for nationalism generally have not yet been created to overcome the diverse ethno-linguistic, tribal and clan divisions that traverse the dispossessed or marginalised indigenous population.

For most of the 20th century the conventional stalinist or maoist solution to this was to basically ape the European trajectory of development regardless, locked into the unilinear view of historical development common to orthodox Marxism. Invent a flag, impose a common language and identity and start the armed struggle for territorial independence to build a new industrialised nation state and build the tractor factory.

But increasingly towards the turn of the 21st century, groups like the Mayan indigenous of Chiapas, under threat of having their tenuous ejido land rights revoked by NAFTA and their forest sold to Western paper manufacturers, or the Kurds of South Eastern Turkey subject to the dam-building and other developmental projects of the 1980 Turkish Army dictatorship’s rebooted Southeastern Anatolia Development project, started to perceive development as one of the threats to their survival. Maybe the tractor factory was less the instrument of deliverance than of destruction.

In the condition of marginality, the relative paucity of wage labour engagement with capital’s circuit, meant the improbability of creating a politically recomposed class collectivity as foundation of common values and process to navigate a different path out of the fatal binary of destruction by neglect or destruction by development. But of course the role of commodity labour power in the immediate process of production is only one side of the class’s confrontation with capital. The general form of the confrontation is between capital’s cycle of valorisation and the class’s cycle of self-reproduction. The other aspect of that general confrontation is the conflict between capital and class in the sphere of reproduction - particularly for an only recently formally subsumed population still partially dependent on direct production work.

But in order to form a collectivity on the basis of the total reproductive labour of the community, the input of all participants was required, including the half of the population excluded by patriarchal social divisions. Moving patriarchal social relations from being a private matter to a public matter, and one to be progressively destroyed, was thus a prerequisite for such a strategy. And the extension of the political process of deliberation and decision making to the widest possible participation, especially to women formerly excluded from such a role, was the necessary means of achieving by political action, the social rupture/transcending of the pre-capitalist social relations that relatively marginal industrialisation and proletarianisation had been unable to sweep away.

[...]

Much of the “debate” around the PKK’s political turn to the “Democratic Autonomy” line has been around essentialist questions to do with the nature or character of the PKK itself. Here there seems to be a failure to consider the difference between agency and interests. That is to say that where the agent (the PKK) has been assumed to be essentially distrustworthy, then the only interests imputed to the new political direction are assumed to be purely external - that is, a cosmetic exercise aimed at garnering support from the awesomely potent international force (* sarcasm *) that is Western anarchism. The examination of potential internal interests - that the change of line is a response to internal threats to social reproduction, does not appear to be considered in any way. A materialist analysis of historical development accepts that “Men (sic) make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past” which has implications for the relation of agents and interests. Even a parasite requires a living host. Much as agents may overcode the material circumstances with their own particular interests, that does not mean the material interests that govern their conduct are subjective or theirs to freely choose.

Whatever the “true character” of the PKK (even on the assumption that such a body is monolithic to the extent of having only one contradiction-free essence) it does not follow that its change of line as regards taking on patriarchal social relations within Kurdish communities is an exercise in pure "optics". Whatever the character of the Militant Tendency (as was) in 1988/9, that did not prevent Scottish anarchists from engaging in the Anti-Poll Tax groups set up and initially dominated by them, with positive results. The character of the initial agency behind an initiative does not determine the utility or deleterious potential of the initiative itself. For an authoritarian group that seeks to dominate society, the path of least resistance is to challenge as few of the existing social norms of that society as necessary. The history of nominally socialist political groups in the Middle East has been to pay, at best, lip service to gender equality on occasion, while accommodating themselves to the existing patriarchal and tribal authority structures of the society they operate within. To break with that practice and actively engage your militants in “interfering” in forced marriages, domestic violence, clan feuds and so on, is a high-cost, high-risk strategy that risks offending and alienating existing clan and tribal heads. To incur the costs of such risks implies an assessment that a greater threat is being run by leaving social relations as they are. Such a strategy, modelled on the Zapatista one, to achieve a revolution in social relations by conscious action, rather than as an unconscious byproduct of industrial development is not simply the achievement of bourgeois social transformation by other means, but aims at a kind of permanent revolution in social relations, to leap over the bourgeois stage of development to a self-managed sustainable economy suborned to the needs of social reproduction, rather than the accumulation of capital. Of course whether such a strategy can lead to success or not is open to question, and answerable only by historical practice. But to assume that this story has already been told many times before and the answer thus predetermined, is to ignore the specificity of both circumstances and strategy.

One thing that ISIS and the PKK/KCK have in common, is that neither of them fit into the mould of either bourgeois liberal or nationalist politics. They are both, in their diametrically opposed ways, responses to the real historical failure of bourgeois liberal/nationalist development as advanced by Turkish Kemalism and Syrian and Iraqi Ba’athism. ISIS renounces all national borders in favour of a universal, global Salafi war machine dividing the world into true believers and Kufr. The problems of arriving at collective values have already been solved and now remain simply to be imposed on all societies by autocratic military means. As in all Fascism, the contradictions between the social values of the past and the disintegrating effect of modernisation are to be solved by forcible “return” to an imagined past that never was. Slavery, forced marriages, the buying and selling of women and children are not only to be tolerated, they are to be revived and celebrated as divinely mandated.

The KCK’s Democratic Autonomy also rejects exclusion on the grounds of national borders or identity. By contrast it rejects exclusion on the basis of religious affiliation and none. The participatory structures being open equally to Sunni, Shia, Alevi, Alawite, Yezidi, Christian, atheist, Kurd, Armenian, Arab, alike. Similarly bourgeois nationalism’s (at least in the post-classical period) reliance on conservative definitions of national culture based on tradition, is countered by the proposed use of the participatory assembly to arrive at common values and norms through negotiation. Mass participation, other than in purely passive modes, is anathema to the bourgeois order, and indeed any class society.

Of course the idea of a social model and its reality are two very different things. Could the proposed structures and processes of Democratic Autonomy simply degenerate to being a rubber stamp or sham “consultation” around a conventional single-party state hierarchical power? Of course. And if the difficulties of building in socialism in one country have already been historically exposed, how much more difficult building a post-capitalist alternative in an economically marginalised sub-regional corner of global capitalism? However we should remain mindful that the alternative being sought by the indigenous of the Lacandon jungle and the Kurds of the Zagros Mountains, is first and foremost an alternative to social disintegration and extinction. As the Black Panthers pointed out back when, an offensive revolutionary programme presupposes a survival programme.

ocelot, thanks for your incisive observations.

Are you able to expand on your assertion that the AF "considers itself an intersectional anarchist organisation"?

http://www.afed.org.uk/blog/state/327-a-class-struggle-anarchist-analysis-of-privilege-theory--from-the-womens-caucus-.html

rat

ocelot, thanks for your incisive observations.

Are you able to expand on your assertion that the AF "considers itself an intersectional anarchist organisation"?

One of your long standing members said so on this very thread, so maybe you should take this up with them.

The AF is not an intersectional organisation... nor is it a monolithic one for that matter. There are some members who support intersectional and privilege theory just as there are members who don't. The basis for being in the AF is agreement with the Aims & Principles. Some members choose to read intersectionality into the A&Ps while others don't.

That may very well be the case. However it's still shit to get stroppy and start demanding proof when Ocelot described the AF as Intersectional literally the post after one of your members said:

Still is it worth pointing out omissions as we are aiming to be intersectional as an organisation.

Who's getting stroppy? That is one member's interpretation rather than the view of the organisation.

I think responding to a fairly throwaway comment that the AF considers itself intersectional by demanding evidence for the assertion 3 times over a period of several weeks - whilst ignoring a member of your organisation saying the same thing - counts as stroppy, yep.

I mean if he'd just said 'actually the AF isn't officially intersectionalist' or 'there's disagreement in the AF over that actually' it wouldn't be an issue. However when you sea lion someone like so as if he'd casually asserted the AF supported unions or nationalism, then there's obviously something deeper. I'm not necessarily sold on intersectionalism, but it was hardly a gross slur meriting a demand he PRODUCE EVIDENCE FOR THIS.

So this sea lioning malarkey is a bad thing, right? Evidence please :D

(Sheesh) OK, let's not get hung up on the "I-word" then. I still think the sense of A&P 3's first two sentences: "We believe that fighting systems of oppression that divide the working class, such as racism and sexism, is essential to class struggle. Anarchist-Communism cannot be achieved while these inequalities still exist. " is sufficient to give feminism a little more consideration when judging the progressive or reactionary content of social movements.

ocelot

is sufficient to give feminism a little more consideration when judging the progressive or reactionary content of social movements.

What has women conscripts in a left-nationalist ex-stalinist military/political organisation in an imperialist war got to do with feminism or fighting sexism?

It's not just about the YPJ. It's about the totality of the democratic confederalist processes and activities. But on this I'm going to just going to redirect you to the series of posts I put on this thread - Rojava economy and class structure

ocelot, if you consider the longstanding internal civil wars and not just the latest events in Rojava, is all this not simply the unintended consequences of capitalist needs in the unconventional circumstances of war which may or may not, given other influences which we have little or no influence over, have some longer term benefits (from both our own and a modernising capitalist perspective) in breaking down previous patriachal structures and outdated sexual divisions of labour, much as womens involvement in past war efforts in the western world. Should we on that basis support the involvement of women beyond their traditional roles in assisting in this case, as in the past in an interimperialist and essentially nationalist war effort - surely not!

Mike, first off, heroic run-on sentence! (8 lines on my browser).

Secondly - that does make it hard for me (at least) to make out what the question in that sentence actually is. E.g. I'm not clear by what you mean by the "all this" in your "is all this not simply..." lead-off.

But if you think that what is happening is somehow the automatic march of capitalist modernity wiping out "backward" structures like tribalism and the patriarchal relations specific to it - then no, that's precisely what I'm saying is not happening. Bourgeois development in the region has so far proved completely incapable (and uninterested) in decomposing tribal relations, the recent decades of war, etc have, if anything, actually strengthened these relations, at least according to van Bruinessen (and a number of other commentators).

My point is that creating a rupture in the social relations of tribalism, requires a conscious political strategy and struggle - and, further, that this goal is not some "nice to have" optional extra, but inextricably linked to the class question. But, as I say, I'm not sure if that was your question/proposition, given I found it hard to parse your first sentence.

Your second question - and I suspect that it could just as easily be reframed as "should we support the involvement of anybody on any basis" (which disconnects it from your first question, afaics) - seems to be reliant on the starting point of agreeing that the current conflict is exclusively "an interimperialist and essentially nationalist war effort". I think, within our political context, that if you accept that definition of the situation, then the rest of the argument follows by definition (in a somewhat circular fashion).

Obviously I don't accept the premiss that the conflict is exclusively "an interimperialist and essentially nationalist war effort". a) because I accept the basic anti-essentialist insight of dialectics that more than one thing can be happening at the same time in a given historical process, b) as a consequent, the involvement of imperialist powers in 1) this conflict, 2) the Spanish Civil War and 3) the Russian Civil War, does not make all three conflicts "essentially imperialist". By saying the involvement of an imperialist power in a conflict makes that conflict ipso facto, an imperialist war (as the Bilanists do for Spain, but - very inconsistently, nb! - not for Russia), your saying both that only one thing can be happening at one time and also that certain processes (e.g. imperialism) are so much more powerful than anything else, that "one drop" of involvement, by its supremely potent contaminatory effect, over-determines the "essential" character of the entire process. This kind of essentialist thinking is de rigeur amongst conspiracy theorists, but unfortunately, it would seem, also seems to hold a fairly strong sway amongst leftists. I don't think this kind of dogmatic apriorism really passes muster as critique.

ocelot,

Thanks for a considered response given my perhaps less than precise comment. I suppose I was reflecting on your response to Serge in your assertion of the 'progressive' nature of ''the totality of the democratic confederalist processes and activities'' and suggesting that this was essentially borne of the specific circumstance of a drawn out but ineffective national Kurdish insurgency/civil war situation consciously pursued by a political organisation in search of a different path to achieving it's national - democratic- statist ambitions bringing some potentially, but by no means guaranteed, 'progressive' results for some in the longer run. This IS more than one thing happening at the same time but NOT one that in the context of the current world and regional situation that has any potential in itself to undermine capitalism, though it might undermine tribalism and no harm in that.

Fall Back

That may very well be the case. However it's still shit to get stroppy and start demanding proof when Ocelot described the AF as Intersectional literally the post after one of your members said:

Still is it worth pointing out omissions as we are aiming to be intersectional as an organisation.

AF member says one thing, AF grandees throw toys out the pram. I'm starting to see how this thing works. Just as well that it's on this thread otherwise you'd be condemned a liar. I have no issue with AFed politics, in fact they're usually pretty good, but some of the bedside manner shown of late by a handful of mobbers is pretty shocking.

If anyone missed these, here's two libcom pages that might interest those into the Rojava revolution:

‘I have seen the future and it works.’ – Critical questions for supporters of the Rojava revolution

'Rojava revolution' reading guide

FRENCH translation of the text ‘I have seen the future and it works.’ – Critical questions for supporters of the Rojava revolution:

http://libcom.org/library/%C2%AB-j%E2%80%99ai-vu-le-futur-et-%C3%A7a-fonctionne-%C2%BB-%E2%80%93-questions-critiques-pour-les-partisans-de-la-r%C3%A9v

I've got no horse in this race, but what does get a pass for critical support? The Spanish revolution obviously, but despite the CNT fighting alongside the military, going into government, and then trying to broker a truce with Franco near the end of the war. Or the Makhnovists who fought against the Bolsheviks, then with, against, with and then against. I'd say that's worse than the opportunism of the PKK, given they both should have known better. If it's really a plague on both your houses that should rule out everything but the Paris Commune, ending it like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with no dealsmeow.

Cat, most of what is supported by me from the era of the spanish civil war and revolution in the mid to late 30s, are the forms of social revolutionary working class organisation - independent and against capitalism and the state - such as, the revolutionaries within the unaffiliated working class in general, the Council of Aragon, revolutionary Defence Committees, CNT, FAI, IWA-AIT solidarity, Juventudes Libertarias, Mujeres Libres... the circumstantialists in government created their own path of counter-revolution which had its role on the socio-political landscape, and are not supported but openly criticised as such. Every class conscious worker/claimant has 'a horse in the race' - it's called internationalism.

My point was you had the Council of Aragon in the same organisation as treintistas ratified into government. Meow if you can cherrypick provincial self organisation amongst class collaboration, you can do the same with any problematic but revolutionary worker movements (maybe not Kobane but...).

Or don't.

As in my examples above, in any plausible and credible revolutionary situation there is a base of revolutionary workers, this is anarchist class internationalist criteria. Are there any revolutionary working class organisations which are independent from and against capitalism and the state in Kobane/Syria? - the absence of such an organisation - means 'no' to the question of whether there is an anarchist movement with any revolutionary potential.

There is a new text about Kurdistan written by Gilles Dauvé in French: http://libcom.org/library/kurdistan/
Somebody would be interested in translating it in English?

the above piece is a good read and says a lot of things i wish i had said more eloquently in my piece for I&A

Is this page associated with the IFA?

https://www.facebook.com/InternationalOfAnarchistFederations/

It is indeed.

It seems to have quite a bit of Kurdish nationalism on it.

crafwork

It seems to have quite a bit of Kurdish nationalism on it.

This just in: Anarchists in soft-on-nationalism SHOCKER!

Khawaga

crafwork

It seems to have quite a bit of Kurdish nationalism on it.

This just in: Anarchists in soft-on-nationalism SHOCKER!

Well, Afed do profess a hostility to nationalism, and yet here you have the IFA being soft on it - now, I don't know what the relationship between the IFA and its sections are, but this seems like quite a serious political discrepancy.

Craftwork, I have some respect for the UK based AF (formerly the Anarchist Communist Federation) but then anarchist 'federalism' and communist 'centralisation' (despite some overlaps in their practice) are worlds apart when it comes to their respective international organisations, allowing the former more extensive scope for differences of political analysis and practice without resulting in the kind of splits more common amongst the latter, but inevitably discrepancies appear from time to time and the one you have highlighted being more significant than many - there's 'good and bad' in both approaches depending on the circumstances - it's an old debate much exercised on this site in the past!

Craftwork

Well, Afed do profess a hostility to nationalism, and yet here you have the IFA being soft on it - now, I don't know what the relationship between the IFA and its sections are, but this seems like quite a serious political discrepancy.

I think AF on nationalism is quite good. I really like their pamphlet, and I arrived at my position on nationalism in part by debating with AF members on this site (that's the old debates Spikey is referring to). But as Spikymike says, AF and otherwise similar organizations (even in the same international) may be worlds apart. It really is fucking ridiculous in this day and age that people calling them anarchists in this day and age is soft on nationalism just because some groups puts the word "liberation" after it.

Aye, Spikymike gets it. Not all IFA sections have the same brilliant attitude towards nationalism as does the AF in Britain. Bit like Libcom really in that some posters support Kurdish left-nationalism in various degrees while others are more hostile.

As far as internationalist takes on the 'national question' go, I really liked this piece:

http://libcom.org/library/theses-right-nations-self-determination-georgy-pyatakov-yevgenia-bosch-nikolai-bukharin

Serge Forward

Aye, Spikymike gets it. Not all IFA sections have the same brilliant attitude towards nationalism as does the AF in Britain. Bit like Libcom really in that some posters support Kurdish left-nationalism in various degrees while others are more hostile.

That's good - I respect AFed, but how on earth do you deal with this... chasm between political perpectives of the different sections of the IFA? Underlying which are, no doubt, massive differences of approaches, principles and values. In such a situation, what keeps IFA together?

On many issues there is no or little difference and we can and do work together on those things. Something more "chasm" like, such as the Rojava question, is actually pretty rare and I don't think I've known a difference like this in IFA before. While we in the AF(GB) may distance ourselves from pro-PYD/PKK sentiments, the experience of being part of IFA is generally overwhelmingly positive. In other words, it's all a bit babies and bathwater innit.

I can see why Craftwork perceives the inconsistencies within IFA.

For me, there is no point at all, in being in an international organisation with people that you partially agree with so you can claim to be in some sort of 'international'. It seems fake.

Trouble is — you're always going to get dopey anarchists who are into 'national liberation' because there are so many anarchists who are just Leftists really.

AF should be bollocking those half-wits in IFA for being into the reactionary ideas of nationalism. IFA really does seem a bit of a vague, wishy-washy load of bollox really.

Surly this sort of nonsense over Rojava is yet another reason to avoid the label 'anarchist'.

Much better to call your self a communist and be associated with people who support Assad

What are you on about?

(edit: apologies for unjustified swearing.)

rat

What the fuck are you on about?

Lots of people who claim the label 'communist' have terrible politics, including many who support Assad as some sort of anti-imperialist hero fighting against US imperialism.

Sure redsdisease; I'm pretty sure that rat gets that. But as a response to rat, RG's post was a bit of a non-sequitur. Hence rat's question?

Khawaga

Sure redsdisease; I'm pretty sure that rat gets that. But as a response to rat, RG's post was a bit of a non-sequitur. Hence rat's question?

I'm not sure how it's a non-sequitur?

rat said the bad attitudes of anarchists towards anarchism was a reason we shouldn't call ourselves anarchists. RG sarcastically pointed out that if you use this metric, it applies just as much to communism. It was a pretty fair comment.

As I said, "a bit of a non-sequitur" because we know commies are shit on nationalism as well and RG's comment had little bearing on the discussion. What rat posted was

For me, there is no point at all, in being in an international organisation with people that you partially agree with so you can claim to be in some sort of 'international'. It seems fake.

His/her comment about not calling ourselves anarchists was really not the point of the post. Hence, rat's reaction (and mine initially).

Khawaga

As I said, "a bit of a non-sequitur" because we know commies are shit on nationalism as well and RG's comment had little bearing on the discussion. What rat posted was

For me, there is no point at all, in being in an international organisation with people that you partially agree with so you can claim to be in some sort of 'international'. It seems fake.

His/her comment about not calling ourselves anarchists was really not the point of the post. Hence, rat's reaction (and mine initially).

yes you can quote that bit, and i can quote this bit
rat

Surly this sort of nonsense over Rojava is yet another reason to avoid the label 'anarchist'.

rat

Surly this sort of nonsense over Rojava is yet another reason to avoid the label 'anarchist'.

Rat, a lot of ideological and material support for the 'Rojava revolution' has come from organizations who label themselves both 'Marxist' and 'communist'. For instance, quite a few members of the 'Marxist' MLKP and other 'Marxist' groups based in Turkey have traveled to Rojava and elsewhere to fight alongside PYD and PKK forces. Also, to a lesser extent 'Marxists' and 'communists' from Europe, and probably from other places, have ventured to Rojava to join the YPG/J. To your way of thinking is this in turn a good reason for one to avoid the label 'Marxist' or 'communist'?

Whatever political label we choose will inevitably be tarnished by those with rubbish politics. We either stop calling ourselves anarchist, communist or whatever, or we stick with the label as a form of shorthand we can clarify further through communication.

AF should be bollocking those half-wits in IFA for being into the reactionary ideas of nationalism. IFA really does seem a bit of a vague, wishy-washy load of bollox really.

It is what it is - a formalised means of anarchist federations working together when they can, and stepping back when they can't. What it's not, is a hard as steel clear as crystal unity of organisations with a rigorously agreed set of ideas that we all stick to 100% of the time. It tends more towards accepting political differences (within reason) of member federations rather than attacking. Like I say, the Rojava question is the first major difference I've seen since we've been involved. The AF has said our bit on this, others have said theirs. Wishy washy? I'd say yes. Does it mean IFA is a waste of time? Absolutely not.

IFA is a synthesist anarchist federation of federations, is it not? Well, if it is still together but displays inconsistencies, then it is functioning as intended. Others may think things like these are not tenable or makes it harder to build a larger movement, and they may be right, but they would be organized in groups associated with platformist anarchism instead, like Anarkismo, right (or other groups).

Since we haven't had a IFA section since the 80s (or ever? Not really sure) here in my country, I don't ever meet anyone to have these discussions, so it's still an interesting question, what keeps the IAF/IFA together? (question asked from a non-confrontative position - just curious!)

That's good - I respect AFed, but how on earth do you deal with this... chasm between political perpectives of the different sections of the IFA? Underlying which are, no doubt, massive differences of approaches, principles and values. In such a situation, what keeps IFA together?

IFA is a synthesist anarchist federation of federations, is it not? Well, if it is still together but displays inconsistencies, then it is functioning as intended. Others may think things like these are not tenable or makes it harder to build a larger movement, and they may be right, but they would be organized in groups associated with platformist anarchism instead, like Anarkismo, right (or other groups).

Since we haven't had a IFA section since the 80s (or ever? Not really sure) here in my country, I don't ever meet anyone to have these discussions, so it's still an interesting question, what keeps the IAF/IFA together? (question asked from a non-confrontative position - just curious!)

altemark

IFA is a synthesist anarchist federation of federations, is it not? Well, if it is still together but displays inconsistencies, then it is functioning as intended. Others may think things like these are not tenable or makes it harder to build a larger movement, and they may be right, but they would be organized in groups associated with platformist anarchism instead, like Anarkismo, right (or other groups).

Since we haven't had a IFA section since the 80s (or ever? Not really sure) here in my country, I don't ever meet anyone to have these discussions, so it's still an interesting question, what keeps the IAF/IFA together? (question asked from a non-confrontative position - just curious!)

Since the 1960s I gather most of the IFA federations have been more or less sythesist. Though when we say "synthesist" this has nevertheless been broadly class struggle in orientation. When the AF (ACF at the time) joined IFA, we were welcomed as a non-synthesist class-struggle anarcho-communist organisation.

The nature of IFA is one of general openness towards other federations, with allowances made for some political differences. In this way, it fits in nicely with the AF's commitment to point 9 of its aims and principles, which states that "We reject sectarianism and work for a united revolutionary anarchist movement". Similar commitment by the respective federations, to building a united revolutionary anarchist movement, is probably what holds IFA together. This is in spite of any political differences between those same member federations.

For the record, I've never been enamoured with the view that we shouldn't work with other groups we might have disagreements with. If you only work with those you can agree with 100%, then you ain't doing it right and we'll never get anywhere if we only ever talk to our mates who think exactly as we do.

IFA's openness is what keeps it going and why it's growing with new member federations joining each congress. Yes, some things are annoying, infuriating and wishy-washy but other things are very positive and worthwhile. Swings and roundabouts innit. I know I'll get panned for saying this, but if it helps, think of IFA as sort of an anarchist and anti-capitalist version of the United Nations and you'll get the general idea :D

Cool. It's good to get an idea of the mechanisms for setting somewhat common points of unity for action inside international organizations of organizations. Never had the luxury of partaking in this, but meeting foreign comrades is the best (very happy to have welcomed a few Libcom users to my couch when visiting here) and differences make for constructive dialogue.

Thanks. People sometimes call IFA the Interational Federation of Anarchists when it is the International of Anarchist Federation but the distinction is important because the latter is an expression of a higher degree of autonomy of each federation than the former. For your interest, in the next Organise! magazine (which will be out for the London Bookfair at the end of October) there will be a report about the 10th IFA congress that took place in Germany in the summer so this will give some details of what has been happening most recently. Congress is the place where the member federations aim to reach consensus after deliberations at more frequent delegate meetings, which produce written proposals and interim positions (which do not always agree). The statement of this thread could be considered to be a public part of this process. A statement to support DAF was one of the outputs of the most recent congress. I believe the understandings we have with organisations we are in contact with through IFA, including DAF and KAF, are much deeper as a result of being in an international together with the other IFA feds, some of which have regular direct contact (such as the Italian FAI who publish a lot about the region in Umanita Nova). Furthermore, as AF is the new Secretariat of IFA since Congress, our members will have much more direct contact with other non-member organisations over the coming years.