Rojava Kurdistan, Murray Bookchin and regional Kurdish politics

[butchersapron]

Reluctant to celebrity-fy this thread but David Graeber has just spent 10 days in rojava so expect a detailed report back pretty soon. I'm looking for a bit of Orwelll rather than Cockburn or Hemmingway.

 

[Idris2002]

And for that you'd need David Graeber. OK, then. . .

 

[october_lost]

Anarchist Federation statement on Rojava

The AF's statement has caused something of a stir. See the libcom page and were also waiting on Plan C who held something of a report in favour of the revolution in Rojava, the video to which should go online shortly.

Being as the AFs statement and political trajectory is not beholden to critically supporting the PKK, or nationalists, it lifts heavily from a Turkish anarchist report and a Syrian Kurd activists interview and it takes a dim view of the implications of Graebers Guardian piece and the piece put out by Turkish Anarchist group - DAF.

I'm surprised more people haven't discussed some of the implications of this already.

 

[butchersapron]

The AF's statement has caused something of a stir. See the libcom page and were also waiting on Plan C who held something of a report in favour of the revolution in Rojava, the video to which should go online shortly.

Being as the AFs statement and political trajectory is not beholden to critically supporting the PKK, or nationalists, it lifts heavily from a Turkish anarchist report and a Syrian Kurd activists interview and it takes a dim view of the implications of Graebers Guardian piece and the piece put out by Turkish Anarchist group - DAF.

I'm surprised more people haven't discussed some of the implications of this already.

Got a lot of time for the AF having been a member for some years, but a statement simply saying that the Rojava cantons are not anarchist is never going to stir debate except among anarchists (or left-communists). I don't think there are any AF members even left on here. The statement itself = fine and they are right to say take a step back and have a wait/look/investigate before committing - but it doesn't seem to recognise any internal stuff, to open up the question of what if the communities involved end up challenging the PYD/PKK/YPG etc (or to oopenly say this cannot/will not happen) - or how a the autonomous dynamic might work out. I think it relies far too much on the translations of the left-communists.

 

[october_lost]

I agree, but the piece is primarily a response to the DAF and Graeber and not a full account of the politics of the region.

In terms of any analysis of Rojava, has any work come out that contradicts the statement? Or, are there any pieces that look at the potentialities at work in the region?

 

[butchersapron]

“No. This is a Genuine Revolution” By David Graeber and Pinar Öğünç

Mentioning his father who volunteered to fight in the International Brigades in defence of the Spanish Republic in 1937, he asked: “If there is a parallel today to Franco’s superficially devout, murderous Falangists, who would it be but ISIS? If there is a parallel to the Mujeres Libres of Spain, who could it be but the courageous women defending the barricades in Kobane? Is the world -and this time most scandalously of all, the international left- really going to be complicit in letting history repeat itself?”

According to Graeber, the autonomous region of Rojava declared with a “social contract” in 2011 as three anti-state, anti-capitalist cantons, was also a remarkable democratic experiment of this era.

In early December, with a group of eight people, students, activists, academics from different parts of Europe and the US, he spent ten days in Cizire -one of the three cantons of Rojava. He had the chance to observe the practice of “democratic autonomy” on the spot, and to ask dozens of questions.

Janet Biehl (Bookchin's partner when he was alive) also did a report fullof wishy washiness.

 

[Patteran]

Reports of on-going armed incidents between PKK & Hudap Par, a Kurdish Islamist organisation with apparent links to Hizbollah & Iran. Recent incidents covered here and here, some background here.
"A PKK-Huda-Par war will be a disaster for the Kurds. All Kurds with a sane mind, no matter what they believe in, are duty-bound to put out this fire instead of pouring oil on it, and to stop sinister provocateurs.”

 

[J Ed]

“No. This is a Genuine Revolution” By David Graeber and Pinar Öğünç



Janet Biehl (Bookchin's partner when he was alive) also did a report fullof wishy washiness.

What do you think?

 

[Brainaddict]

Hello all, I've been following this thread despite not posting much, so thanks to everyone who's contributed.

Got to say I don't feel convinced by either side of the argument above. The anarchist positions come across as wailing that this isn't Pure Anarchism As We Dreamt It In Our Youth, with little concession to the idea that organisation in Rojava might still be going in interesting directions (while having plenty of problems no doubt). I mean, there's some whining there that they aren't abolishing class. No shit. Nor are you, ya numpties. I can't help agreeing with the thrust of Graeber's argument - why on earth would anyone, Stalinist or otherwise, *pretend* to be a Bookchinite? It's not like it will win you either influential friends or guns.

But on the other hand, the Biehl/Graeber etc delegation appears to have been escorted for their whole time there, with neither commentator reflecting on the consequences of being escorted by the dominant side in a militarised zone. Could the Assyrians they spoke to really speak freely? It all smacks of the naivety with which Western leftists would allow themselves to be escorted around the Soviet Union.

Are there any reports from people who aren't either escorted mini-celebrities, or ideologists who measure everything by their imagined version of the Perfect Society?

 

[butchersapron]

Reports of on-going armed incidents between PKK & Hudap Par, a Kurdish Islamist organisation with apparent links to Hizbollah & Iran. Recent incidents covered here and here, some background here.
"A PKK-Huda-Par war will be a disaster for the Kurds. All Kurds with a sane mind, no matter what they believe in, are duty-bound to put out this fire instead of pouring oil on it, and to stop sinister provocateurs.”

Been planned for a while - 80s/90s classic destablisation. Think i gave link or talked about it on other thread.

 

[butchersapron]

What do you think?

If it's a genuine revolution? Or just generally?

 

[butchersapron]

Reports of on-going armed incidents between PKK & Hudap Par, a Kurdish Islamist organisation with apparent links to Hizbollah & Iran. Recent incidents covered here and here, some background here.
"A PKK-Huda-Par war will be a disaster for the Kurds. All Kurds with a sane mind, no matter what they believe in, are duty-bound to put out this fire instead of pouring oil on it, and to stop sinister provocateurs.”

Bit.

 

[J Ed]

If it's a genuine revolution? Or just generally?

Both, it's hard to get my head round the whole issue. So many contradictory analyses.

 

[butchersapron]

Both, it's hard to get my head round the whole issue. So many contradictory analyses.

Ok i if reply in in full tmw? Short answer is no such thing as genuine revolution, just messy ones. This is messy. I'm not convinced it's a revolution - the fighters are, other peoples voices absent - and not from them being wiped out/ignored. We just ain't hearing them.

 

[FNG]

Interesting piece following the lifting of the Siege at Srinjar, Fallout between Turkish based HDP andthe Iraqi KRG, HDP favor a canton style government for the region, KRG want to reassert their territorial integrity over the region.

whilst reading this couldn't help but reflect on the comments made by the Yazdi on the ineffectiveness of the peshmerga in protecting them and how much they owed to the YPG in their efforts to hold out
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2014/12/state8816.htm?

 

[Baboonking]

A few vids of some of the people involved rather than the fighting. The first is the women of the PKK, I think its quite recent, interesting to see how serious they seem to be about feminism (end of vid)

Plan C video: activists talk about trip to rojava more here
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27301

Recent bbc film of the media centre in kobane

 

[october_lost]

The anarchist positions come across as wailing that this isn't Pure Anarchism As We Dreamt It In Our Youth, with little concession to the idea that organisation in Rojava might still be going in interesting directions (while having plenty of problems no doubt).

They're discussing the minutiae of whether a revolution has taken place. A big claim to have been made. Nobody would deny the importance of what is going on.

 

[butchersapron]

Interview with DAF , looks interesting/relevant from a quick skim on phone:

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27779

 

[butchersapron]

More interested in on the ground reports - preferably from participants but here's something else:

Socialist and revolutionary organizations in Turkey have issued a joint statement in which they announced the formation of the Birleşik Özgürlük Güçleri – ‘United Freedom Forces’ or BÖG – in Kobanê and called for an international front to defend the revolution in Rojava, according to an article from Özgür Gündem.

The statement was made made by lyas Hekimoğlu, who spoke in the name of the BÖG. Hekimoğlu, stressing that the resistance in Kobanê had become a 21st century Paris Commune, said “In a Middle East where capitalist barbarism and imperialist interests are pursued with savagery the Rojava Model – which aims at and is building a form of life which is anti-capitalist, communal and on the side of freedom and democracy – is presenting an internationalist way of life to the peoples of the Middle East and the world. Kobanê is not the first, nor will it be the last.”

 

[phildwyer]

So the FT's new stance suggests that Capital is reconsidering the wisdom of backing Erdogan. Too little too late I fear, but possibly a straw in the wind:

"As Erdogan prosecutes his war against the “parallel state”, he and his entourage often give the impression of living in a parallel universe."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/cdc5c064-96c0-11e4-922f-00144feabdc0.html

 

[ws4]

If anyone missed these, here's two libcom pages that should 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

 

[butchersapron]

Of related interest, verso have just put out a collection of old Bookchin pieces The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy - their sales site explicitly links this with Rojava. Yeah, right. Anyway, you can get it here.

 

[Geri]

I don't think this has been posted already. It's a report from an academic delegation who visited Rojava in December.

Statement of Academic Delegation to Rojava

The Mesopotamia Academy of Social Sciences in Qamişlo are in urgent need of books. I don't know how feasible/costly it would be to send some from the UK. I'm guessing the international cost of postage might be too high and I don't know if there is any chance they will actually get there.

 

[butchersapron]

Here's a really thought provoking piece - really worth taking the time to read this properly - i'm not going to provide the usual sample quote because it's simply not that sort of text:

THE "KURDISH QUESTION", ISIS, USA, ETC by Il Lato Cattivo

 

[yield]

Here's a really thought provoking piece - really worth taking the time to read this properly - i'm not going to provide the usual sample quote because it's simply not that sort of text:

THE "KURDISH QUESTION", ISIS, USA, ETC by Il Lato Cattivo

Great article that thanks. Puts by dreams of the PKK/YPG in perspective. Their "capitalism with a human face"

Also reminded me I need to read The Long Twentieth Century by Giovanni Arrighi.

The prof will hate the appendix if he bothers to read it.

 

[Patteran]

Great article that thanks. Puts by dreams of the PKK/YPG in perspective. Their "capitalism with a human face"

Also reminded me I need to read The Long Twentieth Century by Giovanni Arrighi.

The prof will hate the appendix if he bothers to read it.

Choice of source & associated map for the appendix map is provocative. Arrighi's yet another name on my reading list.

 

[phildwyer]

The prof will hate the appendix if he bothers to read it.

The idea that "nearly 100%" of Turkey's Kurds would vote for independence is a mad fantasy, not even the PKK would claim that. Peters offers no evidence to support his claim, because there isn't any. But he got one thing right:

"A Free Kurdistan, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan."

 

[Patteran]

Here's a really thought provoking piece - really worth taking the time to read this properly - i'm not going to provide the usual sample quote because it's simply not that sort of text:

THE "KURDISH QUESTION", ISIS, USA, ETC by Il Lato Cattivo

I don't know if it's the translation or my head, but I found that quite hard going. Basically, wait & see, don't get carried away? The PYD are currently no more & no less than a self-defence group, born of urgent necessity, and the front line presence of 'weaponised women' & vague references to 'autonomy' (rather than explicit class or economic analysis) shouldn't be given too much significance in the wider context of an essentially moribund & defeated PKK? That a free Rojava is more likely to resemble Barzani's KRG (perhaps with some softer social democratic policies paid for by oil) than a revolutionary reorganisation of society? And that rather than being radical, Ocalan's 'no nation state' is a hall of mirrors reflection of the same historical events that shape (& are shaped by) supra-national finance capital & the de-nationalised ISIS Caliphate? Is that about right?

 

[butchersapron]

Biehl (Bookchin's partner until he died) goes full apo. She declared herself a classic social democrat a few years back - drawing out what was always latent in Libertarian municipalism, but what's going in rojava has little to with social decmocracy.

Reading Öcalan’s In Defense of the People, I sensed an exhilaration that reminded me of how I felt when I first read Ecology of Freedom back in 1985—delighted by the insight that people once lived in communal solidarity, and that the potential for it remains, and inspired by the prospect that we could have it again, if we chose to change our social arrangements. The concept of the “irreducible minimum” simply has taken new names, like socialism. Ecology of Freedom offers to readers what Murray used to call “a principle of hope,” and that must have meant something to the imprisoned Öcalan.

 

[Idris2002]

"Reading Öcalan’s In Defense of the People, I sensed an exhilaration"

Definite whiff of kool-aid there.