Confederal Kurdistan: the "commune of communes", Open Democracy Essay (original) (raw)
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Democratic Confederalism – Co-Operatives in Rojava
Stir, 2017
“Let´s communalize Energy, water and land – Let´s build up a free society” The American Libertarian Socialist and Ecologist, Murray Bookchin, defined the ideal economy as a municipally led, moral economy that is under democratic control. He argued that the Communes’ control over the economy represents the highest developed form of Confederalism. These same principles are being applied in the economy in Rojava, the mainly Kurdish, autonomous regions of Northern Syria. The political philosopher and imprisoned chairperson of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Abdullah Öcalan, has linked Bookchin's theories of social ecology to the historical development of communal life in the long history of the Middle East. The idea is to empower emancipatory forces within society that exist in rural structures and have not been commodified by capitalism and state society.
Geopolitics, 2018
The transformation of the Kurdish Freedom Movement towards Democratic Confederalism has promised a new horizon for emancipatory political organisation. This article examines the relationship between Bookchin's political theory of communalism and Öcalan's democratic confederalism informed by various lived practices of the Kurdish Freedom Movement. After situating this movement in the geopolitics of the contemporary Middle East and international relations, the article explores the social and historical framework of Bookchin's theory and its specific rejection of hierarchy that has been taken up conceptually and politically by Öcalan. We trace this in the dissolution of the PKK and the adoption of the new paradigm of democratic confederalism. The second part examines this organisational basis of the Kurdish Freedom Movement's in its support for local, autonomous, and federated, forms of direct democracy and the complementarities between Bookchin's and Öcalan's theorisation of communalism and confederalism. Finally, we look at the regional and international organisational and political implications of the transformation of the Kurdish Freedom Movement in its shift away from Marxist-Leninism, nationalism, and statism, towards communalism and examine both the challenges and opportunities facing this revolutionary process.
Confederalism and autonomy in Turkey: The Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the reinvention of democracy
Co-authored with Ahmet Hamdi Akkaya, chapter in: Cengiz & Zeydanlioglu, 2014, The Kurdish Question in Turkey, London: Routledge, 2014
""After a long period of ‘national liberation struggle’ aimed at establishing an independent state, the Kurdish movement in Turkey led by the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, Kurdistan Workers’ Party), has changed course and set its aim towards a project of radical democracy. This idea of radical democracy – radical in the sense that it tries to develop the concept of democracy beyond nation and state – is developed in three projects: one for the democratic republic (of Turkey), one for democratic-confederalism and one for democratic-autonomy. In this article we have two objectives. The first is to explore how the PKK makes sense of the projects of democratic-confederalism and democratic-autonomy. This promises to advance our understanding of the PKK in particular and contribute to radical politics in general. Second, a genealogy of democratic-confederalism and democratic-autonomy brings our attention to the work of Murray Bookchin, who influenced Abdullah Öcalan. Our discussion of the democratic-confederalism and democratic-autonomy projects is part of a more general discussion in radical politics and contemporary Marxism. Since the late 1970s, the understanding of radical politics within the framework of Marxism has changed. Focusing on three important pillars of politics – the state, class and party – radical political thought took the form of ‘politics beyond the state, political organisation beyond the party, and political subjectivity beyond class’ (Badiou 2002: 95-7). This, we may say, is the crux of ‘radical democracy’ and an alternative to the neo-liberal surrender of democracy to the market. It is an idea that has given fresh impetus to radical (leftist) social and political movements, from the ‘liberation movements’ of Latin America to the anti-globalism demonstrations of the US and Europe. In the Middle East, which continues to be one of the most important landscapes for ethnic and religious conflicts, the Kurdish movement led by the PKK has put in motion a similar process through the promotion of its project of radical democracy. This chapter is composed of five parts. First, we will trace the evolution of the PKK’s ideological and political approach towards radical democracy in the 2000s. Then, we will discuss the concepts such as confederalism and autonomy developed by Bookchin. The third part looks in detail at the political projects developed within the context of radical democracy (democratic-republic, democratic-confederalism and democratic-autonomy), considering their theoretical implications as well as political dimensions. Next, our observations at the local level conducted in July 2011 will be presented. Finally, the meaning and political implications of this project of radical democracy for the Kurdish movement in Turkey will be discussed. ""
Most politically minded Kurds agree that their people need liberty. Moreover, they agree they need liberation from the domination they suffer from the four states that divide them: Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. What is less certain is the precise nature of this liberty. A key debate that characterizes Kurdish political discourse is over whether the liberty they seek requires the existence of an independent Kurdish nation-state. Abdullaḧ Ocalan, the jailed intellectual leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has argued that Kurdish liberty can only be achieved through liberation from the nation-state model itself. Instead of founding an independent Kurdistan,Öcalan proposes regional autonomy for the Kurds through a strictly egalitarian and directly democratic confederalism reminiscent of Murray Bookchin's anarchist-inspired libertarian municipalism. We argue, in response toÖcalan's approach, that employing an anarchist rejection of the state is largely mistaken. We diagnose certain historical and conceptual problems with the anarchist understanding of the state and develop the admission made in passing by certain anarchists, includingÖcalan, that anarchist liberty could only be achieved after a long period of statist existence. Mostly counter to the anarchist model of non-domination, we propose a republican model of liberty and liberation, also as non-domination, that necessitates the formation of an independent state, at least in this historical period, for Kurds and hence any dominated people to count as truly free. We conclude by attempting to combine certain elements of the anarchist and republican conceptions and offer a synthetic communitarian view that could serve as a better foundation for Kurdish aspirations for liberty.
Construction of Democratic, Ecological and Gender Libertarian Communal Economy in Kurdistan
This paper is based on three fundamental axes. The first axis is Öcalan’s analysis of capitalism and his critique of capitalist modernity. In this context, I will touch on points where Öcalan on the one side and Karl Marx, Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein, who influenced Öcalan’s theoretical world, on the other side con- and diverge. The second axis consists of Öcalan’s analysis of economy, definition of economic society and mechanisms within his theses of democratic modernity. Finally, this paper discusses fundamental questions and problem areas that have risen in discussions on communal economy, which is based on the free life paradigm that rests on communality, ecology and women’s freedom.
Economic Self-Governance in Democratic Autonomy: The Example of Bakûr (Turkish Kurdistan)
The " Apoist " 1 thread of the Kurdish Movement, which today involves many actors and organizations in military and political capacity, has gravitated away from the idea of founding a state. With the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and his following imprisonment in İmralı, followed by a so-called paradigm shift with the theses he developed during imprisonment, the Kurdish Movement began to defend a model of organization named Democratic Confederalism and Democratic Autonomy for the four parts of Kurdistan 2. The movement considers Democratic Autonomy as an active process consisting of bottom up, and therefore social, " construction " of self-governance mechanisms around an understanding of radical democracy. Within the two years of relatively little conflict between the 2013 Newroz Declaration and the intensification of conflict in July 2015, the question of how to implement Democratic Autonomy has been discussed on various Kurdish platforms and decisions have been taken for concrete implementation. Throughout this process the de facto situation in Rojava facilitated the expansion of Democratic Autonomy as a unified experience involving three cantons, particularly in Cîzîre. For this reason, closely examining and evaluating the ideologico-political project and the experiences making up the Kurds' will for self-governance and their claims for autonomy seems to be vital for discussions about the peace and resolution process as well as our collective future. This article aims to analyse the economic dimension of Democratic Autonomy, whose creation is projected to take place alongside politics, self-defence, diplomacy, culture, ecology and collective emancipation, and relates to the reader the arguments and experiences within the economic field.
The ‘Rojava Revolution’ in Syrian Kurdistan: A Model of Development for the Middle East?
As the civil war in Syria continues, in the territory of Rojava – in Kurdish, ‘the West’ – the northern Syrian Kurdish political movement is attempting to implement ‘libertarian municipalism’, based on the thoughts of United States (US) anarchist Murray Bookchin. Since the withdrawal of Syrian regime forces in 2012, the movement has consolidated significant territorial gains as a US ally in the anti-Islamic State (IS) struggle, while simultaneously securing Russian support. Viewed with suspicion by Turkey, Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan, the geopolitical conditions of Rojava’s emergence are its greatest impediment. This article analyses Rojava’s model of rule and socioeconomic development, and its theory and practice in the context of the civil war, and regional Middle Eastern and wider global geopolitics. It reflects on Rojava’s place and meaning for contemporary geopolitics in the Middle East, and considers the territory’s prospects, discussing its transformative potential for an otherwise troubled region.
An Interview by Janet Biehl with Ercan Ayboga about the background and practice of the concept of "Democratic Confederalism" (Kurdish Communalism) developed by the Kurdish Freedom Movement.