SPREAD THE INFORMATION
Any information or special reports about various countries may be published with photos/videos on the world blog with bold legit source. All languages are welcome. Mail to lucschrijvers@hotmail.com.
Autobiography Luc Schrijvers Ebook €5 - Amazon
Search for an article in this Worldwide information blog
donderdag 10 augustus 2017
Anarchic update news all over the world 10.08.2017
Today's Topics:
1. the coming anarchy: Echos of Hiroshima - SARTHAK
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. ANARCHIST FEDERATION OF ROSARIO: Extract from the fAu
analysis specifically on Venezuela and Bolivia. (ca, fr, it, pt)
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Libertarian Space Paraná added an event. -- TO 100 YEARS OF
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (ca) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Chile: Repression and Revolt in Venezuela (ca, pt)
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. MEDIA, In Rojava, a Kurdish anarchist collective led by
women is at the heart of the fight with ISIS, and behind a
political upheaval putting equality front and centre. (ca, fr,
it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
On this date, seventy-two years ago, the United States of America turned thousands of
thinking, living, breathing human beings into ash. Millions more were to be the object of
unspeakable horrors of after effects of the fallout that followed. ---- Almost all of us
now know, at least the bare minimum of what the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and later
Nagasaki meant for the people and the land. But it is seen only as an article with
historic importance which has no more relevance to our lives today than, say, the French
Revolution. For the people of this nation, which stood on the brink of a nuclear "war"
(there are no nuclear wars, only nuclear annihilations) with Pakistan in 1990, this
perception could not be any more further from the truth. The situation in 1990 was
objectively more critical than the Cuban Missile Crisis. We still live under the shadow of
what happened on the morning of 6th August 1945 in Hiroshima.
The movie below depicts the plausible scenario of a nuclear exchange between NATO forces
and USSR in 1980's from the point of view of a young couple living in Sussex, England. The
level of response by authorities in England in 1980s is in some measures comparable with
what India's would be today. But in many other respects India is far worse prepared for a
nuclear exchange or even a nuclear accident. In India the medical response will be far
worse, the food distribution almost nil and radioactive water more abundant.
I do not wish to recall the facts of what happened on that shameful day in Hiroshima here.
I rather want to bring the readers attention to the unspeakable human suffering, and
catastrophic effect on the planet that sustains us, caused by nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons should not be seen as means of security, but rather as a sickness that
infects this planet. This sickness will sooner or later catch us all. They violate all
humanitarian laws and quash the prospect of peace in the world. Nuclear weapons must be
abolished if we want to do justice to the victims of Hiroshima and to the future
generations that will inhabit this planet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK8zNw6ONuk
For: Bhopal Peace and Eco-Justice Action Committee
Indian Anarchist Federation awaits its Comrades!
------------------------------
Message: 2
From April 28, 2017, an anarchist act prior to May 1st. ---- More when a certain popular
discontent with the government is capitalized largely by the right. For that right that
wants to remove the achievements achieved, those that are ultimately the fruit of popular
demands and struggles. ---- The social situation in effervescence of Venezuela we have
every day in the media, with half or false information and also with honest information
from independent press. The subject does not give any position in black and white. But
here we will emphasize only some aspects that seem to us of interest beyond all the hype
there is. ---- There are constant and interested references of many scribes; Of the
fundamental means of communication; Of a whole structure of the right that everything bad
happens in Latin America, is tried to explain with external conspiracy theses, especially
what refers to countries where it governs the progressivism, more if it is Ecuador,
Bolivia or Venezuela.
That is why it is convenient to add here even a few lines that consider this topic. It is
clear that many governments, intellectuals and left-wing activists have resorted to
conspiracy theory to account for progressives, failures, betrayals to popular postulates,
governmental administrative incapacity, corruption, taking away social movements in favor
Of alliances with powerful rights, or to diminish or nullify real social participation.
These and other factors have produced high discontent in the popular grassroots that
supported progressive governments. That the right forces stimulated and supported by the
empire take maximum advantage of such social opportunities is not at all strange, for that
they are. But what should not confuse anyone is that this conspiratorial use to justify
horrors committed does not nullify the fact of the existence of permanent imperial action.
There are two problems that must be clearly separated, the demagoguery or the excuses of
progressives and allies, and the solid and constant presence of the empire through its
various tentacles.
There is no doubt that penetration for the purpose of control and domination by part of
the empire is systematic and carried out by different organisms that play different roles.
Notwithstanding these specific roles there is coordination and complementarity between
them. If we consider that we are before a power that wants to continue dominating the
world and that its interests and orders are accepted, and that especially relies on the
force for it, it would be naive to think that this spectrum of organisms that try to
assure this imperial orientation did not exist. They have a regular task that they carry
out every day of the year with exuberant technical and economic means. We will now refer
to a part of it. We will take what is most closely related to the military in the first place.
We have that there are concrete references and denunciations that there are silently or
half-quietly deployed US military forces throughout Central and South America. The
militarization of the national police forces has been a direct task with some camouflage.
The DEA and Foreign Support Advisory Team (FAST) ... arrived in Honduras to train a unit
and assist in the local police narcotics plan and execute operations. These operations
were difficult to differentiate from military missions. They then covered more countries.
According to the New York Times, five "command-type squadrons" of FAST teams have been
deployed throughout Central America to train and support local counter-narcotics units.
Counter-narcotics? Do not tell me.
The deployment of this type of combination of military, paramilitary, and militarized
police is indicative of the US strategy for re-militarization of the region. Instead of
military occupation, he simply states, Washington "provides assistance" in the form of
military aid.
In 2013, it was reported that former US Special Operations Command Commander William
McRaven "made the decision to deploy[Special Operations Forces]to different countries
without consulting the ambassadors in those countries or even the Command "In fact, the
deployment of Special Forces troops, Mc Raven reached more than 65,000, many spread
throughout Latin America."
At the same time we have that the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI)
created by Obama in 2011 received more than 2.5 trillion dollars for its objectives. It is
known that massive funding has been channeled mainly through military and paramilitary
programs.
The United States Army has further strengthened its position in establishing cooperation
between NATO and Colombia. Perhaps this is an inevitable part of imperialism. Perhaps it
is indicative of the waning influence of an Empire and its desperate attempt to recover
the lost spheres of influence. Whatever one interprets their motives, the US is
unequivocally consolidating its military power in Latin America within its power strategy.
Simultaneously, the US has multiplied military bases in the region, adding seven new bases
in Colombia in the last period. Also in Paraguay, where the United States became involved
to support the coup dubbed as "institutional."
But the imperial penetration is not only in the military, with its CIA at the head, it is
also in the "cultural" through its globalized media, transformed into powerful
ideological-political apparatuses, designers, who manufacture notions favorable to the
system , Discredit for its enemies and, by the way, a range of consumptions.
We have direct political threats from the top up such as: the Executive Order signed by
Barack Obama in March 2015 in which Venezuela was declared an unusual and extraordinary
threat to US national security. And now the threatening statements by the Chief of the
Southern Command, Admiral Kurt W. Tidd (April 6, 2017), stating that the "humanitarian
crisis" in Venezuela could force a regional response.
On the other hand, a number of NGOs, and other organizations, almost all claim to defend
human rights, democracy and cultural issues (NED, USAID, IRI), for example. Precisely
USAID mentioning the new Latin American situation requested for fiscal year 2017 to
increase its budget for Venezuela by more than one million dollars, to a total of 5
million 500 thousand, for, say: "to defend democratic practices, institutions and values
that support Human rights, freedom of information and the participation of civil society
". Pure generosity, no.
Venezuela and Bolivia two gravitating experiences Certain peculiarities of their processes
Venezuela and Bolivia are two experiences that have special peculiarities within the
framework of progressive governments. It is interesting to keep in mind these experiences
that have their originality and seal of the context in which they are developed. Themes
such as Popular Power and Good Living.
Of course they have all the limitations of policies made from the capitalist state, driven
and digitized from there, from above. They also contain aspects that are well worth
reviewing since they raise some issues that from another approach and other dynamics are
of importance. On the other hand they question us, they challenge us in producing a
proposal of independent social-political action that keeps adequate call with the interest
of the bottom in the progress of a process of rupture.
In the Venezuelan case, the Popular Power and Communes project had important popular
participation and support. But they depended fundamentally on the top, on mechanisms and
state bureaucracy. The locks were many for an in-depth self-management development. So
much so that Chavez, shortly after winning the October presidential election, publicly
criticized his cabinet for not pushing that model enough. It was at the time of the
sentence: "Commune or nothing, or else, what do we do here?" He asked during a council of
ministers in which he commissioned his dolphin Nicolas Maduro to promote "popular power."
But momentum remained limited and bureaucratic control over it increased.
What was said was a commune. There are long explanations. We try here, briefly, just to
give a general idea. Theoretically it was a popular political organization, based on the
principles of cooperation, which through delegates made their own decisions. Here, they
are usually organized by community councils, which are smaller, more local organizations
that are making their policies according to the needs they have in their localities. A
Commune comprises communal Councils.
The communes would allow solving common problems and needs, sharing land, cultural assets,
housing needs. Integration with other nearby communities facilitates solving major
problems such as the need to build bridges or infrastructure, bring water or electricity
to an area, and other decisions that would normally be beyond the reach of a communal council.
There are about 500 Communes in the country in 2012. In each one, spokespersons
(spokespersons) chosen by the communal councils of each neighborhood together with other
groups (cultural, sports, union associations ...) of that territory, usually a small city
or an area of a big city
In their definitions they establish that they do not have as purpose to generate riches
and particular profits, but to generate a social benefit. The communes are seen in this
conception enunciated as the essence of popular power.
An example that graphs the operation of a Commune is the Ataroa case, it gathers fifty
communal councils of the south of Barquisimeto (the fourth largest city of Venezuela) and
other social groups, and where, among other small companies, Formed a brick that provides
material to the works that are made in those neighborhoods. Also the commune has assumed
the management of an urban transport system with eight buses; Of a television, Lara TV. An
active member of this Commune adds that people naturally solve their problems but that
"the experience has not been free of internal and external problems, struggles to hoard
some power, bureaucracy, and conflict with other State institutions."
Despite many difficulties in its operation some analysts consider that the system of
Communes would not be easily reversible in the event of a change of government. It would
be the problem of the management of the services that these have assumed and that the
state had never lent there. Not in vain, some of these people had no identity card or
rights of any kind, health care or education. Yes, there may be some of this, plus
everything that has been formed on the level of subjectivity that effective action produced.
Precisely the problem that interests us a lot in relation to this experience is what
imaginary produced, what degree of empowerment, what social-political capacity brought you
active participation, what hopes and dreams were recorded. No doubt, a large part of the
people did not have a passive participation in this process. From these places may arise
the hope of building an independent political action and that truly go deep with the needs
and aspirations of the popular movement.
In total, the Federal Governing Council allocated between 18% and 25% of GDP, from oil
revenues, to civil society initiatives, organized in communal councils or through
traditional institutions (mayors) and Governorates. A few years ago, when oil was at 100
or more dollars, this was a lot of money. Today this has changed substantially. Despite
all the bureaucratic limitations and being in the bosom of a capitalist state it was a
curious and original experience there is no doubt. But, logically, it went through a
process of tensions and contradictions between the capitalist state and the developing
People's Power.
This contradiction between the existing capitalist state with Bolivarian government and
the Popular Power under construction was increasing. A process that dragged on for more
than a decade and a half. Where there are few major changes in an economy based on oil
revenue. Far from an economy focused on achieving a type of production that ensures
greater autonomy and well-being.
The following quote was theorized from Bolivarian stores. "The challenge of building
socialism in the 21st century forces us to creatively rethink ways of conceiving this
relationship between the People's Power Network and the State, so that we do not make
mistakes again historically known. To erroneously define this relationship would mean, on
the one hand, that the State ends up kidnapping the popular will; On the other hand, to
establish relations of representation that dilute the creativity, initiative and
participatory power of the people. In short, to reduce power to the great social changes
that are being promoted, and that we must continue to drive in the years to come. Many of
those mistakes that were feared were just what quickly gained ground. The state
institutionalism was the concern by far fundamental and the one of the popular power was
in a very second background. However, there were those who believed that from that
capitalist structure that is the state could develop a popular power with true autonomy. .
This at most was a declaration of good intentions.
The Popular Power was in increasing tension with the institutions of the State, with its
bureaucracy, with its centralist dynamics, with its tendency to control and subordinate
current policies. He was relegated and increased his weakness and dependence.
The proposal of Hugo Chávez, which at times was expressed was: to carry out from the State
through a series of measures and mechanisms the popular empowerment. Trying that the state
was losing power in favor of this form of popular organization. That is, a statelessness
that operates against its own future. A state that decides to go extinct. The opposite of
what has historically been the dynamics and logic of the state. This was, in medium term
terms, an "impossible mission". Shortly before his death, Chavez criticized this process
that saw growing and was contrary to People's Power. One opportunity is when he makes a
quote from Kropotkin of a letter to Lenin. This is in the statement of FAU when the death
of Chavez.
The empowerment of the people from above, once again, proved that it was not possible.
Then came the predictable tensions, plans that were locked; Finances that did not arrive,
bureaucracies that controlled to their discretion certain projects; Co-optations of
"cadres" of the popular power to integrate them to the State; Corruption promoted by
bureaucrats; Sabotage of the "bourgeoisie" and traditional bourgeoisie to projects that
did not suit them. Alliances with anti-people bourgeoisie and even agreements with
predatory oil companies and identified with the empire.
They add, to facts of this type, those who from official spheres promoted the Popular
Power: "being on a determined territory, a government that emanates from the bottom up and
that little by little this new institutional form, which is multiplying along And width of
the country (the target is three thousand communes by 2019), wherever the power resides
and becomes the new space through which regulates the daily life of the people. It means
replacing the state, with this looking at how life is going, and installing, within a
framework of capitalist structure, built with tools of the system, a new organizational
form of society. All without confrontation of rupture. Nothing about the eye. Intentions
aside, a fantasy world.
This type of approach, taking the state through government, and installing the future
society is still sustained today. Intellectuals and politicians defined as the left base
it with long, contradictory and confused theories. It has been possible to read statements
that do the impossible to save the conception that the current society can be changed from
the capitalist state. The state appears, in such circumstances, as having with complete
independence the capacity to regulate everything that is necessary and to put limits to
the power. They invent a state that is not articulated and in interrelationship with an
economy, an ideology, with great means of communication in the hands of the power, with a
whole legal reproductive structure. More than a political theory this is already a
fantasy. That animal does not exist.
Our identification always with the struggle of peoples who seek their political destiny,
regardless of bourgeois states and parties. Against all interference and imperialist
intervention. We affirm once again: for the self-determination of the Venezuelan people
and of all peoples. It is well known already, in this capitalist world, the power that
comes from above is not popular. If the people do not exercise the power, then this does
not really exist in the town. The People's Power is created every day exercising, if not
exercised does not exist. The Popular Power built as a process and as a social dynamic
necessarily collides with the existing structure of privileges. With a capitalist
structure, an entire reproductive institutionality, different ideological circuits, A
society divided into classes where a small minority oppresses and exploits a large
majority. Precisely to that majority in which the People's Power must be based.
We want to point out something. The analysis of the above, of government policies, should
not negate an analysis of what may have happened in the below. The "plebeian" world was
active, had experiences, had experiences that do not necessarily have to be identified
with the process of progressives at the level of government. What happened in the
imaginary of our towns in these more than 15 years? Is the people perhaps an "empty
organism" that does not add its own or that which passes through it without modifying it
in any way? Do not certain processes of subjectivation occur? Is not fighting and
participation good teachers?
The peoples were active not only electorally. In all these processes that were, in which
he participated, surely new elements were added to him, new notions. It mobilized, won the
streets, was repressed and murdered, believed in "progressive" proposals, supported
electorally governments that he thought brought the new proposal. He had political
disappointments and continued to believe in changing needs. There was all that and more.
It was there not only as a totally passive element. Do not confuse or underestimate your
current subjective state.
There is already a political question for this moment. In what situation are the remains
of these progressive governments today, are they reaching the end of their path? For how
long can they keep some expectation in the villages? What is the degree of disbelief they
have already harvested? It is notorious today that this policy that we can say slightly
produced "wear" with its popular support, is lurking to replace it a crude right that
wants as quickly as possible to remove conquests that were ultimately popular
achievements. This situation already in progress, with a breakthrough in a short time, is
the example already of Brazil and Argentina, presents us with new problems.
Yes, a specific challenge. As parties and fronts, and the vast majority of their
militancy, have been turning towards the center and even practices that were denounced as
right, in opportunities with repression against popular demands. Yes, we know, it will not
be easy to elaborate during the social-political action of a line itself and by the left.
Own line that implies to have clarity in the analysis and to know to differentiate the
different sectors and their different policies, friends and enemies, as well as the
different political-social processes that are giving; To have rigor in the analysis to
avoid falling into "everything is the same", discourse that can be related to the right or
political skepticism. It is a challenge and it is the obligatory political task ahead.
------------------------------
Message: 3
The revolution of the soviets from 1917 to 1921, teachings and consequences of their
disappearance. ---- For this important date that defines the history of the twentieth
century to our present time, we will have the presence of Frankie from France's Frank
Mintz. ---- Frank Mintz (Montpellier, 1941) is a French anarcho-syndicalist historian and
member of the Confédération Nationale des Travailleurs-Solidarité Ouvrière (CNT-SO). ----
He was born in Montpellier of a mother from Auvergne and from a stateless father (an
immigrant from the USSR of Jewish-German and Russian origin). ---- Frank Mintz's writings
are related to the history of anarcho-syndicalism during the Spanish social revolution of
1936. He is also a translator (from Italian and Spanish into French) of works on this
subject. He has written anthologies about important figures of anarchism like Camillo
Berneri or Errico Malatesta.
Today he is retired after 34 years as a Spanish language teacher and takes advantage of
his free time to continue and participate in the debates and currents of
anarcho-syndicalism both in Europe and in Latin America.
In this particular case, Timepo has been working on the Free Soviets in the Russian
Revolution and will present his research in a series of talks in Argentina and Brazil.
Lxs we wait, up fighting lxs!
------------------------------
Message: 4
Repression and revolt in Venezuela: An outstretched hand for the compañerxs, a closed fist
for the enemy ---- In Venezuela, mass protests against the socialist government of Nicolás
Maduro have been developing for more than three months. ---- More than one hundred dead
and hundreds of demonstrators detained and tortured at the hands of the Venezuelan police
is the current balance of the street agitation that has dominated the political agenda in
the Latin American region and even beyond. ---- The deepening social conflict in Venezuela
has a number of interesting edges to address for those of us who are interested in
spreading the hostilities against all forms of government and power. Among them, we can
find at least two variables:
1-The hypocrisy of the democratic states that via the Organization of American States are
calling for intervention in Venezuela due to "the serious violations of people's freedom"
by the government. As if in their own territories, in states such as the US, Mexico,
Colombia and Chile there exists freedom and respect for what they call "human rights" in
the language of power.
2-The campaign of the international left in support of the government of Nicolás Maduro,
that classifies the protesters as either simple puppets or agents that are beholden to the
interests of the opposition, the mainly right-wing grouping of the Democratic Unity
Roundtable (MUD).
Both discourses interact in the conflict trying to shape opinion regarding what takes
place in Venezuela, inside and outside the borders of the country.
For us, what we think is important is to lend a hand of solidarity, even from a distance,
to those anarchist / anti-authoritarian compañerxs who are taking part in the street
clashes against the government.
Side by side with the thousands of young people who have risen up, anarchist compañerxs
decided not to be spectators of what was happening right before their eyes and took
offensive action against the police, their barracks and everything that smells of
government and repression.
It is a fact that the revolt in general does not have a noticeable anti-state trajectory.
It is also true that in the streets there is a diversity of positions and speeches. But it
is also a concrete fact as has been noted by the anarchist compañerxs from Venezuela that
the majority of the youth who go out to throw Molotov cocktails at the police and burn
barracks and government buildings have no interest in being part of the Democratic Unity
Roundtable of the right-wing official political opposition.
It is a rebellion that has been ongoing for more than three months whose ‘driving force'
cannot be attributed to the right, being rather diverse and in many cases young people
without any political party affiliations.
We feel an affinity with those who from the autonomy and the fire of the barricades and
Molotov cocktails are spreading anti-state/anti-authoritarian ideas within the specific
context of fighting against the present government.
In the territory devastated by the Chilean state, as anarchist compañerxs we have
participated in massive manifestations of social movements over the recent decades that we
have no great affinity with, always with the aim of seeking and generating possibilities
to attack the police and propagate the destruction of the urban infrastructure of capital
and power.
In our experience, we know than in the street we are not always fighting alongside people
we are in complete affinity with, but yes we are clear when it comes to who our brothers,
sisters and accomplices are with whom we share common goals to overcome the limits of
protests that seek to change one law into another law, or exchange one government for
another or one state for another type of state, etc.
With propaganda, organization, fire and gasoline, we will fight for a life of freedom.
There is no other way.
As antisocial anarchists we have no interest in saluting ‘the people' or ‘the poor' of
Venezuela. Our fraternity and solidarity are the with the anarchist and autonomous rebels
who rise up in the rebellion of Venezuela, who despite the murders, imprisonments and the
tortures of the socialist government, continue fighting and burning reality with their
heads held high and fire in the streets.
NEITHER LEFT NOR RIGHT!
NEITHER DEMOCRACY NOR DICTATORSHIP!
AGAINST ALL GOVERNMENTS!
LONG LIVE ANARCHY!
------------------------------
Message: 5
Something extraordinary has happened in a corner of north-east Syria. It is a little-known
story that defies the usual narratives about Syria or Assad, civil war or ISIS. It is
nothing less than a political revolution, which bears important lessons for the rest of
the world. In this revolution, women are in the vanguard, both politically and militarily,
often leading the fight on the frontline and sacrificing their lives against the most
atavistic and anti-woman enemy there is: the so-called Islamic State - or Daesh, as it is
more derogatorily known. ---- This place is called Rojava, the Kurdish name for western
Kurdistan, located in north-eastern Syria. After the collapse of the Assad regime in 2012,
Kurdish parties began an extraordinary project of self-government and equality for all
races, religions and women and men. I visited Rojava, in a personal capacity, in the
summer of 2015 to try to understand what's going on there for a documentary film about
anarchism, which you can watch on iPlayer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08z007p/storyville-accidental-anarchist-life-without-government
Few journalists visit this swath of land along the Turkish border, which is about half the
size of Belgium. It's difficult to reach and thus expensive, requiring a long journey from
northern Iraq and a crossing of the Tigris by small boat onto Syrian soil. The Kurdish
Regional Government of northern Iraq (KRG) is not sympathetic to the Kurds of Rojava, and
makes access very difficult and sometimes impossible.
The few journalists who make it there tend to focus on the fight with ISIS, assuming that
this is what most concerns western audiences. Rojava is safer than the main combat zones
of Syria, but still suffers horrific suicide bombings, and western visitors would of
course make a fine catch for Daesh kidnappers.
As a result, very little has been reported about the remarkable political experiment of
Rojava.
What little commentary appears is often secondhand. It therefore frequently repeats
earlier misconceptions or hostile propaganda put about, above all, by Turkey, which
opposes the leading political party of the Rojava Kurds - the PYD - and the armed forces
of Rojava, the People's Self-Defence Units, which comprise the mostly male YPG and
all-female YPJ. Nor does the political character of the Rojava revolution fit familiar
pigeonholes; it is neither a nationalist Kurdish project for an independent state, nor is
it Marxist or communist, nor driven by religious or ethnic motives.
Perhaps most remarkably - and, sadly, uniquely - this is perhaps the most explicitly
feminist revolution the world has witnessed, at least in recent history. Previously, this
area was home to traditional peasant norms, including child marriage and keeping women at
home. These traditions have been overturned: child marriage, for instance, is now illegal.
There are parallel women's organisations in every field, ranging from the separate women's
militia, the YPJ, to parallel women's communes and cooperatives. Self-defence is a
principle of the Rojava revolution, which is why women are so active in the armed struggle
- but the concept extends towards the right of self-defence against all anti-woman
practices and ideas, including those of traditional society, not just the extreme violence
of Daesh.
"From what I saw, this political transformation enjoyed widespread support from all:
Kurds, Arabs, women and men, young and old. Why wouldn't it? The whole point is to give
everyone a say in their own government."
In addition to ensuring complete equal rights for women, the feminist politics of Rojava
aims to break down domination and hierarchy in every aspect of life, recasting social
relations between all people regardless of age, ethnicity or gender, with the aim of
achieving an ecologically and socially harmonious society. In terms of historical
comparison, this project resembles most closely the short period of anarchism witnessed by
George Orwell in Republican Spain during the Spanish civil war in the late 1930s. But the
representatives of Rojava also reject the label of anarchism, even if much of the
inspiration for this revolution came originally from an anarchist thinker from New York
City, Murray Bookchin.
The political heart of the Rojava project is in the local communal assemblies, in which
local people take decisions for themselves about everything that concerns them:
healthcare, jobs, pollution... boys riding their bikes too fast around the village, as one
woman complained about at an assembly I visited. Women and men are scrupulously given an
equal voice. Women co-chair every meeting and every assembly. Non-Kurdish minorities,
mostly Arabs but also Syriacs, Turkmen and Assyrians, are also given priority on the
speaking list; at meetings I witnessed, interpreters were provided. This is
self-government, where decisions for the village are taken by the village or region. If
decisions cannot be made solely at the local level, representatives attend town or
regional assemblies, but these representatives remain accountable to the communal level
and may only offer views that are approved locally. It is a very deliberate attempt to
keep decision-making as local as possible - a rejection of the top-down authority of the
state.
Ironically, however, the inspiration for the revolution was very much top-down. Abdullah
Öcalan, the leader of the PKK (the Kurdish guerrilla movement in Turkey), read Murray
Bookchin's works while in a Turkish jail on an island in the Sea of Marmara (where he
remains). Once a Marxist-Leninist and a ruthless military leader, Öcalan became convinced
that self-government without the state was the way forward for the Kurdish people. He
moulded Bookchin's philosophy for the Kurdish context, calling it "democratic
confederalism". The Syrian Kurdish PYD is closely associated with the PKK. Following
Öcalan, its cadres adopted democratic confederalism and implemented it in Syria.
Some have accused the PYD of domineering tactics, particularly at the start of this
democratic revolution. Such conduct has given room for critics unreasonably to dismiss the
whole project. From what I saw, this political transformation enjoyed widespread support
from all: Kurds, Arabs, women and men, young and old. Why wouldn't it? The whole point is
to give everyone a say in their own government - a radical innovation anywhere, let alone
in Syria, a country long accustomed to dictatorship and repression. I spoke to many people
at random. They were uniformly positive, and many argued that the Rojava model, of highly
decentralised government, should be adopted in the whole of Syria and indeed beyond. But
it's also a work in progress. In some of the assemblies I attended, women and men sat
separately, a mark of the journey from traditional practice that this revolution is still
navigating.
The revolution has suffered considerable assault. Turkey opposes Rojava and has prevented
all supplies, trade and humanitarian aid from crossing its border into the region. Today,
Turkish forces are attacking the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),
which subsumes the YPG/YPJ and Arab militias into a common anti-ISIS front. The SDF has
been the most effective force in fighting ISIS and has driven it back across hundreds of
miles of territory, at the cost of thousands of lives. Now, the SDF - led by a woman
commander, Rojda Felat - has started the attack on ISIS's "capital", Raqqa. The SDF
currently enjoys US and allied military support, primarily from the air but also from
American and allied special forces on the ground.
Therefore, US and indeed western governments are involved in a grotesque contradiction in
which they permit NATO "partner" Turkey to attack the SDF - their most important ally in
the fight against ISIS - while also proclaiming unyielding commitment to defeating ISIS.
Thanks to an almost total absence of press coverage, this absurdity attracts no
controversy in western capitals. Kurds worry, with reason, that once Raqqa falls the US
will abandon the Kurds to Turkish aggression. Indeed, with Turkish attacks against the SDF
intensifying in northern Syria in a canton called Afrin, some argue that this betrayal has
already begun.
The hypocrisies of international geopolitical manoeuvring, however, should not obscure the
importance of the Rojava democratic revolution. Thanks to its horrific tactics, ISIS
attracts the attention, but in fact it is Rojava that carries the more important message
for those who care about democracy. Rojava offers an alternative and practical example
where the people are in charge, and it works. Rather than replicate the disastrous
centralised governments of Iraq and Assad's Syria, Rojava's self-governing institutions
have proposed their model for the whole of Syria once the Assad dictatorship comes to an
end - and indeed, Rojava has renamed itself the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria in
order to emphasise its multi-ethnic character and its acceptance of Syria's existing
borders, another divergence from the lazy western presumption that "the Kurds" want their
own separate state.
But thanks to Turkish hostility, representatives of the Democratic Federation are excluded
from the UN talks about the future of Syria - an injustice in which the US, UK and others
acquiesce. The UN continues to pretend that "the Kurds" are represented by a party that is
in fact a proxy of the KRG in Iraq. It is telling that international officials - mostly
men who have never visited the area - still prefer outdated ethnic stereotypes to the more
accurate cosmopolitan and feminist character of this project.
Meanwhile, the Rojava model is no less relevant in the west, where few can claim that
democracy is in good health, with disillusionment and right-wing reactionary extremism -
and, indeed, overt hostility to women (expressed not only by Donald Trump) - both
ascendant. There are scores of westerners who, like the International Brigade of the
Republican forces in Spain, have gone to join YPG and YPJ ranks. Several have lost their
lives, including in recent days a former Occupy Wall Street activist from New York City.
Some of these brave men and women have been prosecuted on their return home, punished for
their commitment to democracy and equality. All suffer from the misrepresentation of their
struggle in much of the international press. In reporting the death of the young Occupy
activist, the Washington Post described the Rojava revolution as "pseudo-Marxist", when it
is the very opposite. In this democracy, there is no place for the state, at all. The
people govern, the antithesis of state communism.
The author, Carne Ross, and Viyan who his film is dedicated to
Thousands of YPG and YPJ fighters have died for this cause. During my visit, I met Viyan,
a young woman YPJ soldier, on the front line - a huge gravel berm that stretched from
horizon to horizon across a barren plain in southern Syria. ISIS positions were a few
hundred metres away. A rifle over her shoulder, she told me that never before in her
country, or the region, had women been equal to men. Without equality for women, there
could be no justice in society. She was prepared to die to defend this dispensation.
Tragically, Viyan was killed several months after our interview, fighting ISIS in the town
of Al-Shaddadi.
Our film about the search for a better democracy is dedicated to her.
Carne Ross's documentary film, Accidental Anarchist, is available to watch on iPlayer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08z007p/storyville-accidental-anarchist-life-without-government
------------------------------
Abonneren op:
Reacties posten (Atom)
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten