WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA News Journal Update - (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria, Nov. 23: Edward Said and Abdullah Öcalan have shown that the two-state solution leads to continued violence. (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

An incisive article by Joost Jongerden, professor at Wageningen
University published for the first time on the Joop discussion platform
of the independent news site BNNVARA talks about Edward Said and
Abdullah Öcalan's criticisms of the two-state solution. Jongerden
investigates how these two thinkers offer alternative paths to
coexistence, making their ideas more relevant than ever. (Link to the
original BNNVARA Joop article). ---- by Joost Jongerden ---- Violence
takes many forms. Sometimes it manifests itself through drones,
paragliders and pick-up trucks, and its impact results in the
destruction of lives. Other times it appears in the form of occupation
and colonization, the consequences of which are immediately visible. The
impact is not so much the immediate destruction of physical lives, but
rather making life itself unlivable. Many have argued that the
Palestinian and Kurdish issues arose from the convergence of these two
forms of violence. Two thinkers themselves originating from the region,
have also made clear proposals for a solution: Edward Said and Abdullah
Öcalan.

Born in 1935 in Jerusalem, Edward Said and born in 1947 in Urfa,
Abdullah Öcalan, have very different stories, but similar ideas. Said
became a professor of English literature at the respected Columbia
University in the United States, Öcalan, after interrupted studies of
law and then political science, became the leader of the PKK. His
political ideas did not mature at university, but in prison, where he
has been since his kidnapping in Kenya in 1999. Both intellectuals see
the heart of the problem of violence anchored in the idea of the
Nation-State and its exclusionary identity politics. Both see the
solution in strengthening the principle of citizenship, which is only
possible together with others. Not separatism, but coexistence.

In his 1999 article "The One-State Solution," Palestinian intellectual
Edward Said argues that the continuation of Israeli settler-colonialism,
and the Palestinian resistance that opposes it, worsens the prospects
for true security for both sides. In this context, Edward Said
resolutely rejects the idea of separate states for Jews and Palestinians
represented by the two-state solution of the Oslo Accords. He claims
that there is no valid justification for pursuing homogeneity, an idea
that lies behind the two-state solution, of which the aforementioned
Jewish Nation-State Law is the logical consequence.

Said calls for a radical political reorientation and reminds us that a
select group of influential Jewish thinkers, including Judah Magnes,
Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt, have also supported it before. The key
to progress, he argues, lies in the practice of citizenship, the primary
tool of self-realization for true self-determination and coexistence. He
believes this can best be achieved in a shared secular state, where Jews
and Palestinians are equal.

Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan follows a similar line of reasoning.
Inspired by the political philosopher Murray Bookchin, he sees a
solution in new forms of citizenship, but 20 years after Said, he
emphasizes a form of citizenship beyond the state. In prison, preparing
for the trials that were held against him, Öcalan developed criticism of
the state. The Nation-State, he claims, is a center of obsessive
identity politics and destroys the plurality that should form the basis
of a democracy.

In agreement with Edward Said, Öcalan does not call for a two-state
solution for Turks and Kurds, but for a democratization of Turkey in
which an ethnic definition of citizenship should be replaced by a civil
definition. While the current ethnic definition of citizenship views
expressions of identity other than Turkish as an existential threat, a
civil definition accepts that citizens of Turkey may have different
identities, including Kurdish. Furthermore, he argues that the way to
self-determination is to deepen democracy through self-organization. He
sees true coexistence emerging in a participatory democracy based on the
principles of gender equality.

Both Said and Öcalan conclude that there are two options: the
continuation of conflicts that are becoming increasingly intensely
sectarian and in which the survival of one group is determined by the
destruction of the other, or the active search for paths of coexistence.
The increasingly threatening prospects of ethnic cleansing make their
proposals more relevant than ever, but in the rhetorical violence of
realpolitik, they are even less perceptible than they should be.

Joost Jongerden is an associate professor in the Department of Rural
Sociology at Wageningen University.

Source: Medyanews.net (English translation)

https://medyanews.net/edward-said-and-abdullah-ocalan-showed-that-the-two-state-solution-leads-to-ongoing-violence/

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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