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We want to financially support activists with different opinions who fight against injustice in the world. We also need your support for this! Feel free to donate 1 euro, 2 euros or another amount of your choice. The activists really need the support to continue their activities.
woensdag 28 februari 2018
DRINGEND: stop de belegering van Oost-Ghouta, Syrië NU!
[afa] AFA Nieuwsbrief maart 2018
AFA Nieuwsbrief maart 2018
Bestel actiemateriaal: Geen Stem voor Racisme!
In aanloop naar de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen biedt Anti-Fascistische Actie materiaal aan ter ondersteuning van acties die georganiseerd kunnen worden door lokale antifascisten. Hiermee kan iedereen zijn eigen acties vormgeven en daarbij de posters en flyers gebruiken. Of je nou een spandoek ophangt aan een gebouw of bij een bijeenkomst een actie voert.
Wil je posters en flyers ontvangen stuur dan een e-mail naar afa (at) afanederland.org en vermeld hoeveel posters en flyers je wilt en je adres. Een donatie voor de druk en verzendkosten is van harte welkom maar niet verplicht. Je donatie kan je storten op Rekeningnummer: NL57 INGB 0009 4742 45 ten name van AFA Nederland.
Lees verder: https://tinyurl.com/y884q8je
Video: Plak mee tegen racisme! Hoe maak je lijm en plak je posters?
Vorige week deden we met AFA Nederland een oproep om in actie te komen tegen racisme in aanloop naar de Gemeenteraadsverkiezingen en daarna. AFA Nederland biedt actiemateriaal in de vorm van posters en flyers om lokale acties te ondersteunen. Een van de dingen die je kan doen is de posters aanplakken om zo het antifascistische geluid in de straten duidelijk te maken. Maar hoe maak je nou precies lijm met ingrediënten die je gewoon in je keukenkastje hebt staan? En hoe plak je posters aan? We leggen het uit in een instructiefilmpje.
Lees verder: https://tinyurl.com/yc7ztmeh
Lees verder: https://tinyurl.com/yc7ztmeh
AFA Amsterdam: Flyeractie ‘Geen Stem Voor Racisme’
In aanloop naar de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen op 21 maart zijn er door AFA Amsterdam vandaag op het Buikslotermeerplein in Amsterdam-Noord flyers verspreid met de tekst “Geen Stem Voor Racisme”. Eerder verspreidden op deze plek meerdere politieke partijen waaronder Forum voor Democratie hun flyers. Ook zijn verschillende extreemrechtse groepen de afgelopen maanden actief geweest in deze wijk.
Lees verder: https://tinyurl.com/y9amcww2
Lees verder: https://tinyurl.com/y9amcww2
Agenda:
11-3-2018: Stop de twee extreem-rechtse demonstraties in Amsterdam
Op zondag 11 maart 2018 wil het extreem-rechtse twee demonstraties houden in Amsterdam. Pegida wil om 13:30 verzamelen op het Waterlooplein om daarna een route te lopen door de binnenstad. Om de zelfde tijd Recht in Verzet demonstreren in Amsterdam Noord tegen de bouw van een moskee en verzameld om 14:00 bij het J.H. Hisgenpad. Ook zij willen een route lopen. Laat Ze Niet Lopen, een initiatief tegen racisme en extreem-rechts roept op om in actie te komen tegen beide extreem-rechtse demonstraties door op en langs de route van de racisten te protesteren en zo de ruimte voor extreem-rechts zo klein mogelijk te maken.
Meer info: www.laatzenietlopen.nl
16 maart 2018: Antifa Fest Utrecht
In de aanloop naar de Gemeenteraadverkiezingen van 21 maart, met Fascistische/Racistische partijen als Forum voor Democratie en de PVV die meedoen is het weer tijd voor een tegengeluid in de vorm van Antifa-Fest georganiseerd door Antifa Utrecht. Er zullen 3 bands spelen en verschillende infostands aanwezig zijn met de benodigde informatie.
Op zondag 11 maart 2018 wil het extreem-rechtse twee demonstraties houden in Amsterdam. Pegida wil om 13:30 verzamelen op het Waterlooplein om daarna een route te lopen door de binnenstad. Om de zelfde tijd Recht in Verzet demonstreren in Amsterdam Noord tegen de bouw van een moskee en verzameld om 14:00 bij het J.H. Hisgenpad. Ook zij willen een route lopen. Laat Ze Niet Lopen, een initiatief tegen racisme en extreem-rechts roept op om in actie te komen tegen beide extreem-rechtse demonstraties door op en langs de route van de racisten te protesteren en zo de ruimte voor extreem-rechts zo klein mogelijk te maken.
Meer info: www.laatzenietlopen.nl
16 maart 2018: Antifa Fest Utrecht
In de aanloop naar de Gemeenteraadverkiezingen van 21 maart, met Fascistische/Racistische partijen als Forum voor Democratie en de PVV die meedoen is het weer tijd voor een tegengeluid in de vorm van Antifa-Fest georganiseerd door Antifa Utrecht. Er zullen 3 bands spelen en verschillende infostands aanwezig zijn met de benodigde informatie.
Locatie: ACU, Voorstraat 71, Utrecht
Open: 19.30
Aanvang: 20.00
Entree: €6,-
Meer info: https://tinyurl.com/yco3xxpn
18-3-2018: Antifa blok op anti-racisme demonstratie in Amsterdam
Wij vinden een breed geluid tegen racisme belangrijk, daarom roepen wij iedereen op om naar de demonstratie te komen maar zullen die dag ons eigen blok vormen binnen de betoging. Dit omdat wij ons niet willen mengen met die politieke partijen die alsnog herkenbaar mee lopen. Wij roepen iedereen die deze afwijzing van partijpolitiek onderschrijft op om zich aan te sluiten bij het gezamenlijk Antifa blok.
Open: 19.30
Aanvang: 20.00
Entree: €6,-
Meer info: https://tinyurl.com/yco3xxpn
18-3-2018: Antifa blok op anti-racisme demonstratie in Amsterdam
Wij vinden een breed geluid tegen racisme belangrijk, daarom roepen wij iedereen op om naar de demonstratie te komen maar zullen die dag ons eigen blok vormen binnen de betoging. Dit omdat wij ons niet willen mengen met die politieke partijen die alsnog herkenbaar mee lopen. Wij roepen iedereen die deze afwijzing van partijpolitiek onderschrijft op om zich aan te sluiten bij het gezamenlijk Antifa blok.
Locatie: De Dam, Amsterdam
Tijd: 13:00
Meer info: https://tinyurl.com/yavjr2cz
Tijd: 13:00
Meer info: https://tinyurl.com/yavjr2cz
DEADLINE: Making history in Iraq
Dear friends –
Hundreds of All Out members have already chipped in to help our partners in Iraq make LGBT lives visible in a beautiful and powerful way.
With the help of 848 more people, LGBT rights group Rasan will be covering a town in Iraq with anti-discrimination murals.
These murals will let young LGBT Iraqis know that they aren't alone – that LGBT lives are beautiful, worthy of love, dignity, and safety.
– Matt
Previous email:
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Update: nieuws en informatie van over de hele wereld - 28.02.2018
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| 2018 © Express.be [NL] |
Anarchic update news all over the world - 28.02.2018
Today's Topics:
1. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #280 - Trade unions: To
fight to remain "the unavoidable interlocutor"? (fr, it, pt)
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Greece, liberta salonica - Against the New Penitentiary and
Penal Code: Intervention in the Law School of Aristotle
University during the course of Sophronist (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. anarkismo.net: Ancient Collegium m(A)nifesto - The
nationalist rally of 4 February by Initial Collectivity
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Anarchist Organization (FAO, Slovenia & Croatia) (MASA),
Tajkuni and tourism or fighting syndicalism [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. anarkismo.net: Confederalism, Democratic Confederalism and
Rojava by Zaher Baher (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
As the yellow unions gain ground, reformist unions may be tempted to emulate their
conciliatory attitude. They have no choice but to demonstrate their nuisance capacity.
---- During the battles of 2016-2017, the position of the yellow confederations (CFDT,
Unsa, CFTC) has, of course, weighed heavily against the possible enlargement.[...] ----
Seeing the CFDT munching its ground, and not taking advantage of the combative posture of
2016, FO leadership turned around in 2017, capitulating to the Labor XXL law.[...]Even put
in minority by his national confederal committee, Jean-Claude Mailly will have largely
succeeded in disarming his troops without it seems that the episode opens a crisis in this
confederation. ---- Unlike 2010 when the CGT leadership had deliberately put in the search
for a general strike, while the movement was massive, Philippe Martinez, who took the
reins of the confederation at a congress in full sequence against El Khomri displayed a
more combative attitude, accepting the need to put the general strike in debate in the
companies. The debate on the interpretation of this change is not closed: real turning
left or simple posture ?[...]
In any case, very few sectors have really " put the general strike in debate " and even
fewer have managed to achieve! Simply confessing the confederal leadership would not
understand that a large part of the trade union leadership and business did not mobilize
at the height of the stakes. That is why, if we criticize the Confederal leadership CGT
for not having clearly called for a general strike renewable, or at least several
consecutive days of strike to try to start the pump, we doubt the the impact that a clear
appeal would have had in this context. The Union Syndicale Solidaires, despite a more
offensive and voluntary national position, has also not demonstrated an ability to trigger
a significant movement in any sector.[...]
Race for recognition
The FSU, hit hard by the generational changeover, remained globally behind[...]. While the
CNT-SO is fighting major struggles in some sectors and localities, this has not translated
into sustainable movements. The weakness of the CNT does not allow it to weigh on the
entry into strike reconductible any sector whatsoever[...]
It remains a question about the attitude that would have taken Martinez and the Confederal
leadership CGT face a generalization that would be part of the base. The answer is hard to
give. But it is possible to say that the yellow bureaucrats and the reformist bureaucrats
today play in two very different registers to be the " unavoidable interlocutor ", which
is the dream of any trade union bureaucracy from the company to the plan. national.
The function recognized by the bourgeoisie in the yellow block CFDT-CFTC-Unsa is to
prevent strikes from being triggered. They are largely rewarded by the employers and the
government for this role. It seems that FO is seeking to return to the race for this
recognition.[...]
The CGT - and to a lesser extent the FSU - would then be the last resort of the bosses to
find compromises and stop the strike if it starts anyway.
As for Union Syndicale Solidaires, having not had the opportunity to take on this role at
the national level, it is impossible to swear that it would be good as a national
interprofessional tool, to turn a general strike into a revolutionary episode. .[...]
Federal Coordination of LA, January 2018 (excerpt)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Syndicats-Se-bagarrer-pour-rester-l-interlocuteur-incontournable
------------------------------
Message: 2
On Wednesday, February 21, we chose to intervene in the law building, specifically in the
room where the Sophronist's lesson is being taught, sending a minimal message of
solidarity to the hundreds of prisoners and prisoners who experience daily the condition
of imprisonment and the atrocity that hears the name of punishment through coppers of
democracy. ---- Correction is a condition you do not teach. You experience it, and that's
why you are hurt. Really, however, what exactly do they teach in this lesson? Humiliation
and disrespect for human dignity? The loss and violation of every elementary right, won by
bloody struggles? Humiliation? Social isolation and stigmatization? Avenging punishment,
submission and intimidation even to those outside the walls to be exemplified? Since when
is all this subject of study and teaching, not causes of war?
Recently, prisoners of Greek soldiers are sending their own message of resistance against
the upcoming adoption of the new criminal and punitive code by opening a circle of
escalating mobilizations. They will find us beside them, until the destruction and the
last prison. Until we are all free.
The dictatorship of imprisonment is the mirror of democracy.
Solidarity in the struggle of prisoners.
Liberation Initiative of Thessaloniki, Terra Incognita Occupation, Solidarity Fund of
Prisoners and Persecuted Fighters of Thessaloniki, Occupation 111, Comrades and Companions.
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com/2018/02/23
------------------------------
Message: 3
"We say it honestly, however painful it may be. Fascists also exist outside the fascist
party, exist in all classes and in all parties. (Errico Malatesta, Aug. 28, 1923, "Why
fascism has defeated"), and that is why, in the case of fascism, Libero Accordo) ---- For
the 4th February nationalist-patriotic rally and anti-fascism ---- On February 4th in
Athens, nationalist-patriotic enamel attempted once again with the nationwide recruitment
of tens of thousands of nationalists, patriots, patriots of rogues, caravans, retired,
despot, paradise, neo-Nazis, extreme right-wing and leftist ethnic paratroopers and
fascist hooligans. below "conditions for the formation of a massive political pole of
expression, the state-driven capital and social order. Once again, the ethnic partisan
rally was accompanied by fascist attacks in occupied space (Front Theater), re-flagging
alongside the outer enemy (state of Macedonia) and interior, as he did in Thessaloniki on
Jan. 21 respectively. The silent temporary withdrawal of General Frangou Frangoulis from
the "panel" of the Athenian rally, with the simultaneous appearance and political support
of the fist by left-wing charlatan Mikis Theodorakis, confirms the appreciation that the
central political planning for the creation of this pole is dynamic and not a static and
old-fashioned copy of similar movements of the 1990s. Modern fascism is emerging
dynamically, in the context of the bourgeois parliamentary protocol, based on central
European bourgeois-democratic standards. It uses the modern tools of social propaganda
(ecclesiastical mechanism, the internet, memories, etc.), ie it is a growing lean hydra
with many heads and not a simple political shell for the rinsing and social re-homing of
murderers of neo-Nazis and far-right organizations and parties.
The patrols of ethnic paratroopers who have been guilty of making selfies under the flags
of the Greek state and bicepal eagles (a symbol of the Eastern Roman Empire) are obviously
not all organized into neo-Nazi or far-right constructions. But this, in any case, is not
an alibi for their political flush. Both the left-wing Freedom of Liberty and the
left-wing National Liberal Party (EPAM) that havetened to support the Constitution's
rally, as well as the rest of the ethnic partisan left (parliamentary and
extra-parliamentary, ruling and anti-governmental, memorandum and anti-memorial) patriotic
troop, selectively highlighting in its announcements the constitutional "irresponsibility"
of the neighboring state of Macedonia, while concealing the equally constitutional
"irresponsibility" of the Greek state, complete the pile of political forces that either
directly-actively or indirectly-silently play on the chessboard of "national" separations
and transnational competitions. No "nation" unites us, no boundary divides us.
We consider that the two nation-wide rallies, especially that of Thessaloniki and that of
Athens, as well as the rumors that followed, constitute the first stage of political
emergence, social legitimacy and organizational formation of a new political pole, with
clearly fascist (sovereign and patriarchal) projects. A political pole aspiring to play
the role of the "alter ego" of SYRIZA's modern neoliberal social democracy in the
well-known post-election parliamentary spectacle of the "good-evil" dipole. A spectacle
that functions boldly in the class-consciousness of society, re-feeding the social and
political legitimacy of the system of exploitation and oppression. Totalitarianism of
state and capital is not lawful that it will be politically expressed at the end of this
journey, with dictatorial regimes of a new Hitler, a new Mussolini or a new Metaxa, or
that it will end up again in a generalized global war. The thousands of nuclear warheads
waiting patiently in the arsenals of many of the world's states retain the ability to
guarantee that the next world war will be the last of the human species on the earth.
History has proven countless times, it does not repeat itself in "replay". The complex
modern reality of multipolarized globalized capital, with its enormous financial bubble
constantly threatening its smooth reproduction, with its supranational mechanisms of
military domineering on the planet to compete and co-operate simultaneously (see Syria,
Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Chechnya), can not be compared to its structural
features with the interwar period. A period of modern capitalism, which gave birth to the
political eddies of Italian fascism and German Nazism, and which led to a generalized
global war of capital destruction and killing millions of people.
Unsupported analysis, the projection of oversimplified holographic representations of the
past in the present, not only does not help in the development of libertarian political
consciousness, but blurs the evaluation criteria of modern reality. The only thing that is
helpful is the practical propagation of "popular" anti-fascist fronts, built on neo-ethnic
and ethnopatriotic fantasy narratives, which are condensed in the three-fold
"EAM-ELAS-MELIGALAS". The search for political origin in a "heroic" national-liberating
past within the borders of the Greek state has nothing to do with world anarchist thought
and practice. The global anarchist movement did not recognize and recognize borders in its
dialectical thinking and political pursuits, nor ethnic patriotic narratives of "national"
liberation. The acceptance of the imaginary "community" of the "nation," an ideological
construct of rising bourgeois domination in the early period of capitalism, is a
successful tool of creating and maintaining "national" states and homogenizing
(linguistic, religious, cultural) within state borders. It leads to the acceptance of
boundaries and boundaries between human communities, leads in a dialectical manner to the
indirect acceptance of state mechanisms as "stages", propagating these mechanisms as a
"necessary transitional evil" in the revolutionary path to class, social and individual
liberation from the bonds of sovereignty. Nationalism is not dealt with by
hetero-determinations, with the invocation of some vague internationalism of Leninist
cutting, but with class solidarity without frontiers. The language of sovereignty is not
our own language. Class consciousness dies, where "national" consciousness is cultivated
and developed. "The nation is not the cause, it is the result of the state. It is the
state that creates the nation and not the nation the state. "(Rudolph Rocker, 1937,"
Nationalism and Culture ").
On February 4th in Athens, we chose collectively and consciously to stand side-by-side
with comrades and comrades who have a strong link: fellow political solidarity. We chose
to stand beside them, defending the timeless libertarian values that, for hundreds of
years, determine the choices of the anarchist struggle against sovereignty and patriarchy.
We chose to support ourselves in solidarity with our available forces, the preservation of
a self-organized struggle that houses fellow collectives, following the operational plan
of care they chose.
On February 4th, the Ethiopian rally in Athens triggered reflexes and, at the same time, a
multitude of political forces, collectives, organizations, parties and assemblies,
creating a defensive defensive fender against the immediate nationalist threat. This
simultaneous reflection of thousands, and the multiple political choices made into action,
can never be translated as a "single anti-fascist front" with common political and
political features, a front that was supposedly guided by the "right" line.
Black-and-white flags are not packed with red. As many times as historically stood side by
side, both on anti-fascist fronts and even more in revolutionary ventures of the 20th
century, the black-and-white rose in the end, soaked by the blood of the slaughtered
companions and companions who held them. A movement without memory is a movement without a
prospect. Political fronts and informal (under the table) alliances with Bolshevism can no
longer be argued with invoking "popular" anti-fascist fronts. The anti-fascist struggle is
a pillar of anti-capitalist and anti-capitalist struggle, but as long as it remains
trapped exclusively in class analyzes and neo-Nazi hunts, avoiding the whole and essence
of opposing all the roots of contemporary fascism, namely ethnic partisanship and racism
with patriarchy, then at best it will remain as yet another isolated thematic struggle,
without a libertarian revolutionary prospect. No "nation" unites us, no border separates us,
Modern fascism is here, standing in front of our eyes and fighting against it every day, a
host of self-organized and libertarian collectivisms. It is battling base clubs,
libertarian trade union groups and structures of social self-organization and class
solidarity, feminist and loyal collectives. Fighting, self-organized initiatives and
collectivization of migrants / solidarity and solidarity coordination, as well as
antipatriotic-anti-fascist groups and autonomous co-ordination, stand in front of them. No
"nation" unites us, no boundaries separates us, no gender prevails and must not prevail
and be imposed. The sovereign imposition on any level and expression of life and struggle
for individual, class and social liberation, anything but antifascism is. Tribulation is
fascism. Racism is fascism. Sexism is fascism. Countless comrades fought in the past in
the world and died struggling to release them from the bonds of patriarchy, in
particularly adverse conditions of social uprisings and revolutions, dominated by the
perception that the only main oppression was the class-by-state class. They struggled
persistently and painstakingly to lift up the building of individual and social liberation
from the patriarchal robbery, giving us a better place to fight. Their struggle and the
valuable stock they have bequeathed to us will not be grinded into any kind of relativism
and categorization of "priorities". Modern fascism will fight him next to each other,
Senior flocks, who have become addicted to violence and who are customarily legalized to
be imposed by Mafia gang methods, guided by stormy rulers, are in no way anti-fascists.
The galloping fans of the modern religions of the ball and the colored sail, the modern
nuns of the new "temple" called the stadium, blindly following a red, green, yellow, blue,
etc. "god" in his Sunday struggle with other "gods" faithful business interests, what
antifa cloths are lining up on their royal stadiums and stands are not anti-fascists. The
field coffin and the paternity mitchilla are anything but constitutive elements of
anti-fascism. The only "identity" that could best be invoked is "anti-neo-Nazis". Rapists,
abusers, sexist bullies, and the apologists of gendered sovereign violence, any
"militancy," as many as "devotions" and those "heroisms" that are invoked, can not be
anti-fascists. Antifascism was not, is not, and is not going to be, their handy washing
machine to be rid of, as many quarrels as they do.
We do not have any celebration and no account of tribulation for February 4th. Nothing is
over, everything stands here, in front of us, as a toothless castle. Class-based
exploitation-oppression deepens by choking the inferior social strata, steadily leading to
poverty and impoverishment of the people of our class. This is evidenced by the continuing
downward trend in the wages paid by the bosses (large and small), the more and more
frequent labor "accidents" - murders in the workplace, the practical abolition of the
right to strike, the increase in the rate of poorly paid part-time work , the reduction of
welfare and health care costs, the gradual increase in retirement age, the reduction of
tax-free income, the gradual recurrence of post-war epidemic diseases. Racism towards
immigrants reigns in the "first-left" concentration camps, in the transport centers and in
the detention centers of the police departments of democracy. He reigns in the fields, in
the provinces of Manolades and in the urban centers. He reigns in the silence about the
vandalism of Jewish monuments and synagogues from ethnic anti-Semitism. Patriarchy, this
"invisible" socialist structure still covers us like a whim, with the sovereign imposition
of a conciliatory silence on its countless victims. Females that were raped, abused,
tortured, sexually harassed, or even killed by a bunch of syllable slaves, are the basis
of recent surveys for the majority of the population. Only the last quarter of the most
extreme incidents that have been published and resulted in civil justice (irrelevant
effect) are multiple of labor "accidents" - one-year misdemeanors. As soon as we close our
eyes and ears in front of this monster, the more we feed and support it. Silence,
relativism, and agnosticism of "equal distances" are the most loyal allies of patriarchy,
the best lawyers for each rapist, for every abuser, for every sexist, but for every
sovereign herd that masks them, defends them and embraces them lovingly, reproducing in
practice the culture of rape and stubborn sovereign enforcement.
The total libertarian struggle against class exploitation-oppression,
nationalism-patriotism, racism and patriarchy, the fundamental roots of modern fascism,
will be totalitarian or will be a "antifascist" virtual alibi for political oppression
with all sorts of powers, whether current or aspirational. This unwavering struggle of
memory against oblivion continues with perseverance, step by step on this trap and uphill
path, without "discounts," without a trace of fear and without any hesitation, to the end.
Until any end ...
DEATH IN DEATH BY LOVE FOR LIFE
Volos, February 20, 2018
Ancient Collegiate m(A)nifesto
https://manifesto-volos.espivblogs.net
Related Link: https://manifesto-volos.espivblogs.net/?p=1913
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30847
------------------------------
Message: 4
We supported 15.02.2018. the protest "We do not give Uljanik, we do not give Pula" in the
organization of the same name initiative in Pula, transparent and with 100 leaflets of
leaflets, as a reaction to the announcement of the restructuring of the shipyard, which
provides for layoffs for 1100 workers - 750 in Pula and 350 in Rijeka and the conversion
of the shipyard for the creation and maintenance of luxury and smaller boats. Of the old
acquaintances, we are particularly pleased to see the Regional Industrial Union, and it is
always nice to hear the Choir Practice Singing. Around 300 people gathered, and the
initiative was supported by the arrival of trade unionists and workers from Slovenia.
(Pula, Croatia) ---- Passive and unbelievable to each other in our communities and
workplaces, we enable government officials to make decisions by ourselves. Leading to
profit, the interests of individuals and greed, the authorities are making decisions to
the detriment of the majority - by appealing to businessmen, while reducing us to the
quality of life, rights and freedoms.
The situation in the shipyard Uljanik is also reminded of the rest of the society,
mutually divided, without the existence of a collective that can be seen as a flat-rate
participant and serving the free flow of information, mutual support and mobilization -
the workers are left to the mercy and inefficiency of the syndicated bureaucrats took over
the role of politicians at workplaces, protecting management and passivating workers.
As we see the direction in which society goes about leaving passivity, and the worst among
us are using the situation to capture the more we are, we are aware of a part of the
social tendency that wants to restore liveliness, curiosity, criticism, resistance and
solidarity among people.
We have the right to influence the direction of society and be convinced that the
economic-political elite is not thinking of the needs of the entire population, but only
those whose voice is heard due to the amount of money in the account and the network of
private interests. We have the right to intervene when we think that our communities and
workplaces can be better accommodated than as a tourist destination for the elite
clientele on the periphery of the European Union.
(text file shared on the protest)
https://masari.noblogs.org/
------------------------------
Message: 5
This article explains the definition of Confederalism by Murray Bookchin and the concept
of the Democratic Confederalism by Abdulla Ocalan . The article tries to show the
similarities and differences between both concepts and both views . In addition it
followed by brief review of what has been achieved in Rojava. ---- Confederalism,
Democratic Confederalism and Rojava ---- By Zaher Baher ---- Feb 2018 ---- Many religions
and ideologies from left to the right have tried to tackle class issues and other societal
problems, but none of them has been able to resolve these problems, rather most of them
have made the situation even worse. ---- Whilst these problems have remained unresolved,
groups, political parties and individuals have continued to come up with different
theories and different ideas for how to tackle them. Confederalism or Democratic
Confederalism is one of them.
The idea of federation and confederation dates back several centuries. Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon (1809-1865) wrote a lot about federation and confederation with regards to
Canada, Switzerland and Europe. However, when he observed the debates about European
Confederation he noticed that his own understanding and analysis of confederation was
completely different from what was actually going on at the time. His comment on this was
as follows: "By this they seem to understand nothing but an alliance of all the states
which presently exist in Europe, great and small, presided over by a permanent congress.
It is taken for granted that each state will retain the form of government that suits it
best. Now, since each state will have votes in the congress in proportion to its
population and territory, the small states in this so-called confederation will soon be
incorporated into the large ones ..." Proudhon's analysis of the situation was right at
the time and still right: "The right of free union and equally free secession comes first
and foremost among all political rights; without it, confederation would be nothing but
centralisation in disguise"1. In fact the EU, which is a union of States, has developed
the most bureaucratic apparatuses and has become a very undemocratic confederation.
In addition to Proudhon, others like Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin, have written
about confederalism, but none of them has written as much as Murray Bookchin (1921-2006).
In fact, Bookchin not only wrote about it, but he also connected confederalism to the
issues of social ecology and decentralisation, and considered the building of Libertarian
Municipalism as the foundation for confederalism. Bookchin was not just a theorist, he was
passionate about his ideas and as a very active, dedicated organiser tried to put his
theory into practice during the 1980s, as described here "In Burlington, Vermont, Bookchin
attempted to put these ideas[Libertarian Municipalism]into practice by working with the
Northern Vermont Greens, the Vermont Council for Democracy, and the Burlington Greens,
retiring from politics in 1990. His ideas are summarized succinctly in Remaking Society
(1989) and The Murray Bookchin Reader (1997). 2
For Bookchin, building libertarian municipalism is the foundation of confederalism, an
alternative to the nation-state, and the way to reach a classless and liberated society.
While Bookchin placed libertarian municipalism within the framework of anarchism for much
of his life ".....in the late 1990s he broke with anarchism and in his final essay, The
Communalist Project (2003), identified libertarian municipalism as the main component of
communalism. Communalists believe that libertarian municipalism is both the means to
achieve a rational society and the structure of that society". 2
Janet Biehl, Bookchin's long-term partner, in her book Ecology or Catastrophe, describes
the importance of municipalities and confederalism to Bookchin " In Bookchin's eyes , the
democratized municipality, and the municipal confederation as an alternative to the
nation-state, was the last, best redoubt for socialism. He presented these ideas and
arguments, which he called libertarian municipalism, in their fullest form in The Rise of
Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship, published in 1986".3
In the rest of this article I try to define Confederalism from Bookchin's viewpoint, and
the understanding of Democratic Confederalism by Abdullah Ocalan. This is followed by a
brief review of what has been achieved in Rojava.
Although Bookchin had an idea and plan for putting his theory into practice, he knew very
well that it would be impossible, or just a dream, to build Libertarian Muncipalism and
confederalism among huge existing cities, given the current mentality, education and
culture of their peoples and the centralist nature of society. He realised that building
Libertarian Municipalism requires a different type of education and organisation, and
thought of centralization as one of the main barriers. His thinking has been described as
follows: "Bookchin became an advocate of face-to-face or assembly democracy in the 1950s,
inspired by writings on the ancient Athenian polis by H. D. F. Kitto and Alfred Eckhard
Zimmern. For the concept of confederation, he was influenced by the nineteenth century
anarchist thinkers. Bookchin tied libertarian municipalism to a utopian vision for
decentralizing cities into small, human-scaled eco-communities, and to a concept of urban
revolution".2
However, Janet Biehl believes differently. She thinks there were other factors that
influenced Bookchin. "What really inspired Murray to think about confederation was not
Proudhon/Bakunin, etc., but the story of the CNT (Confederation Nacional del Trabajo) in
Spain. His book, ‘The Spanish Anarchists' focuses on the CNT's structure as a
confederation. He was trying to demonstrate that, contrary to the accusation of Marxists,
anarchists really could organise themselves, and confederation was the bottom-up structure
they chose" (personal communication, 9th December 2017).
Although Bookchin believed in decentralisation and an ecofriendly society, he could not
believe that this could be achieved without confederalism - a network through which
municipalities could unite and cooperate to share resources between themselves on the
basis of their citizens and communities' needs. However, at the same time he believed each
municipality must have autonomy over policy making. His definition of confederalism is "It
is above all a network of administrative councils whose members or delegates are elected
from popular face-to-face democratic assemblies, in the various villages, towns, and even
neighborhoods of large cities. The members of these confederal councils are strictly
mandated, recallable, and responsible to the assemblies that choose them for the purpose
of coordinating and administering the policies formulated by the assemblies themselves".4
The road towards confederalism requires the building of Libertarian Municipalism for which
working on the primary pillars like decentralization, social ecology, interdependence and
feminism are very important tasks. Each of these pillars is connected to the other, such
that none of them is workable without the others. Bookchin clarified this very well when
he said "To argue that the remaking of society and our relationship with the natural world
can be achieved only by decentralization or localism or self-sustainability leaves us with
an incomplete collection of solutions".4 Bookchin also insists that decentralisation and
self-sufficiency are not necessarily democratic so will be unable to resolve society's
problems and be successful, he therefore continues to say "It is a troubling fact that
neither decentralization nor self-sufficiency in itself is necessarily democratic. Plato's
ideal city in the Republic was indeed designed to be self-sufficient, but its
self-sufficiency was meant to maintain a warrior as well as a philosophical elite. Indeed,
its capacity to preserve its self-sufficiency depended upon its ability, like Sparta, to
resist the seemingly "corruptive" influence of outside cultures (a characteristic, I may
say, that still appears in many closed societies in the East). Similarly, decentralization
in itself provides no assurance that we will have an ecological society. A decentralized
society can easily co-exist with extremely rigid hierarchies. A striking example is
European and Oriental feudalism, a social order in which princely, ducal, and baronial
hierarchies were based on highly decentralized communities. With all due respect to Fritz
Schumacher, small is not necessarily beautiful........If we extol such communities because
of the extent to which they were decentralized, self-sufficient, or small, or employed
"appropriate technologies," we would be obliged to ignore the extent to which they were
also culturally stagnant and easily dominated by exogenous elites".4
Bookchin was not just talking about confederalism in a political way as an alternative to
the nation-state. He thought that while the state has its own institutions and politics,
and maintains a capitalist economy through its institutions, forces and spies with other
administration (Churches, Banks, other Financial Institutions, Media and Courts), its
economy can be imposed on and dominate the society. He thought confederalism, through its
libertarian municipalities, should create its own institutions, design its own policies
and education, build up its own economy, and empower its own individual citizens. So
Bookchin stressed that "Confederalism as a principle of social organization reaches its
fullest development when the economy itself is confederalized by placing local farms,
factories, and other needed enterprises in local municipal hands that is, when a
community, however large or small, begins to manage its own economic resources in an
interlinked network with other communities".4
Janet Biehl has tried to clarify and explain Boockchin's ideas about the above concept in
plain and simple language in her book, ‘The politics of Social Economy, Libertarian
Municipalism'. In Chapter 11 she explains the meaning of the Bookchin quote above "A
confederation is a network in which several political entities combine to form a larger
whole. Although a larger entity is formed in the process of confederating, the smaller
entities do not dissolve themselves into it and disappear. Rather they retain their
freedom and identity and their sovereignty even as they confederate".5
It is essential that people are economically equal according to their needs otherwise,
they will remain in conflict politically. Obviously economic equality cannot happen unless
people themselves control their economy. This means the economy should not in any way be
in private hands, or in the hands of the State, either in what is called the public
sector, or in public-private partnerships. In her book on Libertarian Municipalism
mentioned above, Janet Biehl explains in Chapter 12, ‘A Municipalized Economy that the
type of economy the community needs is very different from any other type of economy that
class-based societies have seen before. She says "Libertarian municipalism advances a form
of public ownership that is truly public. The political economy it proposes is one that is
neither privately owned, nor broken up into small collectives, nor nationalized. Rather,
it is one that is municipalized - placed under community "ownership" and control."
"This municipalization of the economy means the "ownership" and management of the economy
by the citizens of the community. Property - including both land and factories - would no
longer be privately owned but would be put under the overall control of citizens in their
assemblies. The citizens would become the collective "owners" of their community's
economic resources and would formulate and approve economic policy for the community
............In a rational anarchist society, economic inequality would be eliminated by
turning wealth, private property, and the means of production over to the municipality.
Through the municipalization of the economy, the riches of the possessing classes would be
expropriated by ordinary people and placed in the hands of the community, to be used for
the benefit of all".5
The concept of Democratic Confederalism `
Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) both before and during his
current imprisonment has thought about and analysed the PKK movement and the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the Eastern European Blocks. He has also linked the experience and
ideology of all the Communist parties in the world with one another, especially in the
Middle Eastern Region, and observed that their achievements in real life are not what they
claim. However, the trigger point for Ocalan was familiarising himself with Bookchin's
ideas while in prison. Through his lawyer, Ocalan wrote to Bookchin a few times with a
view to adapt his ideas to the context of the PKK, but Bookchin was near the end of his life.
At the beginning of this century, Ocalan realised that Bookchin's proposed citizens'
assemblies and confederalism were the right solution for all the nations and ethnic
minorities who are living in the countries of the region. He therefore rejected the idea
of the nation-state. In fact he now believes the nation-state is the root of the problem
rather than the solution and that it brought and still brings disaster to the people. He
wrote "If the nation-state is the backbone of the capitalist modernity it certainly is the
cage of the natural society ........ The nation-state domesticates the society in the name
of capitalism and alienates the community from its natural foundations".6
He thinks that not only do nations have no future under the nation-state, but even
individuals - the citizens - have no future, except for fitting themselves into a kind of
modern society "The citizenship of modernity defines nothing but the transition made from
private slavery to state slavery ".6
Ocalan knew the root of the problem in many societies, like the Kurdish society,
especially in the region he came from. For him it is not enough just to reject the
nation-state, he believes people also need to concentrate on another major problem that
has existed in society for a long time, women's issues. He read a lot about ancient
society, from the time of the first civilisation over 10,000 years ago and the role of
women through this period. He realised that all issues from the nation-state, through
exploitation and slavery to women issues and gender equality are strongly connected and so
cannot be resolved separately. Indeed, he thought exploitation started with the slavery
and repression of women "Without woman's slavery none of the other types of slavery can
exist let alone develop......without the repression of the women the repression of the
entire society is not conceivable". 6
Ocalan is deeply concerned about women's issues and he thought even women is nation but a
colonised nation. Testament to his genuine belief in what he wrote, is his insistence that
the involvement of women is the first and essential step in the struggle to resolve their
own issues as well as the entire problems of society. He was working on these ideas when
he was in the mountains and he managed to involve many women in guerrilla fighting, even
some non-Kurdish women. However, over time he became more aware of the role of women, not
just in fighting the state with weapons, but in fighting the state in different ways and
in building a new society based on Democratic Confederalism "The democratic confederalism
of Kurdistan is not a State system," he wrote "It is the democratic system of a people
without a State."6
Why was Ocalan so insistent on Democratic Confederalism? What is Ocalan's definition of
this concept?
Ocalan shortened the definition of Democratic Confederalism to just few words "democratic,
ecological, gender-liberated society......or democracy without State".7 He thought that
capitalism has been built on three pillars: capitalist modernity, the nation-state, and
industrialism, and he believed that people can replace these with "democratic modernity,
democratic nation, communal economy and ecological industry"7 respectively.
The idea of democratic confederalism for Ocalan is people organising to manage themselves.
He sees it as a grassroots task, enacted by collective decisions made by the people
themselves about their own issues through direct democracy, which rejects control by the
state or any dominant administration. He wrote "Democratic confederalism is the
contrasting paradigm of the oppressed people. Democratic confederalism is a non-state
social paradigm. It is not controlled by a state. At the same time, democratic
confederalism is the cultural organizational blueprint of a democratic nation. Democratic
confederalism is based on grass-roots participation. Its decision-making processes lie
with the communities.".6 He goes on to say "[Democratic Confederalism]...can be called a
non-state political administration or a democracy without a state. Democratic
decision-making processes must not be confused with the processes known from public
administration. States only administrate[sic]while democracies govern. States are founded
on power; democracies are based on collective consensus". 6
Examining the definition and views of Bookchin about confederalism and of Ocalan about
democratic confederalism, can we see similarities and differences between the two concepts
and views? I personally see that both the concepts as well as Bookchin's and Ocalan's
views on these concepts share many similarities. They may have chosen different conceptual
labels, but the meaning of them and the aims are the same.
Minor differences are that Ocalan replaced the concept of confederalism with democratic
confederalism and instead of using the concept of Libertarian Municipalism uses a
different form of administration that has been put into practice in Rojava. As far as I
know, Ocalan saw his theory as a solution to the conflicts and problems between the
nations and ethnic minorities especially in the region he came from. However, Bookchin
went further in that he believed that confederalism is the solution for all human beings
and the way to end capitalist domination in every way. So for Bookchin confederalism is
the solution to the problems that people are facing world-wide and not just in one region
or some countries.
There is another difference. Ocalan in his analysis of the history of human civilization,
exploitation and slavery believes that slavery started from the enslavement of women and
hierarchy started from the domination of men over women, although elsewhere he agreed with
Bookchin "I have repeatedly pointed out that the patriarchal society mostly consisted of
the shaman, the elderly experienced sheikh, and the military commander. It may be wise to
look for prototype of a new society within such development with "a new society" we mean a
situation where hierarchy emerges inside the clan. The immanent division is finalised when
hierarchy gives rise to permanent class-formation and a state-like organisation".8 The
issue of hierarchy is the soul of Ocalan's theory, as libertarian municipalism was for
Bookchin, although both of them see hierarchy as the foundation of the class society. It
is quite clear that Bookchin has looked at hierarchy and hierarchical society in greater
depth than Ocalan, and at how domination existed before class society through the heads of
tribes, heads of families, elders, and the domination of men over women. Janet Biehl wrote
in the Bookchin Reader: "According to Marx "primitive egalitarianism"was destroyed by the
rise of social classes, in which those who own wealth and property exploit the labor of
those who do not. But from his observations of contemporary history, Bookchin realised
that class analysis in itself does not explain the entirety of social oppression. The
elimination of class society could leave intact relation of subordination and
domination..........Bookchin emphasised that it would be necessary to eliminate not only
social class but social hierarchies as well........ Hierarchy and domination, in
Bookchin's view, historically provided the substrate of oppression out of which class
relations were formed".9
However, Janet Biehl believes that Ocalan's theory is almost the same as Bookchin's and
that Ocalan put Bookchin's theory into practice. As she said on one occasion: "The way I
think of it, Bookchin gave birth to the baby, and Abdullah Ocalan raised it to a child."
10 She continued, noting that "Ocalan altered some of Bookchin's original model. Bookchin
was an anarchist, and as such he was opposed to all hierarchies, of race, of sex, of
gender, of domination by state, of interpersonal relations. Mr Ocalan emphasised gender
hierarchy and the importance of the liberation of women.[That is]one of the biggest
theoretical changes I can see." 10
In addition to these similarities and differences, in my opinion there is another main
difference between Bookchin and Ocalan. Bookchin sees building libertarian municipalities
as the foundation of confederalism. This building relies purely and completely on the
education, organisation and participation of the people. Ocalan believes that
participation is the people's own job and should be done through mass meetings/assemblies
to discuss and debate existing and related issues, and that decisions should be made
collectively. The main tool that can be used for this purpose is direct democracy and
direct action.
For Ocalan, although the aim is the same, as I have shown above, the way of to get to the
destination, to a certain extent, or at least as far as we can see in Rojava and Bakur, is
different. Until this moment Ocalan is the leader of PKK and he is the spiritual leader of
the Kurds in Bakur and Rojava, as well as of many people in Basur and Rojhalat[Iraqi and
Iranian Kurdistan respectively]. It is true that Ocalan contacted his party and his people
when he had the chance from his prison cell. He tried hard to convince them to transform
the PKK into a social movement. As a result, there was a lot of discussion in 2012 and
after about the idea of rejecting the nation-state, committing to a ceasefire and
discussing anarchism. However the PKK did not transform into what many of us, probably
Ocalan included, suggested and wanted.
Once all the contact between Ocalan and the outside was cut off in April 2015 and a new
situation emerged when Erdogan announced a very brutal war against all Kurdish people, not
just the PKK, the PKK became more militarised. So for the PKK it became more important to
concentrate on fighting than to continue the discussion that commenced in 2012. In Rojava
more or less the same thing happened. However, there, instead of having to fight the Assad
Regime, it was forced to fight against Isis in defence of Kobane and other places*. There
is no doubt that during a war in any country the mass movement will be weaker and the
military will be stronger. So too in Kurdistan, Bakur and Rojava, the PKK and the
Democratic Union Party (PYD) became more powerful at the expense of the mass movement.
From this I can conclude that in Bakur and Rojava a couple of high-disciplinary and
authoritarian political parties, PKK and PYD, are behind building democratic confederalism
in both Kurdistan, Bakur and Rojava. It is these parties that are the ones making major
decisions, planning and designing the policies, and also setting up diplomatic
relationships with other countries and other political parties. It is they who negotiate
with their enemies or the states, and make war or peace. Of course, these are very big
issues and extremely important as they shape the future destination of the society.
However, unfortunately it is the political parties which are making these decisions and
not the people in their own assemblies and mass meetings, or through direct action.
For Bookchin building Libertarian Muncipalities and confederalism is the task of people,
or "Citizens" as he called them, but for Ocalan and PKK, at least at the moment, it is the
task of political parties.
Finally we can ask ourselves a question: is what exists in Rojava democratic confederalism?
This is a difficult question especially for me to answer while I am confined to reading
about Rojava, following the news on Rojava TV , Radio, websites and social media,
especially Facebook. I believe that to answer this question properly and to understand all
sides of this issue in relation to the future of Rojava, I may need to go there to do some
essential research. This needs to include visiting cities, towns and villages, speaking to
and interviewing people at every level and section of society. Visiting the Communes and
participating in their meetings, following their decisions, seeing the Cooperatives,
analysing the balance of power between the Movement for a Democratic Society (Tev-Dem) and
the PYD as well as between them and the Democratic Self-Administration (DSA) and many more
work for me to do.
We have all noticed that there has been a lot written about democratic confederalism in
Rojava. The vast majority of these writings are positive and supportive and agree that
democratic confedralism has been built or at least is on its way to being built there.
I believe the main problem with those articles or essays were isolated the major things,
events and the role, from the influence and the power of PYD. The comrades who wrote these
articles did not think or did not want to mention that building confederalism and
democratic confederalism should be the task of anarchists. It is the anarchists, not
political parties, who should participate and involve themselves through the mass movement
in this process of building confederalism and democratic confederalism, because some
issues that come up can be resolved completely through the libertarian muncipalism that is
the foundation of the libertarian society. Bookchin wrote "before the class society there
was "However we should not see democratic confederalism (or communalism) as separate from
anarchism because they very much follow the tradition of classical anarchism." 4
In the case of Rojava many questions remain to be asked and many outstanding issues
queried, such as: Is everybody free to be involved in politics and take part in the
meetings to make the decisions? Are the issues I raised in the previous page discussed and
the decisions about them taken collectively through the mass meetings and by direct
action? Are the existing Cooperatives really owned by the communes, the Democratic Self
Administration (DSA), or a kind of mixture of private-public ownership; also can everybody
be a member regardless of who they are, and finally how are the products distributed? Are
the Communes and the Houses of the People really non-hierarchical groups or organisations?
Why are the chair and co-chairs in position for such a long time? Is the head of the DSA,
and those at the highest levels of the Tev-Dem and the Communes elected through direct
democracy or just nomination? How hard is democratic confederalism working towards an
ecological society and what has been achieved so far? There are actually many other
aspects of democratic confederalism that also need to be questioned.
Those of us so far who have written about democratic confederalism, in my opinion, have
not answered many questions or have not been following this project properly. I know some
of the comrades and friends who have written about it have not stayed in Rojava long
enough to know about all sides of the society and investigate these issues. Additionally,
those who have stayed long enough were comrades who were or are with the YPG/J.
Having saying all that, we should agree that when we write and analyse Rojava we should
not isolate Rojava from the situation that surrounds it, we should see Rojava's enemies
inside and outside Syria and also the continuing war with Isis, the Assad Regime, Turkey,
and the probability that Iraq, Iran and Turkey will come together to fight PKK and Rojava
in the future. In addition we should acknowledge that there has been no effective or
strong international solidarity from leftists, communists, socialists, trade unionists and
anarchists, and the same movement has not emerged in neighbouring countries. Had the
situation been different and some of the above conditions met, perhaps Rojava could answer
my questions in more positive way and set a better example to follow.
*This article drafted before the State of Turkey's brutal attack on Afrin which was
expected by few of us.
Zaherbaher.com
References
Anarchist and Radical Texts/The Anarchist Sociology of Federalism
2 Libertarian municipalism - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_municipalism
3 Biehl J. Ecology or Catastrophe, The life of Murray Bookchin, Oxford University Press
2015, P 227
4 The Meaning of Confederalism | The Anarchist Library
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-the-meaning-of-confederalism.pdf
5 The politics of Social Economy, Libertarian Municipalism. Biehl, J. P 110 and 118
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6YOyGNakE86b3RLY2RZN0dySUE/view?usp=sharing
6 http://www.freeocalan.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Ocalan--Confederalism.pdf
7 Democratic Confederalism - ROAR Magazine
8 Capitalism and unmasked gods and naked kings: Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization,
Volume ll (page 110). Published New Compass Press, Porsgrun, Norway and International
Initiatives edition, Cologne, Germany 2017
9 The Murray Bookchin Reader. Edited by Janet Biehl (page 75)
https://archive.org/details/themurraybookchinreader
10 Golphy O. Rojava's democratic confederalism: the experiment of an American theory.
2016.
https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/4fxpd5/rojavas_democratic_confederalism_the_experiment/
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30846
------------------------------
1. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #280 - Trade unions: To
fight to remain "the unavoidable interlocutor"? (fr, it, pt)
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Greece, liberta salonica - Against the New Penitentiary and
Penal Code: Intervention in the Law School of Aristotle
University during the course of Sophronist (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. anarkismo.net: Ancient Collegium m(A)nifesto - The
nationalist rally of 4 February by Initial Collectivity
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Anarchist Organization (FAO, Slovenia & Croatia) (MASA),
Tajkuni and tourism or fighting syndicalism [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. anarkismo.net: Confederalism, Democratic Confederalism and
Rojava by Zaher Baher (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
As the yellow unions gain ground, reformist unions may be tempted to emulate their
conciliatory attitude. They have no choice but to demonstrate their nuisance capacity.
---- During the battles of 2016-2017, the position of the yellow confederations (CFDT,
Unsa, CFTC) has, of course, weighed heavily against the possible enlargement.[...] ----
Seeing the CFDT munching its ground, and not taking advantage of the combative posture of
2016, FO leadership turned around in 2017, capitulating to the Labor XXL law.[...]Even put
in minority by his national confederal committee, Jean-Claude Mailly will have largely
succeeded in disarming his troops without it seems that the episode opens a crisis in this
confederation. ---- Unlike 2010 when the CGT leadership had deliberately put in the search
for a general strike, while the movement was massive, Philippe Martinez, who took the
reins of the confederation at a congress in full sequence against El Khomri displayed a
more combative attitude, accepting the need to put the general strike in debate in the
companies. The debate on the interpretation of this change is not closed: real turning
left or simple posture ?[...]
In any case, very few sectors have really " put the general strike in debate " and even
fewer have managed to achieve! Simply confessing the confederal leadership would not
understand that a large part of the trade union leadership and business did not mobilize
at the height of the stakes. That is why, if we criticize the Confederal leadership CGT
for not having clearly called for a general strike renewable, or at least several
consecutive days of strike to try to start the pump, we doubt the the impact that a clear
appeal would have had in this context. The Union Syndicale Solidaires, despite a more
offensive and voluntary national position, has also not demonstrated an ability to trigger
a significant movement in any sector.[...]
Race for recognition
The FSU, hit hard by the generational changeover, remained globally behind[...]. While the
CNT-SO is fighting major struggles in some sectors and localities, this has not translated
into sustainable movements. The weakness of the CNT does not allow it to weigh on the
entry into strike reconductible any sector whatsoever[...]
It remains a question about the attitude that would have taken Martinez and the Confederal
leadership CGT face a generalization that would be part of the base. The answer is hard to
give. But it is possible to say that the yellow bureaucrats and the reformist bureaucrats
today play in two very different registers to be the " unavoidable interlocutor ", which
is the dream of any trade union bureaucracy from the company to the plan. national.
The function recognized by the bourgeoisie in the yellow block CFDT-CFTC-Unsa is to
prevent strikes from being triggered. They are largely rewarded by the employers and the
government for this role. It seems that FO is seeking to return to the race for this
recognition.[...]
The CGT - and to a lesser extent the FSU - would then be the last resort of the bosses to
find compromises and stop the strike if it starts anyway.
As for Union Syndicale Solidaires, having not had the opportunity to take on this role at
the national level, it is impossible to swear that it would be good as a national
interprofessional tool, to turn a general strike into a revolutionary episode. .[...]
Federal Coordination of LA, January 2018 (excerpt)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Syndicats-Se-bagarrer-pour-rester-l-interlocuteur-incontournable
------------------------------
Message: 2
On Wednesday, February 21, we chose to intervene in the law building, specifically in the
room where the Sophronist's lesson is being taught, sending a minimal message of
solidarity to the hundreds of prisoners and prisoners who experience daily the condition
of imprisonment and the atrocity that hears the name of punishment through coppers of
democracy. ---- Correction is a condition you do not teach. You experience it, and that's
why you are hurt. Really, however, what exactly do they teach in this lesson? Humiliation
and disrespect for human dignity? The loss and violation of every elementary right, won by
bloody struggles? Humiliation? Social isolation and stigmatization? Avenging punishment,
submission and intimidation even to those outside the walls to be exemplified? Since when
is all this subject of study and teaching, not causes of war?
Recently, prisoners of Greek soldiers are sending their own message of resistance against
the upcoming adoption of the new criminal and punitive code by opening a circle of
escalating mobilizations. They will find us beside them, until the destruction and the
last prison. Until we are all free.
The dictatorship of imprisonment is the mirror of democracy.
Solidarity in the struggle of prisoners.
Liberation Initiative of Thessaloniki, Terra Incognita Occupation, Solidarity Fund of
Prisoners and Persecuted Fighters of Thessaloniki, Occupation 111, Comrades and Companions.
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com/2018/02/23
------------------------------
Message: 3
"We say it honestly, however painful it may be. Fascists also exist outside the fascist
party, exist in all classes and in all parties. (Errico Malatesta, Aug. 28, 1923, "Why
fascism has defeated"), and that is why, in the case of fascism, Libero Accordo) ---- For
the 4th February nationalist-patriotic rally and anti-fascism ---- On February 4th in
Athens, nationalist-patriotic enamel attempted once again with the nationwide recruitment
of tens of thousands of nationalists, patriots, patriots of rogues, caravans, retired,
despot, paradise, neo-Nazis, extreme right-wing and leftist ethnic paratroopers and
fascist hooligans. below "conditions for the formation of a massive political pole of
expression, the state-driven capital and social order. Once again, the ethnic partisan
rally was accompanied by fascist attacks in occupied space (Front Theater), re-flagging
alongside the outer enemy (state of Macedonia) and interior, as he did in Thessaloniki on
Jan. 21 respectively. The silent temporary withdrawal of General Frangou Frangoulis from
the "panel" of the Athenian rally, with the simultaneous appearance and political support
of the fist by left-wing charlatan Mikis Theodorakis, confirms the appreciation that the
central political planning for the creation of this pole is dynamic and not a static and
old-fashioned copy of similar movements of the 1990s. Modern fascism is emerging
dynamically, in the context of the bourgeois parliamentary protocol, based on central
European bourgeois-democratic standards. It uses the modern tools of social propaganda
(ecclesiastical mechanism, the internet, memories, etc.), ie it is a growing lean hydra
with many heads and not a simple political shell for the rinsing and social re-homing of
murderers of neo-Nazis and far-right organizations and parties.
The patrols of ethnic paratroopers who have been guilty of making selfies under the flags
of the Greek state and bicepal eagles (a symbol of the Eastern Roman Empire) are obviously
not all organized into neo-Nazi or far-right constructions. But this, in any case, is not
an alibi for their political flush. Both the left-wing Freedom of Liberty and the
left-wing National Liberal Party (EPAM) that havetened to support the Constitution's
rally, as well as the rest of the ethnic partisan left (parliamentary and
extra-parliamentary, ruling and anti-governmental, memorandum and anti-memorial) patriotic
troop, selectively highlighting in its announcements the constitutional "irresponsibility"
of the neighboring state of Macedonia, while concealing the equally constitutional
"irresponsibility" of the Greek state, complete the pile of political forces that either
directly-actively or indirectly-silently play on the chessboard of "national" separations
and transnational competitions. No "nation" unites us, no boundary divides us.
We consider that the two nation-wide rallies, especially that of Thessaloniki and that of
Athens, as well as the rumors that followed, constitute the first stage of political
emergence, social legitimacy and organizational formation of a new political pole, with
clearly fascist (sovereign and patriarchal) projects. A political pole aspiring to play
the role of the "alter ego" of SYRIZA's modern neoliberal social democracy in the
well-known post-election parliamentary spectacle of the "good-evil" dipole. A spectacle
that functions boldly in the class-consciousness of society, re-feeding the social and
political legitimacy of the system of exploitation and oppression. Totalitarianism of
state and capital is not lawful that it will be politically expressed at the end of this
journey, with dictatorial regimes of a new Hitler, a new Mussolini or a new Metaxa, or
that it will end up again in a generalized global war. The thousands of nuclear warheads
waiting patiently in the arsenals of many of the world's states retain the ability to
guarantee that the next world war will be the last of the human species on the earth.
History has proven countless times, it does not repeat itself in "replay". The complex
modern reality of multipolarized globalized capital, with its enormous financial bubble
constantly threatening its smooth reproduction, with its supranational mechanisms of
military domineering on the planet to compete and co-operate simultaneously (see Syria,
Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Chechnya), can not be compared to its structural
features with the interwar period. A period of modern capitalism, which gave birth to the
political eddies of Italian fascism and German Nazism, and which led to a generalized
global war of capital destruction and killing millions of people.
Unsupported analysis, the projection of oversimplified holographic representations of the
past in the present, not only does not help in the development of libertarian political
consciousness, but blurs the evaluation criteria of modern reality. The only thing that is
helpful is the practical propagation of "popular" anti-fascist fronts, built on neo-ethnic
and ethnopatriotic fantasy narratives, which are condensed in the three-fold
"EAM-ELAS-MELIGALAS". The search for political origin in a "heroic" national-liberating
past within the borders of the Greek state has nothing to do with world anarchist thought
and practice. The global anarchist movement did not recognize and recognize borders in its
dialectical thinking and political pursuits, nor ethnic patriotic narratives of "national"
liberation. The acceptance of the imaginary "community" of the "nation," an ideological
construct of rising bourgeois domination in the early period of capitalism, is a
successful tool of creating and maintaining "national" states and homogenizing
(linguistic, religious, cultural) within state borders. It leads to the acceptance of
boundaries and boundaries between human communities, leads in a dialectical manner to the
indirect acceptance of state mechanisms as "stages", propagating these mechanisms as a
"necessary transitional evil" in the revolutionary path to class, social and individual
liberation from the bonds of sovereignty. Nationalism is not dealt with by
hetero-determinations, with the invocation of some vague internationalism of Leninist
cutting, but with class solidarity without frontiers. The language of sovereignty is not
our own language. Class consciousness dies, where "national" consciousness is cultivated
and developed. "The nation is not the cause, it is the result of the state. It is the
state that creates the nation and not the nation the state. "(Rudolph Rocker, 1937,"
Nationalism and Culture ").
On February 4th in Athens, we chose collectively and consciously to stand side-by-side
with comrades and comrades who have a strong link: fellow political solidarity. We chose
to stand beside them, defending the timeless libertarian values that, for hundreds of
years, determine the choices of the anarchist struggle against sovereignty and patriarchy.
We chose to support ourselves in solidarity with our available forces, the preservation of
a self-organized struggle that houses fellow collectives, following the operational plan
of care they chose.
On February 4th, the Ethiopian rally in Athens triggered reflexes and, at the same time, a
multitude of political forces, collectives, organizations, parties and assemblies,
creating a defensive defensive fender against the immediate nationalist threat. This
simultaneous reflection of thousands, and the multiple political choices made into action,
can never be translated as a "single anti-fascist front" with common political and
political features, a front that was supposedly guided by the "right" line.
Black-and-white flags are not packed with red. As many times as historically stood side by
side, both on anti-fascist fronts and even more in revolutionary ventures of the 20th
century, the black-and-white rose in the end, soaked by the blood of the slaughtered
companions and companions who held them. A movement without memory is a movement without a
prospect. Political fronts and informal (under the table) alliances with Bolshevism can no
longer be argued with invoking "popular" anti-fascist fronts. The anti-fascist struggle is
a pillar of anti-capitalist and anti-capitalist struggle, but as long as it remains
trapped exclusively in class analyzes and neo-Nazi hunts, avoiding the whole and essence
of opposing all the roots of contemporary fascism, namely ethnic partisanship and racism
with patriarchy, then at best it will remain as yet another isolated thematic struggle,
without a libertarian revolutionary prospect. No "nation" unites us, no border separates us,
Modern fascism is here, standing in front of our eyes and fighting against it every day, a
host of self-organized and libertarian collectivisms. It is battling base clubs,
libertarian trade union groups and structures of social self-organization and class
solidarity, feminist and loyal collectives. Fighting, self-organized initiatives and
collectivization of migrants / solidarity and solidarity coordination, as well as
antipatriotic-anti-fascist groups and autonomous co-ordination, stand in front of them. No
"nation" unites us, no boundaries separates us, no gender prevails and must not prevail
and be imposed. The sovereign imposition on any level and expression of life and struggle
for individual, class and social liberation, anything but antifascism is. Tribulation is
fascism. Racism is fascism. Sexism is fascism. Countless comrades fought in the past in
the world and died struggling to release them from the bonds of patriarchy, in
particularly adverse conditions of social uprisings and revolutions, dominated by the
perception that the only main oppression was the class-by-state class. They struggled
persistently and painstakingly to lift up the building of individual and social liberation
from the patriarchal robbery, giving us a better place to fight. Their struggle and the
valuable stock they have bequeathed to us will not be grinded into any kind of relativism
and categorization of "priorities". Modern fascism will fight him next to each other,
Senior flocks, who have become addicted to violence and who are customarily legalized to
be imposed by Mafia gang methods, guided by stormy rulers, are in no way anti-fascists.
The galloping fans of the modern religions of the ball and the colored sail, the modern
nuns of the new "temple" called the stadium, blindly following a red, green, yellow, blue,
etc. "god" in his Sunday struggle with other "gods" faithful business interests, what
antifa cloths are lining up on their royal stadiums and stands are not anti-fascists. The
field coffin and the paternity mitchilla are anything but constitutive elements of
anti-fascism. The only "identity" that could best be invoked is "anti-neo-Nazis". Rapists,
abusers, sexist bullies, and the apologists of gendered sovereign violence, any
"militancy," as many as "devotions" and those "heroisms" that are invoked, can not be
anti-fascists. Antifascism was not, is not, and is not going to be, their handy washing
machine to be rid of, as many quarrels as they do.
We do not have any celebration and no account of tribulation for February 4th. Nothing is
over, everything stands here, in front of us, as a toothless castle. Class-based
exploitation-oppression deepens by choking the inferior social strata, steadily leading to
poverty and impoverishment of the people of our class. This is evidenced by the continuing
downward trend in the wages paid by the bosses (large and small), the more and more
frequent labor "accidents" - murders in the workplace, the practical abolition of the
right to strike, the increase in the rate of poorly paid part-time work , the reduction of
welfare and health care costs, the gradual increase in retirement age, the reduction of
tax-free income, the gradual recurrence of post-war epidemic diseases. Racism towards
immigrants reigns in the "first-left" concentration camps, in the transport centers and in
the detention centers of the police departments of democracy. He reigns in the fields, in
the provinces of Manolades and in the urban centers. He reigns in the silence about the
vandalism of Jewish monuments and synagogues from ethnic anti-Semitism. Patriarchy, this
"invisible" socialist structure still covers us like a whim, with the sovereign imposition
of a conciliatory silence on its countless victims. Females that were raped, abused,
tortured, sexually harassed, or even killed by a bunch of syllable slaves, are the basis
of recent surveys for the majority of the population. Only the last quarter of the most
extreme incidents that have been published and resulted in civil justice (irrelevant
effect) are multiple of labor "accidents" - one-year misdemeanors. As soon as we close our
eyes and ears in front of this monster, the more we feed and support it. Silence,
relativism, and agnosticism of "equal distances" are the most loyal allies of patriarchy,
the best lawyers for each rapist, for every abuser, for every sexist, but for every
sovereign herd that masks them, defends them and embraces them lovingly, reproducing in
practice the culture of rape and stubborn sovereign enforcement.
The total libertarian struggle against class exploitation-oppression,
nationalism-patriotism, racism and patriarchy, the fundamental roots of modern fascism,
will be totalitarian or will be a "antifascist" virtual alibi for political oppression
with all sorts of powers, whether current or aspirational. This unwavering struggle of
memory against oblivion continues with perseverance, step by step on this trap and uphill
path, without "discounts," without a trace of fear and without any hesitation, to the end.
Until any end ...
DEATH IN DEATH BY LOVE FOR LIFE
Volos, February 20, 2018
Ancient Collegiate m(A)nifesto
https://manifesto-volos.espivblogs.net
Related Link: https://manifesto-volos.espivblogs.net/?p=1913
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30847
------------------------------
Message: 4
We supported 15.02.2018. the protest "We do not give Uljanik, we do not give Pula" in the
organization of the same name initiative in Pula, transparent and with 100 leaflets of
leaflets, as a reaction to the announcement of the restructuring of the shipyard, which
provides for layoffs for 1100 workers - 750 in Pula and 350 in Rijeka and the conversion
of the shipyard for the creation and maintenance of luxury and smaller boats. Of the old
acquaintances, we are particularly pleased to see the Regional Industrial Union, and it is
always nice to hear the Choir Practice Singing. Around 300 people gathered, and the
initiative was supported by the arrival of trade unionists and workers from Slovenia.
(Pula, Croatia) ---- Passive and unbelievable to each other in our communities and
workplaces, we enable government officials to make decisions by ourselves. Leading to
profit, the interests of individuals and greed, the authorities are making decisions to
the detriment of the majority - by appealing to businessmen, while reducing us to the
quality of life, rights and freedoms.
The situation in the shipyard Uljanik is also reminded of the rest of the society,
mutually divided, without the existence of a collective that can be seen as a flat-rate
participant and serving the free flow of information, mutual support and mobilization -
the workers are left to the mercy and inefficiency of the syndicated bureaucrats took over
the role of politicians at workplaces, protecting management and passivating workers.
As we see the direction in which society goes about leaving passivity, and the worst among
us are using the situation to capture the more we are, we are aware of a part of the
social tendency that wants to restore liveliness, curiosity, criticism, resistance and
solidarity among people.
We have the right to influence the direction of society and be convinced that the
economic-political elite is not thinking of the needs of the entire population, but only
those whose voice is heard due to the amount of money in the account and the network of
private interests. We have the right to intervene when we think that our communities and
workplaces can be better accommodated than as a tourist destination for the elite
clientele on the periphery of the European Union.
(text file shared on the protest)
https://masari.noblogs.org/
------------------------------
Message: 5
This article explains the definition of Confederalism by Murray Bookchin and the concept
of the Democratic Confederalism by Abdulla Ocalan . The article tries to show the
similarities and differences between both concepts and both views . In addition it
followed by brief review of what has been achieved in Rojava. ---- Confederalism,
Democratic Confederalism and Rojava ---- By Zaher Baher ---- Feb 2018 ---- Many religions
and ideologies from left to the right have tried to tackle class issues and other societal
problems, but none of them has been able to resolve these problems, rather most of them
have made the situation even worse. ---- Whilst these problems have remained unresolved,
groups, political parties and individuals have continued to come up with different
theories and different ideas for how to tackle them. Confederalism or Democratic
Confederalism is one of them.
The idea of federation and confederation dates back several centuries. Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon (1809-1865) wrote a lot about federation and confederation with regards to
Canada, Switzerland and Europe. However, when he observed the debates about European
Confederation he noticed that his own understanding and analysis of confederation was
completely different from what was actually going on at the time. His comment on this was
as follows: "By this they seem to understand nothing but an alliance of all the states
which presently exist in Europe, great and small, presided over by a permanent congress.
It is taken for granted that each state will retain the form of government that suits it
best. Now, since each state will have votes in the congress in proportion to its
population and territory, the small states in this so-called confederation will soon be
incorporated into the large ones ..." Proudhon's analysis of the situation was right at
the time and still right: "The right of free union and equally free secession comes first
and foremost among all political rights; without it, confederation would be nothing but
centralisation in disguise"1. In fact the EU, which is a union of States, has developed
the most bureaucratic apparatuses and has become a very undemocratic confederation.
In addition to Proudhon, others like Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin, have written
about confederalism, but none of them has written as much as Murray Bookchin (1921-2006).
In fact, Bookchin not only wrote about it, but he also connected confederalism to the
issues of social ecology and decentralisation, and considered the building of Libertarian
Municipalism as the foundation for confederalism. Bookchin was not just a theorist, he was
passionate about his ideas and as a very active, dedicated organiser tried to put his
theory into practice during the 1980s, as described here "In Burlington, Vermont, Bookchin
attempted to put these ideas[Libertarian Municipalism]into practice by working with the
Northern Vermont Greens, the Vermont Council for Democracy, and the Burlington Greens,
retiring from politics in 1990. His ideas are summarized succinctly in Remaking Society
(1989) and The Murray Bookchin Reader (1997). 2
For Bookchin, building libertarian municipalism is the foundation of confederalism, an
alternative to the nation-state, and the way to reach a classless and liberated society.
While Bookchin placed libertarian municipalism within the framework of anarchism for much
of his life ".....in the late 1990s he broke with anarchism and in his final essay, The
Communalist Project (2003), identified libertarian municipalism as the main component of
communalism. Communalists believe that libertarian municipalism is both the means to
achieve a rational society and the structure of that society". 2
Janet Biehl, Bookchin's long-term partner, in her book Ecology or Catastrophe, describes
the importance of municipalities and confederalism to Bookchin " In Bookchin's eyes , the
democratized municipality, and the municipal confederation as an alternative to the
nation-state, was the last, best redoubt for socialism. He presented these ideas and
arguments, which he called libertarian municipalism, in their fullest form in The Rise of
Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship, published in 1986".3
In the rest of this article I try to define Confederalism from Bookchin's viewpoint, and
the understanding of Democratic Confederalism by Abdullah Ocalan. This is followed by a
brief review of what has been achieved in Rojava.
Although Bookchin had an idea and plan for putting his theory into practice, he knew very
well that it would be impossible, or just a dream, to build Libertarian Muncipalism and
confederalism among huge existing cities, given the current mentality, education and
culture of their peoples and the centralist nature of society. He realised that building
Libertarian Municipalism requires a different type of education and organisation, and
thought of centralization as one of the main barriers. His thinking has been described as
follows: "Bookchin became an advocate of face-to-face or assembly democracy in the 1950s,
inspired by writings on the ancient Athenian polis by H. D. F. Kitto and Alfred Eckhard
Zimmern. For the concept of confederation, he was influenced by the nineteenth century
anarchist thinkers. Bookchin tied libertarian municipalism to a utopian vision for
decentralizing cities into small, human-scaled eco-communities, and to a concept of urban
revolution".2
However, Janet Biehl believes differently. She thinks there were other factors that
influenced Bookchin. "What really inspired Murray to think about confederation was not
Proudhon/Bakunin, etc., but the story of the CNT (Confederation Nacional del Trabajo) in
Spain. His book, ‘The Spanish Anarchists' focuses on the CNT's structure as a
confederation. He was trying to demonstrate that, contrary to the accusation of Marxists,
anarchists really could organise themselves, and confederation was the bottom-up structure
they chose" (personal communication, 9th December 2017).
Although Bookchin believed in decentralisation and an ecofriendly society, he could not
believe that this could be achieved without confederalism - a network through which
municipalities could unite and cooperate to share resources between themselves on the
basis of their citizens and communities' needs. However, at the same time he believed each
municipality must have autonomy over policy making. His definition of confederalism is "It
is above all a network of administrative councils whose members or delegates are elected
from popular face-to-face democratic assemblies, in the various villages, towns, and even
neighborhoods of large cities. The members of these confederal councils are strictly
mandated, recallable, and responsible to the assemblies that choose them for the purpose
of coordinating and administering the policies formulated by the assemblies themselves".4
The road towards confederalism requires the building of Libertarian Municipalism for which
working on the primary pillars like decentralization, social ecology, interdependence and
feminism are very important tasks. Each of these pillars is connected to the other, such
that none of them is workable without the others. Bookchin clarified this very well when
he said "To argue that the remaking of society and our relationship with the natural world
can be achieved only by decentralization or localism or self-sustainability leaves us with
an incomplete collection of solutions".4 Bookchin also insists that decentralisation and
self-sufficiency are not necessarily democratic so will be unable to resolve society's
problems and be successful, he therefore continues to say "It is a troubling fact that
neither decentralization nor self-sufficiency in itself is necessarily democratic. Plato's
ideal city in the Republic was indeed designed to be self-sufficient, but its
self-sufficiency was meant to maintain a warrior as well as a philosophical elite. Indeed,
its capacity to preserve its self-sufficiency depended upon its ability, like Sparta, to
resist the seemingly "corruptive" influence of outside cultures (a characteristic, I may
say, that still appears in many closed societies in the East). Similarly, decentralization
in itself provides no assurance that we will have an ecological society. A decentralized
society can easily co-exist with extremely rigid hierarchies. A striking example is
European and Oriental feudalism, a social order in which princely, ducal, and baronial
hierarchies were based on highly decentralized communities. With all due respect to Fritz
Schumacher, small is not necessarily beautiful........If we extol such communities because
of the extent to which they were decentralized, self-sufficient, or small, or employed
"appropriate technologies," we would be obliged to ignore the extent to which they were
also culturally stagnant and easily dominated by exogenous elites".4
Bookchin was not just talking about confederalism in a political way as an alternative to
the nation-state. He thought that while the state has its own institutions and politics,
and maintains a capitalist economy through its institutions, forces and spies with other
administration (Churches, Banks, other Financial Institutions, Media and Courts), its
economy can be imposed on and dominate the society. He thought confederalism, through its
libertarian municipalities, should create its own institutions, design its own policies
and education, build up its own economy, and empower its own individual citizens. So
Bookchin stressed that "Confederalism as a principle of social organization reaches its
fullest development when the economy itself is confederalized by placing local farms,
factories, and other needed enterprises in local municipal hands that is, when a
community, however large or small, begins to manage its own economic resources in an
interlinked network with other communities".4
Janet Biehl has tried to clarify and explain Boockchin's ideas about the above concept in
plain and simple language in her book, ‘The politics of Social Economy, Libertarian
Municipalism'. In Chapter 11 she explains the meaning of the Bookchin quote above "A
confederation is a network in which several political entities combine to form a larger
whole. Although a larger entity is formed in the process of confederating, the smaller
entities do not dissolve themselves into it and disappear. Rather they retain their
freedom and identity and their sovereignty even as they confederate".5
It is essential that people are economically equal according to their needs otherwise,
they will remain in conflict politically. Obviously economic equality cannot happen unless
people themselves control their economy. This means the economy should not in any way be
in private hands, or in the hands of the State, either in what is called the public
sector, or in public-private partnerships. In her book on Libertarian Municipalism
mentioned above, Janet Biehl explains in Chapter 12, ‘A Municipalized Economy that the
type of economy the community needs is very different from any other type of economy that
class-based societies have seen before. She says "Libertarian municipalism advances a form
of public ownership that is truly public. The political economy it proposes is one that is
neither privately owned, nor broken up into small collectives, nor nationalized. Rather,
it is one that is municipalized - placed under community "ownership" and control."
"This municipalization of the economy means the "ownership" and management of the economy
by the citizens of the community. Property - including both land and factories - would no
longer be privately owned but would be put under the overall control of citizens in their
assemblies. The citizens would become the collective "owners" of their community's
economic resources and would formulate and approve economic policy for the community
............In a rational anarchist society, economic inequality would be eliminated by
turning wealth, private property, and the means of production over to the municipality.
Through the municipalization of the economy, the riches of the possessing classes would be
expropriated by ordinary people and placed in the hands of the community, to be used for
the benefit of all".5
The concept of Democratic Confederalism `
Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) both before and during his
current imprisonment has thought about and analysed the PKK movement and the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the Eastern European Blocks. He has also linked the experience and
ideology of all the Communist parties in the world with one another, especially in the
Middle Eastern Region, and observed that their achievements in real life are not what they
claim. However, the trigger point for Ocalan was familiarising himself with Bookchin's
ideas while in prison. Through his lawyer, Ocalan wrote to Bookchin a few times with a
view to adapt his ideas to the context of the PKK, but Bookchin was near the end of his life.
At the beginning of this century, Ocalan realised that Bookchin's proposed citizens'
assemblies and confederalism were the right solution for all the nations and ethnic
minorities who are living in the countries of the region. He therefore rejected the idea
of the nation-state. In fact he now believes the nation-state is the root of the problem
rather than the solution and that it brought and still brings disaster to the people. He
wrote "If the nation-state is the backbone of the capitalist modernity it certainly is the
cage of the natural society ........ The nation-state domesticates the society in the name
of capitalism and alienates the community from its natural foundations".6
He thinks that not only do nations have no future under the nation-state, but even
individuals - the citizens - have no future, except for fitting themselves into a kind of
modern society "The citizenship of modernity defines nothing but the transition made from
private slavery to state slavery ".6
Ocalan knew the root of the problem in many societies, like the Kurdish society,
especially in the region he came from. For him it is not enough just to reject the
nation-state, he believes people also need to concentrate on another major problem that
has existed in society for a long time, women's issues. He read a lot about ancient
society, from the time of the first civilisation over 10,000 years ago and the role of
women through this period. He realised that all issues from the nation-state, through
exploitation and slavery to women issues and gender equality are strongly connected and so
cannot be resolved separately. Indeed, he thought exploitation started with the slavery
and repression of women "Without woman's slavery none of the other types of slavery can
exist let alone develop......without the repression of the women the repression of the
entire society is not conceivable". 6
Ocalan is deeply concerned about women's issues and he thought even women is nation but a
colonised nation. Testament to his genuine belief in what he wrote, is his insistence that
the involvement of women is the first and essential step in the struggle to resolve their
own issues as well as the entire problems of society. He was working on these ideas when
he was in the mountains and he managed to involve many women in guerrilla fighting, even
some non-Kurdish women. However, over time he became more aware of the role of women, not
just in fighting the state with weapons, but in fighting the state in different ways and
in building a new society based on Democratic Confederalism "The democratic confederalism
of Kurdistan is not a State system," he wrote "It is the democratic system of a people
without a State."6
Why was Ocalan so insistent on Democratic Confederalism? What is Ocalan's definition of
this concept?
Ocalan shortened the definition of Democratic Confederalism to just few words "democratic,
ecological, gender-liberated society......or democracy without State".7 He thought that
capitalism has been built on three pillars: capitalist modernity, the nation-state, and
industrialism, and he believed that people can replace these with "democratic modernity,
democratic nation, communal economy and ecological industry"7 respectively.
The idea of democratic confederalism for Ocalan is people organising to manage themselves.
He sees it as a grassroots task, enacted by collective decisions made by the people
themselves about their own issues through direct democracy, which rejects control by the
state or any dominant administration. He wrote "Democratic confederalism is the
contrasting paradigm of the oppressed people. Democratic confederalism is a non-state
social paradigm. It is not controlled by a state. At the same time, democratic
confederalism is the cultural organizational blueprint of a democratic nation. Democratic
confederalism is based on grass-roots participation. Its decision-making processes lie
with the communities.".6 He goes on to say "[Democratic Confederalism]...can be called a
non-state political administration or a democracy without a state. Democratic
decision-making processes must not be confused with the processes known from public
administration. States only administrate[sic]while democracies govern. States are founded
on power; democracies are based on collective consensus". 6
Examining the definition and views of Bookchin about confederalism and of Ocalan about
democratic confederalism, can we see similarities and differences between the two concepts
and views? I personally see that both the concepts as well as Bookchin's and Ocalan's
views on these concepts share many similarities. They may have chosen different conceptual
labels, but the meaning of them and the aims are the same.
Minor differences are that Ocalan replaced the concept of confederalism with democratic
confederalism and instead of using the concept of Libertarian Municipalism uses a
different form of administration that has been put into practice in Rojava. As far as I
know, Ocalan saw his theory as a solution to the conflicts and problems between the
nations and ethnic minorities especially in the region he came from. However, Bookchin
went further in that he believed that confederalism is the solution for all human beings
and the way to end capitalist domination in every way. So for Bookchin confederalism is
the solution to the problems that people are facing world-wide and not just in one region
or some countries.
There is another difference. Ocalan in his analysis of the history of human civilization,
exploitation and slavery believes that slavery started from the enslavement of women and
hierarchy started from the domination of men over women, although elsewhere he agreed with
Bookchin "I have repeatedly pointed out that the patriarchal society mostly consisted of
the shaman, the elderly experienced sheikh, and the military commander. It may be wise to
look for prototype of a new society within such development with "a new society" we mean a
situation where hierarchy emerges inside the clan. The immanent division is finalised when
hierarchy gives rise to permanent class-formation and a state-like organisation".8 The
issue of hierarchy is the soul of Ocalan's theory, as libertarian municipalism was for
Bookchin, although both of them see hierarchy as the foundation of the class society. It
is quite clear that Bookchin has looked at hierarchy and hierarchical society in greater
depth than Ocalan, and at how domination existed before class society through the heads of
tribes, heads of families, elders, and the domination of men over women. Janet Biehl wrote
in the Bookchin Reader: "According to Marx "primitive egalitarianism"was destroyed by the
rise of social classes, in which those who own wealth and property exploit the labor of
those who do not. But from his observations of contemporary history, Bookchin realised
that class analysis in itself does not explain the entirety of social oppression. The
elimination of class society could leave intact relation of subordination and
domination..........Bookchin emphasised that it would be necessary to eliminate not only
social class but social hierarchies as well........ Hierarchy and domination, in
Bookchin's view, historically provided the substrate of oppression out of which class
relations were formed".9
However, Janet Biehl believes that Ocalan's theory is almost the same as Bookchin's and
that Ocalan put Bookchin's theory into practice. As she said on one occasion: "The way I
think of it, Bookchin gave birth to the baby, and Abdullah Ocalan raised it to a child."
10 She continued, noting that "Ocalan altered some of Bookchin's original model. Bookchin
was an anarchist, and as such he was opposed to all hierarchies, of race, of sex, of
gender, of domination by state, of interpersonal relations. Mr Ocalan emphasised gender
hierarchy and the importance of the liberation of women.[That is]one of the biggest
theoretical changes I can see." 10
In addition to these similarities and differences, in my opinion there is another main
difference between Bookchin and Ocalan. Bookchin sees building libertarian municipalities
as the foundation of confederalism. This building relies purely and completely on the
education, organisation and participation of the people. Ocalan believes that
participation is the people's own job and should be done through mass meetings/assemblies
to discuss and debate existing and related issues, and that decisions should be made
collectively. The main tool that can be used for this purpose is direct democracy and
direct action.
For Ocalan, although the aim is the same, as I have shown above, the way of to get to the
destination, to a certain extent, or at least as far as we can see in Rojava and Bakur, is
different. Until this moment Ocalan is the leader of PKK and he is the spiritual leader of
the Kurds in Bakur and Rojava, as well as of many people in Basur and Rojhalat[Iraqi and
Iranian Kurdistan respectively]. It is true that Ocalan contacted his party and his people
when he had the chance from his prison cell. He tried hard to convince them to transform
the PKK into a social movement. As a result, there was a lot of discussion in 2012 and
after about the idea of rejecting the nation-state, committing to a ceasefire and
discussing anarchism. However the PKK did not transform into what many of us, probably
Ocalan included, suggested and wanted.
Once all the contact between Ocalan and the outside was cut off in April 2015 and a new
situation emerged when Erdogan announced a very brutal war against all Kurdish people, not
just the PKK, the PKK became more militarised. So for the PKK it became more important to
concentrate on fighting than to continue the discussion that commenced in 2012. In Rojava
more or less the same thing happened. However, there, instead of having to fight the Assad
Regime, it was forced to fight against Isis in defence of Kobane and other places*. There
is no doubt that during a war in any country the mass movement will be weaker and the
military will be stronger. So too in Kurdistan, Bakur and Rojava, the PKK and the
Democratic Union Party (PYD) became more powerful at the expense of the mass movement.
From this I can conclude that in Bakur and Rojava a couple of high-disciplinary and
authoritarian political parties, PKK and PYD, are behind building democratic confederalism
in both Kurdistan, Bakur and Rojava. It is these parties that are the ones making major
decisions, planning and designing the policies, and also setting up diplomatic
relationships with other countries and other political parties. It is they who negotiate
with their enemies or the states, and make war or peace. Of course, these are very big
issues and extremely important as they shape the future destination of the society.
However, unfortunately it is the political parties which are making these decisions and
not the people in their own assemblies and mass meetings, or through direct action.
For Bookchin building Libertarian Muncipalities and confederalism is the task of people,
or "Citizens" as he called them, but for Ocalan and PKK, at least at the moment, it is the
task of political parties.
Finally we can ask ourselves a question: is what exists in Rojava democratic confederalism?
This is a difficult question especially for me to answer while I am confined to reading
about Rojava, following the news on Rojava TV , Radio, websites and social media,
especially Facebook. I believe that to answer this question properly and to understand all
sides of this issue in relation to the future of Rojava, I may need to go there to do some
essential research. This needs to include visiting cities, towns and villages, speaking to
and interviewing people at every level and section of society. Visiting the Communes and
participating in their meetings, following their decisions, seeing the Cooperatives,
analysing the balance of power between the Movement for a Democratic Society (Tev-Dem) and
the PYD as well as between them and the Democratic Self-Administration (DSA) and many more
work for me to do.
We have all noticed that there has been a lot written about democratic confederalism in
Rojava. The vast majority of these writings are positive and supportive and agree that
democratic confedralism has been built or at least is on its way to being built there.
I believe the main problem with those articles or essays were isolated the major things,
events and the role, from the influence and the power of PYD. The comrades who wrote these
articles did not think or did not want to mention that building confederalism and
democratic confederalism should be the task of anarchists. It is the anarchists, not
political parties, who should participate and involve themselves through the mass movement
in this process of building confederalism and democratic confederalism, because some
issues that come up can be resolved completely through the libertarian muncipalism that is
the foundation of the libertarian society. Bookchin wrote "before the class society there
was "However we should not see democratic confederalism (or communalism) as separate from
anarchism because they very much follow the tradition of classical anarchism." 4
In the case of Rojava many questions remain to be asked and many outstanding issues
queried, such as: Is everybody free to be involved in politics and take part in the
meetings to make the decisions? Are the issues I raised in the previous page discussed and
the decisions about them taken collectively through the mass meetings and by direct
action? Are the existing Cooperatives really owned by the communes, the Democratic Self
Administration (DSA), or a kind of mixture of private-public ownership; also can everybody
be a member regardless of who they are, and finally how are the products distributed? Are
the Communes and the Houses of the People really non-hierarchical groups or organisations?
Why are the chair and co-chairs in position for such a long time? Is the head of the DSA,
and those at the highest levels of the Tev-Dem and the Communes elected through direct
democracy or just nomination? How hard is democratic confederalism working towards an
ecological society and what has been achieved so far? There are actually many other
aspects of democratic confederalism that also need to be questioned.
Those of us so far who have written about democratic confederalism, in my opinion, have
not answered many questions or have not been following this project properly. I know some
of the comrades and friends who have written about it have not stayed in Rojava long
enough to know about all sides of the society and investigate these issues. Additionally,
those who have stayed long enough were comrades who were or are with the YPG/J.
Having saying all that, we should agree that when we write and analyse Rojava we should
not isolate Rojava from the situation that surrounds it, we should see Rojava's enemies
inside and outside Syria and also the continuing war with Isis, the Assad Regime, Turkey,
and the probability that Iraq, Iran and Turkey will come together to fight PKK and Rojava
in the future. In addition we should acknowledge that there has been no effective or
strong international solidarity from leftists, communists, socialists, trade unionists and
anarchists, and the same movement has not emerged in neighbouring countries. Had the
situation been different and some of the above conditions met, perhaps Rojava could answer
my questions in more positive way and set a better example to follow.
*This article drafted before the State of Turkey's brutal attack on Afrin which was
expected by few of us.
Zaherbaher.com
References
Anarchist and Radical Texts/The Anarchist Sociology of Federalism
2 Libertarian municipalism - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_municipalism
3 Biehl J. Ecology or Catastrophe, The life of Murray Bookchin, Oxford University Press
2015, P 227
4 The Meaning of Confederalism | The Anarchist Library
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-the-meaning-of-confederalism.pdf
5 The politics of Social Economy, Libertarian Municipalism. Biehl, J. P 110 and 118
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6YOyGNakE86b3RLY2RZN0dySUE/view?usp=sharing
6 http://www.freeocalan.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Ocalan--Confederalism.pdf
7 Democratic Confederalism - ROAR Magazine
8 Capitalism and unmasked gods and naked kings: Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization,
Volume ll (page 110). Published New Compass Press, Porsgrun, Norway and International
Initiatives edition, Cologne, Germany 2017
9 The Murray Bookchin Reader. Edited by Janet Biehl (page 75)
https://archive.org/details/themurraybookchinreader
10 Golphy O. Rojava's democratic confederalism: the experiment of an American theory.
2016.
https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/4fxpd5/rojavas_democratic_confederalism_the_experiment/
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30846
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