Local NE Syria TV station reporting that there is finally a written negotiating draft regarding the ongoing talks between the SDF and the transitional government in Damascus. Seems like it was written by the transitional govt and confirms their insistence on centralized governance.
The deadline for implementing the vague March 10 agreement is supposed to be the end of this year...
#Syria #Rojava #DAANES #SDF
Buchkritik von DLF Podcast
â€ïžđ€Alles muss man selber machen: Zur Geschichte der RĂ€tebewegungen, von der Pariser Kommune bis Rojava
...ein Buch ĂŒber Menschen, die sagen: So kann es nicht weitergehen - wir nehmen unser Schicksal selbst in die Hand. Ob in den StraĂen von Paris 1871, den Fabriken Petrograds 1917, den StĂ€dten u Dörfern Nordsyriens oder im Urwald von Chiapas - ĂŒberall entstanden im Zuge von sozialen Konflikten u AufstĂ€nden RĂ€te: Selbstorganisierte ZusammenschlĂŒsse in allen gesellschaftlichen Bereichen, die nicht nur protestieren, sondern beginnen, das gesamte Leben neu zu gestalten. Christopher Wimmer erzĂ€hlt in lebendigen Szenen, wie solche Bewegungen entstehen, wie sie funktionieren - und woran sie oft auch scheitern. Er zeigt an unterschiedlichen historischen Beispielen, wie Menschen Schulen und KrankenhĂ€user selbst verwalten, wie sie Entscheidungen im Kollektiv treffen, GĂŒter verteilen, Streit schlichten, sich verteidigen - ohne zentrale Regierung oder Staat.
#podcast #antiautoritÀr #chiapas #geschichte #historie #rÀtemodell #selbstverwaltung #PariserKommune #rojava #sozialismus #direktdemokratie #RÀtekommunismus #fau #syndikalismus #basisdemokratie #anarchosyndikalismus
Artilleriebeschuss gegen Dörfer am #TiĆrĂźn-Damm
"Die Demokratischen KrĂ€fte Syriens (#QSD) fĂŒhren den Beschuss auf Fraktionen mit Verbindungen zur syrischen Ăbergangsregierung zurĂŒck."
https://deutsch.anf-news.com/rojava-syrien/artilleriebeschuss-gegen-dorfer-am-tisrin-damm-49278
Faits marquants de la semaine 08.12.25 - 14.12.25
Proposition d'intégration du gouvernement syrien
Le gouvernement syrien a soumis le 6 dĂ©cembre une proposition dâintĂ©gration « rĂ©visĂ©e » aux Forces dĂ©mocratiques syriennes (FDS). Il est probable que la Turquie ait dictĂ© les termes de cette proposition. Pour lâinstant, le gouvernement syrien nâa pas commentĂ© les dĂ©tails de la proposition.
En octobre 2025, le gouvernement syrien et les FDS ont conclu un accord « verbal » et « prĂ©liminaire » pour intĂ©grer les FDS au ministĂšre syrien de la DĂ©fense (MoD) Ă travers diverses formations distinctes, comprenant au moins trois divisions et plusieurs brigades indĂ©pendantes. La proposition du 6 dĂ©cembre manque de plusieurs ou de tous les dĂ©tails inclus dans lâaccord dâoctobre prĂ©cĂ©dent.
L'insistance de la Turquie pour que les combattants des FDS s'intĂšgrent au ministĂšre de la DĂ©fense en tant qu'individus et sa demande d'une « structure de commandement unique » indiquent un rejet clair de l'intĂ©gration des divisions des FDS en tant qu'unitĂ©s cohĂ©sives. Compte tenu de sa forte opposition aux aspects clĂ©s de lâaccord dâoctobre entre le gouvernement syrien et les FDS, il est probable que la Turquie ait jouĂ© un rĂŽle dans les modifications apportĂ©es Ă la proposition rĂ©visĂ©e du gouvernement syrien.
Le 8 décembre, le commandement général des FDS a déclaré n'avoir reçu aucun plan, proposition ou message officiel de Damas concernant les négociations sur l'avenir de ses forces.
Le commandant des forces terrestres de l'armée turque s'entretient avec des responsables de la défense syrienne
Il est trĂšs probable que la rĂ©union ait portĂ© sur les efforts visant Ă renforcer la collaboration en matiĂšre de dĂ©fense entre la Syrie et la Turquie dans le cadre de lâaccord de coopĂ©ration militaire signĂ© en aoĂ»t 2025.
Le moment choisi pour cette rĂ©union est particuliĂšrement important, alors que le gouvernement turc continue dâarticuler des justifications politiques en faveur dâune Ă©ventuelle opĂ©ration militaire conjointe avec la Syrie contre les FDS. Le 12 dĂ©cembre, jour mĂȘme de la rĂ©union, un porte-parole du ministĂšre turc de la DĂ©fense a rĂ©itĂ©rĂ© que les FDS devaient s'intĂ©grer dans l'armĂ©e syrienne sur une « base individuelle » plutĂŽt que sous forme d'unitĂ©s cohĂ©sives.
La coordination entre les forces terrestres turques et syriennes sera essentielle pour toute préparation conduisant à une éventuelle offensive conjointe ou à des opérations turques sur le territoire syrien.
Déploiements militaires turcs sur NES
Le 7 décembre, des renforts militaires turcs ont été envoyés à Afrin et Manbij, dans la province d'Alep. En outre, un convoi turc composé de 20 véhicules lourds et moyens est entré dans la région occupée de Serekaniye.
Le 12 décembre, le ministÚre turc de la Défense a réfuté les affirmations selon lesquelles les images montrant des unités turques déployées sur des positions syriennes indiquaient des préparatifs pour une opération militaire imminente. Le ministÚre a décrit les mouvements de troupes représentés dans les images comme des « rotations de routine ».
Un porte-parole des FDS a dĂ©clarĂ© le 11 dĂ©cembre que les FDS nâavaient dĂ©tectĂ© aucun signe de « prĂ©paration turque Ă une opĂ©ration militaire majeure » le long des lignes de front avec le gouvernement syrien ou les forces turques.
LâarmĂ©e turque avait dĂ©jĂ dĂ©ployĂ© dâimportants moyens militaires sur la base aĂ©rienne de Kuweires, dans la province dâAlep, le 28 septembre. Compte tenu des positions Ă©tablies de la Turquie et de sa supĂ©rioritĂ© aĂ©rienne sur les FDS, lâarmĂ©e turque pourrait potentiellement lancer des opĂ©rations offensives contre les FDS depuis les zones occupĂ©es de Syrie.
Attaque contre une patrouille américaine
Le 13 décembre, une embuscade a entraßné la mort de deux soldats américains et d'un traducteur américain, tandis que trois autres membres du personnel américain ont été blessés. L'embuscade s'est produite lors d'un engagement clé des dirigeants dans la région de Homs, visant à soutenir les opérations de lutte contre l'EI en cours dans la région.
Le ministĂšre syrien de lâIntĂ©rieur a indiquĂ© que lâagresseur Ă©tait un membre des forces de sĂ©curitĂ© syriennes qui Ă©tait sur le point dâĂȘtre licenciĂ© en raison de ses opinions extrĂ©mistes.
Donald Trump a qualifié l'attaque d'attaque directe de l'Etat islamique contre les forces américaines dans une « zone dangereuse non entiÚrement contrÎlée par le gouvernement de transition syrien », promettant « des représailles trÚs graves ».
Le gouvernement de transition syrien a cessé d'importer du pétrole des champs sous contrÎle kurde
Le 8 dĂ©cembre, un responsable de lâAdministration autonome du nord et de lâest de la Syrie (AANES) a annoncĂ© que le gouvernement de transition syrien avait cessĂ© dâimporter du pĂ©trole provenant de champs contrĂŽlĂ©s par les Kurdes. Les FDS fournissent du pĂ©trole au gouvernement syrien depuis fĂ©vrier 2025.
Bien que les raisons derriĂšre l'arrĂȘt des importations de pĂ©trole du nord-est par le gouvernement syrien restent floues, cela pourrait indiquer que le gouvernement syrien anticipe le transfert imminent des champs de pĂ©trole et de leurs revenus des FDS dans le cadre d'un accord d'intĂ©gration. Les gouvernements syrien et turc ont affirmĂ© que les FDS devaient transfĂ©rer le contrĂŽle de tous les champs pĂ©troliers au gouvernement syrien dâici la fin de lâannĂ©e.
Développements continus :
- Les FDS ont condamné les "incitations dangereuses" de la part de groupes armés affiliés au ministÚre de la Défense aprÚs que des célébrations publiques ont éclaté dans plusieurs villes syriennes pour commémorer la chute du régime Baas. Ils ont souligné que ces incidents ne sont pas des incidents isolés mais font plutÎt partie d'un effort « systématique » visant à inciter à la haine, à raviver une rhétorique qui divise et à mettre en péril la paix civile.
- Les données des organisations de défense des droits de l'homme et de divers médias indiquent que la violence contre les femmes a pris un caractÚre systématique au cours de l'année écoulée. Depuis le 8 décembre 2024, 650 femmes au total, dont 29 enfants, ont perdu la vie pour diverses causes telles que les restes de guerre, les attaques armées, les agressions sectaires, la violence domestique et la violence sociétale plus large. Le plus grand nombre de cas a été enregistré dans les régions qui restent sous le contrÎle du gouvernement de transition syrien.
- Lors des manifestations commémorant le premier anniversaire de la chute du régime d'Assad, des dizaines d'habitants de la ville méridionale de Suweida se sont rassemblés pour revendiquer leur « droit à l'autodétermination ».
#Syrie #Rojava #AANES #DAANES #Kurdistan #YPG #YPJ #FDS #SDF
*Don't hesitate to boost if you enjoy reading the reports!*
Weekly highlight from your anarchist comrades in #NES
08.12.25 - 14.12.25
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# SYRIAN GOVERNMENT INTEGRATION PROPOSAL
The Syrian government submitted a ârevisedâ integration proposal to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on December 6. It is likely that Turkey dictated the terms of this proposal. As of now, the Syrian government has not commented on the specifics of the proposal.
In October 2025, the Syrian government and the SDF reached a âverbalâ and âpreliminaryâ agreement to incorporate the SDF into the Syrian Ministry of Defense (MoD) through various distinct formations, including at least three divisions and several independent brigades. The December 6 proposal lacks several or all details included in the earlier October agreement.
Turkey's insistence that SDF fighters integrate into the MoD as individuals and its demand for a âsingle command structureâ indicate a clear rejection of integrating SDF divisions as cohesive units. Considering its strong opposition to key aspects of the October agreement between the Syrian government and the SDF, it is likely that Turkey played a role in the modifications to the Syrian governmentâs revised proposal.
On December 8, the General Command of SDF said that it has not received any plan, proposal or official message from Damascus regarding negotiations over the future of its forces.
# TURKISH ARMY GROUND FORCES COMMANDER HOLD DISCUSSIONS WITH SYRIAN DEFENSE OFFICIALS
It is very likely that the meeting addressed efforts to bolster Syrian-Turkish defense collaboration under the military cooperation agreement signed in August 2025.
The timing of this meeting is particularly significant, as the Turkish government continues to articulate political justifications for a potential joint military operation with Syria against SDF. On December 12, same day of the meeting, a spokesperson for the Turkish Defense Ministry reiterated that the SDF must integrate into the Syrian army on an âindividual basisâ rather than as cohesive units.
Coordination between Turkish and Syrian ground forces will be essential for any preparations leading to a possible joint offensive or Turkish operations within Syrian territory.
# TURKISH MILITARY DEPLOYMENTS TO NES
On December 7, Turkish military reinforcements were dispatched to Afrin and Manbij in Aleppo Province. Additionally, a Turkish convoy, comprising 20 heavy and medium vehicles, entered the occupied region of Serekaniye.
On December 12, the Turkish Defense Ministry refuted claims that the footage showing Turkish units deploying to Syrian positions indicated preparations for an impending military operation. The ministry described the troop movements depicted in the footage as âroutine rotations.â
An SDF spokeperson shared on December 11 that the SDF has not detected any signs of Turkish âreadiness for a major military operationâ along the frontlines with either the Syrian government or Turkish forces.
The Turkish military previously deployed significant military assets to Kuweires Airbase in Aleppo Province, on September 28. Given Turkeyâs established positions and air superiority over the SDF, the Turkish military could potentially launch offensive operations against the SDF from occupied areas of Syria.
# ATTACK ON US PATROL
On December 13, an ambush resulted in the deaths of two American soldiers and one American translator, while three other US personnel were injured. The ambush occurred during a key leader engagement in the region of Homs, aimed at supporting ongoing counter-ISIS operations in the region.
Syriaâs Interior Ministry reported that the assailant was a member of the Syrian security forces who was on the verge of dismissal due to his extremist views.
Donald Trump characterized the attack as a direct assault by ISIS on U.S. forces in a "dangerous area not fully controlled by the Syrian transitional government," vowing âvery serious retaliation.â
# SYRIAN TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT STOPPED IMPORTING OIL FROM KURDISH-CONTROLLED FIELDS
On December 8, an official from the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) announced that the Syrian transitional government has ceased importing oil from Kurdish-controlled fields. SDF have been supplying oil to the Syrian government since February 2025.
While the reasons behind the Syrian government's halt in oil imports from the northeast remain unclear, it may indicate that the Syrian government anticipates the imminent transfer of oil fields and their revenues from the SDF as part of an integration agreement. Both the Syrian and Turkish governments have asserted that the SDF must transfer control of all oil fields to the Syrian government by the end of the year.
# CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENTS:
- SDF condemned the "dangerous incitement" from armed groups affiliated with the MoD after public celebrations erupted in various Syrian cities to commemorate the fall of the Baath regime. They emphasized that these incidents are not isolated incidents but rather part of a "systematic" effort to incite hatred, reignite divisive rhetoric, and jeopardize civil peace.
- Data from human rights organizations and various media indicate that violence against women has taken on a systematic character over the past year. Since 8 December 2024, a total of 650 women, including 29 children, have lost their lives due to various causes such as remnants of war, armed attacks, sectarian assaults, domestic violence and broader societal violence. The highest number of cases were recorded in regions that remain under the control of the Syrian transitional government.
- During demonstrations commemorating the first anniversary of the fall of the Assad regime, dozens of residents in the southern city of Suweida gathered to claim their âright to self-determination.â
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# EVALUATION
This week saw many developments surrounding the SDF and important events in Syria itself. At present, the movements of Turkish troops and the forces of the Ministry of Defence of the interim government have ceased, but this is no time to relax.
We have been closely monitoring the situation surrounding the anniversary celebrations of the fall of the regime. Large public celebrations were prohibited in the autonomous region of North-East Syria, which seemed a reasonable decision in the context of what is happening in the country: such gatherings would have been a convenient place for supporters of the Jolani regime and followers of ISIS and the SNA to carry out mass killings and provocations. Celebrating the anniversary of their triumph, the jihadists of the new Syrian army actively distributed videos with threats against SDF commander Mazloum Abdi and promises of a march on Hasakah (a city in the Jazira canton). At the moment, there are no radical changes on the front lines, and these provocations are more a reflection of the general narrative prevailing within the Jolani armed forces.
Against this backdrop, Damascus is setting new conditions for the integration of the SDF into the Syrian army. Previously, negotiations had reached a dead end, but now the interim government is proposing new rules that do not take into account the reality of the peoples of north-eastern Syria. This shows its unwillingness to seek a peaceful resolution to the situation. Autonomy remains a problem for Syria's fundamentalist government, which is aiming for a unified nation state and is prepared to eliminate dissenters. But north-eastern Syria is ready and able to defend itself, and this is stopping Jolani from military escalation, even with Turkey's support. The movements on the region's borders were an attempt to exert pressure in the negotiations and test the reaction.
The most significant news for understanding the international narrative is the bombing of three US citizens by a fighter of the new Syrian army. The US authorities claimed the suicide bomber was a former ISIS member. This time, the state's interests included good diplomatic relations with the interim government, so a Ministry of Defense soldier became âtoo radical an Islamist, who was just about to be kicked out of the military.â We have repeatedly highlighted the hypocrisy of Western states on issues related to regions that are âproblematicâ for the West, such as the Middle East, and this time the public once again witnessed American diplomats' outcry about âbloody jihadists killing our boys,â while ignoring an important fact: the Syrian state is now ruled by these very same âbloody jihadists.â
Eleven thousand revolutionaries gave their lives during the Rojava Revolution. These people fell fighting for freedom, including in battles against ISIS. No country, no government talks about them as much as they talk about the three American citizens who served America's colonial project in Syria. This brings us back to the question of the value of human life: the interests of the âfirst worldâ and the lives of its privileged citizens have historically been built on oppression and death within and beyond empires.
On that note, we will end our report for today. Still observing the situation, your comrades in North-East Syria.
Revolutionary greetings! đ€
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#Syria #NES #SDF #DAANES #AANES #SNA #SDF #PYD #YPJ #YPG #HTS #Rojava #Kurdistan #Revolution #DefendRojava #Anarchy #Anarchism #Comrades #Internationalism #AbdullahOcalan #Ăcalan #PKK #WomenLifeFreedom #TekosinaAnarsist
TKP-ML: Notes On Abdullah Ăcalanâs âPerspectiveâ Document
Following PKK leader Abdullah Ăcalanâs âCall for Peace and a Democratic Society,â the PKK decided to end its armed struggle by dissolving itself at its Extraordinary 12th Congress held between 5 and 7 May. A. Ăcalan prepared two separate documents sent to the PKKâs 12th Congress. SerxwebĂ»n newspaper published the 21-page document written by A. Ăcalan on 25 April in its 521st issue.
Following PKK leader Abdullah Ăcalanâs âCall for Peace and a Democratic Society,â the PKK decided to end its armed struggle by passing a resolution to dissolve itself at its 12th Extraordinary Congress held on May 5-7. A. Ăcalan prepared two separate documents sent to the PKKâs 12th Congress. SerxwebĂ»n newspaper published the 21-page document written by A. Ăcalan on April 25 in its 521st issue.
In this âPerspectiveâ document, consisting of an introduction and seven main sections, A. Ăcalan addresses the theoretical, political, historical, and programmatic foundations of the new era from his and his organizationâs perspective.
This article evaluates the âPerspectiveâ letter sent by A. Ăcalan to the PKKâs Extraordinary 12th Congress.
Idealism, as a Historical Perspective
Human history is filled with various variations of materialist and idealist ideas. Through a detailed examination of human history and by addressing the ideas of philosophers who came before him and his contemporaries, Karl Marx rescued materialism from its dead and soulless form and pulled dialectics out of the quagmire of idealism, putting dialectical materialism at the service of the proletariat. With the emergence of classes, idealism was imposed on the oppressed by the oppressors, and reality was always manipulated to produce a kind of consent.
For example, in ancient Greece, while citizens (slaves and women were not citizens) had various rights, and forms of government changed many times, with various laws being made and broken, what remained constant was slavery itself. Slavery was accepted as natural. Slaves themselves were made to accept it as natural.
We are now encountering a ânewâ definition of socialism by A. Ăcalan. For example, we are faced with a âdefenseâ of socialism that rejects the dictatorship of the proletariat because it is not âdemocratic.â A. Ăcalan says the following in his Perspective text: âThis is why we are focusing on socialist ideology and attempting to democratize it. In fact, calling socialism democratic is not entirely accurate. Because socialism should already be democratic. However, real socialism is oriented towards seizing state power and proletarianizing the state, i.e., proletarian dictatorship, so its democratic essence is weak. That is why we felt the need to use the term democratic socialism.â
Much can be said about these expressions. We are talking about an approach that disregards for whom the dictatorship of the proletariat is democracy and for whom it is dictatorship, based on the claim of âdemocratizing socialism.â In fact, A. Ăcalanâs way of thinking, regardless of his intentions, resembles that of the Bauer brothers.
In The Holy Family, the first joint work by K. Marx and F. Engels, an example of historical/social materialism is presented against the Bauer brothers, who put Christianity in their target sights as they were struggling to change the social mindset. According to this, although religion influences people in the ideological sphere, it did not descend from heaven as expressed in the holy book, but is rooted in social life and relationships. Theoretical criticism and ideological subjugation are not sufficient to eliminate religion; it can only be eliminated through practical criticism, that is, by changing the material relationships that create and nurture it. The Bauer brothers also seek the root of social problems in mentality, that is, in religion, and therefore base their struggle on opposition to religion. âIdeas can never lead beyond an old world order but only beyond the ideas of the old world order. Ideas cannot carry out anything at all. In order to carry out ideas men are needed who can exert practical force.â (Karl Marx-Friedrich Engels, The Holy Family)
From Spartacus to Sheikh Bedrettin, from Thomas MĂŒnzer to the Paris Commune, from the Celali Rebellions to the Kurdish Serhildans, from June 15-16 to the Gezi Uprising, there have been many practical criticisms, whether targeting power or not, armed or unarmed. Undoubtedly, these cannot all be considered in exactly the same way. Even the Kurdish uprisings are each a separate subject of analysis. What makes them the same is certainly not that they were defeated. Indeed, some even managed to seize power in certain time periods and regions. When these uprisings, some economically based, some democratically based, and some based on identity and religion, are examined, it will be seen that, regardless of their intentions, the thick scent of idealism permeated them due to reasons such as their historical processes and the failure to properly construct the foundations on which they rose.
From a certain point in history, we see idealism being imposed on the masses in a more conscious and organized manner. This process began with the successive national liberation struggles and revolutions in Bulgaria, Albania, Vietnam, Romania, Cuba, Laos, Chile, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, and many other places, particularly after the Soviet and Chinese revolutions and the defeat of Hitlerâs fascism.
Reversals from Socialism and the End of History
National movements have different contents. We will discuss these again later. However, as if to confirm Leninâs statement about âthe era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions,â the past century was marked by the victories of the national liberation struggles led by the proletariat against imperialism. However, a process of reversals from socialism, a process of revision and improvement, began through modern revisionist powers, primarily the Soviets and China, giving rise to a new contradiction. Although attempts were made to resolve this contradiction with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in China, in the long run, imperialism succeeded in creating a world in its own image.
However, this was not enough to quell the justified anger of the masses. Therefore, a more comprehensive wave of ideological attacks began with the rhetoric of âthe end of historyâ and the manipulations of âdemocratizationâ and âthe end of classes.â Especially with the collapse of social imperialism and the dissolution of the remnants of the Soviet revolution, a great wave of pessimism began to engulf the world. The campaign against communism, led by US imperialism and with the cooperation of Western imperialists, began to include ideological subjugation along with physical attacks.
The First and Second Imperialist World Wars were a product of the capitalist mode of production, imperialist relations, and contradictions. However, Khrushchevâs modern revisionism distorted this reality and rejected revolutions and wars in practice. It eliminated the distinction between just and unjust wars. He argued that the objective laws and the whole set of relationships that caused wars and revolutions had now disappeared. According to Khrushchev, imperialism had lost its aggressive nature and it was now possible to speak of âpermanent peaceâ and the resolution of international problems through âmutual understanding.â (Which question is central? Revolution and war, or peace and coexistence? â Peopleâs Fedayeen Organization of Iran, translated by Leman Meral Ănal, Sendika.Org)
This deviation, which captivated the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and many other communist parties at the time, caused the communist and revolutionary movement to take serious steps backward under the guise of âreducing tension.â These parties rejected the truth clearly stated by Lenin in The Military Program of the Proletarian Revolution: âOnly if we overthrow, defeat, and dispossess the bourgeoisie not only in one country but throughout the world will wars become impossible.â We can interpret Leninâs approach as follows: âSocial peace is only possible through the elimination of classes and the full equality of rights for all strata of society.â
Again, Lenin states: âAs long as capitalism and socialism coexist, they cannot live in peace; one or the other will eventually triumph, and either a funeral will be held for the Soviet Republic or for world capitalism.â (V.I. Lenin, âSpeech Delivered at a Meeting of Activists of the Moscow Organization of the R.C.P.(B.)-December 6, 1920â)
Despite Leninâs quite clear and explicit warnings, Khrushchevâs modern revisionism had emerged with its thesis of âpermanent peaceâ and its claim that international problems could be solved through âmutual understanding.â Such an approach was significant in showing how modern revisionism revised MLM science, as well as being one of the concrete steps backward in socialism. (Of course, the origins of this regression must be sought deeper and earlier.)
In summary, while revolutionaries and communists generally approached the issue of âpeaceâ in this manner, today A. Ăcalan, as if he had discovered something new, expresses surprise in his letter, stating: âStrangely, it was not our side, but a Turk who was relentless against me and did everything to have me executed at any moment, Devlet Bahçeli, who opened this new era as the most authoritative voice and hand of the Turkish sensibility of the time, which had become a party and even a proto-party state. In other words, Bahçeli, as the relentless leader of the war against us, is saying this directly to the DEM delegation. âI have devoted my entire life to this, but now I want to start a new era.â In my opinion, this is a clear call for peace and a democratic solution. It is both a call for peace and a consistent call for peace with democratic content. Developments seem to indicate this.â
The âpeaceâ mentioned by A. Ăcalan in this statement has been expressed in different ways at different times, as seen in the example of Khrushchev. Despite all their differences, the only place this type of peace rhetoric serves is the interests of the bourgeoisie.
Lenin, however, advanced the thesis of coexistence in peace as a revolutionary policy serving the goal of strengthening revolutionary movements worldwide. According to Lenin, this theory should be used to accelerate the proletarian revolutions of the worldâs peoples, not as the foundation and essential element of a socialist countryâs foreign policy.
An Organized Wave of Attacks: Neo-Liberalism and Postmodernism Hand in Hand
The betrayal initiated from within by people like Kautsky and Khrushchev, combined with the attacks of petty-bourgeois socialism and the imperialist- capitalist system, naturally resulted in a horribly distorted understanding of âdemocracy and socialism.â Figures, such as Bookchin and Negri, overturned the entire historical consciousness, even attacking from outside, as revealed by MLM science. Of course, we must not forget that ideological diseases such as patriarchy, hetero-sexism, and chauvinism had a major impact on accelerating this process. Because of these diseases, the masses were organizing against the revolutions they had created with their own hands in the name of âdemocracy.â
Imperialist-capitalists turned the sectarian policies implemented under the name of âsocialismâ into material for their own politics. Similar attacks, of course, existed from the very beginning. The personal slanders against K. Marx, F. Engels, and V. I. Lenin remained as rumors that no one took seriously because they were baseless.
However, in this process, which we now define as social imperialism, a series of policies implemented in the name of âsocialismâ had led to disastrous consequences for the masses. The participation of the masses in the revolution was being prevented, and the progress of the revolution was being halted. Under these conditions, figures like Khrushchev easily seized power. The bourgeoisie, which had been severely weakened by the working classâs seizure of power, was being restored.
Indeed, due to the manipulation of the imperialist-capitalists, these events were sold to the worldâs working class and oppressed peoples under the guise of âdemocracy and freedoms.â Those who wanted to criticize these events lacked the clear information and ideological-theoretical background necessary to analyze the concrete conditions in a concrete way, resulting in a âcriticism of real socialismâ that lacked a real foundation.
The NGO approach was introduced under the guise of âhumanitarian aidâ to the colonies and semi-colonies where Soviet imperialism and Western imperialists were waging power struggles. The masses were bombarded with the idea that problems could be solved within the system. Crumbs of freedom, band-aids, painkillers⊠Just like the capitalist systemâs understanding of health, an understanding that would never heal and would always keep people dependent on it was normalized. The slogan âeither an honorable peace or a glorious resistanceâ gave way to the understanding that âthere are no winners in war, no losers in peace.â However, even considering that the number of UN Peacekeeping Forces, which was 13 during the âCold Warâ period, began operating in 20 regions between 1988 and 1993 and in 63 regions in 2008, it is clear that conflicts around the world have increased in parallel with neo-liberalism and how possible âpeaceâ is in this system.
In his letter to the PKK, A. Ăcalan wrote: âAnd the only conclusion we can draw from this is that only those who fight can make peace. In other words, not secondary or third powers, not allies, but those who bear the responsibility for the war itself can take on the responsibility for peace. Because peace is as serious an event as war. And the responsibility for such a serious event can only be assumed by its primary bearers. Therefore, realistically, the state is waging this war. I feel the need for the state to transform this war into a new beginning as an attempt at peace. This has been voiced over the last six months. We, too, were convinced that this hand should not be left hanging in the air, that indifference should not be shown to this voice, and we responded immediately. As the primary responsible party and executor of this struggle, we felt a sense of responsibility and responded without delay. This has also been shared with the public. The expression is as follows: only those who fight can achieve peace. Other parties do not have the power to achieve peace. They are secondary or auxiliary. The main initiative lies with those who spearhead this work. We have embarked on such a path, which I believe is a sound approach. Based on this approach, we have expanded the scope of the beginning somewhat and are preparing our program with this meeting under state supervision.â While saying this, he both glosses over the reasons why the war started and ignores the inevitability of wars in the imperialist capitalist system.
The greatest trap of postmodernism is that it blurs the distinction between the super ordinate identity and subordinate identities. Indeed, in his recent writings, A. Ăcalan, who has not mentioned âimperialismâ in the slightest, has, as seen in the above quote, glossed over the âcausesâ of the war and spoken of an imaginary spring.
The main point of living together in peace is democracy. So what does this mean? The denial of revolution and class struggle! If living together in peace means democracy, and if âthe most important arena of struggle is the democratic arena,â that is, if the ultimate resolution of existing contradictions is possible through democracy, then there is no longer any need to talk about proletarian revolution, class struggle, or the role of revolutionary struggle. Where there is no revolutionary struggle, weapons are not needed. In this sense, the issue of the PKK laying down its arms is not such an urgent matter. The path outlined by A. Ăcalan is clear.
Neo-liberalism, the ideology of globalization, and postmodernism, the cultural structure of globalization, found their field of application during the period known as the âCold War,â which was waged between Western imperialists and social imperialists. Political and social life, the role of the state, and the existence of the nation-state are being reinterpreted.
âIn the second half of the 20th century, faced with labor movements and socialist struggles that interrupted liberalism, liberalism began to establish its epistemological basis in order to redefine itself. Frederich August Von Hayek, who defended liberalism against the rising socialist movements, is an economist and political scientist who won the Nobel Prize in 1974 for his views defending the free market economy. Neo-liberalism can be defined as a capital project, an aggressive class domination project, designed to reorganize the role of the capitalist state in relation to class power, and thus the power relations and forms of power it represents.â (GĂŒler Kalay, Neo-Liberalism and Identity Politics)
Neo-liberalism, whose epistemological foundation is based on postmodern theory, emphasizes diversity and differences, highlighting multiculturalism by addressing identities in terms of differences rather than similarities, criticizing modernismâs nation-state model, and opposing nation-state nationalism with micro-nationalisms. Micro-nationalism, created by emphasizing cultural differences based on ethnicity and belief, has become the determinant of neo-liberalismâs identity politics.
Postmodernism creates the illusion of multiculturalism by reducing all cultures and traditions to a single sphere. According to Terry Eagleton, postmodernism, âDespite boasting about being open to the Other, it can be just as exclusionary and censorious as the orthodoxies it opposes. For example, human culture is generally discussed, but class is not; the body is addressed, but biology is not; jouissance (pleasure) is mentioned, but justice is not; post-colonialism is discussed, but the petty bourgeoisie is not. This is a completely orthodox heterodoxy, like any imaginary form of identity, which needs bogeymen and false targets to do its job.â(The Illusions of Postmodernism)
Indeed, A. Ăcalan also states: âA society based on war, that is, on plunder, is a male-dominated society. Its business is surplus value. Marx links this to class division, but there is no need for that. If a surplus value opportunity begins to emerge, a plant society forms around the woman, and if there is an increase in food, the man sets his sights on it. He hunts animals, but he also seizes the food gathered by the woman. He seizes both the food and the woman; thatâs how the story begins. He kills two birds with one stone.â
In this way, A. Ăcalan obscures the concept of âclassâ while once again defending his famous thesis that âclasses have endedâ! It is precisely the production of surplus value and the appropriation of this productionâwhich he himself admitsâthat turns women and men into two separate identities, oppressor and oppressed classes, bourgeoisie and proletariatâŠ
Historical Materialism and the Problem of Social Nature
While A. Ăcalan claims that the bourgeoisie is a class with which compromise is possible, he also overturns the terms, definitions, and analyses that are closely linked to MLM science. One of the most important of these is historical materialism.
A. Ăcalan states: âThe act of sanctification kills even a womanâs lover. Why? Because she knows what will happen to her. She has to kill him to prevent this disaster from befalling her. That is the essence. That is historical materialism. This is the most useful idea we can take from Marxism. Dialectical materialism explains it this way. But men also put an end to this female rule in Sumerian society.â
In this way, A. Ăcalan reduces historical materialism to a single point. While doing so, he addresses the emergence of classes but also continues with a terrible class denial. His aim in doing so is, of course, an effort to âtransformâ the irreconcilable fundamental class antagonisms in society through a peace policy based on humanist discourse. This post-modern policy is one of the foremost forms of liquidation in history.
This form of liquidation, which purges the ideological and political sphere of revolutionary elements, has achieved significant successes today. The fact that a thought that has lost its revolutionary essence by reconciling with the bourgeoisie still maintains its mass base does not mean that it has not undergone ideological liquidation. In todayâs revolutionary society, where the level of political consciousness has declined, taking pride in the continued existence of an organization is not a sign that things are going well. Unlike those who have succumbed to the idealistic illusion of âsocial peace,â MLMs know that the revolutionary and the counter-revolutionary cannot coexist in harmony. Concrete experiences in the history of class struggles clearly show that a parallel sphere of social consensus cannot be established in spite of the state.
F.Engels said that nature is the testing ground of dialectics. Similarly, the history of societies is the testing ground of historical materialism.
âJust as, according to the Pauli exclusion principle, two electrons cannot coexist in an atom at the same time and at the same energy level, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie cannot coexist without conflict in social history. Rejecting the necessities of matter and the social sphere is a bourgeois illusion of freedom. Even recent experiences show us that the bourgeois utopian understanding of freedom is actually a shackle that binds the feet of slaves. In Latin America, Mexico, and Nepal, class and national liberation organizations that joined the order through bourgeois social contracts after exhausting their revolutionary powder were eventually crushed by the wheels of the capitalist system. Thus, it became clear that the normal cultural, legal, and political flow of bourgeois society served as a mill for revolutionary organizations. These political movements, which resisted firearms for more than half a century, could not escape melting away like a candle within the normal flow of bourgeois social life. Some of the bureaucrats of these revolutionary organizations, later found privileged political opportunities for themselves within the system. But the poor workers and peasant children who were once guerrillas were mostly thrown out of the process of social realization, suffering from the high cost of living, poor living conditions, murders by drug cartels, and existential annihilation. Their final attempt to rebel was resolved without a single shot being fired, under the siege of civil society, the voluntary ideological executor of bourgeois civilization⊠Historical Materialism has shown us that a neutral sphere of thought, isolated from the economic infrastructure, is impossible throughout the history of class society. This includes the period of primitive animistic thought. Traces of economic activity can even be found at the origin of the first totem cults. The fact that plant and animal species beneficial to the continuation of species existence were sacralized and tabooized tells us that the fundamental element determining consciousness in the transition from animal to human was human self-activity. All these historical materialist findings inform us that the democratic transformation of society cannot be achieved through bourgeois compromise.â (Anton Ekmekçi, The Story of the Wolf in Sheepâs Clothing in Aesopâs Fables)
In this sense, âdemocratic socialismâ seeks the codes for creating a new life not in the transformation of areas that are the subject of political economy, but rather in thought. Yet correct thought is based on changing reality through practice. It is not possible to acquire knowledge of objectivity through âmental transformationâ alone. This amounts to reshaping objective reality with ghosts summoned from beneath the ground. However, knowledge of reality is obtained, precisely as Marxism predicts, by changing its own object through praxis.
Why Does It Exist?
âIt is an indisputable fact that the Kurds in Turkey constitute a nation and that anyone who has not been blinded by raging Turkish chauvinism will accept it. Kurdish workers, poor and moderately well-to-do peasants, semi-proletarians, urban petty-bourgeoisie, the entire Kurdish bourgeoisie and landlords are included in the Kurdish nation.
National oppression is applied not only to the Kurdish people, but to the entire Kurdish nation, except for a handful of feudal lords and three or five big bourgeoisie, who are fused with the Turkish ruling classes in every way. Kurdish workers, peasants, urban petty-bourgeoisie, small landlords suffer from this oppression.
In fact, the main target of national oppression is the bourgeoisie of the oppressed, dependent and subordinate nation. Because the capitalists and landlords belonging to the dominant nation want to be the unrivaled owners of all the riches and markets of the country. They want to retain the privileges of forming a state. By banning other languages, they want to achieve âlanguage unityâ, which is extremely necessary for the market. The bourgeoisie and landlords belonging to the oppressed nationality stand in front of these ambitions as an important obstacle. Because they [the bourgeoisie and landlords of the oppressed nationality], too, have the ambition to own their own market, to control this market as they wish, to exploit the material wealth and the workforce of the people themselves.
These are the powerful economic factors that set the bourgeois and landlords of the two nations against each other; this is where the bourgeois and landlords of the dominant nation engage in uninterrupted national oppression; This is why national oppressions is aimed also to the bourgeois and landlords of the oppressed nation.â (Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, Selected Writings, Nisan Publishing)
Nationalism, is a class ideology adopted by the Turkish, Arab, and Persian bourgeoisie, defined by A. Ăcalan as the âTurkish, Arab, and Persian ruling elites,â to secure their economic and political dominance in their own regions and protect their class interests. In order to ensure the stable preservation of these interests, they regularly attempt to impose this ideology on the oppressed classes and strata. The fact that the working class and poor peasantry have been influenced by ânationalist poisonâ or have become its advocates does not change the fact that nationalism is not an âexternal poisonâ but a bourgeois class view.
The rationale for viewing nationalism not as a class ideology and policy but as a poison injected into the âelitesâ from outside and a pathological disease of the people is that the ruling classes of Western European countries increasingly embracing multiculturalism and European citizenship, at least officially, in the 1990s (which coincided with the most concrete manifestations of the retreat from socialism and the collapse of social imperialism) and their criticism of nationalism can be cited. The German and French monopoly bourgeoisie defended multiculturalism as a necessity of the European Union project, which they undertook to consolidate their dominance in Europe and create a powerful imperialist center against imperialists, primarily the US.
A. Ăcalan and the national movement, starting from this point, view nationalism not as a bourgeois ideology, but as a poison that is either chosen or injected. The German bourgeoisie, relying on the anger and hatred of the people against fascism, as well as the internationalist instincts of the working class and laborers, has not abandoned its ânationalâ and âimperialistâ interests and is trying to shape the European Union in line with these interests. Today, as seen in the form of the ârising far right,â it also begins to defend nationalism again when its interests require it. Undoubtedly, not only A. Ăcalan but also a much broader segment that argues that the national question can be solved within the system has been affected by these erroneous assessments.
The national question belongs to the capitalist system by its very nature and cannot be resolved without the destruction of this system. A reformist approach to the national question does not end all the privileges of the oppressor nation, nor does it eliminate all forms of fascist tyranny over the oppressed nation. Ultimately, it alleviates the pain but does not and cannot eliminate it. The fact that the Western European bourgeoisie and other imperialists defend a multicultural ideological line to one degree or another does not mean that nationalism can be reduced to a mentality independent of classes, poisoning the âelites,â or to a matter of free choice.
Nationalism is not a poison injected from outside, but a bourgeois âmindsetâ that must be fought against on an internationalist front based on the unity of the working class and peoples. The fact and necessity that it must be fought with an internationalist âmentalityâ (i.e., that it is a question of mentality), demanding full equality of rights, cannot justify ignoring the social and class foundations of nationalism.
The Reality of the PKK
âThe PKK is a movement to prove the existence of the Kurds and open the door to freedom,â says A. Ăcalan. Although the PKK has been defined differently in each period, this is where it has ultimately arrived. The historical denial of the Kurdish nation coincides with the continuation of the First Imperialist War of Partition. The Kurds, who are mentioned in many places throughout history, from Ancient Greece to the Persian Empire, were subjected to denial and annihilation in the four parts of Kurdistan, primarily by the fascist Turkish Republic, as a result of agreements made with the imperialists after the First Imperialist War of Partition. The situation is slightly different for Soviet Kurdistan, also known as the fifth part of Kurdistan, or KĂ»rdĂźstana Sor (Red Kurdistan).
After the emergence of national consciousness among the Kurds, many different Kurdish national organizations were established. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, none of the promises made by the imperialists and the reactionaries of the region were fulfilled, and a policy of denial and annihilation began. A. Ăcalan describes this situation in his letter with a quote: ââŠSheikh Saitâs words: âProsecutor, you promised we would have a feast together. What happened to the lambs and goats?ââ He quotes this as a question. In fact, massacres against Kurds had already begun long before Sheikh Sait. In particular, Alevi Kurds were targeted in the early stages in the Turkish Republic. The most important reason for this was that the Alevis had historically been a thorn in the side of the Ottoman Empire. âInfidelityâ was an important propaganda issue in the massacre of Alevi Kurds. Muslim-Shafi Kurdish tribes were prevented from speaking out against these massacres and, beyond that, took part in them. This influence continues in subsequent years and even today. For this reason, the Turkish state can easily cite the example of Idris-i Bitlisi, who collaborated in an Alevi massacre in the historical process. They are aware that these religiously reactionary sentiments are still alive among the Shafi Kurds. They harbor the hope that they can rebuild their divide- and-rule policy from here. However, the PKKâs organization among Alevi Kurds has prevented this effort from yielding the results desired by the Turkish state at this time.
A. Ăcalan, in the continuation of the paragraph where he mentions the examples of Sheikh Sait and Seyid Rıza, states, âAnd these leaders actually express this; it is very important that they are on the gallows. A dead reality, not sick, not wounded, but dead. A transitional period associated with this, experienced in the persons of Qadi Muhammad, Mustafa Barzani, Qasimlo, Jalal Talabani⊠What we know as traditional feudalism, we call transition, personalities who are half-bourgeois, half-aristocratic, who have come down to us from there. What we mean by bourgeois is a period that began after World War II and continues to this day, that is, the capitalistization and bourgeoisification of Islam⊠Did such a period occur, could it occur? But it exists. There is such a capitalism, a nationalist entity, and a fundamental consciousness of nationalism. This is evident from the representatives. After all, Qadi Muhammad has a tradition of statehood. Barzani is still experiencing an attempt at statehood. Talabani is also a partner in this. But there is no Kurdish nation-state that has yet left its mark on the era, or it is questionable no matter how hard one tries,â he continues.
He does not consider other Kurdish organizations that have fought or are still fighting to be significant. He does not see them as equals or rivals. The PKK was founded precisely within this Kurdish reality. Throughout its nearly fifty years of existence, it has constantly fought to be the sole ruling power in all four parts of Kurdistan. Although it has collaborated with other Kurdish or revolutionary organizations from time to time, like all organizations engaged in power struggles, its main goal was to consolidate its own power. It is a fact that it did not always use revolutionary methods to achieve this.
Along with all this, the PKK followed an ideological development path from the demand for a Free Kurdistan to the demand for democratic socialism and populist municipalism. It created a charismatic leadership model around A. Ăcalan. While cultivating this leadership model into a cult, it also applied various methods to silence dissenting voices within its own ranks. During the same period, it advanced itself in developing military-political maneuvers in line with its own goals, establishing organizations quickly when necessary and dissolving others, and making B and C plans. With the dissolution of the remnants of the Soviet Union, it strengthened its relations with Western imperialists. This same period is also when the Palestinian resistance was forced into the Oslo talksâŠ
The basis of these relations developed with Western imperialists, primarily US imperialism, was the discourse of âdemocracy.â In this period, when the EU was established and post-modern attacks on revolutionaries intensified, guerrilla warfare was elevated to a higher level, while at the same time a conciliatory ideology matured.
The intense participation of Kurdish workers and laborers plays a significant role in the continuation of guerrilla warfare. The epic images of the war further increase the PKKâs influence within the Kurdish nation. The charismatic leadership approach develops a will to fight among militants, who sacrifice themselves for their leader. Organized around this reality, the PKK requires that any steps taken when A. Ăcalan and the rest of the organization disagree must be in line with A. Ăcalanâs wishes and ideas. Even when A. Ăcalan declared that his relationship with the PKK was over, the reality of the âleadershipâ that had been created pushed the organization to continue to shape itself according to A. Ăcalanâs wishes.
Even when the PKK used rhetoric such as socialism, Stalin, the Turkish bourgeoisie, and the Kurdish poor until the 1990s, it was not actually talking about the liberation of the Kurdish proletariat. In the letter mentioned above, A. Ăcalan states: âThis is an interim period⊠that is, Kurdish nationalism, Kurdish capital, we call it primitive comprador bourgeoisie, some may be more developed, centered in Diyarbakır, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, even Mahabat. But in my opinion, these are extremely temporary, artificial counter-revolutionary elements, imposed as instruments of liquidation. Both their ideological content and their practical implementation are like this.â Although he tries to show that he still retains his ârevolutionary content,â throughout its history, the PKK has produced policies aimed at winning over its own feudal lords rather than fighting against the feudal system, which has had a significant impact in Kurdistan.
The PKK clearly demonstrated in the â94 period that the Kurdish bourgeoisie, facing obstacles to its development, embraced socialist rhetoric while fighting for a share of capital due to the powerful winds of socialism at the time. From this point onward, it has more openly attacked MLM science. (Although it had previously belittled and disparaged the revolutionary movement, seeking to discredit it, it began to do so more openly after this date.) While doing this, it also developed various collaborations with the revolutionary movement because it could not resist the attacks of the Turkish state alone, and within these collaborations, it developed policies to impose its own ideas. Its approach in the unions and confederations it was organized in was also essentially indexed to concrete demands for the Kurdish nation.
The Solution to the National Question
Idealistic ideas that view everything through the lens of âmindsetâ explain the existence of the Kurdish national question in this way, which is why they are able to sign a peace agreement with the Turkish state, which they are currently fighting against, on the basis of âa thousand years of brotherhood.â Of course, the reasons for signing this agreement are different. Due to pressure exerted in line with the interests of imperialist monopolies, the parties were forced to sign this agreement. Undoubtedly, considering power relations and material gains, the losers of this agreement in the medium and long term will be the PKK, which has elevated the guerrilla war to an epic dimension, and more fundamentally, the Kurdish workers and laborers who have sacrificed their children and their lives for the liberation struggle, saving every penny they have earned over the years. This is why the worldview that will solve the Kurdish national question cannot approach the issue from a âmentalityâ perspective.
However, the âdemocratic socialismâ project places the emphasis not so much on production and exploitation relations as on âmentalityâ and the âstateâ as the institutionalized form of this mentality, defending a âdemocratic socialistâ project that does not foresee a radical transformation of exploitation relations. It states that Marxism and the socialism it envisions are statist, and therefore a supposedly stateless society must be established. In this approach, the âstatist mentalityâ is primary; exploitative relations, which largely determine/influence the entire social and class structure, are not even secondary but insignificant. From this perspective, the liquidation of the market and capitalist private property is not even mentioned, but is explicitly defended.
Individuals have played a decisive role in the history of the Kurdish national movement, its formation, tactics, and strategy. However, the fact that the Turkish Republic is governed by a fascist regime that has not resolved the national question and has imposed a âsingle nationâ identity on the entire society conditions the Kurdsâ struggle on the basis of national equality. It would be incorrect to address it in isolation from its political and historical foundations, explaining it based on the will of one or a few individuals, independent of historical conditions and circumstances. Of course, in many actions and events, individuals can be critically important; they can determine its direction, course, and sometimes even its existence. However, all these actions are not carried out in a weightless environment independent of space, timeâhistoryâbut within historical conditions that are diverse and initially beyond the individualâs will, with their military, organizational, political, and ideological structure; their culture, sociology, and psychology, which they face and set out to change. They are positively or negatively affected by these historical conditions. To consider the individual as if they had no relationships, connections, or place, independent of the historical conditions and environment in which they exist; to explain âgreat eventsâ with âgreat willsâ is not a serious analysis.
In reality, a socialist struggle that eliminates capitalism is rejected as âstatism,â âMarxist dogmatism,â âeconomic reductionism,â and âsupport for capitalist modernity from the left.â The collective organization of the people and their participation in political processes are indispensable for democratic governance, but it is unrealistic to claim that an organization that does not aim to abolish feudalism and socialize bourgeois-capitalist private property has overcome capitalism, let alone socialism.
It is true that MLMs do not seek the foundations of societyâs ideological and political relationship forms solely in the âmind,â nor do they limit the struggle against them to a struggle to change the âmindsetâ; rather, they target the social foundations that give rise to them.
After examining the nature of the national question in Turkey, Kaypakkaya concludes that workers and laborers belonging to oppressed nations are subject to double exploitation, adding that: âThe oppression of the workers of minority nationalities thus acquires a multiplicative character. First, for class purposes, to exploit more and suppress the class struggle against the workers; the second is the national oppression applied to almost all classes of minority nations and nationalities for the purposes we have mentioned above, that is, for national purposes.
Communists have to distinguish between these two oppressions. For example, while Kurdish bourgeois and small landlords oppose the second kind of oppression, they are in favor of the first kind of oppression. We, on the other hand, are against both oppressions. We support the struggle of the Kurdish bourgeois and small landlords for the elimination of national oppression; but on the other hand, we have to struggle against them for the elimination of class oppression.â (Kaypakkaya, Selected Writings, Nisan Publishing)
âSo the task of history is to reveal the truth of this world after the other world of truth has disappeared.â (K. Marx, Critique of Hegelâs Philosophy of Law)
A.Ăcalanâs way of thinking, which places him above everything and everyone, brings with it many problematic statements. Particularly when it comes to women, the harshness of his discourse, the masculinity of the language he generally uses, the way he explains examples from his own life, and his careful selection of examples and words that emphasize male superiority when choosing general examples reveal his problematic stance on patriarchy.
There are many examples in the letter discussed in this article that prove this. Some of the statements used in the article and why they are problematic can be listed as follows:
â âHow can a hermaphrodite man be both masculine and feminine?â (Intersex people have been defined as âhermaphroditesâ despite declaring that they do not accept this definition. Even when giving examples, the term âmanâ is used, assigning a gender to hermaphrodites.)
â âI have tremendous power of speech and action.â (As a man, he is boasting about his own power, positioning himself above all collectively created values.)
â âYes, female superiority will develop, letâs explain it a little. The other rose as a counter-thesis, saying that the superior one is male.â (The sin of the emergence of patriarchy is attributed to women.)
â âMale-specific thinking, female-specific thinking, these definitely express problematicity.â (It rejects the shaping created by concrete conditions. This can extend to the idea that womenâs positions within the current system can change without changing the material basis. Thousands of years of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed have, of course, developed a certain way of thinking in both men and women. This must, of course, change, but it cannot be changed simply by rejecting it.)
â âA frozen opposition is a dilemma, an abyss. In this abyss, blows are struck; this reality also lies beneath family murders.â (The patriarchal system of exploitation lies beneath murders committed within the family. It is not a âfrozen opposition.â Expressing it this way obscures the subject that must be fought against, leading the struggle into a dead end.)
â âIn that murder, from the perspective of the one who did it, the woman is frozen, the woman is absolutely woman, the man is absolutely man, but if there is a dialectical flow of thought, one will inevitably betray the other. One shoots the other, the other shoots the one.â (He wanted to refer to gender roles and the consequences of these roles, but he defined the perpetrator of the murder as âthe one who did it.â The vast majority of murders and rapes of women occur within the family. Different forms of violence are also most intensely experienced within the family. The predominant direction of this violence is from men to women. The reason for this is the dominance of the patriarchal system throughout the world.)
â âNow, a woman is a being who gives birth; there is no need to discuss this. Birth occurs in women; as a human species, the correct difference is in women, and this must be well understood.â (By emphasizing womenâs fertility at every opportunity, it suggests that this is a womanâs most important function and, therefore, her place is âat home, with her children.â Furthermore, not every woman is âfertile.â Trans women or women who cannot or choose not to give birth for other reasons are also women.)
â âWithout sexual instinct, there is no reproduction; without reproduction, there is no life.â (Human sexuality is not focused on reproduction. Sexuality can be experienced for reproduction or for pleasure. In fact, unlike many animals, humans mostly experience sexuality for pleasure. This is why there is diversity in sexual relationships and different methods of orgasm. At this stage, reproduction does not only occur through sexuality. In fact, in some living beings, reproduction can occur without the need for a male. Scientific studies are ongoing on the possibility of reproduction without the need for a man or a woman at the technical level humans have reached.)
â â The village-city develops along with the state-class. What is important is that the social nature develops around women.â (Much information about the emergence of villages and cities has changed with the discovery of Göbeklitepe and other ancient cities in the surrounding area. These show that humans transitioned to a settled life before agriculture. What is important here is that after production began, men took control of the means of production and began to exploit reproductive labor as well.)
â âIâm amazed that if someone as desperate as me has noticed this, why havenât all those men of science noticed it? Iâm astonished.â (As a typical feature of patriarchy, on the one hand, he sees tremendous power in himself, while on the other hand, he defines it as helplessness. At the same time, by referring to the men of science as âmen,â he assumes that they are male.)
â âGilgamesh sends a prostitute to Enkidu (who is most likely the proto-Kurd in those mountains). Itâs an epic, but there is also a culture of obtaining men through prostitutes.â (The idea of men âfalling into womenâs trapsâ is repeated.)
â âSuch special women were sent to divide and fragment the PKK. It is very striking. We experienced this; I may have even experienced it myself.â (By saying âI may have,â he again emphasizes his power.)
â âAs far as I remember, there was an incident where I hit my sister Eyne. She said something here too: âYour strength is only enough for me.â It stuck in my mind, and I guess I was a little stronger than her. And I remember there was an incident where I raised my hand because she wasnât doing her job properly or correctly. Strangely, Eyne didnât even feel the need to visit me.â (While downplaying the violence he inflicted on the woman, he again felt the need to emphasize his own power.)
â âIn a matriarchal society, the motherâs brother, the uncle, is influential in the clan.â (It is true that matriarchal societies exhibit different characteristics in different tribes. However, he has not presented any scientific data regarding the influence of the âuncle,â and he has spoken clearly because he believes this cannot be questioned.)
â âNot only are the first values taken from her, but she also makes her sons and husband work like slaves. The woman kills the man with a sacred marriage ceremony. Just like the killing of the man in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the roots go back that far. Horrible. The act of sanctification kills even her lover. Why? Because she knows what will happen to her. She has to kill him to prevent this disaster from befalling her. Thatâs the essence. Thatâs historical materialism. Thatâs the most useful idea we can take from Marxism.â (Marxist science does not explain the emergence of patriarchy in this way. And historical materialism is not âthis.â)
â âThe next stage is the stage of property.â (He does not feel the need to define the nature of property. He is repeating Proudhonâs ideas. Property also exists in a matriarchal society. However, this is communal property. Patriarchy, on the other hand, is intertwined with private property.)
â âMoreover, in the domestic situation, such confinement to the home is a dangerous ideology, a major problem. As I mentioned, this is how problems begin in society. This is the core issue in society. It gives rise to class and the state.â (Confinement to the home is a consequence.)
â âWe laid the foundation for womenâs freedom.â (Women lay the foundation for womenâs freedom. They initiate everything they see as positive themselves and disregard thousands of years of struggle.)
â âI said that, as a matter of respect for women, freedom must begin in the mind. I said, âLive however you want. If you have the power, of course.ââ (He has graciously granted respect to women(!) and chooses a threatening ending to his sentence.)
â âWomen create the economy, so arenât they now in need of bread, in need of men?â (Women are not in need of men. However, the current system wants to create this perception. In response, women are organizing and resisting.)
â âIf the man doesnât work, the woman goes hungry.â (In many working-class families, the opposite is true. Without the womanâs domestic reproductive labor, the man would go hungry.)
-âIn modern times, womenâs relationship with the economy has been reduced to zero.â (Because womenâs relationship with the economy continues unabated, the system attacks womenâs labor most intensely.)
â âThe economic transition to male dominance originated in the West and was tremendous.â (The claim that patriarchy originated in the West is as false as the claim that patriarchy has disappeared in the West.)
-âYou will take control of your body. The body that is completely controlled by men is your body. How will you do that? He has set all your limits, he has set your schedule. If he doesnât give you money, he leaves you hungry. I donât want to make the picture even darker. All of this has been established. For example, what did I say? Socialism passes through the liberation of women.â (The power that women have fragmented is as real as the power that men try to establish over womenâs bodies. The issue is whose eyes we look at the world through. However, the claim that socialism passes through the liberation of women is based on Kollontai, who came long before it.)
-âWhat amazes me is that even Marx sells his clothes to live with his wife. Capitalism cannot support the author of its greatest book, its critic, who sells his coat because he cannot support his wife and children. âIâll write this book so that it will bring in income and save this marriage,â he says.â (Criticisms of Marx are often the opposite. They claim that Marx did not think enough about Jenny and the children, did not care about housework, and placed the burden of supporting the family on Jennyâs shoulders. Jenny and all the other members of the family are aware of the importance of Marxâs work and play important roles in the writing of his works, both intellectually and physically. However, despite all this, the truth has been turned upside down here. Instead, in order to discredit and caricature Marxism, it has been claimed that Marx wrote Capital to support his family. Because, from a patriarchal perspective, doing such work for oneâs family is considered beneath oneâs dignity.)
-âMy friend, my most valuable friend, definitely wanted me to kill him. I was cautious around him. I struggled with him for ten years. But I am cautious. Let him do what he will, I told his story. And when he ran away, it was a tremendous relief for me.â (While describing his relationship, he claims that despite all his social superiority, he was still the one who escaped. Regardless of all the characteristics of the person who ran away, this reveals how a man sees himself in a relationship. He blames his partner for his own weaknesses.)
-âThis way of standing my ground is what makes me who I am. While everyone else was condemning me, saying âthe manâs wife ran away,â and people were either sad or killing him, I said âI escaped.ââ
-âUnmarried women like you are a big problem for me.â (Although he does not fully explain why unmarried women are a âproblem,â as mentioned above, it is clearer that he blames the woman for his weaknesses. However, we see that a married woman does not cause a problem because she âbelongsâ to another man.)
-âAt least we gave them the opportunity to think freely as individuals.â (He claims to have granted women the âopportunity to think freely.â)
Is the Oppression of Women the Guilt of Women?
When addressing patriarchy in general, avoiding its traps requires special effort. The observation that âdominant ideas are the ideas of the dominantâ reveals what we must avoid. The Kurdish womenâs movement, which took shape around the âApocu Movement,â has accumulated important experiences in terms of the womenâs movement in Turkey and the Middle East. While part of this experience is significant in a positive sense, another part is significant in a negative sense. It is clear that there is much we have learned and will learn from this movement, which took shape around a non-trans, heterosexual male charismatic leadership. The âApocu Movementâ generally not only attacks historical materialism by initiating the struggle for womenâs liberation from itself, but also adds fuel to the fire of patriarchy in terms of the objectification of women.
Alongside all these general aspects, the reality that emerges in this letter in particular is the insistence that womenâs oppression is again the guilt of women. The idea behind the emphasis on the matriarchal era, which ultimately leads to the conclusion that âmen reacted to this,â is a reflection of the bourgeois justice system, where the perpetrator and the victim become intertwined and blurred, and the perpetrator is legitimized. For bourgeois courts always find an excuse to establish the justice of the oppressors and apply âgood conductâ discounts.
When patriarchy itself is attempted to be addressed without historically tracing a series of developments such as the development of the means of production, private property, inheritance law, the family, and the emergence of the state, the result will inevitably be another âmental revolutionâ issue. Patriarchy is intertwined with private property and is essentially the first concrete manifestation of the oppressor-oppressed relationship in the male- female dichotomy.
A. Ăcalan, who accepts that men appropriated the surplus value created by women, renders invisible many practices of the matriarchal period, such as the shared use of property, by saying, âmen were also killed in the age of goddesses,â as if blaming women.
Again, with his assessments, he has hinted, though not directly stated, that women are ânaturallyâ confined to the home because they can bear children. He also denies the fact that women, who were largely confined to the home under feudalism, re-emerged due to the development of capitalism and the need for cheap labor.
While discussing the contributions of Marxism on the one hand, on the other hand, the same patriarchal discomfort lies beneath his claim that Marx sold his coat to support his family and print Capital, and that he supported his family with the money he earned from the sales of this book. By confessing that he once worshiped Marx like a god, he expressed his discomfort with the âsacrificeâ of a man who claimed to have made this sacrifice âfor his wife.â In this way, he sought to expose and devalue Marx, whom he considered to be from the more âeffeminate, housewife-likeâ class.
Of course, this is not the reality. All of Marxâs works, as we know them, are the product of serious collective effort. Jenny Marx, in particular, made an enormous contribution to all of Marxâs works, both intellectually and physically. Marxism is the dialectical product of collective effort. The same is true of Capital, which was later completed by Engels. Marx and his comrades created these works not to âmake livingsâ but to change the world.
Unlike A. Ăcalan, MLMs have correctly addressed the origins of patriarchy in Engelsâ book The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, defining the first bourgeois-proletarian relationship in history as the male-female relationship so that it can be understood in our time. The matriarchal period, however, has not been presented as a justification for patriarchy in this work or in any other Marxist work.
It is a fact that everything arises from its opposite. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the opposites of patriarchy and matriarchy contain a complete opposition on many issues, such as private property and domination over the means of production. In short, patriarchy, as A. Ăcalan also states, is based on the appropriation of the means of production and surplus value, while matriarchy or matrilineal society is based on collective production and the sharing of surplus value according to need.
The Man Who Will Liberate Women
The issue of womenâs liberation is, of course, in one sense the issue of subjectification. This subjectification is possible through an uncompromising stance against patriarchy. It also requires a struggle against hetero-sexism, private property, and all forms of reactionary ideology, which have historically been intertwined with patriarchy. However, this struggle will not be realized through a worldview âbestowedâ or to be bestowed upon women by A. Ăcalan or any other man. However, as in all his speeches and analyses concerning women, A. Ăcalan expresses the perspective of âeither you do as I say or you continue to live as a slaveâ as a threatening element in this letter, as a representative of the oppressing gender.
A. Ăcalan, who previously used phrases such as âdo you have the courage to look me in the eye?â to women, also states here, âAt least we gave you the opportunity to think freely as individuals. That is what keeps you standing, to some extent. If the idea of freedom is taken away from you, you will inevitably perish.â In doing so, he draws the women gathered around him into a different variation of patriarchal bargaining.
The historical defeat of women against men is the appropriation of surplus value by men and, in order to do so, the confinement of women to the home by exploiting their fertility. Over time, as structures such as law, culture, and education were shaped around this system of exploitation, the phenomenon known as the state was invented as a result, a means of control.
The presence of the goddess figure in the early forms of the state does not mean that they were not forcibly confined, as he himself pointed out when quoting from the Epic of Gilgamesh. Because patriarchy was still in a very primitive state, women were depicted as goddesses on the one hand and enslaved on the other.
In this sense, the manâs seizure of power did not happen overnight and with all its structures, but gradually, and has become a state that produces the most insidious policies in the name of âwomenâs liberation,â as it does today. It has mastered the art of holding power in the class struggle.
Just as no bourgeois can pave the way for the proletariatâs liberation from its chains unless he betrays his own class and sacrifices his life for the proletariatâs power, no man can serve womenâs liberation unless he betrays his own gender and sacrifices his power in the ranks where women are the subjects in the war against patriarchy.
History has never recorded a proletarian leader who established the power of the working class by wagging their finger at the working class, threatening them, looking down on them, or giving advice from the outside. And it certainly never will! The masters of MLM science and their successors have demonstrated this most subtly in their assessment of the Paris Commune, in writing the April Theses, in addressing the betrayal of the Social Democrats in Germany, in analyzing the classes in China, and in addressing the national question in Turkey.
Those who claim to defend the liberation of a class or the oppressed but do the opposite have revealed their true faces both in their personal lives and in the counter-revolutionary terrain where they lead the revolutionary struggle. The successors of leaders like Proudhon and Bakunin today assert themselves in this terrain with the most libertarian rhetoric. While attacking the oppressed more than the oppressor, and those fighting against the capitalist-imperialist world order more than the order itself, they claim that womenâs liberation is possible within the limits of the existing order.
They talk about âsocial equalityâ or âmental revolutionâ without ever addressing issues such as surplus value exploitation, reproductive labor, the common use of the means of production, or the just resolution of the contradictions created by particularities. Undoubtedly, the issue of womenâs liberation is related to womenâs masses taking history out of the hands of hunters. Hunters can show at most âmercyâ to their prey. Therefore, liberation will, at best, be âmerciless.â
Why Do Classes Exist?
A. Ăcalan actually admits the answer to this question in his letter. Even while addressing the foundations of womenâs exploitation in a distorted manner, as the MLM science he opposes also reveals, the exploitation of surplus value and the issue of ownership of the means of production form the basis of the problem.
However, classes have undergone many qualitative and quantitative changes throughout history, and with capitalism, the working class and the bourgeoisie emerged. Since this system continues today, it would be unrealistic to say that these classes have disappeared. However, it would be useful to see the material basis for the constant creation of this kind of mental confusion.
In contemporary class society, power is multi-layered and multi-dimensional. It can be understood as a unity that occurs in all economic, political, and ideological spheres. It is sustained both by coercion and consent. Broadly speaking, the power of capital is expressed not only in the stateâs fundamental political institutions such as the government, parliament, parties, police, army, courts, and prisons, but also, in addition to these, not only in more âpublicâ state institutions such as the tax office, the registry office, and religious affairs, but also in countless official or âcivilâ institutions that are spread throughout society like a network, from schools to mosques, municipalities to families, shopping malls to media, stock exchanges to companies, unions to cinemas. In this sense, power is relational. It is the contradictory unity of coercion and persuasion, domination and hegemony, exclusion and inclusion.
The bourgeoisie objectifies the individuals that make up society within this relationality. The general class interest of the bourgeoisie is presented as if it were the interest of the whole society and is engraved in the minds of individuals through production and market relations, state activities, political and social spheres, and cultural and intellectual interactions. However, this relationality is not merely a one-sided imposition of data. In the individual objectified by power, a kind of illusory subjectivity is also created, which in turn produces the continuity of power. The individualâs subjectification through their rights and freedoms in this order is, paradoxically, due to their subjugation to the bourgeois power that actually objectifies them. In their daily practice, thoughts, behaviors, beliefs, and preferences, objectified individuals adopt a way of being that accepts the legitimacy and immutability of power, even supporting its implementation.
Power, which surrounds social life and seeks to control minds and bodies, establishes norms that are identical to the economic, political, and social interests of the ruling class, the bourgeoisie. Political tendencies, sexual orientations, cultural practices, lifestyle choices, and everyday behaviors are shaped according to these norms, which are ideologically and politically imposed on society. Those who are governed believe they define themselves by their individual freedom, but in reality, they are objectified by the ideology and politics of power, their way of existence seemingly constructed by norms. This is the categorization of society.
Those who conform to the norms are considered normal, while those who show nonconformity are labeled abnormal. Thus, the suppression, isolation, or elimination of the labeled individual is presented as the legitimate duty of the ruling power and is also legitimized by those who have been made compliant with the order through the norms.
One of the greatest damages caused by postmodernism is the weakening of class consciousness in this sense. Undoubtedly, different layers of society are made up of different identities, and there are also unique characteristics brought about by these differences. However, these different identities are presented as âclasslessâ realities. Not only that, but all differences are âotheredâ and turned into rivals. This can also change in line with the interests of the ruling class. In a country where yesterday saying âI am Kurdishâ was declared treason, discourses of âa thousand years of brotherhoodâ may begin to rise.
Neo-liberalism makes unprincipledness a principle, as if it were a modern version of Machiavellianism. This is because the approach to concepts such as âfreedom, equality, justice, truthâ varies according to interests, individuals, time, and place. Strikes, marches, exposĂ©s, etc. are supported if they are against the enemy or rivals, but if they occur âin their neighborhood,â they are now a threat and a lockout is required.
Various examples clearly show how circles that constantly talk about socialism and democracy have developed reflexes that are pro-capitalist and seek to reconcile the oppressor and the oppressed in the practice of class struggle. Yet a just policy requires defending the interests of workers and the oppressed, regardless of which âneighborhoodâ they are in. However, the justified anger of the masses is being turned into rumblings that can be used against âenemiesâ or ârivalsâ because of such understandings.
What Does Labor Produce as an Invisible Value?
In his letter, A. Ăcalan states that âthe proletariat has existed since the beginning of historyâ and that Marx did not discover anything new in this sense. Although he exaggerates and distorts the truth again and again to justify himself, he is right on this point: Marx did not make a new discovery when analyzing the existing system of exploitation.
Indeed, he himself writes this. When discussing Value, Price and Profit, as well as in the first volume of Capital, he analyzes the existing cycle of exploitation. He explains, one by one and in the simplest form, what wage labor produces. He reveals what productive labor produces and why it is âproductive labor.â While revealing what alienation from oneâs own labor means, he also explains how workers are persuaded to think, âthese belong to the boss, thank goodness he gives us work here so we can feed ourselves.â Indeed, labor has not been treated this way in every era of labor history. The difference between slavery and labor is that one is paid.
In the ancient city of Athens, where paid labor was rare, those who rented their labor could not influence the social class structure. These people worked as artists, craftsmen, teachers, and consultants. The concentration of artists and those who received wages in exchange for knowledge in the city shows the developments in citizensâ leisure time and income. This indicator also supports the perspective of the Athenian citizen, who owned certain property, towards working in labor-intensive jobs. As conveyed in the ideal governance ideas of Plato and Aristotle, it was recommended that citizens engage in political activities or city-related work. The ideal citizen should not engage in labor-intensive work and should devote their energy to political activities. This is because working with oneâs hands was considered a shameful activity. The prevailing belief was that ideal and valuable citizenship could be achieved through politics and cultural activities. The most important factor that can be presented as evidence of this belief is the Laws of Solon.
A similar situation existed in Sumer, Brahmanism, and different societies in the Middle East and much of the world. Of course, none of these are exactly the same. Although there are differences in the approach to artists and artisans in different regions and at different timesâincluding in different cities of Ancient Greeceâslavery law is more or less the same. The Draconian Laws were drafted entirely in favor of the ruling and wealthy classes and focused on the protection of property. The Hammurabi Laws are also explicitly about property. The heavy burden of Brahmanism still rests on the shoulders of South Asian workers and peasants.
Although the laws have undergone formal changes due to shifts in production methods and major uprisings, they essentially fulfill their role of protecting property owners and their interests.
This is precisely what A. Ăcalan tries to conceal when addressing the womenâs issue, the national issue, and socialism. A. Ăcalan, with a class-based reflex, obscures a glaringly obvious truth, lumping the worker and the boss together. The view in Ancient Greece that others should serve them with endless sacrifice so that some could produce philosophy or âmanage society better,â and that they should not take part in government, did not provide democracy to either women or slaves. Despite the fact that labor is still devalued and the right to own the means of production still lies with those who exploit the produced, not those who produce, how have classes disappeared? There is no explanation for this.
Is it a Conflict between the Commune and the State?
âThe ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas; that is to say, the class which is the dominant material force in society is at the same time the dominant intellectual force.â [(Marx-Engels, The German Ideology (Feuerbach)]
The dominant ideology throughout the world has undoubtedly become that of the bourgeoisie. As the ruling class, the bourgeoisie organizes the idea that âthere is no such thing as classâ in different forms in every era and/or paves the way for those who defend this idea in order to conceal its own exploitation and oppression and to protect itself from the anger of the oppressed.
Indeed, Abimael Guzman Reynoso, leader of the Peruvian Communist Party, who never took a single step back from the reality of the most ruthless class wars, was held in a cell at a submarine base until his death. Although the organization he led suffered a severe blow, his ideas remained âdangerousâ to the bourgeoisie until the very end.
What makes the ideas of İbrahim Kaypakkaya, founder of the Turkish Communist Party Marxist-Leninist, the âmost dangerous form of revolutionary communismâ for the Turkish state is not that he refers to Kurds or Armenians as an identity or that he speaks of massacres. It is his revealing of which classâs interests the organization serves and his refusal to renounce this truth even under the most severe torture.
The burning of the body of Basavaraj, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), is also a conscious choice of the same class hatred.
Today, while many truths, such as the rejection of classes and the origins of the state, are manipulated, this is not enough for the bourgeoisie. All concepts belonging to MLM science must be distorted, emptied of their meaning, and re-marketed in a form suitable to their own image. For the Paris Commune experience, one of the cornerstones of class struggle, and historical materialism are also affected by this.
In his letter âPerspectiveâ, A. Ăcalan states: âHistorical materialism should replace class struggle with âcommuneâ. Isnât this not only a realistic approach, but also the healthiest way to transition to socialism in the science of sociology, through free thought and action?â Instead of historical materialism and socialism based on class conflict, I believe that historical materialism and socialism based on the dilemma of state and commune is more accurate. I find it more correct to review Marxism and implement this concept instead. In other words, history is not a history of class struggle, but a history of conflict between state and commune.â
To prove the correctness of his own thinking, he states, âWe can learn about the connection between the word âkomâ in our Kurdish language and the commune from our own language. Kom means âto gatherâ, i.e. commune. It is a word we still use today, which shows that the Aryan language originated from here and has at least 10,000 years of history. It is clear that the Aryan language group also developed around this commune. The Kurdish word âkomâ proves this. Word derivations also explain this. Komagene is the name of a state. The head of the tribe creates the state. Tribe members whose interests are harmed also form the commune. That is actually how it really is. Itâs very simple,â he says.
The fact that Kurdish, which belongs to the Indo-European language family, and other languages from the same family have many common roots and words is, of course, a subject for philology. Instead, we need to focus on the reality. A. Ăcalan wants to, if possible, âcondemnâ the observation that, while all forms of social relations are taken into account, production relations play a decisive role âin the final analysisâ. Because accepting this role means:
1- Defining capitalism as an exploitative system in which the bourgeoisie appropriates the surplus value produced by the working class,
2- It requires advocating for the elimination of this fundamental mechanism of exploitation and the transformation of production relations on a social basis in order to fundamentally resolve other social contradictions and forms of exploitation.
A detailed critique of âdemocratic autonomyâ presented as an alternative model to socialism is beyond the scope of this article. However, it can be said that the rejection of the ultimately decisive role of production relations and the economy in general is closely linked to a political programme that does not envisage a fundamental change in exploitative relations. At best, it is in complete harmony with it. In essence, therefore, it is more a matter of defending the imperialist-capitalist system than of âcriticising Marxismâ.
Clearly, the bourgeoisie of any country and those sections that collaborate with international capital will not allow âopponentsâ they cannot have any control over into their national parliaments. At the same time, they do not allow âopponentsâ whom they cannot control to operate in their own parliaments. Whether in the worldâs most âdemocraticâ country or any other country, this is the general view of the capitalist classes, the ruling power, towards governments and alternative governments. Likewise, the attitude of the âprivileged classâ is the same everywhere in the world.
The armed workers of Paris, not being represented in such bourgeois assemblies, finally turned against the bourgeois state apparatus on 18 March 1871, chanting âVive la Commune!â and proclaimed the Commune, the âworkersâ powerâ. The Commune was a class dictatorship just like the bourgeois state apparatus, but what distinguished it from the old dictatorship was that it relied on the majority of society, namely the working class, in whose interest it was to abolish all classes. The difference between this new state and the old one was that it was âthe political form of social emancipation, that is, the emancipation of labor from the slavery of those who monopolize the means of labor created by workers or bestowed by nature,â and it aimed to dispossess the dispossessors. (Karl Marx, âSelected Passages from the Drafts on the Civil War in Franceâ)
In other words, the Commune sought to organize all production relations on the basis of social ownership, in opposition to exploitative relations and private property. It was precisely for this reason that, as ordinary workers shattered the social fabric they had believed to be indestructible and filled the void with new relationships, the bourgeoisie and landlords were seized by âfits of rage at the sight of the symbol of the Labor Republic, the Red Flag, waving above the town hall.â (ibid., p. 89)
Although the Paris Commune fell, it achieved critical theoretical and practical gains for the working-class movement that developed after it. It can be said that: âThanks to the struggle waged in Paris, the working classâs struggle against the capitalist class and the capitalist state entered a new phase. Regardless of the outcome of this struggle, it created a new starting point of historical importance on a global scale.â (Karl Marx, âFrom Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann in Hanoverâ)
Anti-Capitalism
When examining the idea of âdemocratic socialism,â it is useful to highlight two fundamental points: the qualitative difference between capitalism and socialism, which are irreconcilable with each other; the former is an economic system based on surplus value production and the capitalist exploitation of labor power, while socialism is committed to the elimination of class differences along with exploitation.
When the concept of âdemocracyâ is used in relation to socialism, if socialismâs fundamental qualitative characteristics and specificity are ignored, the result will be the positions of the liberal bourgeoisie. The fundamental binding
âprincipleâ that determines socialismâs democratic nature is the elimination of exploitation through the transfer of the means of production to collective ownership. Capitalismâs political oppression, privilege and attacks are determined by the exploiter-exploited relationship in the economic sphere. It is anti-democratic in that it is a hegemonic system of a minorityâa privileged classâover the majority of society.
Based on A. Ăcalanâs analysis of the conditioning/determining effect of production relations and the economy in general, one can discuss some of the reasons why he dismisses the MLM worldview as a form of capitalism, stating that it âdoes not even need to be criticizedâ or accusing it of inadequacy. Alongside factors such as the bourgeois character of the movement, the international imperialist-capitalist ideological hegemony, and the partial backwardness of the world working-class movement, it is worth highlighting just one point relevant to our topic: A. Ăcalan proposes a new paradigm of âdemocratic modernityâ that transcends âstate-based and class-based capitalist modernity,â targeting Marxism.
He does not really target the system he describes as âcapitalist modernityâ at all. We are not even talking about a system that survives through coercive apparatus being destroyed by force and replaced by a new system, or about the role of force in this context. There is not the slightest indication that he advocates changing the system through âparliamentarismâ. This is essentially what we are talking about.
As he states in his letter, capitalism and its current stage, imperialism, are not mentioned. Because A. Ăcalan talks about establishing a Swiss-like structure integrated into this system, but what he misses is the capital in Switzerlandâs hands and the hegemony it has established through itâŠ
Of course, it is not because he does not know that for the realization of âdemocraticâ capitalism, once presented as âsmiling socialismâ, it is necessary to drink the blood of the peoples of other countries.
Eco-Economy
â Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his âLogicâ), that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes.â (Marx, The Rate and Mass of Surplus Value)
When emerging under the banner of the ânew leftâ discourse, the most important foundation of this intellectual current, which overturned all previous scientific theories, was the crimes of social imperialism. It is no coincidence that a wave of attacks on MLM under the guise of âcriticismâ emerged, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, when the ecological crisis began to make itself felt.
There are, of course, concrete conditions for attributing the crimes committed by the social imperialism of modern revisionist powers to MLM science. In particular, the inadequacy of current studies and information on previous studies on the highly pressing issues of patriarchy, hetero-sexism and ecology, which closely concern all the peoples of the world, has strengthened this basis and the attacks have been supported by the imperialists.
A.Ăcalan also uses terms such as âecological paradigmâ or âeco-economyâ in his letter and in many other writings. He is aware of the impact of the ecological crisis, one of the most pressing issues of our century, on the lives of the masses. In this sense, he also treats the ecological crisis itself as a tool for organising his thoughts.
However, this âecologicalâ perspective, like his other ideas, is based more on a âmental transformationâ than on concrete grounding. Bookchinâs ideas have particularly influenced his theses on ecology. Since he denies the existence of classes, he argues that all of humanity is equally affected by this crisis. Marx and Engels, even at a time when the ecological struggle had not yet progressed this far, demonstrated that not everyone is affected equally by the problems that the ecological crisis will create. They also identified the root cause of this problemâŠ
Day by day, the urgency of the ecological problem is increasing. It is an issue that the proletariat and the oppressed peoples of the world must focus on more. Until now, the fact that the main problem is the culture of consumption and the form of production has always been swept under the carpet. The discourse of the âecological struggleâ was similarly constructed with an anti- socialist understanding.
Indeed, capitalism, which cuts down trees it cannot sell the shade of, has boasted about how âenvironmentally consciousâ and even superior a culture it has built through its âgreenwashingâ policies. In countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark, these policies are also used as an important weapon of âwhite supremacy,â i.e., racism. Claims that immigrants do not separate their rubbish, throw rubbish on the streets, and do not pick up after their dogs form the most basic arguments of anti-immigrant sentiment.
However, no one talks about how much water, land, and sky in the countries immigrants were forced to leave was sold off to mining or tourism companies.
The question of how issues such as global warming, pandemics, and environmental disasters should be understood from an MLM perspective naturally raises the question of how Marx and Engels addressed these issues in their own time.
Marx systematically focused on ecological issues and accorded particular importance to ecology in his critique of political economy. Marxâs examination of environmental problems dates back to the mid-1840s. After the publication of the first volume of Capital (1867), ecological issues continued to form a focal point of Marxâs work. Marx did not leave behind a complete written work as a result of these studies, but his notes and compiled sources on the subject are known. Marxâs general understanding of nature and his specific perspective on ecological issues do not contradict Engelsâ dialectical philosophy of nature; rather, they confirm it.
âIn short, the animal merely uses external nature, and brings about changes in it simply by his presence; man by his changes makes it serve his ends, masters it. This is the final, essential distinction between man and other animals, and once again it is labor that brings about this distinction.
Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human conquest over nature. For each such conquest takes its revenge on us. Each of them, it is true, has in the first place the consequences on which we counted, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel out the first. The people who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor, and elsewhere, destroyed the forests to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that they were laying the basis for the present devastated condition of these countries, by removing along with the forests the collecting centres and reservoirs of moisture. When, on the southern slopes of the mountains, the Italians of the Alps used up the pine forests so carefully cherished on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by doing so they were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry in their region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their mountain springs of water for the greater part of the year, with the effect that these would be able to pour still more furious flood torrents on the plains during the rainy seasons. Those who spread the potato in Europe were not aware that they were at the same time spreading the disease of scrofula. Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature â but that we, with flesh, blood, and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other beings of being able to know and correctly apply its laws.â (Engels, F. (1977) The Dialectics of Nature)
Here, the element that is important in terms of Engelsâ dialectical understanding of nature is the contradiction that human labor, as a social activity, transforms nature, or more accurately, exploits natural resources at the expense of depleting them, thereby eroding the natural-material conditions that make human social life possible.
Like Engels, Marx certainly defends the knowability of objective reality and the objective dialectic in nature. However, in Marxâs ecology, a dialectical concept of nature becomes evident in the dialectical interaction between nature and society. (Kaan Kangal; Marx, Engels and Marxist Ecology, Theory and Action)
In this context, Marxâs concept of âmetabolismâ (Stoffwechsel) is of key importance. Going beyond a philosophical problem analysis, Marxâs concept of metabolism forms a component of the critique of political economy. Based on the concept of material exchange, Marx will formulate the concept of the âirreparable riftâ (unheilbarer Riss), which forms the backbone of his ecological critique. (ibid)
â⊠large land ownership reduces the agricultural population to a constantly declining minimum, while in contrast there is a constantly growing industrial population concentrated in large cities. This creates conditions that cause an irreparable rift in the social exchange unity dictated by the natural laws of life. As a result, the vitality of the land is wasted, and this waste is carried far beyond the borders of a particular state through trade.â (Marx, K. Capital, Volume III)
Marxâs observation is a product of his critical perspective on the impact of modern agricultural industry on environmental conditions in cultivated areas, viewed within the framework of a critique of political economy.
âThe capitalist mode of production, by constantly increasing the proportion of the urban population in the total population, which it concentrates in large centres, on the one hand intensifies the historical movement of society, on the other hand, it violates the material exchange between man and soil, that is, the return to the soil of the elements that man takes from it and uses as food and clothing, and thus the eternal condition necessary for the continuation of the soilâs productive power. Thus, the capitalist mode of production simultaneously destroys the physical health of the urban worker and the mental life of the agricultural worker. However, by destroying the conditions that ensure the continuity of the aforementioned material exchange and that arise spontaneously, the capitalist mode of production also necessitates the re-establishment of this material exchange as a system, as a law governing social production, and in a form appropriate to the full development of humanity. ⊠Furthermore, every advance in capitalist agriculture is not merely an advance in the art of exploiting the worker, but also an advance in the art of exploiting the soil; every advance in increasing the soilâs productivity over a given period of time is also an advance in the destruction of the permanent sources of that productivity. (Marx, Capital, Volume 1)
Marx demonstrates that soil degradation is not only a national but also an international problem, using the example of England and Ireland: he states that England, for the past one and a half centuries, âhas indirectly exported Irish soil, refusing even to provide the tools necessary for those who farm it to replace the depleted elements of the soil.â (Marx, ibid.)
In the third volume, he proposes a positive solution to the phenomenon of material exchange between nature and society, which he critically examines in the first volume of Capital: an ecologically sustainable relationship between nature and society can be achieved not through the spirit of capitalist production, which aims to make immediate profits, but through the efforts of a social âchain of generationsâ. (Marx, op. cit., p. 546, n. 27, cited by Kaan Kangal, ibid.)
The issue of overcoming the ecological crisis has undoubtedly been a problem addressed not only by Marx and Engels, but also by many other communists. However, there is still a significant lack of understanding and misinterpretation regarding the comprehension and handling of this issue, its transformation into general organizational programmes, and the production of politics based on this. This hinders the development of all these efforts, that is, the progress of the revolution. However, the ecological crisis is a reality that cannot be overcome by living as in the primitive communal period, as A. Ăcalan claims. Nor is the Kurdish tribal system an âecological societyâ; this is merely speculation.
Overcoming the ecological crisis and removing the antagonism between humans and nature is possible, as Marx put it, â⊠only when social man, the common producers, rationally manage the interaction of human metabolism with nature, not as a blind force subject to the domination of nature, but by bringing nature under their collective controlâŠâ (Marx, ibid)
LGBT and Hermaphrodite Issues
âIn the practical questions that arise in the politics of any particular or specific historical moment, it is important to single out those which display the principal type of intolerable and treacherous compromises, such as embody an opportunism that is fatal to the revolutionary class, and to exert all efforts to explain them and combat them.â (Lenin, Left-Wing Communism)
The issue of approaching hetero-sexism is, in general, a wound that continues to bleed for the revolutionary movement, but the experiences of LGBT+ masses in struggle and organization have forced revolutionaries to take steps forward on this issue. A threshold was crossed, particularly after the 2000s, and any movement insisting on remaining at or behind that threshold has been dragged into an increasingly reactionary position with each passing day.
The stance of the âApocu Movementâ on this issue has been shaped by opportunism. However, in the recent period, with the rise of the âradical right,â i.e., the re-consolidation of fascism in line with imperialist interests, hetero-sexist attacks have increased, and these increasing attacks have revealed how much many organizations have âovercomeâ the issue. PAJK, an important component of the âApocu Movement,â has finally officially expressed its true views on this issue, as if it were the only institution and decision-making body that should speak out. At its last congress, PAJK defined LGBT+ people as âa disease created by capitalismâ and emphasized the need to fight against it. Subsequently, the TJA published brochures stating that LGBT+ people must be fought against.
As the class struggle intensifies, it has become clear which side such organizations will take, and their stance in the increasing attacks on LGBT+ people has been on the side of the oppressors. The fact that some âApocularâ have developed a more âamicableâ relationship with the LGBT+ movement in Europe or in certain places in Turkey and Turkish Kurdistan and at certain moments in the struggle does not represent the general line of the organization. Although examples such as DEHAP, HDP and Sebahat Tuncel are often cited, the true line of the movement has repeatedly manifested itself and continues to do so, both in Turkish Kurdistan and in Rojava.
In the letter discussed in this article, A. Ăcalanâs failure to see that Gilgameshâs declaration of his own death upon Enkiduâs death is an emphasis on homosexual love, and the omission of any mention of the bisexual identities of the Sumerian goddesses, among many other details, demonstrate the validity of these views. it would be more concrete to address the section where the term âLGBTâ is directly mentioned.
âThis was approximately three hundred million years ago. Such developments occur in both plants and animals. Some animals are both female and male, depending on temperature. Therefore, this is not a rigid thing; it is a transformable, dialectical reality. As you know, LGBT is a major topic of debate. There are many people who possess both masculine and feminine characteristics (hermaphrodites). Some even undergo surgery to become male or female. Such surgeries are common. The noteworthy point here is that there is no unbridgeable chasm between female and male. Of course, the philosophical and sociological aspects of this are very different. There is a moral dimension to it, and it has implications for society. These can be overcome with dialectical thinking. I donât want to get into the role of women here. The distinction between male and female is not miraculous; it is a necessity of natureâs dialectic. It does not imply superiority. Being female is not superior, nor is being male sacred. These are not events from which a particular conclusion can be drawn. They will happen, they are happening, as required by natureâs dialectic. Indeed, we call this differentiation; without differentiation, there would be no life. The meaning of life is connected to differentiation. How can a single person be both feminine and masculine? Itâs clear that they cannot live that way today. How can a hermaphrodite man be both masculine and feminine? Traditional morality condemns these people. But in my opinion, this is a problem. Through surgery, the masculine side can be emphasized, the feminine preference can be emphasized; letâs say both are valuable. If nature divides you into two, you will see this division as an opportunity for freedom, as a difference, and that difference has meaning. Femininity has meaning, masculinity has meaning. This has also taken shape in society; the important thing is not to make them opposites. Making them opposites is where the problem begins.â
The statements made by A. Ăcalan in his letter to the PKK are in serious contradiction with his actual views. He frames homosexuality within the context of âhermaphroditismâ and seems reluctant to engage with the issue directly. He devalues the ideological, political, philosophical, scientific, and social progress made by LGBT+ communities today by stating that âsome living beings may become hermaphroditic due to temperature changes.â
Again, while stating that there is no such thing as an âidealâ male or female being, that every body has different characteristics, and that there are variations on the gender spectrum, they also state that, with advancing technology, hermaphrodites can be assigned to one of the two genders, âwhichever they are scientifically closer to,â and thus made âcompatible.â He argues that intersex individuals must undergo surgery with the goal of assigning them a gender identity. By reducing everything to âbiological proximity,â he not only nullifies the individualâs right to have a say over their own body, but also otherizes those who, despite being closer to the âmaleâ gender, do not identify as male, do not live in accordance with their assigned gender, and, moreover, choose to undergo gender reassignment.
A. Ăcalanâs views on this matter are firmly rooted in the binary gender system and are based on the idea that the âmental revolutionâ repeatedly expressed by hetero-sexism, which materially surrounds every moment of the lives of LGBT+ communities, can overcome this. However, there is no obstacle to continuing to defend the view that trans activists are essentially the ones who create opposition. This is because it has rendered the perpetrator and the victim ambiguous and equal.
Marx and Communism
âIn no period, therefore, do we find a more confused mixture of high-flown phrases and actual uncertainty and clumsiness, of more enthusiastic striving for innovation and more deeply rooted domination of the old routine, of more apparent harmony of the whole of society; and more profound estrangement of its elements.â (Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire)
The experiences of the world proletariat in its struggle for power to date have shown what should and should not be done, in short, enabling progress by drawing lessons from the positive and negative aspects. The greatest proof that the existing state structure cannot be changed without touching it and through âpeaceful methods of struggle by disarmingâ is the Paris Commune.
In his work The Civil War in France, Marx reveals the true secret of the Paris Commune experience as follows: âThe true secret of the Commune was this: the Commune was essentially a workersâ government, the product of the struggle of the producing class against the exploiting class, the political form finally discovered that would bring about the economic emancipation of labor.â
In his 1891 introduction to this work, Engels refers to a very important feature that a communist type of power must possess, not only in relation to the past but also in relation to the future. When the working class comes to power, it must not only dismantle the old oppressive state apparatus, but also take measures to prevent the emergence of new masters:
âFrom the outset the Commune was compelled to recognize that the working class, once come to power, could not manage with the old state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery previously used against it itself, and, on the other, safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment⊠Against this transformation of the state and the organs of the state from servants of society into masters of society â an inevitable transformation in all previous states â the Commune made use of two infallible expedients. In this first place, it filled all posts â administrative, judicial, and educational â by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, with the right of the same electors to recall their delegate at any time. And in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers⊠In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates to representative bodies which were also added in profusionâ.
Communists have learned a great deal from the Commune experience. The most important lesson is to aim to seize the entire state apparatus, without limiting oneself to specific areas, and to destroy it, creating a system that prevents the bourgeoisie from reproducing itself.
Indeed, what prompted Lenin to make his famous roll in the snow was not that the Bolshevik Revolution happened to outlive the Paris Commune by one day, but that the correctness of their policy had been concretely proven.
After the Commune, everyone undoubtedly drew lessons in line with their own worldview. A. Ăcalan is one of them. However, what makes A. Ăcalan different is that, as he explicitly states in his letter, even when referring to Marxâs assessment of the Paris Commune, he resorts to historical distortion to justify himself.
Although Marxists were an important part of the Commune, they can easily be declared âanti-Communeâ because they were fewer in number than the Proudhonists and Blanquists. Yet, with their positive and negative assessments, they held up the Commune as a beacon for the working class.
On the one hand, Marx may have intuitively regarded the Paris Commune as a premature birth, yet on the other hand, he organized the journey of many individuals, including Ălisabeth Dmitrieff, to Paris to join the Commune. However, when we think of the âwomen of the Commune,â the person who most often comes to mind is Louise Michel, and it is no coincidence, but rather a deliberate choice, that Ălisabeth Dmitrieff is often forgotten. The fact that Marx and the MLMs were declared âanti-Communeâ despite everything that was written and done is also a result of this choice.
A. Ăcalan, based on this choice, states in his letter, âIt is striking that many people Marx knew well in his later years died during the Paris Commune. It is said that nearly 17,000 communards died. He also wrote an assessment called The Paris Commune in their memory. He abandons Capital. Because his predictions have suffered a major blow. In my opinion, he has suffered an internal breakdown. He focuses on the idea of the commune. He does not use the class much, he also uses the concept of the commune.â
Marx and his followers made a rigorous assessment when addressing the Commune. They demonstrated that the way for the proletariat to seize power was to take over the state in a more comprehensive manner. Indeed, the Bolshevik and Chinese Revolutions were the result of these assessments.
Based on this, it would not be unreasonable to say that although he places himself on an equal or even transcendent level, Marx was a parrhesiastes [âa person who speaks the truth without any hesitation or fearâ], while A. Ăcalan is the exact opposite. A. Ăcalanâs views not only fail to correspond with reality but also attract the attention of the ruling class. For, as Greek philosophy often emphasized, âtruthâ is not our own thoughts. And only when truth coincides with our own thoughts is it correct to express this truth, which will disturb the rulers, by taking a risk: this is an example of speaking the truth/parrhesia [âspeaking the truth courageouslyâ].
Lenin and the National Question
Lenin did not discover anything new when he addressed the national question. Debates on the national question were quite lively at the time. The solution to this problem fell on the shoulders of the proletariat. For this reason, we see that the period of lengthy debates and deliberations on the national question even became the subject of novels. These examples, which sometimes appear positive and sometimes negative, also show that even long before the revolution, there were conflicting understandings within the Bolsheviks themselves. The best example of this can be seen in Bogdanovâs work The Red Star, written ten years before the revolution. Lenin and then Stalin, in their writings on this subject, present the issue in the clearest way possible in line with the interests of the proletariat.
This problem, as A. Ăcalan points out in his letter, seems to be that the Kurdish movement confuses the concept of the state with the nation-state and equates the two. The idea that if there is a state, it will logically be in the form of a nation-state, forms the spirit of all the texts.
However, the ideological orientation presented by A. Ăcalan âdoes not take sufficient accountâ of these historical realities and codes the Soviet Union experience as âcapitalism feeding from the left.â This approach leads to an abstraction that obscures the contributions socialism has made to the national question, even reducing them to the âstatistâ category. Yet both the federal model and the principle of self-management are important elements of the socialist movementâs theoretical and practical openings towards oppressed nations. The setbacks experienced by socialism are not simply the result of nation-state building, but rather the outcome of much more complex economic, political and ideological processes.
In this sense, it should be remembered that in the MLM worldview, the Right to Free Secession (RFS) is not equated solely with statehood. The RFS is essentially a principle that guarantees the political equality of oppressed nations. The right to secession is merely the most advanced expression of this equality; whether a nation chooses to statehood or not is a matter to be determined within its own historical and social conditions. The claim of MLMs is that all nations have this right. âFull rights equality,â including the right to secession, is the minimum condition for national equality and voluntary union. Therefore, interpretations that the right to secession conflicts with alternatives such as stateless democracy, confederal structures, or radical self- management fail to grasp how the MLM worldview grounds this right.
Mao and the Role of Violence
When the PKK emerged within a specific ideological framework, it was influenced by Maoism, much like many national liberation movements of its time. Although rarely mentioned in recent years, numerous writings from earlier periods contain references to the theories of Peopleâs War and Democratic Peopleâs Revolution. And while rejecting many of the things they had previously defended, they did not overlook the Democratic Peopleâs Revolution.
In his earlier writings, A. Ăcalan attacked Lenin and Stalin but did not oppose the rising Chinese social imperialism, claiming that they still defended Maoâs line. Moreover, while Maoists around the world denounced Chinese social imperialismâŠ
While utilizing the strategy of Protracted Peopleâs War, they gradually felt the need to draw clearer lines between themselves and Maoism. To such an extent that the terms Democratic Peopleâs Revolution, Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and Mao were no longer mentioned in any form. They only referred to the war they were waging as the Revolutionary Peopleâs War. Now, they have abandoned even that.
Finally, when A. Ăcalan addressed the struggle against the imperialist- capitalist system, which he defined as âmodernity,â he reduced Maoâs theses to a very narrow field in his perspective text, stating, âMao tried to adapt this theory to the liberation struggles of the colonies, but he was limited. He could have developed a comprehensive system analysis and alternative solutions, but he fell short.â
Starting from âthe role of violence in Kurdistanâ and arriving at this stage, he could not fully reject the role of violence in history without attacking Mao. In particular, he found a way to both strike at Mao and render him insignificant through his theses, which had become the nightmare of imperialism.
Imperialism and Internationalism
âImperialism is the epoch of finance capital and of monopolies, which introduce everywhere the striving for domination, not for freedom. Whatever the political system, the result of these tendencies is everywhere reaction and an extreme intensification of antagonisms in this field. Particularly intensified become the yoke of national oppression and the striving for annexations, i.e., the violation of national independence (for annexation is nothing but the violation of the right of nations to self-determination).â (Lenin, Imperialism)
Every political movement requires not only rhetoric but also a leadership vision to be effective and achieve its goals. Today, the leadership vacuum experienced by the working class and the oppressed in the Middle East is also preventing the masses from building their revolutionary identity. While imperialism is ravaging the Middle East today, those who speak out âagainst imperialismâ are imperialismâs number one collaborators, such as R.T. ErdoÄan. Or they are religious-reactionary organizations and gangs organized by imperialists against revolutionary forces. Instead of channeling their anger against imperialism into the revolutionary movement, which is struggling with the leadership problem, the peoples of the Middle East are aligning themselves with the programmes of nationalist-religious-reactionary organizations.
This negative positioning of the revolutionary movement has dulled its ability to produce valuable leaders or practices from within, legitimizing reactionary responses rather than policy-making. The crises experienced by the revolutionary movement in the Middle East make it difficult for a movement that will inspire enthusiasm among the masses to emerge, but concrete conditions keep the search alive.
Particularly in the context of the Kurdish national question, an effective leadership concept has been created in the Middle East. However, this leadership does not even mention imperialism, let alone speak out against it. Even on the issue it addresses as âneo-colonialism,â it attacks MLM science instead of targeting the imperialist-capitalist system. On the other hand, as mentioned above, it uses terms associated with MLM science to subject them to âdeconstruction.â For example, evaluating D. Trump and his decisions without considering the social conditions he finds himself in, the influence and pressure of monopoly capital on US politics; reducing war to mere personal ambitions or limiting it to a âwarrior mentalityâ by ignoring these foundations is not analysis.
Of course, it is a fact that as imperialist attacks increase, so do the searches of the masses. Marxâs famous thesis reveals itself here once again: life abhors a vacuum. This crisis of leadership that revolutionaries are experiencing cannot be reduced to individuals alone. It is a deeper problem: a consistent political identity has not been established among the masses; rather than offering the masses a direction aimed at power, it has offered them reactivity. The replacement of political affiliation with temporary excitement perpetuates the crisis; in a structure where position is sanctified rather than leadership ability, institutional memory and social response are gradually weakening.
The most devastating manifestation of political polarization is the loss of ethical consistency. Today, many organizations in the Middle East resort to the principles they defend only to judge their opponents. Discourses that are particularly prevalent around more mass movements show that ethical and scientific claims have become mere tools. There are millions of practical examples where violence against women is covered up and the voices of LGBT+ people are silenced and ignored.
When positioning themselves in the Iran-Israel war, principles can give way to daily interests. The reactions of the masses to the poverty experienced in Rojava or Palestine, where they are forced to wage war to survive, also reveal a similar situation. Similarly, in Turkey, examples such as the suppression of municipal workersâ voices from time to time due to âattacks by the ruling powerââŠ
In this sense, the question of how post-modernism has shaped the Middle East can be understood by examining pragmatism and positivism. Communist leader İbrahim Kaypakkaya stated: âWhen the interests of the people and the interests of the party conflict Marxist-Leninists always stand for the interests of the people. This is not factionalism. Taking a position against the interests of the people for the sake of the partyâs interests, that is factionalismâ, thus pointing precisely to these understandings. This also shows that this problem is not limited to the present day. (Kaypakkaya, Selected Writings, Nisan Publishing)
The rhetoric of âsocial peaceâ and so on, which has been revived in recent years, is supposedly being promoted for the âwill and interests of the people.â However, the reactions of A. Ăcalan and other PKK leaders to those who have exposed the current process reveal the truth. It has been exposed that the politics being pursued have little to do with the interests of the people.
They have also overturned the understanding of internationalism, particularly with the opportunities they gained with the Rojava Revolution. The very establishment of the International was made possible by the struggles against the ideas defended by A. Ăcalan. The International was founded thanks to the struggle against figures like Proudhon and Bakunin, and it was re-established through the struggle against Kautsky. What internationalism advocates is the removal of imperialism from colonies and semi-colonies and the organization of the people in imperialist centres along these lines, yet today we are seeing the reappearance of scenes we have witnessed before.
Those who say that peace cannot be built without waging war against imperialism and capitalism are accused of âwar mongeringâ, while internationalism is discredited with a false âpeaceâ dream.
While imperialist-capitalists are making preparations for a new war of division, they are also strengthening their own fronts. In such a process, the existence of a power that has weapons and is outside the control of the state does not suit their purposes. At the same time, all the national oppression and violence to which the Kurds are subjected in the four parts are being skillfully exploited by Western imperialists, primarily US imperialism. They skillfully exploit a bleeding wound as one of the ways to break the influence of Russia, China and Iran in the Middle East. However, in doing so, it is essential that powerful forces such as the PKK and PAJK do not find themselves in a position to escape their control. For this reason, A. Ăcalanâs messages have made headlines in the imperialistsâ best-selling newspapers worldwide. Following examples such as ETA and IRA, and then the Tamil Tigers and FARC, the idea that âsystemic methods of struggleâ also existed became ingrained in the minds of the oppressed peoples of the world. What happened after all this proved the reality that problems within the imperialist-capitalist system would not be resolved in favor of the oppressed.
The difference between A. Ăcalanâs call and the examples given above was that he had been moving step by step in this direction from the very beginning. The issue is not merely organizational stagnation, the war reaching a deadlock, etc. (which are possible developments in a war), but where the foundations of his ideas lie.
A. Ăcalanâs views resemble those of many revisionists, reformists and anarchists, from Proudhon to Kautsky, Negri to Foucault, Khrushchev to Bookchin. What matters more than which of these he resembles most is that his ideas are not based on overthrowing the existing system and establishing a new one. He reiterates that it is possible to live together peacefully within the system.
The process we are going through shows the exact opposite. While disarmament is being ingrained in the minds of the worldâs proletariat and oppressed peoples, the imperialists and their collaborators are investing in armament. While the idea that âautonomous-democraticâ structures can be established within the system is constantly repeated, massacres continue in Palestine, throughout the Middle East and around the world. It is a fact that these will increase in scale. As the Soviet and Chinese revolutions have shown, only proletarian revolutions and democratic popular revolutions can put a stop to all this.
Source : https://www.tkpml.com/notes-on-a-ocalans-perspective-perspective-for-whom-and-for-what/
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=25551
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SolidaritĂ€t mit den Menschen in Nordostsyrien #Rojava ist weiter notwendig. Die Lage ist angespannt und zum Teil lebensbedrohlich, groĂe Teile der Region sind weiter von islamistischen Hilfstruppen des tĂŒrkischen #Erdoganregimes besetzt. Die Perspektiven der Menschen in Syrien sind auch nach dem Ende des Assadregimes und der neuen Zentralregierung mit Al Kaida Wurzeln unklar. Wer in der Lage ist zu spenden- jeder Beitrag ist willkommen: Dr. M. Wilk "Gesundheitsaufbau", IBAN DE77510500150173070939 BIC NASSDE55XXX Ich bin nicht in der Lage steuerwirksame Quittungen auszustellen. DafĂŒr garantiere ich, dass 100% der Spenden fĂŒr humanitĂ€re Projekte in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Kurdischen Roten Halbmond in #Rojava Verwendung finden. Danke auch fĂŒr eure bisherige Hilfe.
Hmmm.... Si que @ouiouilegang serait dĂ©putĂ© de la circo de Rapjeu-LĂšs-Caniveau, sĂ»r qu'y demanderait direk une commission d'enkĂȘt sur l'entrisme de confrĂ©ries capitalo-ultra-ordo-libĂ©rales dans les milieux du yoga et du thĂ©, pask' v'lĂ les conseils que me donne ma tisane lately:
"Cet obstacle pourrait bien devenir votre plus grand cadeau" #noel
"Appréciez la vie qui vous a été donnée" #gaza #ukraine #soudan #liban #rojava #réfugié·e·s #sanspapiers #... #tropdehashtagsquifittent
Peut-ĂȘtre le circuit (des 24h) de la honte, y marche pas chez yogitea ?
The #SyrianDemocraticCouncil was founded on #ThisDayInHistory in 2015. Having sat out the first stages of the #SyrianCivilWar, #Kurds of #Rojava got involved to create a better system. #SDC is the political arm of #SDF in #DAANES, working for a decentralized #pluralistic society.
Documentary about People's Resistance in KobanĂȘ: Life in War
đž Following Assad's fall in December 2024, the Turkish state and its mercenaries intensified its attacks on the autonomous administration of north-eastern Syria.
đžThe situation was uncertain, but the people were prepared for anything. This was particularly evident in KobanĂȘ, where the Tishreen Dam had been attacked, leaving the city without a water and electricity supply for several months.
đžThis documentary reflects on the situation and the people's resistance, led particularly by women, young people, and the people's self-administered structures. With fewer opportunities, but with a collective spirit, the people employed the strategy of a Revolutionary People's War.
đWatch Documentary with English or French Subtitles on our website:
https://internationalistcommune.com/documentary-about-peoples-resistance-in-kobane-life-in-war/
*Don't hesitate to boost if you enjoy reading the reports!*
Weekly highlight from your anarchist comrades in #NES
01.12.25 - 07.12.25
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# ABDULLAH ĂCALAN PROPOSAL FOR SDF DISARMAMENT
On November 24, Abdullah Ocalan proposed a plan for the integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the Syrian Ministry of Defense (MoD) to Turkish parliament members engaged in the PKK disarmament dialogue. This plan stipulates that the SDF should join the Syrian military while retaining its own internal security apparatus.
This announcement represents the first call from Ocalan for the SDF to assimilate into the Syrian military structure while preserving its internal security forces. In February 2025, Ocalan asserted that âall [PKK] groups must lay [down] their arms,â a statement interpreted by Turkish officials as a directive for the SDF to disarm and integrate into the Syrian transitional government under the MoD.
SDF Commander Mazloum Abdi asserted that it âapplies solely to the PKK [and is not] applicable to our situation in Syria.â Ocalanâs newly articulated vision aligns more closely with Abdiâs advocacy for a decentralized Syrian state, allowing the SDF to maintain local security governance in northeastern Syria.
# AKP PUSH FOR SDF TO HAND OVER STRATEGICAL ASSETS
On December 2, an AKP spokeperson indicated that Turkey may reassess its classification of the SDF as a âterrorist organization,â at the condition that SDF hands over critical resources and infrastructure to the Syrian government as part of its reintegration into the Syrian state.
The spokesperson also stated that the SDF would effectively âcease to be a threat to Turkey and a terrorist organizationâ if it submits control of strategic assetsâincluding airports, border crossings, and oil fieldsâto the Syrian government.
This transfer of pivotal resources and infrastructure is a strategic maneuver to undermine the SDF's influence in NES, as it would restrict it's access to the Turkish border and curtail its revenue streams from oil operations. Both Turkey and the Syrian government have asserted that the SDF must fully integrate into the Syrian state by yearâs end. A potential shift in Turkeyâs threat assessment could imply that Turkey may be anticipating the SDF's adherence to the March 10 agreement.
# SUWEIDA NATIONAL GUARD CARRIES OUT POLITICAL ARRESTS, KILLINGS AND TORTURE OF PROMINENT DRUZE FIGURES
On November 28, the Suwayda National Guard executed a series of arrests and killings targeting notable Druze figures within Suweida Province. The Druze militia coalition apprehended ten individuals, accusing them of organizing a âconspiracyâ in cooperation with the Syrian transitional government. Among those arrested were several influential figures of the Druze community.
On November 29, members of the Suweida National Guard recorded acts of torture against Sheikh Matni. His corpse, displaying evident signs of torture, was delivered to the entrance of Suweida City Hospital on December 2. Sheikh Matni had played a pivotal role in establishing the Suweida Military Council in February 2025, a Druze militia that confronted transitional government forces amid the intercommunal violence of July 2025. Matni maintained a close relationship with Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri; however, tensions arose following Matni's opposition to Hijriâs initiative to form the Suweida National Guard. Pro-government sources claim that Matni was arrested for advocating a negotiated settlement with the Syrian transitional government.
# ONE YEAR AFTER THE FALL OF BASHAR AL-ASSAD
December 8 will mark one year since the fall of the Assad regime. Many celebrations have already taken place in Syria. On December 6, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) issued a decree forbidding celebrations on the 7th and 8th of the month. The decree stipulated that the decision was made for security reasons, citing the recent rise in terrorist attacks.
While it is true that the recent decision of the Syrian transitional government to join the anti-ISIS coalition has bolstered Islamist group activities, it is likely that the AANES's decision to forbid celebrations for the first anniversary of the fall of Assad is motivated by a desire to maintain public order. The deadline for the negotiations regarding AANES and SDF integration into the Syrian state is approaching. In these times of tension, the AANES might be attempting to avoid protests that would oppose its governance in Northeast Syria, thereby impacting its capacity to defend its right to autonomy.
# CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENTS
- Former senior Assad regime officials are funding and equipping clandestine networks in Syria to conduct insurgent activity against the Syrian transitional government. Many of the fighters organized by those senior Assad regime officials are "ghost soldiers," lacking genuine loyalty and primarily seeking financial support.
- On December 3, the Syrian General Security Service (GSS) confiscated multiple improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and various munitions from an ISIS safe house located near Damascus. This operation is part of ongoing counter-ISIS efforts of the syrian government, which have dismantled several ISIS IED manufacturing sites in the region.
- On November 27 and 28, ISIS claimed responsibility for three attacks within Syrian government-controlled territory. This marks the group's first acknowledgment of attacks in this region since May 2025, likely answering to Syria's recent decision to join the Global Coalition Against ISIS.
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#Syria #NES #SDF #DAANES #AANES #SNA #SDF #PYD #YPJ #YPG #HTS #Rojava #Kurdistan #Revolution #DefendRojava #Anarchy #Anarchism #Comrades #Internationalism #AbdullahOcalan #Ăcalan #PKK #WomenLifeFreedom #TekosinaAnarsist
Faits marquants de la semaine du 1er au 7 décembre 2025
Proposition d'Abdullah Ăcalan pour le dĂ©sarmement des FDS:
Le 24 novembre, Abdullah Ăcalan a prĂ©sentĂ© aux parlementaires turcs engagĂ©s dans le dialogue sur le dĂ©sarmement du PKK un plan d'intĂ©gration des Forces dĂ©mocratiques syriennes (FDS) au sein du ministĂšre syrien de la DĂ©fense. Ce plan prĂ©voit l'intĂ©gration des FDS Ă l'armĂ©e syrienne tout en prĂ©servant leurs propres forces de sĂ©curitĂ© intĂ©rieure.
Cette annonce constitue le premier appel lancĂ© par Ăcalan Ă l'assimilation des FDS Ă la structure militaire syrienne, tout en maintenant leurs forces de sĂ©curitĂ© intĂ©rieure. En fĂ©vrier 2025, Ăcalan avait affirmĂ© que « tous les groupes [du PKK] doivent dĂ©poser les armes », une dĂ©claration interprĂ©tĂ©e par les autoritĂ©s turques comme une injonction faite aux FDS de dĂ©sarmer et de s'intĂ©grer au gouvernement de transition syrien sous l'Ă©gide du ministĂšre de la DĂ©fense.
Le commandant des FDS, Mazloum Abdi, a quant Ă lui affirmĂ© que cette dĂ©claration « ne concerne que le PKK et n'est pas applicable Ă notre situation en Syrie ». La vision nouvellement formulĂ©e par Ăcalan s'aligne davantage sur le plaidoyer d'Abdi en faveur d'un Ătat syrien dĂ©centralisĂ©, permettant aux FDS de maintenir leur gouvernance sĂ©curitaire locale dans le nord-est de la Syrie.
L'AKP fait pression sur les FDS pour qu'elles cÚdent leurs actifs stratégiques:
Le 2 dĂ©cembre, un porte-parole de l'AKP a indiquĂ© que la Turquie pourrait reconsidĂ©rer sa classification des FDS comme « organisation terroriste », Ă condition que ces derniĂšres cĂšdent des ressources et infrastructures essentielles au gouvernement syrien dans le cadre de leur rĂ©intĂ©gration Ă l'Ătat syrien.
Le porte-parole a Ă©galement dĂ©clarĂ© que les FDS cesseraient de fait de « constituer une menace pour la Turquie et d'ĂȘtre une organisation terroriste » si elles remettaient le contrĂŽle d'actifs stratĂ©giques â notamment des aĂ©roports, des points de passage frontaliers et des champs pĂ©troliers â au gouvernement syrien.
Ce transfert de ressources et d'infrastructures vitales est une manĆuvre stratĂ©gique visant Ă saper l'influence des FDS dans le nord-est de la Syrie, car il restreindrait leur accĂšs Ă la frontiĂšre turque et rĂ©duirait leurs revenus issus de l'exploitation pĂ©troliĂšre. La Turquie et le gouvernement syrien ont tous deux affirmĂ© que les FDS devaient ĂȘtre pleinement intĂ©grĂ©es Ă l'Ătat syrien d'ici la fin de l'annĂ©e. Un changement potentiel dans l'Ă©valuation de la menace par la Turquie pourrait indiquer que celle-ci anticipe le respect par les FDS de l'accord du 10 mars.
La Garde nationale de Soueïda procÚde à des arrestations politiques, des assassinats et des actes de torture contre des personnalités druzes:
Le 28 novembre, la Garde nationale de SoueĂŻda a procĂ©dĂ© Ă une sĂ©rie d'arrestations et d'assassinats visant des personnalitĂ©s druzes importantes dans la province de SoueĂŻda. La coalition de milices druzes a apprĂ©hendĂ© dix personnes, les accusant d'avoir organisĂ© un « complot » en coopĂ©ration avec le gouvernement de transition syrien. Parmi les personnes arrĂȘtĂ©es figuraient plusieurs personnalitĂ©s influentes de la communautĂ© druze.
Le 29 novembre, des membres de la Garde nationale de SoueĂŻda ont enregistrĂ© des actes de torture contre le cheikh Matni. Son corps, portant des traces Ă©videntes de torture, a Ă©tĂ© dĂ©posĂ© Ă l'entrĂ©e de l'hĂŽpital municipal de SoueĂŻda le 2 dĂ©cembre. Cheikh Matni avait jouĂ© un rĂŽle dĂ©terminant dans la crĂ©ation du Conseil militaire de SoueĂŻda en fĂ©vrier 2025, une milice druze qui s'Ă©tait opposĂ©e aux forces du gouvernement de transition lors des violences intercommunautaires de juillet 2025. Matni entretenait des relations Ă©troites avec Cheikh Hikmat al-Hijri ; toutefois, des tensions sont apparues suite Ă l'opposition de Matni Ă l'initiative de Hijri visant Ă former la Garde nationale de SoueĂŻda. Des sources progouvernementales affirment que Matni a Ă©tĂ© arrĂȘtĂ© pour avoir plaidĂ© en faveur d'un rĂšglement nĂ©gociĂ© avec le gouvernement de transition syrien.
Un an aprĂšs la chute de Bachar el-Assad:
Le 8 décembre marquera le premier anniversaire de la chute du régime d'Assad. De nombreuses célébrations ont déjà eu lieu en Syrie. Le 6 décembre, l'Administration autonome du Nord et de l'Est de la Syrie (AANES) a publié un décret interdisant les festivités les 7 et 8 décembre. Le décret stipulait que cette décision était motivée par des raisons de sécurité, notamment la recrudescence des attaques terroristes.
S'il est vrai que la rĂ©cente dĂ©cision du gouvernement de transition syrien de rejoindre la coalition anti-Daech a renforcĂ© les activitĂ©s des groupes islamistes, il est probable que la dĂ©cision de l'AANES d'interdire les commĂ©morations du premier anniversaire de la chute d'Assad soit motivĂ©e par le souci du maintien de l'ordre public. L'Ă©chĂ©ance des nĂ©gociations concernant l'intĂ©gration de l'AANES et des FDS Ă l'Ătat syrien approche. Dans ce contexte tendu, l'AANES pourrait chercher Ă Ă©viter les manifestations qui contesteraient son autoritĂ© dans le nord-est de la Syrie et compromettraient ainsi sa capacitĂ© Ă dĂ©fendre son droit Ă l'autonomie.
Ăvolution de la situation :
- D'anciens hauts responsables du rĂ©gime d'Assad financent et Ă©quipent des rĂ©seaux clandestins en Syrie pour mener des activitĂ©s insurrectionnelles contre le gouvernement de transition syrien. Nombre de combattants organisĂ©s par ces mĂȘmes responsables sont des « soldats fantĂŽmes », dĂ©pourvus de loyautĂ© vĂ©ritable et recherchant avant tout un soutien financier. Le 3 dĂ©cembre, les services de sĂ©curitĂ© gĂ©nĂ©raux syriens (GSS) ont saisi plusieurs engins explosifs improvisĂ©s (EEI) et diverses munitions dans une planque de l'EI situĂ©e prĂšs de Damas.
#Syrie #Rojava #AANES #DAANES #Kurdistan #YPG #YPJ #FDS #SDF
Weekly Highlights 01.12.25 - 07.12.25
Abdullah Ocalan proposal for SDF disarmament
On November 24, Abdullah Ocalan proposed a plan for the integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the Syrian Ministry of Defense (MoD) to Turkish parliament members engaged in the PKK disarmament dialogue. This plan stipulates that the SDF should join the Syrian military while retaining its own internal security apparatus.
This announcement represents the first call from Ocalan for the SDF to assimilate into the Syrian military structure while preserving its internal security forces. In February 2025, Ocalan asserted that âall [PKK] groups must lay [down] their arms,â a statement interpreted by Turkish officials as a directive for the SDF to disarm and integrate into the Syrian transitional government under the MoD.
SDF Commander Mazloum Abdi asserted that it âapplies solely to the PKK [and is not] applicable to our situation in Syria.â Ocalanâs newly articulated vision aligns more closely with Abdiâs advocacy for a decentralized Syrian state, allowing the SDF to maintain local security governance in northeastern Syria.
AKP push for SDF to hand over strategical assets
On December 2, an AKP spokeperson indicated that Turkey may reassess its classification of the SDF as a âterrorist organization,â at the condition that SDF hands over critical resources and infrastructure to the Syrian government as part of its reintegration into the Syrian state.
The spokesperson also stated that the SDF would effectively âcease to be a threat to Turkey and a terrorist organizationâ if it submits control of strategic assetsâincluding airports, border crossings, and oil fieldsâto the Syrian government.
This transfer of pivotal resources and infrastructure is a strategic maneuver to undermine the SDF's influence in NES, as it would restrict it's access to the Turkish border and curtail its revenue streams from oil operations. Both Turkey and the Syrian government have asserted that the SDF must fully integrate into the Syrian state by yearâs end. A potential shift in Turkeyâs threat assessment could imply that Turkey may be anticipating the SDF's adherence to the March 10 agreement.
Suweida National Guard carries out political arrests, killings and torture of prominent Druze figures
On November 28, the Suwayda National Guard executed a series of arrests and killings targeting notable Druze figures within Suweida Province. The Druze militia coalition apprehended ten individuals, accusing them of organizing a âconspiracyâ in cooperation with the Syrian transitional government. Among those arrested were several influential figures of the Druze community.
On November 29, members of the Suweida National Guard recorded acts of torture against Sheikh Matni. His corpse, displaying evident signs of torture, was delivered to the entrance of Suweida City Hospital on December 2. Sheikh Matni had played a pivotal role in establishing the Suweida Military Council in February 2025, a Druze militia that confronted transitional government forces amid the intercommunal violence of July 2025. Matni maintained a close relationship with Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri; however, tensions arose following Matni's opposition to Hijriâs initiative to form the Suweida National Guard. Pro-government sources claim that Matni was arrested for advocating a negotiated settlement with the Syrian transitional government.
One year after the fall of Bashar Al-Assad
December 8 will mark one year since the fall of the Assad regime. Many celebrations have already taken place in Syria. On December 6, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) issued a decree forbidding celebrations on the 7th and 8th of the month. The decree stipulated that the decision was made for security reasons, citing the recent rise in terrorist attacks.
While it is true that the recent decision of the Syrian transitional government to join the anti-ISIS coalition has bolstered Islamist group activities, it is likely that the AANES's decision to forbid celebrations for the first anniversary of the fall of Assad is motivated by a desire to maintain public order. The deadline for the negotiations regarding AANES and SDF integration into the Syrian state is approaching. In these times of tension, the AANES might be attempting to avoid protests that would oppose its governance in Northeast Syria, thereby impacting its capacity to defend its right to autonomy.
Continuous developments:
- Former senior Assad regime officials are funding and equipping clandestine networks in Syria to conduct insurgent activity against the Syrian transitional government. Many of the fighters organized by those senior Assad regime officials are "ghost soldiers," lacking genuine loyalty and primarily seeking financial support.
- On December 3, the Syrian General Security Service (GSS) confiscated multiple improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and various munitions from an ISIS safe house located near Damascus. This operation is part of ongoing counter-ISIS efforts of the syrian government, which have dismantled several ISIS IED manufacturing sites in the region.
- On November 27 and 28, ISIS claimed responsibility for three attacks within Syrian government-controlled territory. This marks the group's first acknowledgment of attacks in this region since May 2025, likely answering to Syria's recent decision to join the Global Coalition Against ISIS.
#Syria #Rojava #AANES #DAANES #Kurdistan #YPG #YPJ #FDS #SDF
Die Welt ruft wieder nach der âZwei-Staaten-Lösungâ im Nahen Osten
als wĂŒrde mehr Staat automatisch mehr Frieden bedeuten.
Doch Staaten lösen keine WidersprĂŒche; sie zementieren Grenzen,
identitÀr, territorial, historisch.
Vielleicht liegt die Alternative lÀngst vor uns:
der kurdische Weg des Demokratischen Konföderalismus.
Keine Trennung, keine ethnische Logik, kein SouverĂ€n ĂŒber Menschen,
sondern Selbstverwaltung, Föderationen von unten,
Gemeinschaft statt Mauer, Autonomie statt Herrschaft.
Nicht zwei Staaten nebeneinander,
sondern viele Gesellschaften miteinander.
Rojava zeigt:
Frieden ist kein Vertrag,
sondern eine Praxis.
#Nahost #ZweiStaatenLösung #Konföderalismus #Rojava #Kurdistan
#israel #PalÀstina #fuckhamas
@IngridAusOL Das finden wir spitze! đâ€ïžđ Wir haben dieses Jahr in #Darmstadt auch schon zwei Mal fĂŒr @solardarity_rojava Spenden gesammelt.
#Rojava #Solardarity #RiseUpForRojava #Syrien #AANES #Nachhaltigkeit #Photovoltaik
@da_soli_rojava @medicointernational
Ich hab gerade gespendet - fĂŒr #Rojava.