ئەرشیفەکانى هاوپۆل: English

Where the revolution is more likely to happen, in developed or non-developing countries?

Where the revolution is more likely to happen, in developed or non-developing countries?

 

By: Zaher Baher

Nov 2016

 

Opposite to the communists and other leftists, I understand revolution as a socialist/anarchist one and its outcome is a classless and non-hierarchically society.

Developing capitalism, reaching globalization, the fast increase in the number of working class and  apparent economic crisis that has often been mistaken for capitalist  crisis – it all makes old theories about revolution obsolete. It’s not just that the revolution has not happened. In fact, if the revolution in advanced industrialized countries has not aborted, certainly it has been postponed for a long time.

Capitalism on its own managed to create many groups among leftists, socialists, libertarians and feminists who are serving the system instead of fighting it.  It also managed to find gaps, places as a cheap market, using issues of nationalism, terrorism, racism, fascism and religion to create different types of war between the human beings.  By doing this it has expanded and managed to renew itself.  This has proved that capitalism is not “digging a grave for itself” in fact it is digging it for us, and was able to create a crisis often to make our movement weaker and weaker.

In addition, capitalism in very industrialized countries long time ago has managed to defuse all the tools like strikes, demonstrations, protests that have been used by the working class and the rest as the tools of struggle.  These tactics in fact are now playing in the hands of the system instead to be against it.

Previously I have written quite a lot about that, I’m therefore trying to avoid repeating myself here and prefer to get straight to the subject.

 

There are a couple of views about the way revolution happens and its victory:

 

First: Revolution through vanguard party, the military coup or through the election of parliamentary system.  This means the revolution happens from the top of the society and the outcome of either one is more or less the same.  History proved that these revolutions wherever they have happened has not just failed but in fact, brought disasters and disappointment to people.  They also proved that imposing the theory over realities is wrong and brings catastrophe.

Second: preparation for happening revolution through self-organizing in radical independent non-hierarchal groups, committees, assemblies in all realms: politics, economic, culture, education, social and climate and ecology.  Self-organizing in factories, farms, public services, markets, schools, universities, and in other work place is crucial.  These groups in the beginning are working to achieve daily necessities and empowering the role and independence of the individuals.  Then to work on building a movement on a local level, nationwide through the social networks and the people’s assemblies in the neighborhoods, villages, cities and towns. They link together to launch their activities through direct action by using direct democracy.  After empowering themselves and establishing self-administration they can challenge the state and its entire administrations and getting closer to its main strategy.

 

In my opinion while we see the state as a main center of the entire power in the country, in this case it is practical and sensible to have the same view to the most advanced industrialized countries  like US, Canada, Australia, Russia, Japan and the western countries   as a center for the world.  This center with its financial institutions has an enormous political and economical power over the rest of the world, especially the not or less developed countries as they are main bases for them.  In this case collapsing this center with the theory “the revolution must be bottom up” should start from the countries which are protecting and preserving the interests of the advanced industrialized countries.  This does not mean the demonstrations, protests, strikes, occupations and riots do not happen in the industrialized countries.  On the contrary, while there has been exploitation, work slavery, inequality and no social justice, they certainly caused the backslash.  However, when people have  no intention to organize themselves, do not have a long-term plan, these tools of struggles are just temporary ways to  achieving  the current goals – even if all these actions are for maintaining what we have achieved previously. So these activities do not just achieve major changes; in fact they bring disappointment for people.

 

What made this Center so strong is the existence of not or less developed countries where they preserve the rich ground in providing cheap labors, cheap materials also they are lucrative markets for them.  When the political and economic dependency of the Center to these countries and vice versa ends, in other words when the bases are destroyed, then the top will collapse as well.

There are some social areas in less developed societies, which do not exist in advanced industrialized countries, being rich soil for a revolution. These grounds are::

 

  • Social Relationship

 

In these countries capitalism has not reached every corner of the individual’s life who are living in a very good social relationship and their contacts are more human and less on the basis of goods and materials.  The State’s agencies designated to help and support the poor or unemployed either do not exist or offer very little help.  And also in the situation of the natural and man-made disasters, in both cases, whole burden falls on the shoulders of the people themselves and their communities.  They help each other morally, financially, collecting stuff and showing solidarity.  In short, people in those societies rely completely on themselves in the community rather than on the government to fulfill their needs, when they face the disasters or in having happiness times.  In those countries there are still some simple bases of old community remained.   To certain extent still in some places these people are living and working collectively.  Their conversations are about politics and the problems are going on in their communities and outside, are concerning them.  In a society like this the contacts and making relationships between individuals in their workplaces, in neighborhood, in villages, in universities and other places are very easy.  People there talk about their daily needs; they debate and discuss the concerning issues, making decisions about them.   They trust one another so that it is easy for them to come together in doing the common work, activities and can commit themselves to do so.  Of course these can be much easier for the people to organize themselves for different issues, making decisions and delivering them.  Certainly this is easier to be done   in remote villages than very big villages, in towns than the cities.  The self-organization through building local groups and people’s assemblies, make people working and living collectively in convenient and more practical.

There are more positive points in addition to the above in the societies of those countries while  in an advanced industrialized countries it either does not exist or very little.

 

  • The weak points of the capitalism

 

It is quite clear that achieving easy target and easy victory always happen from the weakest point of the system. It is also clear the weakest point here are the none or lesser industrialized countries and their communities because of the grounds that I described above.  While in these societies the majority of their people have not become robot, their talks and conversation are still not about the latest fashions, models of the different consuming, they have still remained human being. In these places effort and preparation for building cooperatives, trying to live together, desiring to share their social and economic necessities is easy.  In such places the villages, the countryside and the small towns are less dependent to big towns and free-market.

In those countries and their societies, if the people are ruling themselves, they are able to obtain all the necessities of life, and also simple tools, means of agricultural and ecological economy.  If they cannot obtain some of their needs, they can get them through exchanging process via social network or their assemblies.  There is no doubt to believe there are countries in the world where people remain poor, if the people rule themselves. What made those countries and their society are poor is greedy rich and elites, the state, corruption, the society  structures  that set up on the basis of class and hierarchy and implementing polices and plan of neo-liberal economy.

 

The process of defeating the capitalism, the process of ending up the dependency of one another is slow, long way but very solid.  Its entire victory and expanding the experiment rely on the international solidarity of libertarians and anti-authoritarians and also happening the same process at least in a few countries…

Existing hierarchical and class society, inequality, injustice, poverty, war and more, have left us with just a few options: sitting down and doing nothing, or waiting for the vanguard party, the military coup, election (the biggest lie in history).  This way is more dangerous than the sitting back and doing nothing because most of the time intensify the disasters.  Or simply fighting back the system through building the independent radical non-hierarchal local groups. These are the real basis and the real hope for the future revolution.

 

Zaherbaher.com

 

 

Kurdish speaking Anarchist Forum need your help to unblock Facebook account, page and groups

Dear Friends and Comrades,

We as Kurdish speaking Anarchist Forum need your help to sign our petition

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/kurdish-speaking-anarchist?source=c.em&r_by=16582771

As you are aware since 2015 our Facebook account : Kurdish-Speaking Anarchist Forum under the name of KAF ( Anarkistan Azadixwazan) www.facebook.com./Kurdistan.anarchists.forum have been blocked by Facebook team.

Many times we have made Facebook aware that our account is a group account not individual account. In response, they asked us to provide them evidence/identities to prove our statement. We always replied and in many occasions we met their demands by providing Iraqi identity of the group’s members but still have not received a satisfied answer from them.

Please see below the dates that we contacted Facebook:

11/18/15 at 6:59 AM

2/24/16 at 9:21 PM

3/13/16 at 10:35 AM

6/22/16 at 9:09 PM

06/28/2016 at 15:18

6/30/16 at 7:16 AM

7/15/16 at 1:46 PM

In every response we have provided the documents that Facebook team requested. Unfortunately they have not taken them seriously, instead, again and again they asked for the same information .

While we provided Facebook all the necessary documents as before , but we still have not received their reply to our e-mail of 15/07/2016 . It is clear for us that Facebook have ignored our request and failed to satisfied us as to why they do not want to open our accounts. Facebook’s attitude is clearly very hostile to anarchism and anarchist movement that we are a part of it. We, therefore , have no choice but protesting against their discrimination and prejudice attitude towards us and towards our pages that we listed down:

www.facebook.com/kurdistan.anarchists.forum                                        closed at 15. Nov. 2015

www.facebook.com/groups/pertukxaney.Enraki/                        closed at 15. Nov. 2015

www.facebook.com/groups/anarkistan/                                        closed at 15. Nov. 2015

www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009554550402                            closed at 15. Nov. 2015

https://www.facebook.com/groups/azadiwazan/                       closed at 14. Oct. 2016

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Pertuky.Anarky                    closed at 14. Oct. 2016

https://www.facebook.com/groups/978063422320020/                          closed at 14. Oct. 2016

We are sure while Facebook monitoring our pages they are also aware of our messages as they are against repression, wars, terrorism, racism, sexism, nationalism, discrimination, abusing children and women, corruption, coercive and many more. We are fighting for achieving : freedom, equality, social justice, living collectively, solidarity and classless society.

Dear Supporter our accounts are still closed, therefore we ask you to sign our petition as a form of protest against Facebook team’s discrimination . Please forward this petition to anybody you know for signing it , in order to force the Facebook to open our pages as above.

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/kurdish-speaking-anarchist?source=c.em&r_by=16582771

With solidarity

Kurdish-speaking Anarchist Forum

KAF

Leftists and Communists have damaged the Socialist movement as much as the right-wing did

Leftists and Communists have damaged the Socialist movement as much as the right-wing did  

By: Zaher Baher

Sep 2016

The last century has seen a couple of historical catastrophes that continue to present day and the world still suffers from their fallout. The first one was so-called the Bolshevik revolution (Bolshevism) and the second was the “Iranian revolution”.  While none of them was revolution, in fact both stopped the revolution in the half way.

The first catastrophe has lasted almost for 80 years, it engaged nearly half of the world and its shade still looms over our heads. The second one helped to build religion political parties and their militia in the region, especially in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Afghanistan. This has caused deepest fear and wariness for its main rival, Saudi Arabia. To the Iran/Iraq war, incoming of Mujahidin, Taliban, al-Qaeda in Afghanistan then Isis and the current wars between Sunni and Shia, Sunni and Sunni and Sunni and the “infidels”, the “Iranian revolution” contributed greatly.  Dark time triggered by this movement is here to stay and nobody knows for how long.

Both of them were recognised and defined by many people, including the leftists and Communists themselves, as two different events/directions.  The first one as a left and the second as a right-wing, while both of them were the enemy of socialism/anarchism.  Both of them were the main obstacles to reach the socialism destination.  While both of them built upon their own principles, in practice both are being hostile to socialism, so recognising them by left or right for me in that aspect does not make a sense.  In addition both have a common principal “Ideology” that has given them strength and power.

In this article I mainly elaborate and highlight the communists and its ideology’s base, Marxism.  Here I want to explain briefly the source of hostility to socialism that the leftists and Communists have relied on and the affected realms.

  • Left in the past and present:

Leftists, from social democrats, the socialist political parties, green parties to the working class/labour parties throughout the world never could become revolutionary forces to take the society towards major changes.  Their slogans and demands, like freedom, social justice and equality have vanished as soon as they reached power. The Leftists’ struggle in non industrialised countries was represented the guerrilla’s war. In a sense of analyzing radical struggle, they never got anywhere or just simply built something, what in many cases was worse than the previous one.

In industrialised countries their struggle was the parliamentary election system.  Once they reached power, they were unable to fulfil what they promised to people, so they betrayed those who voted for them.  There is no doubt that among them there were faithful and dedicated people that their actual motivation to involve politics was to serve people, especially among the social democrats or labour parties. There were Marxist-Leninist people within these groups and most of the time they have/had more radical manifesto than their own party.

The power of people in political parties is very limited and they only project the illusion of changes, eventually disappointing their own supporters.

The socialist, the very radical people inside these political parties, in reality have left no doubt that, whether deliberately or not, they serve this system much better than their right-wing colleagues.  They do that by prolonging the system; by deceiving people that their life can be improved step by step through the historical lie of election.  They tell them this is the only way to make improvement, so there is no another way, no third way.

The experience and the realities proved while the leftist or socialists are in power, they are not only quelling the spirit of revolution among people, in fact they demoralise them, even killing their normal drive for resistance.  In Europe, especially in UK, the period when Labour Party has been in power the number of the protests and strikes decreased compared to when Tory Party were in power.

The link below shows how the strikes in UK since 1970s are decreasing and becoming less effective as well. Since 1990 each year the number of the strike actions and their effectiveness dropped apart from 2011 as it was slightly different.  The link also shows the reasons why there are fewer strikes every year although I personally disagree with the author’s reasoning.  http://isj.org.uk/why-are-there-so-few-strikes/

For many of the leftists, especially the Communists, distorting of the socialist movement for not achieving socialism go back to ‘Stalin’.  A minority thinks Stalin has done nothing except prolonging Lenin’s period and his theory.

However, if we look at the history and reality properly, we reach a conclusion that we cannot blame Stalin and Lenin for that because all of what Lenin did was originated from Marx and Engels.

Let’s briefly look at the excuses of those who believe Lenin and Marx were different from one another as if Lenin has distorted Marx’s theory and idea:

Organisation and working class party:

One of the factors pushed Lenin to build a political party was transferring a class consciousness to working class.  He did not believe that the class consciousness emerges from external conditions and their actual impact on working class itself. He also believed in controlling the working class through the strict discipline of political party as he did not believe in the spontaneous movement of working class.  He thought the spontaneous movement is chaotic and does not get the working class anywhere.

For victory of the revolution Lenin believed building a revolutionary political party is essential and also believed the communists are the most conscious people. This was the reason for him to build his party outside of the workers. So the Vanguard party is the best tool of the revolution and to build the Dictatorships of Proletariat.  In his famous book “what can be done?” he lied down the plans and principles for Bolshevik Party and made it as main guideline for the party members to work on and go by it.

Lenin has got the idea of building the working class party form Marx. Marx in the Manifesto of the Communist Party said “The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties “

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

Clearly in this short line Marx tells us: a) the communists and the workers are different.  b) The working class can have their own political parties.

John Molyneux, academic, writer and one of the former leading SWP in Briton and now in Ireland has written various articles about Lenin and his theory.  I regard him as one of the best people who has excellent knowledge about Lenin, Trotsky and Marx and can connecting them in respect of analyzing many issues.  I refer here to him in some of his writings about the working class political party.  In the link below he said “But when one speaks of Marx’s theory of the party, the subject is not political parties in general, but the revolutionary party which has as its aim the overthrow of capitalism – specifically one is talking about Marx’s concept of a proletarian political party, because, of course, it was his view that ‘the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class ..”  He continuous writing and says   “…Indeed Marx often suggests that the workers cannot be regarded as a class in the full sense of the word until they have created their own distinct party. Thus we find in The Communist Manifesto that ‘the organization of the proletarians into a class, and consequently into a political party, is continually being upset Again by the competition between the workers themselves’ [11], and in the decision of the London Conference (1871) of the First International that ‘the proletariat can act as a class only by constituting itself a distinct political party’. [12] This basic idea remained central to the theory and practice of both Marx and Engels from the mid-1840s to the end of their lives” in the same writing Molyneux carry on, he refers to Marx who said “This constitution of the proletariat into a political party is indispensable to ensure the triumph of the Social Revolution and of its ultimate goal: the abolition of classes. [45]

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/molyneux/1978/party/ch01.htm

Lenin and Marxists-Leninists wanted to share their idea and principles with the working class to debate the working class struggles and transferring them the socialist consciousness, but as the history since then shows in practice they have controlled them and while they were in power they exploited and suppressed them.

  • State, Centralism and Authority

In regard to the above, there are leftists and Communists again who believe that what Lenin did was not originated from Marx and Engels.  In my opinion that is not true. In fact Marx and Engels persisted on centralism and authority. In the first and second International  Workers’ Organisation  as the central and authoritarian organisation, the messages sent out  and order the working class was “ Workers of the world, unite!“.  Marx himself was on the top position in this organisation. It was then when Marx insisted on having a central authority in the organisation which was rejected by Bakunin.  Bakunin believed that centralism in organisation suppresses the spontaneous action and revolutionary enthusiasm.  This was one of the reasons that made Marx remove Bakunin and his comrades from the organisation.

Marx believed after taking over control of the means of production there will be a temporary period of transition from the socialist society to Communism. Marx made his theory about that very clear in 1870 in his book, Critique of the Gotha Programme The transitional period is essentially a period of revolutionary change.  “Between capitalist and communist society,” wrote Marx, “lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other.”24..  Although Marx in this book clearly talked about the authority but  the foundation of this ideas has back to 1843  “In fact, in The German Ideology itself, the theory of proletarian dictatorship (not yet given this name) is presented rather clearly: ”. . . every class which is aiming at domination, even when its domination, as is the case with the proletariat, leads to the abolition of the old form of society in its entirety and of domination in general, must first conquer political power in order to represent its interest in turn as the general interest, which in the first moment it is forced to do.”18    Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, 52-53. Please see the link below.

In fact the type and the reason of state that Marx and his successors wanted to establish are really not important at all.  Any type of state whether is small or big, proletariat or bourgeois state; all of them need bureaucratic administrations, police, military, courts and law and the spies’ network or institutions.

In reply to Marx, Bakunin said in his book:  Statehood and Anarchy, “If there is a state, then there is domination and consequent slavery. A state without slavery, open or camouflaged, is inconceivable—that is why we are enemies of the state. What does it mean, ‘the proletariat raised to a governing class?’”26.  Marx responded, “It means that the proletariat, instead of fighting in individual instances against the economically privileged classes, has gained sufficient strength and organisation to use general means of coercion in its struggle against them…”27.  Then Bakunin asks, “Will all 40 million [German workers] be members of the government?”28   Marx’s response, “Certainly! For the system starts with the self-government of the communities.”29

When Marx writes about the proletarian power and the peasantry he says “the proletariat… must, as the government, take the measures needed… “30, see the link below

http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/karl-marx-the-state.html

However, from very beginning Bakunin idea and attitudes towards state were clear and never hidden; he made the following caustic remark about Communism “I detest communism, because it is the negation of liberty and because I can conceive nothing human without liberty. I am not a communist because communism concentrates and’ absorbs all the powers of society into state, because it necessarily ends the centralization of property in the hand of the state, while I want the abolition of state”

http://www.politicalsciencenotes.com/political-ideas/comparison-between-karl-marx-and-michael-bakunin/1207

Alas what Bakunin predicted about Marx’s state, after almost a half century the Communist and the Bolshevik party proved to be true.

Many Marxists deny that what came in Critique of the Gotha Programme, has anything to do with state. However, both Marx and Engels in other statements or correspondences were insisting on power and centralism.  Even for some countries or places Marx accepted election as the Parliamentary system can be a peaceful period to exchange the power Did they not advocate participation in bourgeois elections, and the election of workers’ candidates into parliament? In fact, in certain countries, they even thought that a working class parliamentary majority could be used for a peaceful transition to socialism”62

http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/karl-marx-the-state.htm

A couple of issues were very important for Marx: centralism and industrialisation. He was very keen on having them. He always thought these two are main foundations for establishing socialism. That is why both Marx and Engels became a great advocate of centralism in the politics and in working places as well.  They never denied this fact; I have already mentioned centralism in regards of their politics above.

They believed that working in factory is good for the workers.  Engels praised the factory “as a school for hierarchy, for obedience and command” (Ecology or Catastrophe, the life o Murray Bookchin, By Janet Biehl), P 190.

In another book, Bookchin says “Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were centralists – not only politically but socially and economically.  They never denied this fact, and their writings are studied with glowing encomiums to political, organisational, and economic centralisation.  As early as March  1850 in the Address of the Central Council to the Communist  League, they called upon the workers to strive not only for  the single and indivisible German republic, but also strive in it for the most decisive centralisation of power in the hands of the state authority lest the demand be taken lightly , it was repeated continually in the same paragraph, which concludes: As in France in 1793, so today in Germany the carrying through  of the strictest centralisation is the task of the really revolutionary party’.  The Murray Bookchin Reader Edited By Janet Biehl, P140.

On the same page Janet wrote: The same theme reappeared continually in later years.  With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, for example, Marx wrote to Engels “The French need a thrashing. If the Prussians win, the centralisation of state power will be useful for the centralisation of the German working class”

On the personal level, Marx also was arrogant and authoritarian. He has not made much effort and was not ready to unite with those who differed with him, even they if they did not have significant differences.  Anybody who reads his correspondences with his opponent, like Proudhon, Bakunin, Max Stirner and the others realises that.

  • Working class and Technology

Marx was very concerned about the revolution and insisted that it was the task of working class only.  He, in other words, thought the advanced technology and industrialisation creates a strong working class that will be ready for the revolution.  This was the reason why we see almost his main writings and studding being about industrialisation, capital, added value, working class and its class struggle with bourgeoisie to prove that the future of socialism can only be in the hand of Proletariat.  This means that any society must go through the advanced capitalism before heading to socialism.  This is the reason for Marx to be very hopeful about Proletariat to the point “Marx had written that if the working class ever accepted capitalism as natural, then all hopes for revolution would be lost” Ecology or Catastrophe, Edited By Janet Biehl, P285.

While Marx connected the strengths of Proletariat to advanced technology, he did not hide his feeling and happiness even if that would happen through destroying many people’s life, displacing many thousands more, the environment, causing starvation and unemployed. The best example was East India Company, while   this company in the end became an empire on its own and ruled a very large area of India.

Janet Biehl in the same book on page 60 drawing our attention to what Bookchin remarkably said about Marx’s idea and thought “Marx had considered it capitalism ‘historical mission to develop technology to the point where it could provide for humanity’s material needs” In the same book on page 190 she wrote what Bookchin says “Marx had even thought capitalism, by destroying earlier economic forms and developing technology, had played a historically progressive role.  He thought class society had been historically necessary to achieve humanity’s ultimate liberation.  Such notions, Bookchin wrote, made Marxism, all appearance to the contrary, ‘the most sophisticated ideology of advance capitalism’.”

David Graeber in his new book: The Utopia of Rules on page 121 and 122 talks about Marx’s idea of technology and profit that actually did not come out true especially if it concerns revolution in the area of means of production.  He says “ Marx’s specific argument was that, for certain technical reasons, value, and therefore profits, can only be extracted  from human labour.  Competition forces factory owners to mechanise production, so as to reduce labour costs, but while this is to the short-term advantage of the individual firm, the overall effect of such mechanization is actually to drive   the overall rate of profit of all firm down.  For almost two centuries now, economists have debated whether all this is really true.  But if it is true the otherwise mysterious decision by industrialist not to pour research funds into the invention of the robot factories that everyone was anticipating in the sixties , and instead to begin to relocate their factories to more labour-intensive, low-tech facilities in Chain or the Global South, makes perfect sense”

Graeber in the same book on page 143 says “…that capitalism is in its nature technologically progressive.  It would seem that Marx and Engels in their giddy enthusiasm for the industrial revolution of their day were simply wrong about this.  Or to be more precise: they were right to insist that the mechanisation of industrial production would eventually destroy capitalism, they were wrong to production market competition would compel factory owners to go on with mechanisation anyway”

 

Even knowing that Proletariat was a minority within the society, Marx put a huge task on it. Not just fulfilling the revolution and even not controlling the state only; in fact he believed that the workers should have and set up their own committees in the factories and the other places of work to control the production and other issues.  This means giving the authority to a minority of people to overrule the majority; in other words, power to minority on the expense of majority. The power and authority, whatever its size anywhere that means there is no social justice, no equality and no freedom.

Murray Bookchin in his interview with Janet Biehl explained this point very well “ …Well unless the worker in an enterprise really begin to see themselves primarily  as citizens rather than workers, then we are opening up the very strong possibility that they will claim at the expense of the popular assembly.  To the extent that you withdraw power from the popular assembly and give to work place, to that extent you open cracks in the unity of the popular assembly  and increase the possibility that the  workplaces itself  will act as subversive  element in relation to the popular assembly.  let me put it simply: The more power the workplace has, the less power the  popular assembly has – and the less power the workplace has, the more power the popular assembly has.”  The politics of Social Ecology, Libertarian Municipalism, Edited by Janet Biehl, Page162.

In regards to the definition of Proletariat for Marxist today, especially the Marxists in Middle East they need to clarify themselves.  If they accept the same definition as Marx had in his day of Proletariat then that is quite far from the reality and they will be disappointed about the revolution. If they agree that everybody wherever they work and whatever they do including students, pensioners and disabled people are workers, and then in this case they should review their understanding of Proletariat.

However, it might not be very important really how they define proletariat.  What important is we know and very clear is the working class is much weaker and the hope of the revolution by them very slim than the time was Marx alive. Here, we can say that Marx’s prediction by increasing the quantity and quality of proletariat along side of advance technology, strong capitalism and getting frequent economic crisis that for him as coming a sign of the revolution did not happen.

If we look at the reality considering working class even the people’s movement are in a very low level, except in France and Greece.  Even the actual struggles in these two countries are not to achieve anything new, in fact to maintain, to keep what they had before.  This made me for the last 10 years to think that the economic crisis has not been capitalism crisis, it was our crisis.  To clarify my point I wrote a long article in Oct of 2015 under the title: Is Capitalism in Crisis, or Are We?

http://zaherbaher.com/2015/12/14/is-capitalism-in-crisis-or-are-we/

 

Technology and its Role: As I mentioned above technology and its advances were very important for Marx and Marxists in building socialism.  For them advanced technology was a historical development and condition to tackle scarcity of production and also to create dynamic revolutionary force, proletariat.  If we look into this topic closely we can make several points. First: Marx had no doubt that a strong proletariat emerge from an advanced technology and advanced technology is necessary for industrialising society; finally full industrialisation creates socialism.  This was how Marx has seen his final goal and that was also the reason as to why Marx thought the bourgeois is a revolutionary class and recommended the proletariat to offer its support.  Even now many of the Marxists think the bourgeois is revolutionary.  Second:  this analysis by Marx became the foundation for Lenin, Stalin and their successors to work on to clarify Marx’s point better and put it in practice in real world. With help of Marx’s theory they have divided the history of human beings society in respect to arriving of socialism into 5 to 6 stages.  It started from primitive society, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism and then communism.  This division clarified the role of proletariat and technology as even more important.  They insist on that talking about building socialism in the non advanced economy countries was dream and not practical.

 

Technology and the quantity and quality of proletariat in fact are not even a secondary condition for emerging revolution and reaching socialism/anarchism society.  The grounds for this revolution are existing classes and hierarchical society dominated by the tiny minority of elites.  This condition has left the majority of people either having nothing or very little and the elites having everything.  This kind of societies existed throughout the history since the class society appeared, so it is really not important whether that tiny minority in that society was named feudal, bourgeois or capitalist.  It is very true the societies have been changed through the means of production but the exploitation, suppression, class and hierarchy society were always there.  The above was the main ground for emerging revolutions regardless of the type of the society that people lived in.

In general the Communist, Bolshevik parties in the world struggled to make bourgeois more stronger and to work on industrialising the society, even if their slogans praised socialism.  This was the reason for those parties to cooperate with the so called “patriotic bourgeois” to establish different kind of powers: socialist state, patriotic democracy state, popular democratic state, communist state. In few pre-capitalist countries, like Iraq, the Communists even participated in governments. They were trying to transform the society into socialist one, skipping the capitalist phase (the non- Capitalist path of development). In Iraq the Iraqi Communist Party, ICP, had a pact with Ba’ath party over 5 years between 1973 to end of 1978.

So whatever happened in Lenin period and after him, we will see its root in Marx’s theory and idea.

In my opinion this thinking of proletariat and advanced technology as necessary for the society to go through capitalism in order to reach socialism/anarchism greatly damaged our movement for the last 170 years. It is also quite obvious this idea has made the Marxists ideologist blind, as they cannot see the realities, pen their mind, think on their own rather than following someone who died 133 years ago. They now need to ask themselves if Marx’s revolution theory connects to the role of proletariat and industrialisation that means the revolution in the none industrialising countries will not be happening. More questions here are how this revolution can happen even in the industrialised countries? Is it through vanguards, even if history proved they are the suppressors of the revolutions rather than liberators? Let’s say it will be happened through them; but how do you transfer the society into full power through the Dictatorships of Proletariat, to Communism, classless society? The Marxists can only respond to these questions quoting Marx’s bible, not through the reality.

 

  • Technology, Nature, Environment and Ecology:

Marx and Engels exceptionally highly valued technology, for their own purpose. No doubt it was on the expense of environment, nature and whatever creatures live on the planet. Marx saw human beings precious and valuable to the extent of subduing the nature and dominating it by the human beings for their interests.  In this point Marx shares his interest with Qur’an because both of them believe that the nature has been created to serve human being.  This was the reason for Marx to produce his infamous line when he says “Human being is the most valuable capital in the world” According to this statement the other creatures are not very important, In other words, we can sacrifice them for the sake of human being’s interests.

I cannot recall Lenin writing a lot about ecology or environment like how Marx did.  Even Marx has not written as much as Peter Kropotkin and Murray Bookchin have.  However, whatever Marx wrote about this issue, showing his concern, in practice he was very hostile to nature by praising and advocating technology so much.  Marx wanted the nature to be dominated by the human being and this can only happened in his view by having advanced technology.  He did not pay any attention to damage and destruction of natural environment. He did not mind killing animals, birds and other creatures with displacing many more.  He missed the need of balance between technology and nature.  He ignored the fact that while nature in many ways serves people and the society and then in return it should be served by the Human being as well.

What is clear today is the whole natural disasters including raising global temperature are being created by mankind through the advanced technology for more money and profit.  I believe many of us agree that this is a clear hostility towards nature.

 

  • Self-Determination and Nation State:

Marx and Engels talked and wrote a lot about various issues.  As the nationalism and national movements at their time were a hot issue they tried to link it to proletariat question so that they could not avoid discussing it.

At the time there was Poland issue back to 1795 and Ireland that for a few centuries was a colony of Great Britain and from 1801 became a part of it.  There was also the Jewish question, in addition to Hungary, Slovaks, and Czech and Bulgarian issues as well.

When the Bourgeois revolution in France in Feb 1848 happened, it pushed Marx and Engels towards giving more attention to national question and their expectation from Bourgeois class.  Their definition for Bourgeois revolution was Democratic Bourgeois Revolution, struggling for nation’s freedom. So we should not be surprise to hear their opinion of the Bourgeois At this time, Marx and Engels believed the bourgeoisie could play a historically progressive role by sweeping away feudalism, despite clear signals that it was prepared to compromise with the old order because it feared the power of the growing working class that allied itself to the anti-feudal struggle”.  Marx and Engels did not pause here, when they spoke about Germany and its connection with Poland, they clarified their attitude about the National issue and laid down a duty for the Proletariat “Referring to the struggle in Germany at the time, Marx and Engels explained that this meant the working class must “fight [together] with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revolutionary way, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie”.3

http://links.org.au/node/164

Of course they believed that support or even union of proletariat and bourgeoisie in the anti-feudal struggle would be in the interest of working class, creating next step towards socialism

In Poland question, Marx and Engels were very much in favor of the Polish after seeing a clear exploitation and suppression; they supported them in their right of Self-Determination. In Nov 1847 in commemorating the 1831 Polish revolt in London meeting, Engels had a speech about the liberating Poland. He said “We Germans have a particular interest in the liberation of Poland. German princes have profited from the partition of Poland and German soldiers are still exercising oppression in Galicia and Posen [parts of Poland]. It must be the concern of us Germans, above all, of us German democrats, to remove this stain from our nation. A nation cannot be free and at the same time continue to oppress other nations. Thus Germany cannot be liberated without the liberation of Poland from oppression by Germans. And for this reason Poland and Germany have a common interest, for this reason Polish and German democrats can work together for the liberation of both nations”.5  (see: the previous link)

What is amazing here although above was Engels’ opinion about Poland as one of the “great historic nations” but in the meantime he did not approve the same right for some of other nation, like, Southern Slavs.  His justification was “ Engels’ view was based on the firm materialist reasoning that the various southern Slav peoples were not yet nations — were not oppressed as nations — and therefore could not exercise a self-determination independent of the reactionary Prussia-Austria-Russia axis (…) Apart from the Poles, the Russians and at most the Turkish Slavs, no Slav people has a future, for the simple reason that all the other Slavs lack the primary historical, geographical, political and industrial conditions for independence and viability. (…) While Engels noted the capitalist tendency towards centralization and the establishment of large states, he underestimated the countervailing tendency for small nations to fight against national oppression and for independent states of their own — that the path to the elimination of national boundaries might first have to go through a proliferation of them — a fact that Lenin was later to recognize” (The same previous link.)

In regards to Ireland Marx had different opinions. In a letter to Engels in 1867, Marx said   “I used to regard Ireland’s separation from England as impossible (…) I now think it inevitable, although federation may follow separation.”   He continued and said “I long believed it was possible to overthrow the Irish regime by way of the English working class ascendancy. A deeper study has now convinced me of the opposite. The English working class will never achieve anything before it has got rid of Ireland”.

I quoted Marx and Engels in respect of National Question to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that Lenin has got his opinions and principles from Marx.  It is not his own theory; however, we should acknowledge that Lenin has done this in practice.  The statement of “Self-Determination” became an article in the plan and program of Bolshevik alike parties in the world.  He has written a lot about this issue in very detail especially in his famous book, Lenin and National Liberation in the East.  This book has become a guide for the Communist people although in many countries the Communist parties have sacrificed the principle of Self-Determination to diplomatic relation between Russia at the time with the “Patriotic Government”.  In some of the countries the Communist Parties have sacrificed this principle because they got on very well with the Ruler Bourgeois.  Obviously in this circumstances the only interest the Communist party was concerned was the old Russia’s interest and clearly it was at the expense of their own people.

Conclusion:

Lenin followed Marx in whatever he has done and said.  Some of the analyzing from Marx for the Marxists became a Bible, but this is not right because many of Marx’s writings and predictions have not come out truth, in fact they damaged the socialist movement badly. The Marxists should have reviewed Marx rather than sacred him. Marx’s times in term of Proletariat and technology were very much different from now.  Many of Max’s writings and predictions were wrong for his time and are still wrong now.  Marx had a great fear about the scarcity of necessary production to sustain the life of people, this was one of his reasons of defending the technology and also technology for him has a great role in coming revolution.  The life proved that this was not true as well.  His definition for proletariat as only a revolutionary class might for his period was right, but certainly now have been proved wrong.  Not only they cannot unite in one day action even they cannot unite in one office, in one section, department (of course there are reasons for this).  Working class like the rest in the society are the main protectors of this system, it is them who hold the system tied and keep it intact.  What important for them are their jobs even if that comes at the expense of killing innocent people in other countries and destroying their lands.  We can see this fact today very clearly; any of us can bring up many examples.  Again setting up committees and assemblies only from the working class and them to be in control is wrong.  We want everybody should have a power not just the workers alone.

Marx and Marxists have been believing in political revolution and taking power from the top, while the revolution should be social revolution starts from the bottom of the society and should cover every single area.  The ecology issue is very important too; to certain extent if the revolution does not cover that area then the revolution will be failed.  We also cannot talk only about class issue without addressing the hierarchy issue seriously.

In dividing history of human beings in respect of arriving socialism, like how Lenin and Stalin developed later, Marxists are wrong.  This theory has caused a lot of problems for the countries in which the Communist parties betrayed the socialism by cooperation with the Bourgeois Ruler in the country and take a part in the dictator government or setting up their own one.

 

Changing the name of Kurdistan Anarchist Forum to Kurdish-Speaking Anarchist Forum

Changing the name of Kurdistan Anarchist Forum to Kurdish-Speaking Anarchist Forum

 

Kurdistan Anarchist Forum (KAF) formed in 2005, until now it has been recognised by this name.  The word ‘Kurdistan’ caused so many questions from different comrades and friends and from many places and organisations. We were asked why ‘Kurdistan’ ? We, therefore, wrote some clarification in the form of ‘FAQ about KAF’ to explain and clarify our position that when we say ‘Kurdistan’ nothing to do with “nationalism” or “Patriotic”.  In fact using ‘Kurdistan’ was only to reflect the place of our activates as we explained in our ‘FAQ about KAF’.

 

In  order to avoid any more confusion and for clarity, we as (KAF) comrades thought it is better to changing the name to (Kurdish-Speaking Anarchist Forum) but still remain as (KAF).

 

Just to let all our comrades and friends know, From now on our letters, announcements and publicities will be under the name of Kurdish-Speaking Anarchist Forum (KAF)

 

With Solidarity

Kurdish-Speaking Anarchist Forum (KAF)

1st Sep 2016

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On the latest process in Turkey

Istanbul Yenikapi Rally that was realized last Sunday is an important example showing the extent of political mobilization in Turkey, happening in the last month. The rally, which was joined by five million people and the leaders of opposition parties (except HDP), showing “unity of the protectors of democracy”, actually had multiple messages targeting both domestic and foreign politics. During the coup process, which can be described as the clashing of power groups inside the state, it looks like president Erdogan and AKP Government managed to talk different political groups into their “politics for coup process”.

What Happened?

The existence of state on the lands we live on, is directly related to the existence of the army, especially considering its relation during the founding process. Coup is a term that has an important place in the political life of the Turkish Republic. One can see how the coup, as an inevitable political reality of the existence of state in these lands, affects the current state policies considering the latest coup that occurred, the 1980 Coup. What happened on July 15, has a character that continues this political reality. The army who wanted to intervene the political power tried to take control of strategically important state buildings; many bureaucrats in strategically important positions were taken hostage, the parliament and intelligence buildings were bombed, bridges and airports were blocked by soldiers, clashes occurred between soldiers and the police. The five hour coup attempt was terminated with different and rapid maneuvers of the current government and especially of president Erdogan. Among these maneuvers, notable factors are control of the media, control of the civil and mass mobilization through the media and the control of law enforcement under Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Mobilization

Current political power was able to maintain a massive mobility since July 15 under the name “democracy watch” especially targeting the street and military areas. To create the civil mobilization that stopped the tanks marching towards the bridges blocked by soldiers on the night before July 16, AKP have been using all facilities of state. Since July 15, while this mobilization is identified with sacred values of the state, and the ones who lost their lives in this mobilization are declared “martyrs” with stories of heroism, a state of continuous vigilance is tried to be created by steadily pumping hate and revenge. The big rally mentioned above is en extension of this state of vigilance. We see that part of the mobilization on the street is also targeting various sections (Kurdish, Alevi, Opposition) that stand against the state in different areas. AKP and Erdogan, which hold the current political power, have become a platform for Islamist-nationalist formations. This is shown clearly by the symbols created by the process.

Cover Of Democracy

Each coup is a process by which the state oppression shows itself in a physical and violent form. It is nothing but putting pressure on the oppressed using force and violence to take over the political power. As revolutionaries who experienced the period when military coup of 1980 directly murdered, tortured and repressed the revolutionaries and the oppressed, and the period following it, we know too well what coups really are.

We also know what is being tried under the name of allegedly anti-coup “democracy struggle” since July 15. The state of being “elected power” which is raised as an argument against the sections that plotted the coup, plays an important part in legitimizing current position of AKP and Erdogan. All political discourse they raised since July 15 is in fact related to this cover of democracy.

We have emphasized before that AKP and Erdogan have made explicit their characteristic of being a platform for Islamist-nationalist sections. Especially considering the struggle of these sections against pro-coup, laicistic, radical Kemalist power groups inside the state since the founding of the state, it can be seen that there is an existential contradiction between this platform and the army and republican bureaucrats. As much as this contradiction seems like pro-democracy, it is really far away from it. To see the distance, it is suffice to look at the “demands” in the street. Death penalty, presidency with extra authorities, and many other demands based on the same Islamist and nationalistic values are hidden under the cover of democracy.

While democracy is sanctified by the current political power, demands of the 51% who voted for this political power in the latest elections are described as the will of the people. The reality is even farther away from this. Current political power is trying to sell its plans and strategies as the people’s demands. Since this platform is against all “political values of the West”, its play of pro-democracy is not realistic.

It must be noted, on the other hand, that we should not fall into the same trap that some socialist organizations fell into while doing the analysis. Our criticism above does not mean that we embrace the democratic values of the system. In fact, it is the same democratic system that makes possible “the majority oppress the minority” under the play of pro-democracy. Inside this democratic system, when radical Islamist take power, they are the pro-democratic; and when the nationalists or liberals take power, they are. This is the exact message that AKP and Erdogan want to give to the West; “we are democratic”.

Who Plotted The Coup?

In our assessments from the start, we indicated that the current process is a result of the power groups inside the state fighting for power. It’s known that since the first elections that AKP started to hold the state power, AKP has relationships with the Gulen Community which was gaining popularity especially in the international media. Even Erdogan himself declared in a recent rally, that he had relations with the Gulen Community and that he was deceived and apologized from the people.

Fethullah Gulen, who is a religious authority and community leader have had an increasing influence on Turkish politics in the last thirty years. This increasing influence reached political power with AKP and opened the door for organizing significant positions inside significant state agencies. Current AKP power also benefited from this positional convenience. Conservative identity of the party allowed this. Fethullah Gulen was seen as an important spiritual leader until last four years by party members and Erdogan himself. The peak of this fight for power in the last four years due to various political and economic reckoning is this coup attempt. Considering the depth of their relations and the relations of coup plotters with Gulen Community, the process defines something very different from classical contradiction between Kemalists and conservatives. This is a clash of interests. Gulen and his community which are accused of treason by the political power, are just one side of a broken partnership.

Scenarios

Since the question is the political power of the state, it’s obvious that political clash of power groups inside the state has a place in international schemes. Since the day of coup attempt, in a process where all TV channels, newspapers, radios, except the revolutionary ones became a part of the mass media various scenarios were continuously broadcast and are still being broadcast. Most of the scenarios state that the coup is made by the US with the hand of Gulen Community, due to the fact that Gulen resides in US. The scenarios often talk about the coup attempt is being designed by CIA due to anti-West international politics of the Turkish state.

Other scenarios talk about the coup attempt being designed and operated by AKP and Erdogan himself. These other scenarios emphasize that Erdogan who would reinforce its power as a result of this process would eliminate all opposition in this position. Of course the oppression politics against the Kurds plays an important role in creating this context of no opposition. AKP, CHP, MHP which acted as “unity of democracy” since the beginning of the process followed a policy that explicitly left HDP out, creating an allegedly “coalition of democracy” accusing HDP and the Kurdish movement to be a part of the plot and thus disabling HDP.

Another scenario as part of the same process of disabling is the war scenario. In this scenario, following the violent operations it made in a period of one year especially in North Kurdistan, its emphasized that the state getting ready for massacres at even larger scales. Within a conjuncture where the line between civil war and foreign war disappeared in the last ten years, one cannot but think that one end of the war will be directed to Rojava and Syria. Considering Syria and the mobilization in Middle east geography alone, it’s possible that the coup process is part of other international schemes.

State Of Emergency For Who?

It’s important for us revolutionary anarchists to analyze well all scenarios above as possibilities with respect to our near and distant perspectives. We need revolutionary strategies made with these perspectives. However, apart from all these scenarios, we as revolutionaries feel the practical repercussions of the State Of Emergency process since July 20.

The state is in a process of reconstruction since July 20. Operations in the army, police, judiciary, economic centers, ministries, municipalities, etc are still going on. The state which is a mechanism of oppression and violence, becomes more oppressive and more violent with this delegated legislation, and apart from the sections related to Gulen Community, increase the attacks on revolutionaries, taking advantage of the process.

Populist opposition engaged with the power, big media pool which became the voice of political power, law enforcement directly reporting Erdogan, fascist mass ready to mobilize with Islamist-nationalist values, army ready to attack near geographies within international conjuncture… Possible dangers awaiting the oppressed and the revolutionaries in this geography.

The fight of power groups claiming political power over a device rising above economic and political injustice; is nothing but the hegemony of the oppressors over the oppressed gaining permanency in order to destroy the freedom of the oppressed. Neither the apparent or implied dictatorship, nor military or civil formation, nor coups or elections of the political powers that are enemies of the people have any relations to peoples will. We, who believe that life of freedom cannot be created by coup nor by elections, know the existence of state as a coup to freedom and our revolt will last until it creates a free world. What we all need is, not getting hopes up from the fight between the powers, but to know that hope is revolution for freedom.

Huseyin Civan (DAF member)

http://anarsistfaaliyet.org/

A Report from (Kurdistan Anarchist Forum) about the events and the present situation in different parts of Kurdistan to the Tenth Congress of the IFA

A Report from (Kurdistan Anarchist Forum) about the events and the present situation in different parts of Kurdistan to the Tenth Congress of the IFA

Abarchism

 

KAFs activities continuous in translating, clarifying anarchist idea and publishing anarchism in Kurdish-Sorani language. We feel that our responsibilities  getting more and more difficult.

Bashur: Iraqi part of Kurdistan

° A part of Iraq and Kurdistan are still occupied by the Isis, liberating them depends on the plans and satisfaction of the US and its allies.

° From June 2014 to end of 2015 there was an independent mass movement in the towns and the cities that later on fell under control of Isis. As soon as the Isis invaded them the protesters became the victims of Isis brutality. However, from the beginning of 2016 the similar movement appeared and still continuous in the towns and cities were under control of Iraqi central government especially Baghdad. Although this movement is not self organised but steps towards radicalisation.

we heard in Mid and South of Iraq there are individuals  and anarchist groups but unfortunately so far we have not had a chance to find them and make a contact.  Hopefully the opportunity will be coming up to meet them to support each other in this difficult time &  situation that Iraq goes through.

° From 2015 to present the protests in Kurdistan, the part under control of KRG are on rise but have not achieved its demands. The police, Peshmarga, security forces, the retired people and pensioners have been taken part in the protests. After occupying Shangal and Ezidins massacre by Isis in Aug 2014 to the end of last year every a few months KRG only paid the wage/salary to its employees. However, from beginning of this year the people work in public sectors just gets around third of their salary. In the meantime KRG cut off the benefit of disable people.

° The Demos and public meetings are suppressed especially in Erbil, the KRG capital.

° Local groups and social network are emerging and on rise.

° The reformist group, so called, The Movement For Change (Goran) split from the Patriotic Kurdistan of Union (PUK) in 2006. However in May of this year they got closer to each other. They agreed on a few major points to work together to improve their relationship to do some reforms. We predict this agreement between them is the first step towards unity. Although this agreement between them has disappointed many people from both sides, but in the meantime many more realised that the political parties and their leaders cannot be trusted.

° from 2015 to 2016 there were so many long strike by the teachers. And also from time to time there were short period strike by hospital staff and workers. But the strike did not become a serious issue for the workers in the private sectors. Most of the private sectors have been owned by the politicians, political parties and their leaders. The KRG never had a plan to improve the agriculture in Kurdistan, instead it destroyed it. The KRG mainly is more concerning about Oil, Gas Cement and Tobacco.

During the demos and protests there was some sort of attempts that made for general strike in whole Kurdistan. While the teachers, workers and the rest of public sectors were not self-organised but affiliated to one of the political parties so that the demos and protests failed to have major impact on the situation.

° At the present many people are supporting anarchism and the numbers of people who contact us are on rise. There is a hope in near future that the independent radical local groups emerge. We as anarchists support the individuals and also working on translating the events and experiments around to Kurdish language. We are hoping building these local groups can be the basis of future movements. Obviously this task demands more work and serious struggle.

° We are writing in the Kurdish Websites and social networks about the importance of working collectively and the cooperative economy, and Ecology issue, [Individual freedom, Women liberation, children right, antiracism, anti-sexism, fascism and chauvinism]. We argue about self efficiency in economy in order to be independent. We also involve in discussion about anarchist education, culture, people self-rule, rejecting the political parties, its militias and the state and its rule.

Rojhalat , Iranian part of Kurdistan

° Rojhalat of Kurdistan like elsewhere in Iran has invaded by the Islamic regime. The Kurdish people have been deprived from being educated by their own language and enjoying their own culture. There has been no freedom of expression in Iran and the regime is continuing suppressing and oppressing whoever arises against the regime. The unemployment, poverty, increasing the price of the daily necessities is the real issues for the majority of people in Iran.

Due to above issues many people have immigrated to industrialised cities in Iran or to Bashur, Iraqi part of Kurdistan. Some of those people who have immigrated to Bashur engaged in smuggling stuff/goods on the borders from Iran to Iraq and vies versa. Obviously, immigrating the worker from Iran to Bashur like any other immigrants in Iraq have deprived of human and worker rights, like, discrimination, low paid, difficulties in renewing their residence document and they live in the worse condition and high rent accommodations. They also face racism.

° There are mass movements of ecology/environment and protecting animal right in Rojhalat. There are also many active groups, like, women right, children right, human right and the group of prisoners. These groups are radical and are getting bigger.

° The unions in whole Iran are very active in the cities and towns. They try to be independent of leftist organisations.

° In the end of 2015 a “Kurdistan anarchist movement” appeared and announced itself in facebook as a movement. Later on they changed their name to “Kurdistan anarchist organisation”. It seems to us they are lack of experience and their activities just strict on internet. They do not have much anarchist background or knowledge about anarchism . They look like radical leftists, centralist an ideological. We do not know how many they are exactly, but look like they are not many. We are aware that there are anarchist activities outside of them but mainly working and remaining as individual.

In Rojhalat, like any other activity, anarchist activities are not allowed and the paying price is executing for whoever involves in activity, so that the anarchist movement can only appear as an individual activist and doing some sort of publicity.

The above mentioned origination/group has appeared very centralist . In our opinion this is a sort of illness among a few of Persian speakers responsible of announcing and ordering people through the facebook to do this and that. The idea and activities of these people are closer to the leftist centralist and hierarchical organisation rather than anarchist and anarchism. The same statement that Malatesta at the time used it for “Bolshevistic anarchist” applies to these Kurdish and Iranian comrades.

We see that among the Iranian Comrades in Europe, there is a wave of anarko-leftist- Marxist. Whether it is deliberate or not, these comrades are selling out leftists and Marxists idea under the name of anarchism. There is a background for this type of thinking. Ten years ago a group of people announced themselves and claimed as “Anarcho-Marxist”.

Rojava, Syrian part of Kurdistan

Liberating of Kobane was a starting point for building a diplomatic and military relationship between US, its allies on one side and the Kurdish forces on the other side. This warm relationship caused confusion among the Kurdish people

° From the very beginning we were against this relationship and cooperation between the Democratic Self Administrations (DSA) in Rojava and US & its allies. There is a possibility of using this relationship by Rojava as a tactic or might have been a matter of desperation but we felt worry and sceptical about it because the US and its allies have serious intention to move their projects of economy, health, social and education following their military cooperation to Rojava.

° To support the state of Turkey against Rojava the KRG from time to time closes the entire borders. The most recent one was happened this year between March and June . It lasted almost for 3 months. In addition, for about a year the KRG asking Rojava forces“ YPG/J HPG “ to leave Bashur and its borders. Even after opening the borders in June is still very hard for people in Rojava to receive medicines, foods and the humanitarian aid. The KRG also using blockade against Qandil Mountain, the headquarters of PKK.

° The KRG actively supports its Kurdish allies political parties (ANKS) against the Rojava Cantons. These Kurdish political parties continuously are in conspiracy against Rojava Cantons .

° In May of this year one of our comrades wanted to go to Rojava, but all the borders were closed so that he could not make it. While we do not have a regular contact from Rojava all the news we have about Rojava are received from different channels.

Anarchists in Rojava

As far as we know there is no anarchist groups call themselves anarchist in Rojava but there are individual anarchists. We think it may be not necessary for them to have groups under anarchist name because there is opportunity for a kind of anarchist activity.

 

 

Bakur, Turkey part of Kurdistan

° A few months ago a few self-administration announced in Bakur (Geverê, Nisêbîn, Cezîre, Silopî , Serd, Veranşar, ) then the street fighting started. This has given the perfect excuse to State of Turkey to destroy most of the historical places. This has pushed more people to involve in demonstrations and protests.

We are from very beginning criticising them in both announcing the Self-Rule and the army struggle. In our opinion the self -Rule has to cover every aspect of the community life and extending to many places. And also this should have formed from the assembly of people not by making announcement from the politicians and people in power. We believe that the arm struggle against the State of Turkey in the towns and cities are not in the interest of the existing social movement. It is not just achieving anything, in fact it has caused losing many of the achievements that PKK gained during the peace process in the last couple years. The army struggle given a perfect excuse to Erdogan to stop peace process and starting war again. Erdogan and his political party AKP know very well starting war with PKK is the best way to divert the social movement to an army struggle. Erdogan knows the army straggle is the way to get support from so called “international community” and make PKK less popular and finally forcing them to meet his demands.

In Bakur , more than the other parts of Kurdistan to certain extent the social movement there are anarchist idea. last year this idea appeared in different forms, for instance: as a group, as website and anarchist magazine issued under the name (Qijka Reş), and there are other anarchist groups in Bakur, like (Kurdistan Anarşist Komünizm Hareketi), Anarşîstên Kurdistan Komunîstên Anarko , DİYARBAKIR ANARŞİST TEAM [D.A.T], Anarşîstên Kurdistan Kulmên Reş , Kurdıstan Anarchism , Anarchy in Kurdistan , Support Anarchists in Rojava, West-Kurdistan , Kurdistan Anarşi , Kollektîfa Anarşisten Kurdistan – Bahdîn and also in German there is anarchist Kurds speakers group.

 

Although so many anarchist groups are exist in Bakur but we do not know their popularities, their daily activities and the other struggle they are involved because our contacts with them only have been through internet . Only once a few years ago we met the comrades of Magazine of (Qijka Reş) and knew them closely.

KAF                01.08.2016

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In retaking Mosul YPG/J and the Guerrillas must be aware of the hidden agenda

In retaking Mosul YPG/J and the Guerrillas must be aware of the hidden agenda

By Zaher Baher

August 2016

The plan and conspiracy between Turkey, Qatar and The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) against Rojava will never end.  Documents disclosed by Wikileaks recently regarding the meetings and agreements between the three of them and a special meeting between Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Barzani, the head of  KRG,  proves the truth if we were previously in doubt. Please see the links at the end of article.

When ISIS invaded Mosul it was to the benefit of Turkey, Qatar and KRG.  The liberation of Mosul will also be to the benefit of the above unless YPG/J (people and women protection units) and Guerrilla forces are aware of the changing tactics.

Turkey, Qatar and KRG have completely failed in their previous polices in defeating the social movement and destroying the Cantons in Rojava, no matter how hard they’ve tried.  Starting by invading Mosul, attacking Kobane, committing terrorist acts, setting up a no-fly zone in Rojava and finally Turkey failed in joint action with Saudi Arabia to enter Syria and Rojava to fight Kurdish forces  under the pretext of fighting the terrorist groups.

The current plan is to “retake Mosul”.  The plan involves conspiracy and hidden agenda. This could be brutal; if YPG/J and the Guerrillas do not change their tactics, we may lose whatever was achieved so far in Rojava.

What is the plan/hidden agenda?

There were few reasons for Turkey militaries to cross the border of Iraq in the last year and stationed close enough to Mosul.  One of these is the historical reason; Mosul was one of the regions of the Ottoman Empire in the olden days.  Other reasons: after defeating Turkey and ISIS in Kobane, Turkey considered it important to defend ISIS if they come under attack in Mosul in order to return to al-Raqqha and their territory safely.  It was also to protect the oil tankers that are transferring the cheap oil to Turkey and al-Raqqha, to pressurise YPG/J and the Guerrillas that they are protecting Ezidis community there and also to support and help Barzani’s Peshmarga if the fighting break up between them and the forces of YPG/J and The Guerrillas. More importantly comes the “big plan or hidden agenda”, in an attempt to regain control of Mosul.  It is anticipated the outcome of the fight would defeat ISIS, as a result it would force ISIS to withdraw towards Jazerra. This is the primary goal and original plan.

In my opinion this plan was made long time ago. It is hoped that when ISIS is defeated, they will have nowhere to go but to withdraw towards al-Rabia.  Al-Rabia and the areas around it are under control of Barzani’s Peshmarga.  In this situation it is easy for them to penetrate Jazeera.  Once they arrive there the plan that already designed will be executed by launching the war against YPG/J in Jazeera and its citizens.  What makes the plan goes perfectly well is existing of the Kurdish National Council—the umbrella organization composed of Syrian Kurdish parties created under Barzani’s sponsorship, (ENKS). While the ENKS are Barzani’s allies  if they do not support ISIS directly, they certainly will support them indirectly.

The YPG/J, the Guerrillas and the Ezidis forces in retaking Mosul should try to defuse Turkey and Barzani tactic.  They should take part in this operation only very lightly.  Their main tactic should be gathering all their forces in the region behind the war line to resist withdrawing ISIS towards Jazeera borders. Here it is extremely important to prevent from entering Jazeera.  They should be destroyed, if not, to be forced to withdrew to inside Iraq and Bashur (Iraqi Kurdistan).  Let the Iraqi government and KRG to deal with them as initially both of them just did nothing when ISIS entered their lands and invaded Mosul, in fact they let ISIS carried out genocide to the Ezidis.

I believe it is very necessary for the YPG/J and Guerrillas to stop this war that targets the heart of Rojava, Jazeera; by defusing Turkey and KRG tactic in order to protect and maintain what have been achieved so far there.

Links for reference:

ISIS survives largely because Turkey allows it to: the evidence …
https://undercoverinfo.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/isis-survives-largely-because-turkey-allows-it-to-the-evidence/>*

WikiLeaks Reveals Saudi Arabia, Turkey & Qatar Secret Anti-Sy
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&ved=0ahUKEwjz3KjH9KLOAhXmDsAKHby7CQoQFghbMAg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mintpressnews.com%2Fwikileaks-reveals-saudi-arabia-turkey-qatar-secret-anti-syria-plot%2F211542%2F&usg=AFQjCNHbdfCLl9mLswG2fxhF87gsAnRdqQ

Yerevan Saeed one of the Rudaw TV staff  that financed by the Prime minster of KRG, Necheravan Barzani passed information on MIT about the PKK movement and its relationship with the Kurdish political parties in Bashur.

https://wikileaks.org/…/1446311_-fwd-re-guidance-questions

In the link below Yerevan Saeed informing MIT about the movement of PJK ( the PKK sisterhood in Iran) on the  Iran/ Iraq borders

https://wikileaks.org/…/1824264_re-s3-g3-iraq-turkey-iran-c

In the link below  Yerevan  Saeed  informed MIT that PKK wants to have relationship with Israel.

https://wikileaks.org/…/1147093_re-insight-pkk-and-alledged

zaherbaher.com

 

 

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Coup is the State, Revolution is Liberty!

July 17, 2016

The coup, which has been an inevitable reality of the state presence in this geography since the military coup of 1980, arose after 36 years, on the night of July 15. Many state buildings were blocked for a few hours during the military mobilisation based in Istanbul and Ankara. The coup started with flypast of fighter jets in Ankara and blocking of bridges in Istanbul by soldiers, and continued with taking hostage of chief of general staff and tank noise and gun shots in the streets. Many state buildings were shot by F16s and helicopters including the parliament building and the headquarters of National Intelligence Organisation; There were clash of arms in many places between soldiers and police. Following the events, national state television broadcast was cut and the coup declaration signed ‘Peace at Home Council” was read. When the ”5 Hour Coup” ended, more than one hundred soldiers, more than eighty police officers and more than eighty anti-coup protesters died. 2839 soldiers, among them many high ranked ones, were taken into custody.

During this 36 years period, the coup as a tool of political oppression, violence and suppression, has been used as a threat by the army over and over again. No doubt, for us, the oppressed, the coup means torture, suppression and massacre of the peoples in this geography in these periods. It’s evident that a structure which takes its power from the massacres it makes, would continue making massacres in the name of “protect the indivisible unity of the country”. The recent coup is a result of power groups fighting for power inside the state. Perhaps, the hidden existence of power groups outside the state pushes its definition to a wider scale. However, there is no doubt that the ones who reinforced their power as a result of this 5 hour coup are the current government and the head of state.

The night that started as a military coup was made into a “democracy holiday” while the state power gained control. Ruling party, AKP, gained the title of “repelled a coup” with its victory against the coup, on top its legitimacy over its “being elected”. Throughout the night, all TV channels made broadcasts that served this victory and made the propaganda of the illusion of democracy personified on Tayyip Erdoğan. This propaganda was also made continuously by the media that was known to be opposing. It this fight for state power, media not only took side with Tayyip Erdoğan, but also played the role of channelling people to the streets.

As well as the media, the opposing parties in the parliament which did not “spare” their support for AKP since the start of this process; fell into the “prevent others from making politics” trap of state power. Their stance “taking sides with democracy against the coup” as a mask of their political unawareness. This indicates clearly that in the short term, they will not mobilize other than reinforced state power politics. Defining the ones who “will die when Tayyip Erdoğan says die, will shoot when he says shoot”, filling the squares with “we want death penalty” slogans, focused on lynching anyone who comes across, as “democracy supporters”; isn’t this a sign of political stagnation of the same opposing parties?

With this coup and the victory against the coup, AKP now has the environment that it needs to create the ideological transformation on society. The “50% that hardly contained themselves at home” which was shown as threat by Tayyip Erdoğan during the Gezi Protests, were on the streets. The fascist culture which is an important part of the ideological transformation taking place from the law system to social life, was awakened with the ones mobilized by the state onto the streets. Not only that, they were guised as people trying to hold their power of democracy… It’s not hard to guess how these “democratic mobilizations” will face the oppressed in different ways in different places. We have already heard news of lynch activity towards the ones not taking sides with reinforced power of the state.

This fight of power groups trying to acquire the state power which operates on top of rising economic and political injustice; is nothing but the perpetuating of authority of oppressors on the oppressed, in order to destroy the freedom of the oppressed. There is no doubt that neither the visible or invisible dictatorship, nor the military of civil structures, nor the coup, nor the elections of political powers that are the enemy of the people, has anything to do with the will of the people. We, who believe that free life cannot be created by a coup or by elections, recognize the existence of the state as a coup to freedom and our revolt will continue until it creates a free world. The state is the coup, revolution is freedom. What we all need, is not get hopes up on the fights between authorities, but to known that hope is revolution for freedom.

Devrimci Anarşist Faaliyet (DAF)

Erdogan policies have played a major role in the Region

Erdogan policies have played a major role in the Region

By Zaher Baher

July 2016

In this article I will try to show how the regional policies, executed by Erdogan and his AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – Justice and Development Party) in respect of Rojava, Bakur and Iraqui Kurdistan, meet the goals of the Turkey’s president.

None of these policies are in the interest of Turkey. They already have suicidal impact on the country’s social, economic and political situation. In future it may even cause a military coup in Turkey.

As for the economic situation, the biggest damage is done to the tourism sector.

  • 8% of the workforce working in the tourist industry generates 12.9% of Turkey’s GDP.

  • According to Burak Cosan, The Daily News Istanbul, in 2014 almost 42m people visited Turkey.

  • Murat Ersoy, the head of the Tourism Investors Association in a press meeting on the 1st of June 2016 said “Our country’s loss in tourism revenue may increase up to $15 billion over this year and the decline in tourist numbers by 30 percent compared to 2015”.

  • The number of foreign arrivals visiting Turkey declined by 28% in April to 1.75 million compared to the same month of 2015, marking the steepest decline since May 1999, according to data by the Tourism Ministry.

  • The number of foreign people visiting Turkey decreased by 16.5% to 5.82 million in the first four months of this year compared to the same period of 2015.

  • In the first three months of 2016, tourism revenue decreased to $4.07 billion with a 16.5% drop, according to data that was released by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) on April 29.

  • Tourism revenue was $31.5 billion in 2015, an 8.3 percent decline compared to the previous year. Leading Turkish tourism player expects $15 bln loss in revenue

We can all see at present that the social and political situation is getting worse as well. I believe the problems Turkey is currently facing are caused by ISIS which Erdogan has based his entire policy on.

How did that come about?

From the very beginning I said and believed that the main aim of invading Mosul by ISIS was because of Rojava and its social movement. The Democratic Self Administration (DSA) in Rojava up to this moment is exemplary not only in this region, but can be said for other parts of the world. As much as Erdogan is unhappy with the type of administration like the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), compliant in meeting his demands completely, he deeply hates DSA, which does not yield to his will.

The so called “international community” may have approved Erdogan’s war against Rojava in 2014. But instead of getting Turkey involved directly, he decided to use a proxy a terrorist group, ostensibly independent from Turkey. The problem was the terrorist groups supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar were not strong enough to defeat YPG/J (the people and the women protection Units). Erdogan had to choose the most fanatical, brutal and ideological one, ISIS, to achieve all his plans with a very little risk.

Why Erdogan and his National Intelligence Organization (MIT) have chosen Mosul for ISIS?

There were many reasons for Mosul chosen to be invaded by Erdogan and his MIT plans. The historical reason is, Mosul was one of the regions of the Ottoman Empire in the olden days; it is very close to both Turkey & Syria; it is also well connected by public transport with both of these countries. The Community of Ezidis mainly situated in that area, and also the closeness of Mosul to Kurdish towns like Erbil, Duhok, Tikrit and Kirkuk. The region of Mosul is very rich with oil. It was one of the weakest points in the country, probably second to Falluja. The vast majority of its residents are Sunni who resent the central government. They were marginalized and having very difficult time on the hands of the Iraqi army, police and the security. There were also several minor reasons in favor of this option.

Using ISIS to invade Mosul

The important point in this article is the invasion of Mosul. Without this operation it would have been impossible for Erdogan to carry out the rest of his plans successfully and to play a major role in the region.

Following the invasion of Mosul, ISIS declared al-Raqqah its Caliphate capital. The connection between these two cities is strong. The land controlled by ISIS has expanded, al-Raqqah became stronger. The invasion has made it easy for Turkey to support ISIS politically and militarily. In the meantime, ISIS supported the state of Turkey by supplying it cheap oil and caused an influx of refugees, used by Erdogan as a bargaining chip in trading with Europe. Erdogan made it easy for ISIS to enter Turkey to terrorize the Kurdish and killing innocent people.

ISIS forces were under 5000, whereas the Iraqi forces were over 60.000 and equipped with new weapons including helicopters and tanks. It appeared, there was a conspiracy between Erdogan, KRG, Qatar and the Iraqi military generals in Mosul. Mosul was an easy victory for ISIS. There was no bloody battle; the entire town was taken within less than 24 hours. ISIS managed to gain many new powerful weapons easily that nobody could have expected. This boosted the confidence of ISIS and it then made its next move, to Kobane.

Why was Kobane, not Jazeera?

In order to execute their plans, Erdogan and MIT had to choose Kobane or Jazeera as their target. Distance wise, Qamishli in Jazeera is closer to Mosul at around 150 km, whilst from al-Raqqah is around 370 km. However, there were many other reasons to choose Kobane instead.

  • Kobane is smaller than Jazeera in size and in population, as such it would be easier to control.

  • Secondly, Kobane is between Afrin and Jazeera. Taking Kobane would cut the communications between remaining cantons.

  • Thirdly, Kobane is poorer than Jezeera economically; its YPG/J forces are smaller as compared with Jazeera. Furthermore, Assad’s has an army stationed in Qamishli and it is still there up to now; the army controls a few kilometers within Qamishli, the postal service and the airport. Kobane is free from Assad’s control.

  • The state of Turkey could support ISIS in Kobane and around Kobane through Sruce easier and better than supporting ISIS though Nusaybin, neighbor of Qamishli.

  • Finally, al-Raqqah is much closer to Kobane than Qamishli to Kobane.

I believe until the defeat of ISIS in January 2015 in Kobane, Erdogan and MIT policies were successful. In June and July of last year Erdogan adopted a couple more policies. Both policies were created to terrorize Kurdish people.

First, they did not approve the outcome of the general election held in June 2015 while the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) achieved excellent result well above the election threshold and gained 80 seats.

The second policy was his fascist attitude towards Kurdish people by terrorizing them, killing innocent people, arresting activists and creating a climate that was easy for ISIS to use suicide bombers. In July 2015, the suicide bomber attacked a gathering of a large group of leftist youth, communists and anarchists in Sruce; many people were killed and injured.

Erdogan was the beneficiary of using terror policy for three reasons. First, grounding a lot of forces there and restricted the freedom of movement to people. Second, made claim to his own people,Europe and the world that ISIS is his enemy too. Third, provoking PKK to start a war that gave him the justification to cancel the peace process and entering the war with Kurdish people all the way.

Alas, Erdogan was very successful and managed to provoke PKK and go with his tactic. Now the killing, arresting people, enforcing Curfew in Kurdish towns and cities, starving people withdrawing the political immunity on the HDP MPs continues. He also sacked 134 of the heads of Municipalities and replaced them with his supporters. All of this has been carried out in the eyes of US and the Western countries. All of this damaged the social movement in Bakur and were in the interest of Turkey government, its MIT, the right wing and racist groups.

Another success of Erdogan’s was that since 05/07/15 he hasn’t let Ocalan to be seen by any of his people including his own lawyers. This cut off the entire communication between Ocalan and PKK or other forces. This policy has again served the state of Turkey but not the Kurds from Rojava or Bakur.

Erdogan Policy in regards to Syria and Rojava

In this point of my article I draw the attention of the readers to both successful and failed policies of Erdogan.

Failures:

  • Bringing down a Russian fighter Jet and killing its pilots was a disaster for Erdogan. He was not able to participate in the war in Syrian skies, and it also economically and politically damaged Turkey. In effect, president Putin introduced boycott of Turkey as a tourist destination.

  • Erdogan also failed in convincing US and Western countries to set up a none-fly zone in Rojava. His main aim was just to fight the YPG/J forces there.

  • Another failure policy was he could not go ahead with the joint plan with Saudi Arabia to take their forces into Syria to support the terrorist group against Assad’s forces and YPG/J in the same time. By supporting ISIS and other terrorist groups damage was done to diplomatic relationship of Turkey and the USA.

At the same time, Erdogan scored some successes.

  • Economically, ISIS supported Turkey by providing very cheap oil, letting some of the companies in Turkey using the Syrian children labors, and also using refugees as a bargaining chip with Europe.

  • Normalizing diplomatic relationship with Egypt and also with Israel.

  • Erdogan and MIT managed to form a military group from Syrian Turkmen against Assad and use them directly, supporting and providing them everything to make them powerful enough to claim that they represent all Turkmen in Syria.

  • He also managed to make Kurdish opposition political parties (ENKS), the Syrian Kurdish National Council (that occasionally commit terrorist act especially in Jazeera), stand up against YPG/J and DSA.

  • The most successful policy of Erdogan and MIT was making ISIS so powerful against YPG/J that pushed them in line of US and jointly fighting ISIS. YPG/J now are facing the most terrible war perhaps after Kobane, with support of US forces to liberate the Caliphate capital, al-Raqqah.

Erdogan policy in regards to Iran:

Erdogan and MIT have a double policies towards Iran. On one hand the Kurdish question became a common problem for both of them, that can make them friends. On the other hand the same issue can make them enemies if Iran starts supporting PKK or PYD.

In the meantime, it is quite obvious that a big number of Iranian solders are taking part in the war side by side with Assad’s forces and Assad received other help from Iran. Assad also relies on support from Lebanese “Hezbollah” who are supported by Iran as well. Meanwhile Turkey is indirectly working on weakening Iran as a close ally of Iraqi government by supporting ISIS against Iraq. At the moment Iran-Turkey economical relationship is getting better and that is helping them to improve their political relationship too.

Erdogan’s policy in regards of Iraq and KRG

Erdogan and MIT used ISIS not only in Syria and Rojava. In fact ISIS was the most powerful and active group that Turkey has been using to execute their policy against the Iraqi government and KRG.

ISIS managed to invade Mosul, the second town of Iraq and became a major threat. Invading Mosul meant the other towns and cities in that region, like Erbil, Tikrit and Kirkuk faced a big threat as well. ISIS managed to control entire oil fields and refineries in the area; the income from their production fueled ISIS’ war effort instead of the government. Invading Mosul revived the old historic question of Mosul that always was in Erdogan’s mind. He wanted to annex it for Turkey.

I believe this can be one of the reason as to why Erdogan last year before the eyes of so called “international community“ brought 5000 heavy military forces with variety of different weapons, including tanks, to the border of Iraq close enough to Mosul. Since then Iraq keeps demanding Turkey to withdraw its forces, while Erdogan keeps ignoring these demands.

By invading Mosul ISIS controlled the dam of Mosul that can threat flooding Baghdad and many small towns and villages in the middle of Iraq. In supporting ISIS in invading Mosul, Erdogan managed to give strength to Arab Sunni tribes in the region at least if they do not support ISIS, they abstain to support the Iraqi government. Invading Mosul pushed the Iraqi government into deep debt by borrowing lots of money and buying more weapons. ISIS became more powerful and started to threaten to occupy Baghdad.

In 2014 ISIS rendered nearly a third of the country out of government control by taking more cities like Fallujah, Tikrit, Ramadi, Hit, Rutba and Telafar, with many villages. The threat of ISIS to Iraq was very real, up to this moment there has been no peace, no security in Baghdad and a few more towns in middle of Iraq.

In addition to all that Erdogan fighter jets since July of 2015 and even before that every week regularly crossed the borders and bombed heavily Qandil Mountain and the villages in the bottom of the mountain. This has caused the killing of so many people, injuring many more, displacing hundreds of family and killing their cows, cattle, dogs, sheep and destroying the environment.

In regards to Kurdistan and KRG, Erdogan brought them endless war. In this war Kurdish Peshmerga became the main forces to fight ISIS. The war between the Kurds and ISIS made Kurds an enemy of Sunnis and to certain extent to Arabs as a whole and the Iraqi government. In the meantime the war made KRG be more dependent on Turkey and closer to US and Western countries. In effect Iraqi Kurdistan has become a big military base for Turkey and US.

By using ISIS in the region of Mosul so successfully, Erdogan managed to make KRG in particular and Kurdistan in general almost a part of Turkey. He is working on Iraqi Turkmens as well to increase the dispute between them and Kurdish communities and to escalate the tension. The dependence from Turkey made KRG, particularly Barzani Party, KDP, the main enemy not just of PKK and PYD, in fact to whole Kurdish society in Rojava and Bakur. From time to time, obviously at the order of Erdogan, Barzani even closes KRG borders completely. The most recent embargo was almost for 3 months between March of this year and June. Even worse is the fact that Barzani became silent about everything that happens in Bakur and Rojava. He neither supports the Kurds there, nor protest against the state of Turkey.

ISIS also put the Kurdish Islamic political organizations under pressure. They must clarify their attitude towards ISIS, either “with us or against us“. In Iraqi Kurdistan we have a couple of Islamic political organizations and both have their own MPs in KRGs’ Parliament. However one of them is very pro-Erdogan and both of them so far have not denounced ISIS as a non-Islamic group. The vast majority of Kurdish does believe they are sleepy cells of ISIS. They might be right.

One more important effect of arriving ISIS to Mosul and the rest of Kurdish areas, was preservation of the position held by Barzani and his government. Despite the bad situation of KRG economy, people there are reluctant to protest. They have made people scared to go on strike, protest, even demanding their wage, salary. At the moment the KRG employees are getting less than half of their salary even they do not get that regularly. They are three to four months behind. This has affected the markets badly, whole services, projects have been stopped and poverty for many people will soon become unavoidable. Whenever and wherever people try to complain and protest they were told “they have to be grateful, at least they do not live under ISIS control and should not rock the boats because this is in the interest of ISIS and other our enemies”

Erdogan and his MIT policies for the time being were right and met their aims, even if they create a damage for Turkey in the long run. They were good for Erdogan, AKP and bad for Kurdish people and the rest of the region. It looks like Erdogan and his AKP now want to change their policy from war to peace with everybody except the Kurdish society. His future peace policy in the region certainly will be if not aimed to eliminate Rojava cantons, at least to reform them in the KRG manner.

Zaherbaher.com

SYRIA: Syria’s forgotten revolutionaries: an interview with Leila Al-Shami

SYRIA: Syria’s forgotten revolutionaries: an interview with Leila Al-Shami

rsz_screen_shot_2015-10-07_at_30630_pm     June 22, 2016, Source: bookwitty

Patrick Ward

In 2011 the Arab Spring swept the Middle East and North Africa. Millions of people rose up against dictatorships across the region, toppling governments in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, with the Libyan regime also falling following Western intervention. Among the countries in which revolution seemed to be on the cards was of course Syria. But, five years later, the country is in turmoil, with President Bashar Al-Assad clinging to the power he has left with the backing of the military might of Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and others. Facing them are reactionary Islamist forces such as Islamic State/Daesh and Jabhat Al-Nusra. The situation looks increasingly hopeless, and it is generally portrayed in the media as a battle between equally horrific forces, with ordinary people reduced to spectators desperately attempting to avoid barrel bombs or making terrifying journeys out of the country as refugees.

But there is a side to the story that is often overlooked – that of the continued resilience and self-organisation of Syrians resisting both the regime and groups like ISIS. This is the subject of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War by Leila Al-Shami and Robin Yassin-Kassab, a comprehensive account of Syria’s recent history told often through the stories of people on the ground.

I spoke to Al-Shami about why contesting the prevalent narratives on Syria is so important.

Why did you write Burning Country?

There was a lot being written about Syria, a lot being written about Syrians, but very little that actually spoke to Syrians and asked them how they themselves define what’s happening in their country. So we really wanted to bring Syrian voices to the forefront, and to speak with people who had been involved in the revolution and see how they felt, to hear their story and to enable other people to hear their story.

I think in general a lot of the narrative on Syria, whether it’s been through people writing books or through mainstream journalism, has been looking at Syria either through a humanitarian lens or through an extremist lens. So, really wanting to see Syrians as either victims or terrorists, but not really wanting to see Syrians as agents of change.

Many people seem to think that the situation in Syria is simply too complicated to understand. Why do you think that view has become so common?

I think that a lot of mainstream journalism, which people depend on for a lot of their information on Syria, has been extremely poor. By focusing on issues such as the humanitarian crisis or the extremism, what people are getting are symptoms rather than causes. So people do not feel, often, that they have a real understanding of why this happened or what the dynamics on the ground are. For example, if you are looking at the refugee crisis only through a humanitarian lens, you are not looking at the causes of the refugee crisis. It’s going to be very difficult to find a solution, because there isn’t a humanitarian solution to a political problem.

One argument that comes across very strongly in your book is that there’s been a level of misinformation about the situation – of a regime that’s hated by the United States on the one side and on the other side you have forces like Daesh/ISIS and Al-Nusra, supported by Saudi Arabia, Turkey etc. That seems to have become quite a dominant idea in sections of the left, for example.

I think a huge problem is people coming to the Middle East through a pre-2011 paradigm, and they are trying to interpret things as they interpreted struggles that happened in the Middle East before. But of course the whole region changed radically in 2011 when there were transnational uprisings from Egypt to Bahrain to Yemen, all across the region.

This has been hugely problematic, because there is this very dominant narrative in sections of the left that the regime is a resistance regime, but this narrative doesn’t match reality. It doesn’t explain the role of the Assad regime, of Assad the father in Lebanon, the massacres of Palestinians in the Lebanese camps that occurred during the 1980s. It doesn’t explain why Bashar Al-Assad worked with the Americans for the extraordinary renditions, when the Americans were handing over suspected terrorists to the Syrian regime basically for torture by proxy. That was throughout the war on terror.

This resistance narrative has persisted, but the thing is that the regime has used this resistance narrative to build popular support, and it did manage to do that both within Syria and across the wider Arab region because it was speaking the same kind of anti-Western, anti-Zionist rhetoric, which was in line with popular sentiment on the street. But a lot of this rhetoric was really to justify internal repression.

For example, you have the emergency law that was put in place, which was ostensibly because Syria was at war with Israel. But really that was the war which suspended all the constitutional rights of Syrian citizens and greatly empowered the security forces, so that was the law that was used to round up and detain dissidents to take them to military courts. But at the same time, the borders with Israel remained quiet, there weren’t serious efforts to liberate the occupied Golan, for example. The Syrian borders with Israel were quieter, more peaceful even than borders that had peace deals with Israel, such as Egypt and Jordan. So the resistance narrative doesn’t match up.

And there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the Saudi regime or the Turkish regime are funding Daesh, and it seems highly unlikely that they will. If you look at Daesh’s statements, one of its main targets is to bring down the Saudi regime. I think it’s certainly the case that individuals in Saudi Arabia have sent money to Daesh, and Saudi Arabia until fairly recently has played a very negative role in not clamping down on those financial transfers to Daesh from citizens within its territory. But I don’t see any evidence that the Saudi regime itself is funding Daesh, there is enough we can criticise the Saudi regime for without making stuff up.

What has been the role of the United States in supporting forces hostile to the regime?

The United States support for Free Syrian Army militias on the ground has never really been any more than rhetoric. It’s never really given any serious support to them. The main thing that opposition fighters on the ground need is heavy anti-aircraft weapons to defend communities from air force attacks, which are the main cause of civilian deaths inside Syria. The Americans have never sent in those anti-aircraft weapons and their most significant military intervention has actually been to veto other countries from sending in those weapons to FSA fighters. Some things have gone in, lighter weapons, a lot of things like night vision goggles have gone in, but that’s not what these groups need. And also with the weapons that have been going in, it sometimes seems designed to pressure Assad to the negotiating table, to create a stalemate. Some gains will be made as a consequence of that in the battle field, and then the weapon supply dries up, so there’s always this small gains being made, the weapons dry up and then of course the regime makes gains. So it seems that this stalemate is just maintained much of the time.

That seems in stark contrast to the way Russia and Iran are giving support to the Assad regime.

The regime has massive amounts of financial and military support from its backers, both Russia and Iran. There should be strong sanctions on countries sending weapons to the regime.

Where does this leave the revolution, and the self-organisation of those besieged from all sides?

Communities have had to self-organise for survival because as the state’s collapsed in large parts of the country or has been pushed out. People have had to come together to keep life functioning in those areas. And I think this is one of the really remarkable things about the Syrian revolution and the untold story is how people are creating alternatives to authoritarianism in these immensely challenging circumstances when they are being bombed by their own government, they are being bombed by foreign governments, they are under attack from Islamic extremists, they are being starved, they are being gassed. But they are also trying to create ways of organising which are democratic, which is much more community-based, to keep their communities being able to stay in those areas.

In the book you mention how a number of ideas, such as Islamism and anarchism, are part of the debates in how these communities should be organised.

There are so many different ideas going around, and that’s the result of the revolutionary situation. People are really discussing and debating and trying out new ways of organising and new ideas. The self-organised communities are under threat not only from the regime but also by Islamist extremist groups, and in some areas there has been a power struggle, around the councils and within the communities as other groups have also tried to impose structures on the people. Today in Idlib it was the 85th day of protests against Jabhat Al-Nusra in Marat Numan, so the people have been very clear that they don’t want Jabhat Al-Nusra to stay in Marat Numan. They are very clear that they do not want to replace one authoritarian system with another. Idlib is under very heavy bombardment at the moment from the regime, and by Russia, and it’s exactly to destroy these self-organised and democratic communities. They are not ISIS, they are not these extremist groups, they are FSA militias and self-organised communities.

What’s the best way of offering solidarity to the Syrians?

There are serious humanitarian issues that need to be addressed, there are still many communities in Syria which are under siege. The UN set the deadline of 1 June to airdrop to these communities, and that’s deadline’s passed and there’s been no airdrops. Now the UN is saying that it’s wanting permission from the regime, the people responsible for the siege of these communities, to access those areas. Today in Daraya they’ve actually sent in some aid, and what they’ve sent are mosquito nets while the people are starving, it’s an absolutely desperate situation and I think one very important form of solidarity is to call on the UN to call on those governments to ensure that aid gets to those areas.

But we can’t do this all through a humanitarian lens, there has to be a political solution to this problem, there has to be a real and meaningful peace process which is inclusive, and ultimately has representatives from the ground included in it.

In terms of solidarity, there hasn’t been much visible solidarity with Syria and I think that’s hugely problematic that that’s been the case. I think it’s amazing that at the moment when you’re having this massive slaughter, this constant bombardment, there aren’t people in their thousands, in their millions out on the street calling for it to stop.

Is that something that people feel betrayed over?

Of course they feel betrayed over it, and I’m sure they are no longer waiting for solidarity from the outside world, I think those days have long gone.

Do you have hope that the regime will fall, and that something somehow positive can come afterwards?

In many ways the regime has already fallen, because it is completely reliant on foreign powers for survival. It is completely dependent on Iranian and Hezbollah, and Shia militias from Iraq and from Afghanistan and from all over, for ground forces, and on the Russian air force. It’s not managing to take and control territory, and it’s unlikely that it’s going to be able to take back the massive sections of the country which it’s now lost. But I don’t see any quick solutions to this problem. I can’t predict what the future will be, I’m fearful that there will be some kind of partition scenario, some kind of imperial carve-up imposed from outside, it’s so difficult to tell.

But what I would be fairly certain of is that I think that throughout the region the return to the security state is not going to be something which is going to happen. I think the region has changed dramatically and that we’re in a long process of change.