Democratic confederalism

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Flag of the KCK, often used by Democratic Confederalists

Democratic confederalism

class society, and as a route to freedom and democratization for people around the world.[8][9][10][11]

Although the liberation struggle of the PKK was originally guided by the prospect of creating a Kurdish nation state on a Marxist–Leninist basis,[7][12] Öcalan became disillusioned with the nation-state model and state socialism.[13] Influenced by ideas from Western thinkers such as the libertarian municipalist and former anarchist Murray Bookchin,[14][15][16][17] Öcalan reformulated the political objectives of the Kurdish liberation movement, abandoning the old statist and centralizing socialist project for a radical and renewed proposal for a form of libertarian socialism[18][19][20] that no longer aims at building an independent state separate from Turkey, but at establishing an autonomous, democratic and decentralized entity based on the ideas of democratic confederalism.[21][22]

Theory

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Rejecting both the

multi-ethnic and internationalist movement.[2][30][31]

The general lines of democratic confederalism were presented in March 2005, through a

chance to implement it came during the Syrian Civil War,[16][23][36] when the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD) declared the autonomy of three cantons in Syrian Kurdistan that eventually grew into the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria).[37]

History

Background

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Created in the

statist and centralizing system associated with the former Soviet superpower.[13][14][15]

This process was consolidated after the capture and arrest of Öcalan by the

Neolithic cultures, as well as from the history of the first city-states.[15] But it was the readings of thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche (whom Öcalan calls "the prophet of the capitalist era"[43]), Fernand Braudel, Immanuel Wallerstein, Maria Mies, Michel Foucault, and particularly Murray Bookchin,[nb 3], that led him to a definitive break with the Marxist–Leninist socialist perspective and develops a new proposal for a system called "democratic confederalism".[15][39]

In 2005, while the European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey for "inhumane treatment" and "unfair prosecution" in the case of Öcalan,[44] calling for a new trial for the Kurdish leader,[45] Öcalan issued "Declaration of Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan", where he laid the groundwork of democratic confederalism.[2] Later, the concept was further developed and presented in works such as Democratic Confederalism and Manifesto of Democratic Civilization (the latter in four volumes).[32]

Democratic confederalism of Kurdistan is not a state system, but a democratic system of the people without a state. With the women and youth at the forefront, it is a system in which all sectors of society will develop their own democratic organisations. It is a politics exercised by free and equal confederal citizens by electing their own free regional representatives. It is based on the principle of its own strength and expertise. It derives its power from the people and in all areas including its economy it will seek self-sufficiency.

— Abdullah Öcalan, Declaration of Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan, 2005.[2]

Concept

AANES
in southern Afrin.

Responding to the needs of the Kurdish movement across

libertarian municipalism as formulated by the American anarchist Murray Bookchin.[7][14] In his works, Bookchin argues that the domination and destruction of nature is the continuation of the domination of human beings by each other, including through the forms of capitalism and the nation-state. Establishing a connection between the ecological crisis and social hierarchy, the American philosopher observes that the social structure of humanity needs to be rethought and transformed from a destructive hierarchical society to an ecological social society that maintains a balance between its parts and whose communities can organize their lives independently.[46][47][48]

YBŞ and PKK Guerrillas
Southern Kurdistan
in 2017

Admiring Bookchin's concepts, Öcalan developed a critical view of

national state, but the constitution of a democratic, decentralized and autonomous system of self-organization in the form of a confederation.[5][6][7]

I offer the Turkish society a simple solution. We demand a democratic nation. We are not opposed to the unitary state and republic. We accept the republic, its unitary structure and laicism. However, we believe that it must be redefined as a democratic state respecting peoples, cultures and rights. On this basis, the Kurds must be free to organize in a way that they can live their culture and language and can develop economically and ecologically. This would allow Kurds, Turks and other cultures to come together under the roof of a democratic nation in Turkey. This is only possible, though, with a democratic constitution and an advanced legal framework warranting respect for different cultures.Our idea of a democratic nation is not defined by flags and borders. Our idea of a democratic nation embraces a model based on democracy instead of a model based on state structures and ethnic origins. Turkey needs to define itself as a country which includes all ethnic groups. This would be a model based on human rights instead of religion or race. Our idea of a democratic nation embraces all ethnic groups and cultures.

— Abdullah Öcalan, War and peace in Kurdistan, 2008.[49]

Main points

Rojava revolution against genocide, in Berlin, Germany
2018

The main principles of democratic confederalism can be summarized in:[5][6][8]

Implementation

On June 1, 2005, the PKK officially adopted the democratic confederalism program at the end of the 3rd General Assembly of the People's Congress of Kurdistan (Kongra Gelê Kurdistan).[citation needed]

Thereafter, the Kurdish liberation movement began to form clandestine assemblies immediately in Turkey, Syria and Iraq, which in 2007 resulted in the creation of the Kurdistan Communities Union (Koma Civakên Kurdistan, KCK), the organization established to put into effect Öcalan's concept.[33][34] The KCK brings together Kurdish political parties such as Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD), Kurdistan Free Life Party (Partiya Jiyana Azad to Kurdistanê, PJAK), and Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (Partî Çareserî Dîmukratî Kurdistan, PÇDK); civil society organizations; and armed groups in all countries in the region over the different parts of Kurdistan.[33][35]

ecological
cooperative farming

Inspired by the project of democratic confederalism, mayors of the Party of the

Kurdish language, these politicians begin to use the municipal services and dispatch official correspondence in Kurdish, to reinsert Kurdish names in public places and to spend resources for the development and spread of the Kurdish language.[35] However, these policies made the DTP mayors and deputies targets of judicial harassment,[50] and the Kurdish party was banned by the Turkish Constitutional Court in 2009.[51][52]

It was during the

Rojava, a region comprising parts of the north and northeast of Syrian territory.[15][16][23] Creating a political entity opposed to the capitalist nation-state, Rojava experienced an original experience of democratic, decentralized and non-hierarchical society,[36] based on feminist, ecology, cultural pluralism, co-operative sharing economy ideas, and participatory politics and consensual construction.[27][53][54]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Followers of Öcalan and members of the PKK are known by his diminutive name as Apocu (Apo-ites), and his movement is known as Apoculuk (Apoism).[3]
  2. ^ In his book "In defense of the people" (published in German in 2010), Öcalan wrote that "The development of authority and hierarchy even before the class society emerged is a significant turning point in history", adding that "no law of nature requires natural societies to develop into hierarchical state-based societies" and judging "the Marxist belief that class society is an inevitability" to be deeply mistaken.[14]
  3. ^ Öcalan had read The Ecology of Freedom, and agreed with Bookchin's analysis. Looking for theoretical guidance, the Kurdish leader asked to Reimar Heider, his German translator, to send an e-mail to Bookchin. Sent in April 2004, the message told him that Öcalan had been reading Turkish translations of Bookchin's books in prison and considered himself a "good student" of his works. Also, Öcalan "has recommended Bookchin's books to every mayor in all Kurdish cities and wanted everybody to read them."[14] Bookchin and Öcalan corresponded for a while,[16] but the philosopher died in 2006.

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b c Öcalan 2011, p. 21.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Öcalan 2005.
  3. ^ Mango 2005, p. 32.
  4. ^ a b c Öcalan 2008, p. 32.
  5. ^ a b c Öcalan 2011, pp. 21–32.
  6. ^ a b c Öcalan 2008, pp. 31–36.
  7. ^ a b c d e Dirik 2016, chpt. 2.
  8. ^ a b Öcalan 2011, pp. 35–44.
  9. ^ Öcalan 2008, pp. 7–8, 34–35.
  10. doi:10.1177/01914537211040250
    .
  11. doi:10.1177/1468796819826146
    .
  12. ^ a b Öcalan 2011, pp. 7–14.
  13. ^ a b c d e Öcalan 2008, pp. 28–30.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h Bookchin 2018.
  15. ^ a b c d e f Shilton 2019.
  16. ^ a b c d Enzinna 2015.
  17. doi:10.1080/14650045.2018.1508016
    .
  18. ^
    S2CID 253829748
    . Thus, the doctrine of democratic confederalism presents itself as a libertarian socialism based on the neo-Marxism, ecologism and, finally, feminism.
  19. ^ a b De Jong, Alex (March 18, 2016). "The New-Old PKK". Jacobin. Retrieved 2023-07-24. It was compelling enough to win over Öcalan, who, in the popular narrative, made a balance sheet of the PKK's failures and decided to reorient his goals to a similar kind of libertarian socialism called "democratic confederalism."
  20. ^ a b Fitzherbert, Yvo (August 26, 2014). "A new kind of freedom born in terror". openDemocracy. Retrieved 2023-07-24. The ideology behind this progressive autonomous structure, which has a secular constitution, is that of the PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan. His vision of 'Democratic Confederalism' builds on a concept espoused by the American anarchist Murray Bookchin. Since Öcalan's arrest in 1999, the PKK's ideology has changed considerably, so much so that they have all but denounced nationalism in favour of a form of libertarian socialism.
  21. ^ Öcalan 2011, pp. 21, 33–34.
  22. ^ Öcalan 2008, pp. 31–32.
  23. ^ a b c White 2015, pp. 126–149.
  24. ^ Öcalan 2011, pp. 16–17.
  25. ^ a b c Dirik 2016, chpt. 3.
  26. ^ Öcalan 2011, p. 24.
  27. ^ a b Malik 2019.
  28. ^ Biehl 2012.
  29. ^ Öcalan 2011, p. 32.
  30. ^ Öcalan 2008, p. 24.
  31. ^ Maisel 2018, p. 347.
  32. ^ a b MEPC 2015.
  33. ^ a b c Çandar 2012, p. 82.
  34. ^ a b Maur & Staal 2015, p. 174–175.
  35. ^ a b c d Kurban 2014.
  36. ^ a b Pluto 2016.
  37. ^ Malik (2019); Krajeski (2019); Marcus (2020); Maisel (2018), pp. 16–17
  38. ^ a b Öcalan 2011, pp. 7–8.
  39. ^ a b Helliker & Walt 2019.
  40. ^ ScienceClassPolitics 1984, pp. 3–30.
  41. ^ Schwikowski 2018.
  42. ^ Dwyer & Zeilig 2018.
  43. ISBN 9781629637044
    .
  44. ^ Hudoc 2005.
  45. ^ Sturcke 2005.
  46. ^ Bookchin 2006.
  47. ^ Bookchin 2007.
  48. ^ Stokols 2018, p. 33.
  49. ^ Öcalan 2008, p. 39.
  50. ^ REFWorld 2010.
  51. ^ Tait 2009.
  52. ^ Nationalia 2009.
  53. ^ Krajeski 2019.
  54. ^ Marcus 2020.

Sources

External links

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