Afrin is one of the districts in northern Syria forming the region commonly known as Rojava. Until 17/03/2018, Afrin was one of Rojava’s cantons that the seven year Syrian civil war did not reach. It was the safest place in the whole of Syria until January 20th when the Turkish State invaded. Around 200,000 people from different places in Syria, especially from Aleppo, moved there where they found peace, safety, equality, dignity and humanity.
There were many reasons for the invasion of Afrin by the Turkish State. The most important are the near-complete military defeat of Isis who fought against Syrian troops and Kurdish forces on behalf of the Turkish state, the proximity of Afrin and ethnic mix of its citizens which Erdogan wants ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) “We are at the final stage of solving the crisis in Syria and liberating whole territory from terrorism”, stated Walid al-Moualem, Syria’s foreign minister when he met Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, in Moscow.
The Assad Regime and its allies are preparing themselves for the upcoming battle for Idlib. The military launch might start this month, September, or the beginning of October. The war will likely bring victory to Assad and catastrophe to the 2 million citizens of Idlib where 1.6 million are already in need of humanitarian aid.
Idlib, near Aleppo, Hama and Homs, is a stronghold of over 60,000 anti-regime rebels and over 10,000 jihadists. To justify attacking Idlib, Assad often claims the province is full of... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) On 27th December, a US base near Kirkuk came under attack, killing a US contractor and injuring US and Iraqi soldiers. The US claimed that the attack was launched by a Shia militia group, Kata’ib Hizbullah (KH) pro-Iranian.
On Sunday 29th December, the US retaliated by airstrike against five KH bases, three of them in Iraq and the rest in Syria. The KH confirmed 19 of its fighters were killed and 35 more were injured. The chief of Hashd al-Shaabi, (Popular Mobilization Forces) soon after that announced “The blood of the martyrs will not be in vain and our response will be very tough on the American forces in Iraq.”
On 31st December, a huge protest organized by the pro-Iranian militia and their supporters to storm the Ame... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Many religions and ideologies from left to the right have tried to tackle class issues and other societal problems, but none of them has been able to resolve these problems, rather most of them have made the situation even worse.
Whilst these problems have remained unresolved, groups, political parties and individuals have continued to come up with different theories and different ideas for how to tackle them. Confederalism or Democratic Confederalism is one of them.
The idea of federation and confederation dates back several centuries. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) wrote a lot about federation and confederation with regards to Canada, Switzerland and Europe. However, when he observed the debates about European Confederation he notic... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) I was frequently asked this question in the meetings or interviews. I have always been frank and honest in my reply. I said there are not even an active anarchist group existing there let alone an anarchist movement. I would then be asked the second question ‘why’?
While there have been authority/state committed brutal suppression and repressions, also there was anarchism as a natural rebellious force of human being, so it is illogical to say there was no individual anarchists or no groups existed. There is no doubt that there was always resistance against the state/authority. People considered authority/power as evil forces. People have never seen any common interests with the states/authorities or any benefit from them. In ad... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Before going further I must stress that the revolution for me is a social transformation to a non-hierarchical and classless society, socialism. And this article is very much connected to some of my previous articles, especially, “The people’s movement desperately needs working class solidarity” and “Is the working class revolutionary?”.
My understanding, experiences and observations all tell me as an anarchist that the revolution must be a people’s revolution rather than a working class one. If we consider that anarchism is a practical method of analyzing events and situations through facts and reality rather than texts, it must be odd for me to believe that the revolution should be the only duty of the... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 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.
... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) What you read below is the experience of my visit, for a couple of weeks in May this year, 2014, to North East of Syria or Syrian Kurdistan (West of Kurdistan) with a close friend of mine.
Throughout the visit we had the total freedom and opportunity to see and speak to whoever we wanted to. This includes women, men, youth, and the political parties. There are over 20 parties from Kurdish to Christian, of which some are in the Democratic Self Administration (DSA) or Democratic Self Management (DSM) of the region of Al Jazera. Al Jazera is one of three regions, (cantons) of West Kurdistan. We also met the Kurdish and Christian political parties who are not in the DSA or DSM. In addition, we met the top people from the Democratic Self Admini... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The history of movements and human struggles wanting to launch a social revolution, rather than just a political revolution are scarce, and social revolutions have happened in very few countries. In spite of these facts those revolutions, or attempted revolutions, are still shining examples for us all. They remind us that either a revolution must be social or it does not exist as a revolution. In other words, it must be inclusive and must apply to all aspects of a human being’s life including their culture, education, economics, ecological & environment, health and care as well as the political. This means we must have a social, as well as a political, revolution while at the same time taking the revolution out of the hands of the... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 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... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 1) Is there still a chance that Erdogan will not win the game? If so, who are his counterparts? What strategy do they pursue and what goals do they have? What is going to happen if the HDP exceeds 10 % and moves into parliament?
A: I believe Erdogan will win again but may be narrowly. Erdogan controlled everything in Turkey almost all the Media, the State’s administrations, the courts & jurisdiction system, the military section, the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), the Parliament. In addition he has made Turkey as an open prison for its citizens, so all these in some way helps Erdogan to dominate the election campaign process, in other words people can hear mainly AKP campaign voice not the rest of the political partie... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Capitalism and its Media have always worked on confusing and deceiving us by introducing reactionary movements, events and experiments as a revolution, that in fact benefit the system rather than us.
For almost a century the Media outlets tried to sell state capitalism to us as socialism. They called Russian bourgeois society a socialist society, for about forty years they tried to tell us what happened in Iran was a revolution. And recently they tried hard to convince us what happened in some of the Arab countries was the “Arab Spring” or “Arab Revolution”. The same applies with regards to an economic crisis. For more than 150 years we have been told that these crisis were capitalism crisis not us. They tell us thi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The latest Paris attack, killing 130 people and injuring over 350 more, again confirms the dangerous world we live in. There is no doubt that Isis and other terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, Taliban, Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab, can be fatal and brutal forces bringing death to many people anywhere across the World including Europe as long as they have a base inside those countries.
Of course, this makes states, both inside and outside Europe to work together very closely in gathering and exchanging information against the groups mentioned above. They also share the same information against civilians, campaign groups, leftists, socialist and anarchist groups.
A quick look at the recent history of terrorism between Sep 2001 and the Paris ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Well, this is not an easy question to answer in a short article like this. Before we go any further, we may need the actual definition of “working class”. I admit again this is not easy either.
There are different concepts or definitions for “working class”. According to the Cambridge English dictionary it is “a social group that consists of people who earn little money, often being paid only for the hours or days that they work, and who usually do physical work. The working class (also laboring class and proletariat) are the people employed for wages, especially in manual-labor occupations and in skilled, industrial work. Working-class occupations include blue-collar jobs, some white-collar jobs, and most ser... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The emigration of Kurdish people to Europe, Scandinavia, the United States (USA) and other countries started during World War ll. However, they remained a tiny minority, compared to immigrants from many other countries, until the mid-1970s and early 1980s, when major waves of Kurdish migration from the different parts of Kurdistan started. In Iraqi Kurdistan emigration started after the collapse of the Kurdish movement led by Mustafa Barzani in March 1975. In Iranian Kurdistan it started after the “revolution” when the Islamists came to power. In Turkish Kurdistan it started as soon as the PKK movement emerged in the 1980s. In Syrian Kurdistan it started in 80s, but was very slow until the start of the “Arab Spring”.... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The latest of Ocalan’s messages,[1] [2] ‘calls for a ceasefire’, are good news. It offers great hope and opportunity not just for the Kurdish community in Turkey, but also in fact for all communities there.
I support Ocalan’s message, although it has come very late. I hope Erdogan, president of Turkey takes it seriously.
No doubt the Turkish state renewing hostilities in July 2015 cost the Kurdish people in Turkey almost everything. I was against it. In fact, I believe it was instrumental in completing Erdogan’s policy, destroying Kurdistan in Turkey further. Some of my posts in Facebook and my articles are witness to that. It has been a terrible war, not just damaging the Kurdish territory in Turkey. It also... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 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, Tal... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) It looks like the US and Western Countries’ propaganda, and the illusions of religion and nationalism, are no longer working for the people in central and southern Iraq. It might be that the time has arrived to end the sectarianism between Shia and Sunna. It’s fifteen years since the collapse of Saddam Hussain and there has been thirteen years (2005) of Shia government. The failure of the election process and parliamentary system should have given both Iraqi Shia and Sunna the lesson that the real changes cannot happen through this process and establishment. This was probably also the main reason only 38% of the electorate participated in Iraq general election in May this year.
During this period the real winners were the polit... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The protests in Baghdad and Southern Iraq still continue and have entered the 3rd week now. So far the protesters have been able to protect their own independency and none of the political parties or the regional governments have been able to tame or control them.
While some of the media outlets, particularly Al Jazeera tries to discredit the protesters and describe them as foreign-backed groups and agents of the United States of America (USA). However, the Iraqi government, to certain extent, acknowledged the legitimacy of the protesters’ demands. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Hadier al-Abadi agreed to spend $3 millions to meet some of the demands of the people.
In fact , there is no doubt that USA, Iran, and the other neighboring stat... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) In June 2017 I wrote an article “Our struggle must go beyond what our lifestyle demands”[1]. In that article I stressed some major factors that may be obstacles in the way of our struggles. Since I wrote that article our life in the UK has gotten worse in every way. But, for anarchist people, nothing has changed, with no improvement and no development in our struggle against the system. In fact there has been more sectarianism, with groups keeping more distance between each other, far away from cooperation and solidarity and more divided over the Gender Recognition Act (GRA).
The state, through its organs, tries hard to increase its influence and pressure, overpowering people through the market, financial institutions and educa... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Many articles from different people about Rojava have expressed different views. The vast majority of them have covered the positive and bright sides of this experiment. I too have written many articles, in both Kurdish and English. In addition, I have given many interviews to Kurdish and non-Kurdish media. I have attended and addressed several meetings, both in the UK and abroad. I traveled once to Rojava and twice to Bakur (the Kurdistan part of Turkey).
This article is about both Rojava and Bakur, as I am more optimistic about Bakur than about Rojava. As a result, I am prepared to receive considerable backlash from those who read this article, especially from Kurdish people. They either do not accept any criticism or they blindly suppor... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The world still suffers from the current economic crisis that started in 2008. It has not only made the vast majority of us poorer and our life harder but has limited our freedoms as well. In the meantime the number of visible and invisible wars increases and the number of victims goes up. Despite this, the leftist, communist, socialist and the anarchist movements have not gone forward.
When I attend meetings, I often hear the phrase ‘anarchist movement’. I question if the ‘anarchist movement’ exist anywhere?
In my opinion after the Spain civil war of 1936 to 1939 there has not been any anarchist movement anywhere in the world. What we had or we have are just a few strong anarchist organizations. In France and Gree... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) For the last four decades we have seen either no support or very little from the working class, especially the industrialized sections and big companies to people’s movement.
It is easy to see this phenomenon in the Iranian green movement in June 2008, last year, 2018, and in the countries of the “Arab spring”. We have seen it too In Jordan, Bahrain, in Turkey’s Taksim Gezi Park in 2013, in France in 2005 and in whole parts of Iraq including Kurdistan since 2005 until the most recent protests and demonstrations in Basra in July and September of 2018. There was also no lack of protests in parts of the former communist bloc and, more obviously and importantly, was the very recent movement of Yellow Vests protesters in... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The big news in the Kurdish media including the social media, has been about Abdullah Ocalan being visited by his lawyers at Emrali prison. The last time such a visit took place was on July the 27th, 2011. This is good news at least for many of Ocalan’s supporters who have been on hunger strike trying to end his isolation. Some of these supporters have been on strike for 145 days and are in very difficult position.
This news neither needs celebration nor is hopeful. President Erdogan is a cunning politician. He often changes his policies in order to protect himself and his Justice and Development party [AKP]. No doubt his current decision to agree for Ocalan to see his lawyers is in his own interest and the interest of his government... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The system is always able to create dangerous people but the real danger is the system itself. The system also makes the people powerless, helpless and slaves too through its dark forces of which the Media is one.
Media is a part of this system, portraying heads of state, powerful people and celebrities as either good or bad. In this way Media does a great job in protecting and preserving the system. It does this by diverting people’s attention from real problems. It is always better for the state, the United Kingdom (UK) that its people do not take important issues they are facing seriously. Health services, education, housing and homelessness, immigration, racism, the railways and Brexit are just a few of them.
Since Trump came to... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) “Out Iran out out, Basra lives free” this is one of the main chant thousands of the protesters were shouting. The strong protesters back to the streets in the afternoon of Tuesday, 10/09 when the Prime Minister of Iraq, Haider al-Abadi failed to deliver his promises to meet people’s demands of July.
Since the beginning of the protests on Tuesday,10 protesters killed and over 100 injured. They cut off the road of Umm Qasr on Wednesday, 04/09. Umm Qasr Port is part of the city of Umm Qasr and one of the couple ports in Iraq for entering goods to Basra and the rest of Iraq.
The protests are getting bigger. They are very angry because they are lack of every basic service including clean water electric power. In this very hot... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Rojava is going through a very difficult time; its future is not clear at the moment. However what is clear is that there will either be genocide or compromise.
What is currently going on in Rojava has been caused by the very complicated background to its struggle going back to the defense of Kobane by the heroic fighters of the YPG/J, and then the intervention of the United States (US).
I always believed that the US became involved in Rojava because they knew that Kobane could not be defeated and there was no other way to defeat Rojava’s experiment other than by getting involved and controlling the situation in order to achieve its goal and strategy.
The absence of strong international support and solidarity from leftists, unionis... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Below is the outcome of my visit to Northern Kurdistan in Turkey between 02/11/14 to 08/11/14 as one of a delegation from United Kingdom, organized by Peace in Kurdistan Campaign (PIK), People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and Democratic Society Congress (DTK).
Throughout the visit we had a chance to meet many organizations, including political parties, local and regional Trade Unions, co-Mayor of Diyarbakir and Suruc, the Coordination of humanitarian aid to the refugees, Refugees Camps, Villages at the border of Kobane, representatives of Democratic Free Movement of Women, Human Rights Association, representatives of democratic Region’s Party, the Bar Association of Diyarbakir and finally meeting with the Federation of the Families... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Recently I was involved in a long discussion with a close friend of mine who is not an anarchist. He believes that the destination of human beings is a kind of socialism but not necessarily the one that anarchists want.
My friend thinks the needs of the state gradually decrease, to the point where it will no longer be necessary to run society by any separate authority, as its members will be fully aware, conscientious and responsible so that all care for each other and society too. Finally, he concluded by saying, “Since society would be run by its members, law makers will become unnecessary”.
Of course, anarchists talk about socialism but in a wider form as it will be a classless and non-hierarchical society. Anarchists do no... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Capitalism and its pillar, the state, have changed their methods to fight back against the working class movement. The system with all its structures have amended and adapted themselves to the struggle of their class enemy and have learned how to tame it. In fact the way the working class struggle against their employers and the state has actually benefited the capitalist system.
Capitalism is developing. From time to time renewing itself in order to manage better to cope with its internal problems of competition and external ones to fight back against its enemy. This development is very obvious, especially since the 1980s, but still the working class or rather the masses fight back in the same way they fought decades ago.
The current glo... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
