To know what is really going on in Syria at the moment is very difficult as each faction puts its own spin on the events that are being played out in that unfortunate and blood sodden land. To those who seek real democratic change, the area known as Rojava is of the most interest. Whatever is going on there, it appears that they are not trying to fashion a new nation state, but an alternative bottom up form of of community living. Which of course would be a breath of fresh air in that part of the world which has been sliced and diced by imperialist ambitions for generations. So any information from anybody on the ground in that area, is always very welcome.
This article is from Project Muse:
The Kurdish movement takes every opportunity to espouse that they are not in the business of creating a new state for the Kurds, and a deep critique of the nation-state is quite prevalent in the recent writings of Öcalan. In his widely read 5th Defense “The Kurdish Problem and the Democratic Nation Solution”, he elaborates that “The greatest weapon which capitalism has to make itself the reigning system is to turn state power into a nation-state power. The nation-state is possible by spreading its power to the capillaries of society…. The national borders, the national army, the centralized civilian bureaucracy, central and local administration, the national market, monopoly economic domination, national currency, passport, national identity, national places of worship, primary schools, a single language, symbols of flags, all of these come together to operate capitalism’s maximum profit rule over society. This process, defined by modern sociologists as a way of overcoming traditional societies and presented as the formation of modern homogenous societies and the primary indicator of progress, in essence, represents a society locked in an iron cage.”3Read the full article HERE:
This is the ideology at battle in a region where many nation-states are involved in a civil war and where the Kurds are having to make uncomfortable alliances for mere survival. Flowing from this proclaimed statelessness and emphasis of autonomy, many anarchists and libertarian communists have begun to identify with the revolution in Rojava. Various leftist factions have argued over the anti-capitalist and anti-state credentials of what is happening in Rojava, and in some ways Rojava can resemble more the latter than the former. Regardless, based on my own experiences and observations in Rojava, it is obvious that the sentiment captured by the quote at the onset of this article is real and that the challenges of a revolution lie beyond the trenches. This brief essay will attempt to contribute to this discussion.
