We Must Not Let History Repeat Itself.

       History repeats itself, just as the capitalist/imperialists in 1936 turned a blind eye or actively indulged in the destruction of the Spanish revolution, NATO, America, and Russia turn a blind eye while the dictator Erdogan  unleashes his Western kitted out military machine, against the people of Afrin. No alternative to capitalism will ever be allowed to survive, no matter the cost to human life, if the capitalist/imperialist cabal of this world has its way. In their rules it is capitalism or death. Surely the line must be drawn somewhere?

Insurrection News-Received on 09.03.18:

          For more than 6 weeks we have had to watch the Turkish state attack and occupy, together with Islamist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaida, Afrin, the most western canton of Rojava. In this extermination campaign, the invaders are neither deterred by the deliberate bombardment of civilians nor by the use of chemical weapons. The Islamist mercenaries and fascist Turkish soldiers leave a trail of devastation, plunder, rape and murder, they practice an ethnic cleansing of the territory of Kurds. So far, more than 300 civilians and many militants have given their lives, dozens of villages have been destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people have had to leave their homes.

          Despite the determined resistance of Afrin’s people and their YPG / YPJ / SDF defense units, the Turkish army manages to gain more ground every day. While the Turkish offensive was stuck in the border area of the canton for the first month, in recent days important small towns such as Raco and Shera have been conquered by the invaders. Their destination is Afrin City, the place where civilians have fled the villages and small towns they have conquered so far.

        This is made possible by the massive use of modern NATO technology such as fighter jets, artillery, tanks and drones. The fascist-Islamist war of aggression against Afrin is not only Erdogan’s attempt to destroy the Kurdish freedom movement; While Russia opens the door to the Turkish Air Force and the Syrian Assad regime is de facto inactive, NATO actively supports this war with intelligence information, military technology, weapons and ammunition from Western factories. The hypocritical messages from the palaces of power can not hide the fact that this war is nothing but the reckoning of the rulers with the revolution of Rojava. It is a reckoning with the attempt to counter the capitalist system with a self-determined alternative of radical democracy, women’s liberation, real gender equality, and social ecology.

         As radical left in Europe, we should be aware of the historical significance of these days. The attack on Afrin is an attempt to destroy the most promising revolutionary project of our generation. The Rojava Revolution is not only the only significant emancipatory perspective in the Middle East, but also one of the worldwide last remaining glimmers of hope for another world.

        Like no other revolution of the last decades, Rojava has inspired us and shown us how radical and beautiful the struggle for the liberation of a society can be. The heroic resistance of YPG and YPJ in Kobani and the self-organization of the population under the initiative of self-liberating women cast a spell over thousands of leftists, anarchists, socialists and feminists. Worldwide, this revolution was discussed, admired and given solidarity, hundreds of people made their way to Rojava and participated in the resistance against ISIS and the building of a new society. In spite of all the contradictions, the Rojava movement, with its determination, its attachment to the people and the concrete implementation of our utopias, has become the most important focal point of the global struggle against capitalism, patriarchy and racism.

         Today, this project is standing with its back to the wall. The war over Afrin is a struggle for existence or not-existence for the revolution in Rojava. If Afrin falls, Minbij will fall as well. With a victory for the Turkish state west of the Euphrates, American imperialism will also rethink its regional strategy and consider to hand over northern Syria to Turkey-affiliated Islamist militias under the FSA label aka ISIS and Al-Qaida / Al-Nusra. This would not only be the beginning of ethnic cleansing and the bloody end of the Rojava revolution, but also the beginning of a new phase in the development of Turkish fascism as a source of worldwide Islamism – Erdogan’s dreams of the new Ottoman Empire with him as Sultan at the head would no longer have any counterpart. The dictatorship inside would be consolidated for decades, the colonial expansion would be extended to the outside. The Middle East would be driven deeper into the chaos of war and annihilation without a force that can develop an emancipatory alternative.
        The fact that developments in the Middle East have a direct impact on political and social processes also in Europe and other parts of the world has not only been shown by the attacks of ISIS in recent years. The rise of racism, sexism and antisemitism in European societies, the new militarism and the ever-increasing calls for the authoritarian state and thus the comeback of the radical right, are directly related to this. We must be aware that the conditions under which we, the radical left, are struggling in the centers of power are also shaped by the international balance of power. And the same is true of the political conditions in the metropolises of capitalism, which influence the conditions under which our friends fight in Afrin.

        The people of Rojava are still standing, YPG / YPJ / SDF are opposed to these developments. And this resistance has so far only been successful because people have decided to give everything for it. However, they will not be able to defend against the brutal superiority of the attacking Turkish army and their Islamist helpers without international support. But despite weeks of worldwide protests, the states of North America via Europe to Russia hold on to their cruel decision to end this revolution, and seem to have sealed the fate of the people in Rojava. The resistance in Afrin will only succeed if we are ready to give it all, even if it is the most valuable.

         We will not continue to watch this injustice passively. We will not leave the people in Rojava and our fighting comrades alone, because the war against Afrin is just as much a war against us. The Turkish attack on Afrin is NATO’s political, economic and military push into the heart of our revolutionary struggles, dreams and hopes. We will carry this war back to where it is approved, supported, legitimized and produced. We will drive up the costs for those who benefit from this war. We will hold to account those who endorse the murder of civilians and legitimize them as a supposed “war on terror”. And we will make the deafened European public listen up and remind our societies that we all have a responsibility for what governments are doing on our behalf.

         In this sense, we call upon all emancipatory forces worldwide to break the silence and give a voice to the people of Rojava that no one else can ignore. If not us, who else will be able to remind our societies of their responsibilities? The situation in Afrin is an existential threat to all our revolutionary perspectives – when, if not now, is it time to risk everything? If Afrin falls, it will be too late. Only if we give everything, we will be able to win everything.

The past solidarity actions with the resistance in Afrin have been right and good. We greet all the comrades who have been organizing, demonstrating and carrying out direct actions for weeks. These were important moments, but they are not enough. In the current situation, the murderous silence and the support of fascist Turkey by the international community forces us to other means. We must exercise our right of self-defense of our hopes.

         Direct actions can not only be a concrete intervention in the war and propaganda machinery of the Turkish state and its helpers, but have much more potential to draw attention to the extraordinary urgency of the situation. Burning Turkish consulates, sabotaged armaments companies and mass militant actions against the symbols of capitalist and imperialist rule will break the silence and make the atrocities of Turkish fascism no longer ignorable. The system in Europe thrives on us to engage and stun, to pacify conflicts and contradictions – let this false illusion of social peace go up in flames. Let us show the rulers that we will resist the attacks with the people of Rojava and defend by all means the revolution in Rojava, which is also our revolution.

         We call on Monday, 12.3.2018 to start with this militant campaign wherever we can hit the rulers: Radical, creative and courageous, involve you and organize local actions as a prelude to a resistance that will show the powerful of this world that Afrin is not alone. Like the people of Rojava, we also say: “Together we will fight, together we will lose, or together we will win”.

Afrin will not fall!

Biji Berxwedana Afrin!

Long live the international solidarity!

Radical cells in the heart of the beast
8.3.2018

        We will collect all direct actions in solidarity with the Afrin resistance and possible targets at: fight4afrin.noblogs.org

Contact: fight4afrin[at]riseup.net

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Imperialists Trying To Extinguish The Flame Of Freedom.

        The region of the Middle East seems doomed to be the battle ground of the world's imperialists as the carve up the region and crush any attempt by the people to foster freedom and democracy. This latest imperialist plundering adventure by Turkish dictator, Erdogan is nothing less than a savage attack on people trying to create a society freed from the capitalist authoritarian system, our imperialist masters will not tolerate areas where people act and think for themselves in the interests of all.

       The following is an extract from an article by Dilar Dirik, from Roar Magazine, calling for active support for the people of the region around Afrin, a call to come together and stop this imperialist slaughter of the ideals of freedom and justice for all.

         As I write, the Turkish army is engaged in an illegal cross-border invasion of the Syrian-Kurdish region of Afrin. Claiming to fight “terrorists,” the Turkish state — an EU candidate, ally of the West and second-largest NATO army — launched an act of aggression against the same people who earned the world’s respect for defeating ISIS with their courageous sacrifices and historic resistance. The military campaign includes pro-Erdogan Free Syrian Army (FSA) troops and poses a threat to 800,000 civilians, half of whom are internally displaced people who sought refuge in Afrin from regions like Idlib and Aleppo.
       The targeting of Afrin exposes every letter in the ABC of imperialism. The attack could not have been launched without the approval of Russia, which controls the airspace over Afrin, as well as the consent of Iran and Assad. According to officials in Afrin, Russia proposed to protect Afrin in return for handing over control to the Assad regime. But as the offer was rejected, Russia gave green light to Turkey’s invasion.
      The United States, meanwhile, which conveniently used the Kurds as “reliable boots on the ground” in Syria for the last years in the international anti-ISIS coalition, stays quiet over their NATO ally’s ambitions to sacrifice the heroes of the ISIS war, merely warning Turkey to “avoid civilian casualties.” European governments, especially Germany, have their own stakes in the game, as mostly European weapons and tanks are used by the Turkish army; weapons in the hands of fascists, which drive millions of people to leave their homes and risk death to become refugees in Europe.
       Seven years into the war, Syria is destroyed; ISIS came, killed and left; genocide and massacres have been committed; the region’s demography and ecology have changed; Assad seems to be here to stay. The legitimate demands of all Syrians who took to the streets and risked their lives to call for dignity, freedom and justice against the Assad regime have been betrayed bitterly. Meanwhile, the powerful state actors in the region and beyond seem to have come full circle, as more than half a million people died and around 6 million have been displaced. Activists speak of the Third World War taking place in this region.
        It is within this context that Turkey launches its war on Afrin, far exceeding the historical hostility of the Turkish state towards the Kurdish people. The battle symbolizes the two options that the peoples and communities of the Middle East face today: between militarist, patriarchal, fascist dictatorships on the one hand, controlled by foreign imperialist interests and capital, or the solidarity between autonomous, self-determined, free and equal communities on the other. The defense of Afrin is an opportunity for the left to unite against fascism and mobilize against militarism, occupation and war.

What is at stake

        Within the context of the war on ISIS, the same states that are known to have fueled jihadist forces inside Syria — especially Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — became part of a coalition led by the same powers which invaded the Middle East for imperial interests, committed war crimes in the name of “fighting terrorism,” and thus established the ground on which ISIS would eventually flourish. The forces that represent systems of capitalism, authoritarian statism, religious fundamentalism and in some cases pure fascism, were put in charge of establishing democracy and peace.
       Meanwhile, as ISIS captured the attention of the international community, the initial issue of Assad’s dictatorial and bloodthirsty rule was side-lined, as were any notions of a lasting and just peace for Syria. With the entrance of Russia on the Syrian war scene and the role of Iran, the false binary of Sunni-Shiite animosity — a commonly used trope to disable just solutions in the Middle East — was reinforced. Regardless of all the conflicting interests of the involved powers, their common practice was the suppression of meaningful dissent, grassroots resistance and projects for genuine democratic alternatives. On the ground, this led to the mobilization of fascist and sectarian ideologies for which people were willing to die and kill.
      By default, any attempts at popular self-determination and self-defense against colonialism and capitalist exploitation would need to be annihilated for this concept to work. That explains all the hostility campaigns towards the liberationist Rojava revolution, including the attempts of big powers such as the US to use Rojava militarily and try to empty its politics of its revolutionary principles. Taking advantage of the contradictions emerging within the imperialist power games, the Kurds, trying to stay true to revolutionary ideals while being literally surrounded by fire and in temporary tactical alliances with some actors, have constantly been accused of being puppets of imperialism in their attempt to establish radical democratic systems of self-governance, while defending millions of lives from certain death by ISIS fascists.
      Sadly, the sectarian and dogmatic sections of the international left were unable to read these emancipatory politics and act accordingly, allowing imperialism to go ahead by refusing to extend vital solidarity to the Kurds when it was most needed. There is still time to correct this mistake.

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