A perspective on the current situation, the meeting with Abdullah Öcalan, the action in Ankara and attacks on Rojava
07.11.2024
We live in a time and world where events overlap, new battlefields emerge daily, states declare wars, and news outlets continuously flash grim numbers: murdered people, abused women and children, and burned forests are reported as if they were mere statistics, detached from the lives they represent. Consequently, the world appears doomed to destruction and war. This desensitization is part of a broader effort to alienate people from their humanity, encouraging an individualization and fragmentation of society that fosters political hopelessness and aimlessness. However, beneath this state-driven propaganda, it is clear that capitalist modernity is facing a profound crisis. Political, military, and economic escalations, along with a sustained campaign against society, are indicative of the capitalist era’s impending end. In this period, which offers the chance to built an alternative to Capitalist Modernity, organized revolutionary resistance is crucial for building a truly democratic social system .
The capitalist system has expanded its reach across much of the world, bringing with it an individualistic, authoritarian, and consumerist mindset. One region in which imperialist powers like the US, the UK and European states have been striving for control and assimilation for centuries is the Middle East. The Middle East’s abundance of mineral resources and its strategic trade routes linking Asia, Africa, and Europe have only heightened its importance, particularly amid the resource conflicts of our time. The power struggle between imperialist forces, which may appear as clashing ideologies, is, in essence, competition among powers with the same goal: societal exploitation.
Since its founding, the Turkish state has played a pivotal role in this regional struggle. Acting as NATO’s eastern front, Turkey has worked to impose nationalism and capitalism on the Middle East and to eliminate any opposition. It was in response to this imperial, sociocidal project that the Kurdish freedom movement arose under Abdullah Öcalan’s leadership. This movement fights not only for Kurdish rights but also for a democratically socialist Middle East. It has withstood various imperialist attacks that have dismantled many other revolutionary movements. Even NATO’s international conspiracy and abduction of Abdullah Öcalan 26 years ago didn’t not reach its goal, because of Öcalans vision for a non-state society rooted in women’s liberation, ecology, and democracy. Moving from resistance to proactive struggle, the movement is strategically mobilizing to halt further genocide, capitalist expansion, and cultural assimilation in the Middle East, specifically by countering Turkish fascism.
For years, the revolution in Kurdistan has dealt significant blows to the fascist system in Turkey, causing it into to fall into an economic, political, and social crisis. This dynamic has led even international powers to reconsider Turkey’s value and stability, as evidenced by initiatives like the IMEC (India Middle East Europe Corridor) energy route, approved at the last G20 summit, which conspicuously bypasses Turkey. It can be seen as a signal for the US looking for alternatives that don’t require the Turkish state.
The recent developments in Turkey can be understood in this context as well: The recent campaign, “Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan – For a Political Solution to the Kurdish Question,” launched on October 10, 2023, by international friends of the Kurdish people supports their search for a political solution to the Kurdish question, and is a comprehensive offensive, aimed at securing Öcalan’s freedom and opening the way for democratizing the Middle East. This campaign, as part of a political, social, organisational and military offensive has struck Turkish fascism hard with growing international support, new organizational efforts in northern Kurdistan, the bolstering of autonomous governance in northeastern Syria, and the spread of the “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” philosophy based on Öcalan’s ideas. The slogan echoing globally, from India to Myanmar to academic and governmental institutions, indicates that he international resonance of Öcalan’s message. In the meantime the Turkish state’s military continues to face defeat after defeat against the armed resistance of the Guerrilla in the mountains. Despite high-tech NATO support and state-of-the-art weaponry, Turkey’s military has been unable to conquer the Medya defense areas in southern Kurdistan, and the Turkish government’s claim of having eliminated guerrilla forces in Bakûr (northern Kurdistan) stands contradicted by ongoing intense battles in the region.
In Turkish metropolises and economic centers, urban militias maintain steady resistance, including a action on October 23, 2023, by guerrilla fighters Şehîd Asya Ali and Şehîd Rojger Helîn in Ankara. Their attack on a critical production center for Turkey’s combat drones demonstrated that PKK militants, despite extensive intelligence efforts, can still penetrate Turkey’s security measures and strike in the heart of Turkish Fascism.
Despite persistent state repression, the Kurdish freedom movement has continued to pave the way for democratic modernity. The democratic nation model it promotes, which values an organized and diverse society over nationalism, has gained traction, resisting both Turkish fascism and external capitalist influences in the Middle East. In Rojava, Arabs, Assyrians, Armenians, and Kurds work together to lay the foundations of an moral and political society, even in harsh conditions.
The achievements of this liberation movement are bringing capitalist modernity to the brink of collapse. NATO, having long relied on Turkey to suppress the revolutionary movement, is now showing a lack of confidence in Turkey’s regime, which for 50 years, every year again predicts the Kurdish movement’s defeat only to fail again. The AKP/MHP regime, which relies on external support for survival and maintains diplomatic links across the Middle East, hoping to extract advantages is in a state of fear. Turkey’s policy of engaging with Hamas while maintaining trade with Israel, supporting the Islamic State while simultaneously strengthening ties with Syria and Iraq, reflects a strategy of exploiting every possible opportunity and playing everyone. However, such games are increasingly at odds with the interests of the US led bloc of western-imperialism, who now sees Turkey’s aspirations for regional dominance as an obstacle to their agenda in the Middle East. And if the conflicts deepen and spread to Turkey, it will be difficult for Turkey to withstand the simultaneous struggle for control and the fight against the Kurdish freedom movement.
Under pressure on numerous fronts, the AKP/MHP regime and its international backers allowed a meeting between Abdullah Öcalan and his nephew, DEM Party politician Ömer Öcalan, after three and a half years of complete isolation. Even though the Turkish state pretends to be open to dialog with Öcalan, its history of extermination, colonialism and genocide continues to shape its actions. Previous attempts of peace have only served to contain the resistance and suppress social dissent. Recent events, including statements from MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli regarding peace talks, should be viewed with caution, as they likely serve both to weaken internal opposition and to project a conciliatory image internationally, as part of a broader special war strategy. When closing reading the words of Bahçeli it gets clear that what the AKP-MHP regime is demanding is not peace, but surrender. Because in the current circumstances what laying down arms essentially means is this.
In Rojava, Turkish attacks on civilian infrastructure reveal the unchanged political ambitions of the fascist regime, which seeks to complete the cultural genocide of Kurds and expand territorial control.Since a complete military victory cannot be achieved, the Turkish state has attempted to weaken the self-administration in north-eastern Syria by attacking critical infrastructure. Yet this, too, has been thwarted by the resistance of the Kurdish people. Dirty warfare tactics—including misinformation campaigns, mass-arrests, and chemical weapon attacks against guerrillas—have failed to sustain fascism.
The achievements of the Kurdish Freedom and its allies so far have inspired continued resistance, as the weakening of hegemonic powers opens opportunities for democratic forces to increase pressure. Abdullah Öcalan himself has stressed that fascism must be met with organized societal resistance.
source: RiseUp4Rojava