Democratic confederalism

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Created in the 1970s under the context of Cold War geopolitical bipolarity, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was initially inspired by national liberation movements across the planet,[35][36] many of whom were influenced by Marxist–Leninist ideals and left-wing nationalism.[37][38][39] Over the years, however, the PKK has distanced itself from these ideologies, considering that the Kurdish question was not a mere problem of ethnicity and nationality[nb 2] solved by the revolutionary seizure of state power or the constitution of an independent state.[35] Becoming a major critic of the very idea of a nation-state and even of national and social liberation from a Marxist–Leninist perspective,[10][11] Abdullah Öcalan initiated a substantial transition from the Kurdish liberation movement in search of a form of socialism distinct from the statist and centralizing system associated with the former Soviet superpower.[11][12][13]

This process was consolidated after the capture and arrest of Öcalan by the Turkish intelligence services in 1999.[11] Although he is kept in isolation on the prison island of İmralı, Öcalan used his time not only to prepare his defense strategy in the course of the Turkish trial which had sentenced him to death, but also to elaborate his proposals on the Kurdish question and on its political solution.[11] Having access to hundreds of books, including Turkish translations of numerous historical and philosophical texts from Western thought, his plan was initially to find theoretical foundations in these works that would justify the PKK's past actions, and to discuss the Kurdish–Turkish conflict within a comprehensive analysis of the development of the nation-state throughout history.[12] Thus, Öcalan began his studies from Sumerian mythology and the origins of Neolithic cultures, as well as from the history of the first city-states.[13] But it was the readings of thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche (whom Öcalan calls "the prophet of the capitalist era"[40]), 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".[13][36]

In 2005, while the European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey for "inhumane treatment" and "unfair prosecution" in the case of Öcalan,[41] calling for a new trial for the Kurdish leader,[42] 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).[29]

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]

Sustainable micro-irrigation system in Syria created by the AANES in southern Afrin.

Responding to the needs of the Kurdish movement across Kurdistan, Öcalan's studies resulting in democratic confederalism addressed various aspects of Kurdish society in the fields of anthropology, linguistics, and international politics, international law, as well as introducing a feminist approach called jineology, the latter in particular having been inspired by the struggle of women in the PKK and Sakine Cansiz.[22] His greatest theoretical inspirations came from social ecology and libertarian municipalism as formulated by the American anarchist Murray Bookchin.[7][12] 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.[43][44][45]

YBŞ and PKK Guerrillas

YBŞ and PKK Guerillas in Northern and Southern Kurdistan in 2017

Admiring Bookchin's concepts, Öcalan developed a critical view of nationalism and the nation-state that led him to interpret peoples' right to self-determination as "the basis for the establishment of a basic democracy, without the need to seek new political frontiers".[12] Based on this, Öcalan proposes that a political solution for the Kurdish people does not involve the foundation of a new 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.[46]

Protest in support of Democratic confederalism and the Rojava revolution against genocide, in Berlin, Germany 2018

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

• The new political, philosophical and ideological approaches of the Kurdish liberation movement finds its most appropriate expression in the so-called democratic socialism. A free Kurdistan is only conceivable as a democratic Kurdistan.
• The Kurdish movement does not work for creating a Kurdish nation-state based on the right of self-determination of peoples, but considers this right "as the basis for the establishment of grassroots democracies" without aiming new political borders and is seeking to a system of democratic self-organization in Kurdistan with the features of a confederation that "provides a frame-work within which inter alia minorities, religious communities, cultural groups, gender-specific groups and other societal groups" can organize themselves autonomously.
• The democratization process in Kurdistan encompasses "a broad societal project aiming at the economic, social and political sovereignty of all parts of the society", as well as the creation of necessary institutions and the elaboration of instruments that guarantee and enable society self-government and democratic control, in which each decision-making process (organized in open councils, municipal councils, local and general parliaments) should have the direct involvement of local communities. A self-government model allow a more adequate implementation of basic values such as freedom and equality.
• The solution of the Kurdish question should be tried together with a process of democratization not only of all countries that exercise hegemonic power over the different parts of Kurdistan, but also extends across the entire Middle East. A new democratic policy, however, could only exist from democratic parties and their affiliated institutions "committed to the interests of the society instead of fulfilling state orders".
• While this democratic reforms is not yet possible, a peaceful coexistence with the nation-state is admitted as long as there is no intervention in central issues of self-government or attempts at social assimilation, as well as this coexistence does not mean acceptance of its "classic state structure with its despotic attitude of power". At the end of this process of subjection to democratic reforms, the nation-state must become a more modest political institution, functioning as a social authority that observes functions only in the fields of internal security and in the provision of social services, and its state-related sovereign rights are only limited.
• The health system and the right to native language and culture education must be warranted by both state and civil society.
• The freedom and rights of women must be a strategic part of the fight for freedom and democracy in Kurdistan, as well as the environmental protection must be taken seriously during the process of social change.
• The individual freedoms of expression and choice are irrevocable. Freedom of information is not only an individual right, but an important social issue who depends on the existence of an independent media whose communication with the public is marked by democratic balance.
• The economic resources are not the property of the state but of the society, and its just redistribution is also extremely essential "for the liberation process of the society". An economy committed to the population should also be based on the implementation of an alternative economic policy that does not aim solely at profit, but a production based on sharing and in satisfying basic natural needs for all.

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).

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.[30][31] 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.[30][32]

YPJ members in a greenhouse farm, for ecological cooperative farming

Inspired by the project of democratic confederalism, mayors of the Party of the Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi, DTP) started a fight for collective rights of a political nature in Turkey through civil disobedience campaigns.[32] Challenging the laws that prohibit the official use 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.[32] However, these policies made the DTP mayors and deputies targets of judicial harassment,[47] and the Kurdish party was banned by the Turkish Constitutional Court in 2009.[48][49]

It was during the Civil War in Syria that an opportunity arose to implement Ocalan's new political doctrine deeply, after the PYD declared the autonomy of three cantons in Rojava, a region comprising parts of the north and northeast of Syrian territory.[13][14][20] Creating a political entity opposed to the capitalist nation-state, Rojava experienced an original experience of democratic, decentralized and non-hierarchical society,[33] based on feminist, ecology, cultural pluralism, co-operative sharing economy ideas, and participatory politics and consensual construction.[24][50][51]