1.
Kurds
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The Kurds are culturally and linguistically closely related to the Iranian peoples and, as a result, are often themselves classified as an Iranian people. A recent Kurdish diaspora has also developed in Western countries, primarily in Germany, the Kurdish language refers collectively to the related dialects spoken by the Kurds. It is mainly spoken in parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria. Kurdish holds official status in Iraq as a national language alongside Arabic, is recognized in Iran as a regional language, the Kurdish languages belong to the northwestern sub‑group of the Iranian languages, which in turn belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. According to Mackenzie, there are few features that all Kurdish dialects have in common. And the fact that this reflects the sense of ethnic identity and unity of the Kurds. The number of Kurds living in Southwest Asia is estimated at close to 30 million, Kurds comprise anywhere from 18% to 20% of the population in Turkey, possibly as high as 25%,15 to 20% in Iraq, 10% in Iran, and 9% in Syria. Kurds form regional majorities in all four of these countries, viz. in Turkish Kurdistan, the Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in West Asia after the Arabs, Persians, and Turks. The total number of Kurds in 1991 was placed at 22.5 million, with 48% of this number living in Turkey, 18% in Iraq, 24% in Iran, and 4% in Syria. Recent emigration accounts for a population of close to 1.5 million in Western countries and this groups population was estimated at close to 0.4 million in 1990. The land of Karda is mentioned on a Sumerian clay-tablet dated to the 3rd millennium B. C. This land was inhabited by the people of Su who dwelt in the regions of Lake Van. Other Sumerian clay-tables referred the people, who lived in the land of Karda, as the Qarduchi and the Qurti. Many Kurds consider themselves descended from the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, the claimed Median descent is reflected in the words of the Kurdish national anthem, We are the children of the Medes and Kai Khosrow. The Kurdish languages form a subgroup of the Northwestern Iranian languages like Median, some researchers consider the independent Kardouchoi as the ancestors of the Kurds. The term Kurd, however, is first encountered in Arabic sources of the seventh century, the Kurds have ethnically diverse origins. During the Sassanid era, in Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan, after initially sustaining a heavy defeat, Ardashir I was successful in subjugating the Kurds. In a letter Ardashir I received from his foe, Ardavan V, the usage of the term Kurd during this time period most likely was a social term, designating Northwestern Iranian nomads, rather than a concrete ethnic group
2.
Turkish people
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Turkish people, or the Turks, also known as Anatolian Turks, are a Turkic ethnic group and nation living mainly in Turkey and speaking Turkish, the most widely spoken Turkic language. They are the largest ethnic group in Turkey, as well as by far the largest ethnic group among the speakers of Turkic languages, ethnic Turkish minorities exist in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, a Turkish diaspora has been established with modern migration, the ethnonym Turk may be first discerned in Herodotus reference to Targitas, first king of the Scythians, furthermore, during the first century AD. Pomponius Mela refers to the Turcae in the north of the Sea of Azov. The first definite references to the Turks come mainly from Chinese sources in the sixth century, in these sources, Turk appears as Tujue, which referred to the Göktürks. Although Turk refers to Turkish people, it may sometimes refer to the wider language group of Turkic peoples. In the 19th century, the word Türk only referred to Anatolian villagers, the Ottoman ruling class identified themselves as Ottomans, not usually as Turks. In the late 19th century, as the Ottoman upper classes adopted European ideas of nationalism the term Türk took on a more positive connotation. The Turkish-speakers of Anatolia were the most loyal supporters of Ottoman rule, Turkish Jews, Christians, or even Alevis may be considered non-Turks. On the other hand, Kurdish Arab followers of the Sunni branch of Islam who live in eastern Anatolia are sometimes considered Turks, article 66 of the Turkish Constitution defines a Turk as anyone who is bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship. Anatolia was first inhabited by hunter-gatherers during the Paleolithic era, most of the Turkic peoples were followers of Tengriism, sharing the cult of the sky god Tengri, although there were also adherents of Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism. However, during the Muslim conquests, the Turks entered the Muslim world proper as servants, during the booty of Arab raids, the Turks began converting to Islam after Muslim conquest of Transoxiana through the efforts of missionaries, Sufis, and merchants. Although initiated by the Arabs, the conversion of the Turks to Islam was filtered through Persian, under the Umayyads, most were domestic servants, whilst under the Abbasids, increasing numbers were trained as soldiers. By the ninth century, Turkish commanders were leading the caliphs’ Turkish troops into battle, as the Abbasid caliphate declined, Turkish officers assumed more military and political power taking over or establishing provincial dynasties with their own corps of Turkish troops. During the 11th century the Seljuk Turks who were admirers of the Persian civilization grew in number and were able to occupy the province of the Abbasid Empire. By 1055, the Seljuk Empire captured Baghdad and began to make their first incursions into the edges of Anatolia, when the Seljuk Turks won the Battle of Manzikert against the Byzantine Empire in 1071, it opened the gates of Anatolia to them. Although ethnically Turkish, the Seljuk Turks appreciated and became the purveyors of the Persian culture rather than the Turkish culture, in dire straits, the Byzantine Empire turned to the West for help setting in motion the pleas that led to the First Crusade. Once the Crusaders took Iznik, the Seljuk Turks established the Sultanate of Rum from their new capital, Konya, by the 12th century the Europeans had begun to call the Anatolian region Turchia or Turkey, meaning the land of the Turks
3.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
4.
Kurdistan Workers' Party
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The Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK is a left-wing organization based in Turkey and Iraq. The group was founded in 1978 in the village of Fis by a group of Kurdish students led by Abdullah Öcalan. In May 2007, former members of the PKK helped form the Kurdistan Communities Union, an organisation of Kurds from Turkey, Iran, Iraq. It takes its power from the people and adapts to reach self-sufficiency in every field including the economy, in July 2015, the PKK announced that a ceasefire was over and said that Ankara had welched on its promises regarding the Kurdish issue. In August 2015, the PKK announced that they would accept a ceasefire with Turkey under United Nations or US guarantees, the PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by several states and organizations, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the United States and the European Union. However, the United Nations and countries such as Switzerland, China, India, Russia, in the early 1970s, the organizations core group was made up largely of students led by Abdullah Öcalan in Ankara. The group focused to the large oppressed Kurdish population in south-east Turkey, a meeting on 25 November 1978, in a tea house near Diyarbakır is considered the founding meeting. On 27 November 1978, the group adopted the name Kurdistan Workers Party, espousing a Marxist ideology, the group took part in violent conflicts with right-wing entities as a part of the political chaos in Turkey at the time. Some sources claimed that the tried to assassinate the Kurdish tribal leader Mehmet Celal Bucak in 1979. They claimed that he exploited the peasants, and collaborated with Turkey in oppressing the Kurds and it is believed that this marked a period of intense urban warfare among other political elements. The PKK didnt take responsibility despite a numerous of accusations, starting in 1984, the PKK transformed into a paramilitary group, using training camps in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and France. It launched attacks and bombings against Turkish governmental installations, the military, the PKK mainly focused on attacks against Turkish military targets in Turkey. At the same time, the government started to use more violence methods to suppress Kurdish activists, from 1996 to 1999, the PKK conducted hundreds of bomb attacks against military and police bases. In the late 1990s, Turkey increased the pressure and the war between Turkey and Syria ended open Syrian support. The Kurdish-Turkish conflict was in its peak in the 90s,1999, Öcalan was captured, prosecuted and sentenced to death, but this was later commuted to life imprisonment as part of the governments seeking European Union membership. It partially relaxed the bans on broadcasting and publishing in the Kurdish language, at the same time, the PKK was blacklisted in many countries. On 2 April 2004, the Council of the European Union added the PKK to its list of terrorist organizations, later that year, the US Treasury moved to freeze assets of branches of the organization. The PKK went through a series of changes, and in 2003 it ended the unilateral truce declared when Öcalan was captured, despite a numerous of large offensives against the PKK bases, the government has failed in its war against the PKK
5.
Kurdistan Communities Union
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The Kurdistan Communities Union or KCK is a Kurdish political organization committed to implementing Abdullah Öcalans ideology of Democratic Confederalism. The KCK also serves as a group for all the Apoist political parties of Greater Kurdistan, including the PKK, PYD, PJAK. Although Abdullah Öcalan is the groups leader, due to his imprisonment the organization is led by an assembly called Kurdistan Peoples Congress. The President of the Kongra-Gel is Zübeyir Aydar, the Assembly elects a 31-person Executive Council. The first Chairman of this Executive Council was Murat Karayılan, while Cemil Bayık was said to be the Executive Councils Vice-President, in the General Assembly of the PKK in July 2013, the KCKs executive leadership was restructured. In place of the old position of a chairperson, a dual co-chair system was implemented, with one position reserved for a male. Cemil Bayık and Bese Hozat took these new positions, while Karayılan was made commander-in-chief of the Peoples Defence Forces, there are five main subdivisions of the KCK, the ideological front, the social front, the political front, the military front and the womens division. In Iraq the party is called PÇDK - Partiya Çaresera Demokratik Kurdistan, within the scope of the KCK formation, Turkey has been divided into four province-regions. These are namely, Çukurova, Amed, Serhat and the Aegean region, urban assemblies are the formations that report to the Peoples Assemblies that operate in cities. Organizations of towns and quarters are the bodies that carry out the actions it towns and it was written by the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan on 20 March 2005. It takes its power from the people and adopts to reach self sufficiency in every field including economy, the democratic confederalism is the movement of the Kurdish people to found their own democracy and organize their own social system. The democratic confederalism is the expression of the union of the Kurdish people that have been split into four parts and have spread all over the world. It develops the a democratic nation instead of the nationalist-statist nation based on strict borders, some have called the KCK a Soviet model of State others have termed it radical democracy. The society should be independent, the nation should be independent, yet, the main purpose should be for independent nations to form a democratic nation community together and based on equality, within a confederal system. It is a system of partnering, where various cultures live together, the aim is a union of equity and free will. Öcalan has even described himself as a student of Bookchin, the idea of the KCK was proposed at the 5th Congress of the Kongra-Gel held in Qandil in May 2007, and it replaced the KKK, which had been in existence since 2005. KKK, standing for Koma Komalên Kurdistan, was established at the Kongra-Gels 3rd Congress in Qandil with 236 delegates in May 2005, in this 3rd Congress, Zübeyir Aydar was made the Kongra-Gel President, and Murat Karayılan was appointed as President of the KKK Executive Council. In May 2007, at the 5th Congress in Qandil attended by 213 members representing the Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq and abroad, the KKKs name was changed to the KCK
6.
Confederation
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A confederation is a union of sovereign states, united for purposes of common action often in relation to other states. Confederalism represents a form of inter-governmentalism, this being defined as ‘any form of interaction between states which takes place on the basis of sovereign independence. The nature of the relationship among the member states constituting a confederation varies considerably, likewise, the relationship between the member states and the general government, and the distribution of powers among them is highly variable. Some looser confederations are similar to international organisations, other confederations with stricter rules may resemble federal systems. Since the member states of a confederation retain their sovereignty, they have a right of secession. … The deliberations in common will offer no violence to the sovereignty of each member’, under a confederal arrangement, in contrast with a federal one, the central authority is relatively weak. Decisions made by the government in a unicameral legislature, a council of the member states. They are therefore not laws acting directly upon the individual, also, decision-making in the general government usually proceeds by consensus and not by majority, which makes for a slow and inefficient government. For example, C. E. some aspects of a confederation in Le Soir, also in Le Soir, Professor Michel Quévit of the Catholic University of Leuven wrote that the Belgian political system is already in dynamics of a Confederation. Nevertheless, the Belgian regions lack the necessary autonomy to leave the Belgian state, as such, federal aspects still dominate. Also, for policy and public finances, the federal state dominates the other levels of government. The increasingly confederal aspects of the Belgian Federal State appear to be a reflection of the profound cultural, sociological. Parties that strongly advocate Belgian unity and appeal to voters of both communities play usually only a role in nationwide general elections. This makes Belgium fundamentally different from countries like Switzerland, Canada, Germany. In those countries, national parties regularly receive over 90% of voter support, in Canada, the word confederation has an additional, unrelated meaning. Confederation refers to the process of establishing or joining the Canadian federal state, in modern terminology, Canada is a federation and not a confederation. However, at the time of the Constitution Act,1867, confederation was the normal British, therefore, on July 1,1867, Canada became a self-governing dominion of the British Empire with a federal structure under the leadership of Sir John A. Macdonald. The provinces involved were the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, later participants were Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Alberta and Saskatchewan, and finally Newfoundland in 1949
7.
Social ecology
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Social Ecology is a critical social theory founded by American anarchist and libertarian socialist author Murray Bookchin. Conceptualized as a critique of current social, political, and anti-ecological trends, it espouses a reconstructive, ecological, communitarian and this version advocates a reconstructive and transformative outlook on social and environmental issues, and promotes a directly democratic, confederal politics. Bookchin suggests that the roots of current ecological and social problems can be traced to hierarchical modes of social organization, the complexity of relationships between people and nature is emphasized, along with the importance of establishing more mutualistic social structures that take account of this. Present ecological problems, social ecologists maintain, cannot be understood, much less resolved. His works include Post-Scarcity Anarchism, Toward an Ecological Society, social ecology locates the roots of the ecological crisis firmly in relations of hierarchy and domination between people. In the framework of ecology, the very notion of the domination of nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human. While the domination of nature is seen as a product of domination within society and this centuries-long tendency finds its most exacerbating development in modern capitalism. Owing to its competitive nature, bourgeois society not only pits humans against each other. Just as men are converted into commodities, so every aspect of nature is converted into a commodity and he had come to recognize social ecology as a genuinely new form of libertarian socialism, and positioned its politics firmly in the framework of a political ideology which he called Communalism
8.
Sustainability
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In ecology, sustainability is the property of biological systems to remain diverse and productive indefinitely. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of biological systems. In more general terms, sustainability is the endurance of systems, the organizing principle for sustainability is sustainable development, which includes the four interconnected domains, ecology, economics, politics and culture. Sustainability science is the study of development and environmental science. Sustainability can also be defined as a process characterized by the pursuit of a common ideal. An ideal is by definition unattainable in a time and space. However, by persistently and dynamically approaching it, the results in a sustainable system. Healthy ecosystems and environments are necessary to the survival of humans, ways of reducing negative human impact are environmentally-friendly chemical engineering, environmental resources management and environmental protection. Information is gained from green chemistry, earth science, environmental science, Ecological economics studies the fields of academic research that aim to address human economies and natural ecosystems. Moving towards sustainability is also a challenge that entails international and national law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles. The name sustainability is derived from the Latin sustinere, sustain can mean “maintain, support, or endure”. ”The 2005 World Summit on Social Development identified sustainable development goals, such as economic development, social development and environmental protection. This view has been expressed as an illustration using three overlapping ellipses indicating that the three pillars of sustainability are not mutually exclusive and can be mutually reinforcing, in fact, the three pillars are interdependent, and in the long run none can exist without the others. The three pillars have served as a ground for numerous sustainability standards and certification systems in recent years. Standards which today explicitly refer to the bottom line include Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade. Some sustainability experts and practitioners have illustrated four pillars of sustainability, one such pillar is future generations, which emphasizes the long-term thinking associated with sustainability. There is also an opinion that considers resource use and financial sustainability as two pillars of sustainability. Sustainable development consists of balancing local and global efforts to meet human needs without destroying or degrading the natural environment. The question then becomes how to represent the relationship between those needs and the environment, a study from 2005 pointed out that environmental justice is as important as sustainable development
9.
Murray Bookchin
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Murray Bookchin was an American anarchist and libertarian socialist author, orator, historian, and political theorist. A pioneer in the movement, Bookchin initiated the critical theory of social ecology within anarchist, libertarian socialist. He was the author of two books covering topics in politics, philosophy, history, urban affairs, and ecology. Among the most important were Our Synthetic Environment, Post-Scarcity Anarchism, in the late 1990s he became disenchanted with the increasingly apolitical lifestylism of the contemporary anarchist movement and stopped referring to himself as an anarchist. Instead, he founded his own libertarian socialist ideology called Communalism, Bookchin was an anti-capitalist and vocal advocate of the decentralisation of society along ecological and democratic lines. Bookchin was born in New York City to Russian Jewish immigrants Nathan Bookchin and he grew up in the Bronx, where his grandmother, Zeitel, a Socialist Revolutionary, imbued him with Russian populist ideas. After her death in 1930, he joined the Young Pioneers, the Communist youth organization and he attended the Workers School near Union Square, where he studied Marxism. In the late 1930s he broke with Stalinism and gravitated toward Trotskyism, in the early 1940s he worked in a foundry in Bayonne, New Jersey where he was an organizer and shop steward for the United Electrical Workers as well as a recruiter for the SWP. Within the SWP he adhered to the Goldman-Morrow faction, which broke away after the war ended and he was an auto worker and UAW member at the time of the great General Motors strike of 1945-46. In 1949, while speaking to a Zionist youth organization at City College, Bookchin met a student, Beatrice Appelstein. They were married for 12 years and lived together for 35, remaining close friends and they had two children, Debbie, and Joseph. To achieve this post-scarcity society, Bookchin developed a theory of ecological decentralism, the magazine published Bookchins first articles, including the pathbreaking The Problem of Chemicals in Food. In 1958, Bookchin defined himself as an anarchist, seeing parallels between anarchism and ecology and his first book, Our Synthetic Environment, was published under the pseudonym Lewis Herber in 1962, a few months before Rachel Carsons Silent Spring. The book described a range of environmental ills but received little attention because of its political radicalism. In 1964, Bookchin joined the Congress of Racial Equality, during 1964-67, while living on Manhattans Lower East Side, he cofounded and was the principal figure in the New York Federation of Anarchists. His groundbreaking essay Ecology and Revolutionary Thought introduced ecology as a concept in radical politics, lecturing throughout the United States, he helped popularize the concept of ecology to the counterculture. His widely republished 1969 essay Listen, Marxist, warned Students for a Democratic Society against an impending takeover by a Marxist group. Once again the dead are walking in our midst, he wrote, ironically, draped in the name of Marx, the man who tried to bury the dead of the nineteenth century
10.
Janet Biehl
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Janet Biehl is a political writer with a focus on libertarian municipalism and social ecology, the body of ideas developed and publicized by Murray Bookchin. Biehl grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and attended Wesleyan University and she studied acting as well as set and costume design at the Eugene ONeill Theater Center. She then moved to New York City, where she appeared in productions, including the world premiere of Fefu. She made her living as a copyeditor for major book publishers and she studied drawing and watercolor painting at the Art Students League of New York. In 1986 she attended the Institute for Social Ecology, in Vermont, in January 1987 she moved to Burlington, Vermont, to study further with Bookchin. They began a relationship to advance and promote social ecology. From 1987 to 2003 they co-wrote and co-published the theoretical newsletter Green Perspectives, bIehl edited and compiled The Murray Bookchin Reader, which Bookchin considered to be the best introduction to his work. To summarize Bookchins ideas on democracy, known as libertarian municipalism, she wrote The Politics of Social Ecology. She wrote numerous articles about or related to Bookchin’s ideas, since Bookchins death in 2006, she authored Ecology or Catastrophe, The Life of Murray Bookchin, published in 2015 by Oxford University Press. In 2011 Biehl separated from social ecology, explaining that she could no longer advocate an antistatist ideology and she blogs at Ecology or Catastrophe. Biehl is a supporter of the Kurdish freedom movement, drawing on libertarian municipalism, he formulated democratic confederalism as a political program, which the PKK adopted. In 2004 several intermediaries tried to arrange a dialogue between Bookchin and Öcalan but were due to Bookchins failing health. In 2014 and 2015 she visited Rojava, the mostly Kurdish region of northern Syria, there the Kurdish movement is attempting, in wartime conditions, to implement democratic confederalism, gender equality, and ecology. She published several articles about her visits, finding Our Way, Rethinking Ecofeminist Politics. Ecofascism, Lessons from the German Experience, edinburgh and San Francisco, AK Press. The Politics of Social Ecology, Libertarian Municipalism, mumford Gutkind Bookchin, The Emergence of Eco-decentralism. Ecology or Catastrophe, The Life of Murray Bookchin, revolution in Rojava, Democratic Autonomy and Womens Liberation in Northern Syria. Janet Biehl at Goodreads Janet Biehl on Facebook Janet Biehl on Twitter Ecology or Catastrophe
11.
Rojava
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On 17 March 2016, its de facto administration self-declared the establishment of a federal system of government as the Federation of Northern Syria–Rojava. While entertaining some foreign relations, the NSR is not officially recognized as autonomous by the government of Syria or any state or organization. The protagonists of the NSR consider its constitution a model for a federalized Syria as a whole, the updated December 2016 constitution of the polity uses the name Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria. Also known as Western Kurdistan or Syrian Kurdistan, Rojava is regarded by Kurdish nationalists as one of the four parts of Kurdistan. However, Rojava is polyethnic and home to sizable ethnic Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian and Turkmen populations and this diversity is mirrored in its constitution, society and politics. Rojava lies to the west of the Tigris along the Turkish border and it is composed of three cantons, Jazira, Kobanî, Afrin Canton, as well as the proposed Shahba region. Jazira Canton borders Iraqi Kurdistan to the southeast, other borders are fluid in the Syrian Civil War. All cantons are at latitude approximately 36 and a half degrees north and they are relatively flat except for the Kurd Mountains in Afrin Canton. In terms of governorates of Syria, Rojava is formed from most of al-Hasakah Governorate and the parts of Raqqa Governorate. Rojava is part of the Fertile Crescent, and includes archaeological sites dating to the Neolithic, in antiquity, the area was part of the Mitanni kingdom, its centre being the Khabur river valley in modern-day Jazira Canton. It was then part of Assyria for a long time, the last surviving Assyrian imperial records, from between 604 BC and 599 BC, were found in and around the Assyrian city of Dūr-Katlimmu in what is now Jazira Canton. Later it was ruled by the Achaemenids, Hellenes, Artaxiads, Romans, Parthians, Sasanians, Byzantines, Kurdish settlement in Syria goes back to before the Crusades of the 11th century. A number of Kurdish military and feudal settlements from before this period have been found in Syria, such settlements have been found in the Alawite and north Lebanese mountains and around Hama and its surroundings. The Crusade fortress of Krak des Chevaliers, which is known in Arabic as Hisn al-Akrad, was originally a Kurdish military settlement before it was enlarged by the French Crusaders, similarly, the Kurd-Dagh has been inhabited by Kurds for more than a millennium. The Kurdish regiments that accompanied Saladin established self-ruled areas in and around Damascus and these settlements evolved into the Kurdish sections of Damascus of Hayy al-Akrad and the Salhiyya districts located in the north-east of Damasacus on Mount Qasioun. The Kurdish community’s role in the continued under the Ottomans. Kurdish soldiers and policeman from city were tasked with maintaining order and protecting the pilgrims’ route toward Mecca. Many Kurds from Syria’s rural hinterland joined the local Janissary corp in Damascus, later, Kurdish migrants from diverse areas, such as Diyarbakir, Mosul and Kirkuk, also joined these military units which caused an expansion of the Kurdish community in the city
12.
The Ecology of Freedom
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The Ecology of Freedom, The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy is a 1982 book by American libertarian socialist and ecologist Murray Bookchin. The work has been criticized as utopian, Bookchin is critical of the class centered analysis of Marxism and simplistic anti-state forms of libertarianism and liberalism and wished to present what he saw was a more complex view of societies. Bookchin writes that, My use of the hierarchy in the subtitle of this work is meant to be provocative. To use the words hierarchy, class, and State interchangeably, as many social theorists do, is insidious, heinous as my view may be to modern Freudians, it is not the discipline of work but the discipline of rule that demands the repression of internal nature. This repression then extends outward to external nature as an object of rule. This mentality permeates our individual psyches in a cumulative form up to the present day-not merely as capitalism, anarchist writer Ulrike Heider criticized The Ecology of Freedom in her book Anarchism, Left, Right, and Green. Bookchin replied to Heiders criticism of his work at length, calling it unethical, in particular, he described Heiders assertion that he does not criticize capitalism as a fabrication. Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan studied The Ecology of Freedom while in confinement in a Turkish prison
13.
Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism
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Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism, An Unbridgeable Chasm is a polemical essay by Murray Bookchin published as a book in 1995. It is a critique of deep ecology, bio-centrism and lifestyle anarchism, Bookchin sets his social anarchism in opposition to individualist, primitivist and post-modern forms of anarchism. It has provoked criticism from anarchist writers like Bob Black and John Clark, who view Bookchins polemic as misguided
14.
Green anarchism
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Green anarchism is a school of thought within anarchism which puts a particular emphasis on environmental issues. A green anarchist theory is one that extends anarchist ideology beyond a critique of human interactions. Important early influences were Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy and Élisée Reclus, in the late 19th century there emerged anarcho-naturism as the fusion of anarchism and naturist philosophies within individualist anarchist circles in France, Spain, Cuba, and Portugal. Anarchism started to have an ecological view mainly in the writings of American anarchist and transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, in his book Walden he advocates simple living and self-sufficiency among natural surroundings in resistance to the advancement of industrial civilization. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of discovery, satire. The book compresses the time into a calendar year and uses passages of four seasons to symbolize human development. By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more understanding of society through personal introspection. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreaus other goals, and the project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy. As Thoreau made clear in his book, his cabin was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, as such Many have seen in Thoreau one of the precursors of ecologism and anarcho-primitivism represented today in John Zerzan. John Zerzan himself included the text Excursions by Thoreau in his compilation of writings called Against civilization, Readings. Élisée Reclus, also known as Jacques Élisée Reclus, was a renowned French geographer, writer and he produced his 19-volume masterwork La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes, over a period of nearly 20 years. In 1892 he was awarded the prestigious Gold Medal of the Paris Geographical Society for this work, according to Kirkpatrick Sale, His geographical work, thoroughly researched and unflinchingly scientific, laid out a picture of human-nature interaction that we today would call bioregionalism. Similarly, no contemporary ecologist would disagree with his comments that the truly civilised man understands that his nature is bound up with the interest of all and he repairs the damage caused by his predecessors and works to improve his domain. Reclus advocated nature conservation and opposed meat-eating and cruelty to animals, as a result, his ideas are seen by some historians as anticipating the modern social ecology and animal rights movements. Shortly before his death, Reclus completed LHomme et la terre, in it, he added to his previous greater works by considering humanitys development relative to its geographical environment. Reclus was also a proponent of naturism. In the late 19th century Anarchist naturism appeared as the union of anarchist and naturist philosophies, mainly it had importance within individualist anarchist circles in Spain, France, Portugal, and Cuba. Anarcho-naturism advocated vegetarianism, free love, nudism and a world view within anarchist groups
15.
Libertarian socialism
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It criticizes wage labour relationships within the workplace. Instead, it emphasizes workers self-management of the workplace and decentralized structures of political organization, as such libertarian socialism, within the larger socialist movement, seeks to distinguish itself both from Leninism/Bolshevism and from social democracy. Libertarian socialism is a Western philosophy with diverse interpretations, though some general commonalities can be found in its many incarnations and they propose that this economic system be executed in a manner that attempts to maximize the liberty of individuals and minimize concentration of power or authority. Libertarian socialists are critical of coercive institutions, which often leads them to reject the legitimacy of the state in favor of anarchism. Adherents propose achieving this through decentralization of political and economic power, usually involving the socialization of most large-scale private property, the next recorded use of the term was in Europe, when libertarian communism was used at a French regional anarchist Congress at Le Havre. January the following year saw a French manifesto issued on Libertarian or Anarchist Communism, finally,1895 saw leading anarchists Sébastien Faure and Louise Michel publish La Libertaire in France. The word stems from the French word libertaire, and was used to evade the French ban on anarchist publications, in the context of the European socialist movement, libertarian has conventionally been used to describe those who opposed state socialism, such as Mikhail Bakunin. Early in the century, libertarian socialism was as powerful a force as social democracy. Libertarian socialists played a role in the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917. Libertarian socialists played a dominant role in the Mexican Revolution of 1911, twenty years after World War I was over, libertarian socialists were still strong enough to spearhead the social revolution that swept across Republican Spain in 1936 and 1937. The history of socialist thought includes a long associational and anti-statist tradition prior to the victory of the Bolshevism in the east. Libertarian socialists are anti-capitalist, and can thus be distinguished from right-wing libertarians, whereas capitalist principles concentrate economic power in the hands of those who own the most capital, libertarian socialism aims to distribute power more widely amongst members of society. This is sometimes characterized as a desire to maximize free creativity in a society in preference to free enterprise and it is a negatively connoted term used to draw an analogy between slavery and wage labor by focusing on similarities between owning and renting a person. Libertarian socialists believe that freedom, society works towards a system in which individuals have the power to decide economic issues along with political issues. Many libertarian socialists believe that large-scale voluntary associations should manage industrial production and they see a distinction between concepts of private property and personal possession. Private property grants an exclusive control over a thing whether it is in use or not. Also the separation of work and life is questioned, and alternatives suggested that are underpinned by notions of dignity, self-realization, Libertarian socialists generally regard concentrations of power as sources of oppression that must be continually challenged and justified. Libertarian socialists typically oppose rigid and stratified structures of authority, be political, economic
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Anti-Leninism
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Anti-Leninism is the opposition to thought known as Leninism or Bolshevism. Bolshevik opposition to Lenin arose with the emergence of the Otzovists and they included Alexander Bogdanov, Mikhail Pokrovsky, Anatoly Lunacharsky, and Andrei Bubnov. Menshevik opposition to Leninism and Bolshevism was essentially based on what they saw as Lenins authoritarian nature, such opposition was only heightened following the October Revolution, such as Martovs denunciation of the restoration of the death penalty. Rosa Luxemburg and Eduard Bernstein have criticised Lenin that his conception of revolution was elitist, blanquism did not count on the direct action of the working class. It, therefore, did not need to organize the people for the revolution, the people were expected to play their part only at the moment of revolution. Preparation for the revolution concerned only the group of revolutionists armed for the coup. Indeed, to assure the success of the conspiracy, it was considered wiser to keep the mass at some distance from the conspirators. Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder is a work by Vladimir Lenin attacking assorted critics of the Bolsheviks who claimed positions to their left, most of these critics were proponents of ideologies later described as left communism. Another early analysis the USSR as state capitalist came from various groups advocating left communism, one major tendency of the 1918 Russian communist left criticised the re-employment of authoritarian capitalist relations and methods of production. In sum these measures were seen as the re-transformation of proletarians within production from collective subject back into the objects of capital. The working class, it was argued, had to participate consciously in economic as well as political administration and this tendency within the 1918 left communists emphasized that the problem with capitalist production was that it treated workers as objects. Its transcendence lay in the workers conscious creativity and participation, which is reminiscent of Marxs critique of alienation and these criticisms were revived on the left of the Russian Communist Party after the Tenth Congress in 1921, which introduced the New Economic Policy. The most developed version of this idea was in a 1931 booklet by Myasnikov, initial opposition to Lenin was from those loyal to the Tsar and the status quo of Russian society prior to 1917. This can best be seen in his expulsion to Switzerland, opposition to Leninism can also be seen in terms of those individuals and states that sought the removal of Lenin once in power. This was best illustrated during the Russian Civil War when foreign powers aided the White Army in their quest to unseat Lenin. During this time also came opposition from the Polish state, the Polish-Soviet War, and in former Russian territories, such as Finland. Internally there were a number of events in Russia that can be treated as representing anti-Leninism, these include the Tambov Rebellion, in January 1918, the Bolsheviks disbanded the Assembly, and the majority of the SRs turned against Lenin. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed by the Bolshevik government, removing Russia from the First World War and they launched an unsuccessful uprising against the government on July 6,1918
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Anti-Stalinist left
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Associates and followers of Leon Trotsky were organised in the Left Opposition within the Communist parties before they were purged in the Moscow Trials in the 1930s. Subsequently, his followers formed the Fourth International in opposition to the Stalinist Third International, Trotsky saw the Stalinist states as deformed workers states, where a political structure gave most workers very little power in decision making. Less orthodox Trotskyists and other critics of Stalin have seen it as a new form of class state, the communist left was initially enthusiastic about the Bolshevik revolution, but lines of tension between the communist left and the leadership of the Communist International opened up very soon. Left communists such as Sylvia Pankhurst and Rosa Luxemburg were among the first left-wing critics of Bolshevism, Left communists see communism as something that can only be achieved by the proletariat itself, and not through the dictatorship of a vanguard party acting on its behalf. A reformist communism, and a branch of Maoism, however it is criticised by traditional Maoists. In order to encourage and promote the advancement of the productivity by creating competition and innovation, but at the same time, private ownership is allowed and encouraged in industries of finished goods and services. According to the Dengism theory, private owners in those industries are not bourgeois, because as Marx teaches, bourgeois owns land and raw materials. Therefore, in a Dengist country, private owners are called minyinqiyejia. The Peoples Republic of China was the first country which adopted this belief and it boosted its economy and achieved the China Miracle. It has increased the Chinese GDP growth rate to over 8% per year for 30 years, due to the influence of Dengism, Vietnam and Laos have also adopted this belief, which allowed Laos to increase its real GDP growth rate to 8. 3%. Cuba is also starting to embrace this idea, dengists also take a very strong position against any form of personality cults which appeared in the Soviet Union during Stalins rule and the current North Korea. However, the relations between the anarchists and the Bolsheviks soured in Soviet Russia, anarchists and Stalinist Communists were also in armed conflict during the Spanish civil war. Anarchists are critical of the statist, totalitarian nature of Stalinism, a significant current of the democratic socialist movement has defined itself in opposition to Stalinism. This includes George Orwell, H. N. Brailsford, Fenner Brockway, there were also a number of anti-Stalinist socialists in France, including writers such as Simone Weil and Albert Camus as well as the group around Marceau Pivert. In America, the New York Intellectuals around the journals Partisan Review, another major split in the international Communist movement was that between Stalin and the Right Opposition. In several countries parallel Communist parties were formed that either were rejected by the Comintern or distanced themselves from it and their criticism did in some ways become similar to positions raised by the Trotskyists, but as a tendency they were far less coherent. The Right Opposition developed contacts with groups that did not fit into either the international Social democracy or Comintern. This tendency largely died out at the time of the Second World War, in other cases dissident Marxist trends developed outside of the established Communist movement, such as the Anushlian Marxists in India
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Decentralization
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Decentralization is the process of redistributing or dispersing functions, powers, people or things away from a central location or authority. While centralization, especially in the sphere, is widely studied and practiced. The meaning of decentralization may vary in part because of the different ways it is applied, the word centralization came into use in France in 1794 as the post-French Revolution French Directory leadership created a new government structure. The word decentralization came into usage in the 1820s, centralization entered written English in the first third of the 1800s, mentions of decentralization also first appear during those years. In the mid-1800s Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the French Revolution began with a push towards decentralization. in the end, pierre-Joseph Proudhon, influential anarchist theorist wrote, All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words, agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a formula, political federation or decentralization. In early twentieth century America a response to the centralization of economic wealth and it blamed large-scale industrial production for destroying middle class shop keepers and small manufacturers and promoted increased property ownership and a return to small scale living. The decentralist movement attracted Southern Agrarians like Robert Penn Warren, as well as journalist Herbert Agar, hatfield, Mildred J. Loomis and Bill Kauffman. In the next few years a number of best-selling books promoted decentralization. ”Alvin Toffler published Future Shock, naisbitt’s book outlines 10 “megatrends”, the fifth of which is from centralization to decentralization. In 1996 David Osborne and Ted Gaebler had a best selling book Reinventing Government proposing decentralist public administration theories which became labeled the New Public Management, stephen Cummings wrote that decentralization became a revolutionary megatrend in the 1980s. In 1983 Diana Conyers asked if decentralization was the latest fashion in development administration, Cornell Universitys project on Restructuring Local Government states that decentralization refers to the global trend of devolving responsibilities to regional or local governments. In 1983, Decentralization was identified as one of the Ten Key Values of the Green Movement in the United States, according to a 1999 United Nations Development Programme report, A large number of developing and transitional countries have embarked on some form of decentralization programmes. The movement toward local accountability and greater control over ones destiny is, however, not solely the result of the negative attitude towards central government. Rather, these developments, as we have noted, are principally being driven by a strong desire for greater participation of citizens and private sector organizations in governance. ”Those studying the goals and processes of implementing decentralization often use a systems theory approach. ”However. Norman Johnson of Los Alamos National Laboratory wrote in a 1999 paper, an important property of agent systems is the degree of connectivity or connectedness between the agents, a measure global flow of information or influence. If each agent is connected to all agents, then the system is highly connected. Instead each party, also called a peer, makes local autonomous decisions towards its goals which may possibly conflict with those of other peers. Peers directly interact with other and share information or provide service to other peers
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Direct democracy
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Direct democracy is a form of democracy in which people decide policy initiatives directly. This differs from the majority of democracies, which are representative democracies. Direct democracy is similar to, but distinct from, representative democracy, two leading forms of direct democracy are participatory democracy and deliberative democracy. Semi direct democracies in which representatives administer day-to-day governance, but the citizens remain the sovereign, the first two forms—referendums and initiatives—are examples of direct legislation. Compulsory referendum subjects the legislation drafted by political elites to a popular vote. This is the most common form of direct legislation, popular referendum empowers citizens to make a petition that calls existing legislation to a citizens vote. Institutions specify the frame for a valid petition and the number of signatures required. This form of direct democracy effectively grants the voting public a veto on laws adopted by the elected legislature, initiatives may be direct or indirect, With the direct initiative, a successful proposition is placed directly on the ballot to be subject to vote. Such a form of initiative is utilized by Switzerland for constitutional amendments. Power of Recall gives the public the power to elected officials from office before the end of their term. Some of the most important modern thinkers who were inspired by the concept of democracy are Cornelius Castoriadis, Hannah Arendt. The earliest known direct democracy is said to be the Athenian democracy in the 5th century BC, although it was not a democracy, women, foreigners. There were only about 30,000 male citizens, but several thousand of them were active in each year. Modern democracies, being representative, not direct, do not resemble the Athenian system, also relevant to the history of direct democracy is the history of Ancient Rome, specifically the Roman Republic, beginning around 509 BC. Rome displayed many aspects of democracy, both direct and indirect, from the era of Roman monarchy all the way to the collapse of the Roman Empire. As to direct democracy, the ancient Roman Republic had a system of citizen lawmaking, or citizen formulation and passage of law, and a citizen veto of legislature-made law. Many historians mark the end of the Republic with the passage of a law named the Lex Titia,27 November 43 BC, modern-era citizen lawmaking began in the towns of Switzerland in the 13th century. In 1847, the Swiss added the statute referendum to their national constitution and they soon discovered that merely having the power to veto Parliaments laws was not enough
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Class conflict
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The view that the class struggle provides the lever for radical social change for the majority is central to the work of Karl Marx and the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. In the past the term Class conflict was a term used mostly by socialists, from this point of view, the social control of production and labor is a contest between classes, and the division of these resources necessarily involves conflict and inflicts harm. It can involve ongoing low-level clashes, escalate into massive confrontations, however, in more contemporary times this term is striking chords and finding new definition amongst capitalistic societies in the United States and other Westernized countries. This was only a potential, and class struggle was, he argued, not always the only or decisive factor in society, by contrast, Marxists argue that class conflict always plays the decisive and pivotal role in the history of class-based hierarchical systems such as capitalism and feudalism. Marxists refer to its overt manifestations as class war, a struggle whose resolution in favor of the class is viewed by them as inevitable under plutocratic capitalism. Where societies are socially divided based on status, wealth, or control of production and distribution. It is well documented since at least European Classical Antiquity and the popular uprisings in late medieval Europe. One of the earliest analysis of these conflicts is Friedrich Engels The Peasant War in Germany, one of the earliest analyses of the development of class as the development of conflicts between emergent classes is available in Peter Kropotkins Mutual Aid. In this work, Kropotkin analyzes the disposal of goods after death in pre-class or hunter-gatherer societies, chris Hedges wrote a column for Truthdig called Lets Get This Class War Started, which was a play on Pinks song Lets Get This Party Started. And I think that can go on for so long without there being more and more outbreaks of what used to be called class struggle. The particular implementation of government programs which may seem purely humanitarian, such as disaster relief, in the USA class conflict is often noted in labor/management disputes. Although Thomas Jefferson led the United States as president from 1801–1809 and is considered one of the founding fathers, among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep and this is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention, do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the affairs, you & I, & Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves. In 2005 Buffet said to CNN, Its class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldnt be. In a November 2006 interview in The New York Times, Buffett stated that here’s class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the class, that’s making war. Later Warren gave away more than half of his fortune to charitable causes through a developed by himself
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General strike
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A general strike is a strike action in which a substantial proportion of the total labour force in a city, region, or country participates. General strikes are characterised by the participation of workers in a multitude of workplaces, General strikes first occurred in the mid-19th century, and have characterised many historically important strikes. An early predecessor of the strike may have been the secessio plebis in ancient Rome. In the Outline Of History, H. G. Wells recorded the general strike of the plebeians, the plebeians seem to have invented the strike, which now makes its first appearance in history. Wells noted that he made a mean use of their political advantages to grow rich through the national conquests at the expense not only of the defeated enemy. The plebeians, who were expected to obey the laws, but were not allowed to know the laws, were successful, in 450 BC. in a concession resulting from the rebellion of the plebeians, the laws of Rome were written for all to peruse. The general strike action became a feature of the political landscape with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. For the first time in history, large numbers of people were members of the working class, they lived in cities. By the 1830s, when the Chartist movement was at its peak, the first theorist to formulate and popularise the idea of a general strike for the purpose of political reform was the radical pamphleteer William Benbow. On 28 January 1832 Benbow published a pamphlet entitled Grand National Holiday, Benbow began to advocate direct and even violent action for political reform, in particular he advanced his idea for a national holiday and national convention. The striking workers were to support themselves with savings and confiscated parish funds, benbows idea of a Grand National Holiday was adopted by the Chartist Congress of 1839, Benbow having spent time in Manchester during 1838-9 promoting his the cause and his pamphlet. In 1842 the demands for wages and conditions across many different industries finally exploded into the first modern general strike. Instead of being a spontaneous uprising of the masses, the strike was politically motivated and was driven by a hard-headed agenda to win concessions. Probably as much as half of the industrial work force were on strike at its peak - over 500,000 men. The local leadership marshaled a growing working class tradition to politically organise their followers to mount a challenge to the capitalist. The mass abandonment of plantations by black slaves and poor whites during the American Civil War has, controversially, in his classic history Black Reconstruction in America, W. E. B. The trickling streams of fugitives swelled to a flood, once begun, the general strike of black and white went madly and relentlessly on like some great saga. The next large scale strike took place over half a century later in Belgium
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Mutual aid (organization)
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Mutual aid is a term in organization theory used to signify a voluntary reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit. Mutual aid is arguably as ancient as human culture, a part of the small. From the dawn of humanity, until far beyond the invention of agriculture, humans were foragers, exchanging labor and resources for the benefit of groups, typically, mutual-aid groups will be free to join and participate in, and all activities will be voluntary. They are often structured as non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, non-profit organizations, with members controlling all resources and they are egalitarian in nature, and designed to support participatory democracy, equality of member status and power shared leadership and cooperative decision-making. Members external societal status is considered irrelevant inside the group, status in the group is conferred by participation, based on Peter Kropotkins theories on mutual aid, those small groups are also discussed as a counter model to the historic concept of an autonomous individual. Those discussions emphasize an open model of cooperation in mutual-aid groups as opposed to induced cooperation. Therefore, they raise questions regarding the tension of the adaption and self-determination. In order to overcome this tension an insight in the perspective of others, a radical openness to all situations possible. Power line crews are known to state and even international borders to give aid to neighboring communities after storm damage to power transmission systems. This is particularly true in the North Eastern United States and Eastern Canada, Mutual battery jump starting or boosting in winter is not uncommon in Canada. Sometimes referred to as get a boost give a boost, eine politische Skizze zur Wahrnehmung heute, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann,2012 Mutual Aid Societies
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