Self-Determination in the 21st Century: Exploring the lived realities of the Kurdish Freedom Movement, the praxis of Democratic-Confederalism, Jineolojî and how it will survive under the pressures of hostile foreign policies

31 July 2024

At the turn of the 20th century, the gradual disintegration of empires in the Middle East and the various treaties forged by imperial colonisers that followed carved up vast swathes of land and led to the formation of nation-states, including modern-day Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and far more beyond. Although this was a significant structural change for the region, it also marked a significant upheaval in the history of civilisation. Therefore, it can be argued, to mark that period as simply the rise of the nation-state can have the effect of obscuring and distorting our understanding of how profoundly those changes left physical scars on the geography and ethnography of the space, including the ecological and environmental devastation it wrought and how it fractured communities and their development.

So enormous are the number of casualties and in some cases the complete eradication of whole ethnic groups and cultures that the process of being recognised as genocide by the United Nations is arguably deliberately wrought out to encourage alternative terminologies. One statement often heard in the media is the term “conflict in the Middle East” so greatly does it understate the enormity of devastation caused by the Nation State model that John Douglas Porteous coined the term ‘Domicide’ (1998)[1] to generate greater interrogation but being able to define and articulate struggle also allows us to hold institutions of governance like the United Nations to hide behind the limitations of language. Abdullah Ocalan summerised the that, “Capitalist science an power presents itself as having no history. In order to claim being the ultimate and final system, it is important to have no history and no location.”[2]

Within this seminar, we will hear from speakers that can offer an insight into their lived experience of how the nation-state model impacted their communities, the physical geography and how domicide is perpetrated against them from the visible impact to the qualia that is harder to define. We will also consider the democratic alternatives proposed by Abdullah Ocalan and the Women’s Movement, and the opposition that it faces both internally and globally.

Khabat Abbas is not only an independent journalist but also one of the few female ‘journalist fixers’ in Syria. Throughout her journalistic career, she has worked to raise awareness of how the civilians in AANES have been impacted by the colonial dictatorship of the al-Assad family, the subsequent war against ISIS and the environmental damage of make-shift oil refineries[3]. She has written extensively on how religious fundamentalism in Syria gained ground, while also regularly interviewing the women who joined ISIS. On the other hand, she is a Kurdish woman who is living in the democratic alternative that Abdullah Ocalan envisions, which has inspired a global women’s revolution. Khabat Abbas can give us a critical insight into the role of Kongreya Star and how it has forged a union representing women in a society that, in which only ten years ago, the women had limited agency in their day-to-day lives. A movement, which Dicle Amed describes as “a women’s movement, we are struggling to democratise the system in general, the relations between men and women in the system and in society. It is about bringing relations between the sexes back to the basis of freedom and equality.”[4]

Here Aso Kamali explores western Kurdistan and how a century under occupation and the ideologies of pan-Arabism impacted the geography, communities and the population within. While also considering how the war in Syria acted as a catalyst for change, towards a vastly different ideology of Democratic Confederalism and how the space has since developed. Particularly, how these changes are reflected in the geographical environment and ecology. What are the challenges that we face as the water crisis and climate change become a global issue that can no longer be censured.

Peace in Kurdistan: https://www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.com e-mail: Estella S estella@gn.apc.org mobile: 07846 666 804