Syrian Kurds fighting for a vision created by a forgotten American revolutionary thinker

[flamingdem]

** To the Bernie supporters, you should know about Murray as I'm sure he influenced Bernie in the late 70s, he like Bernie moved to Burlington in the 70s.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/5a7b18b5-0ec3-3d3e-a307-54820a7c6a59

In the battle for Kobane on the Syrian border everyone talks about the enemy - IS - and the frightening ideas that drive them. No-one talks about the Kurdish defenders and what inspires them.

But the moment you look into what the Kurds are fighting for - what you discover is absolutely fascinating. They have a vision of creating a completely new kind of society that is based on the ideas of a forgotten American revolutionary thinker.

He wanted to create a future world in which there would be no hierarchies, no systems that exercise power and control individuals. And the Kurds in Kobane are trying to build a model of that world.

It means that the battle we are watching night after night is not just between good and evil. It is also a struggle of an optimistic vision of the future against a dark conservative idea drawn from the past.

It is a struggle that may also have great relevance to us in the west. Because the revolutionary ideas that have inspired the Kurds also shine a powerful light on the system of power in Britain today. They argue that we in the west are controlled by a new kind of hierarchical power that we don’t fully see or understand.

Murry Bookchin


Abdullah Ocalan. Leader of the Kurdish revolutionary group - the PKK

[Mnemosyne]

1. Excellent read! I had heard Bookchin's name before, but never researched him further.

What a fascinating man.

Thanks flamingdem!

[flamingdem]

3. How great because whether or not the Kurds are

all in with Bookchin (I hope it continues) it's great to think about him again and find him to be relevant in such a challenging situation. As I wrote elsewhere he was my professor at Goddard College in Vermont in their Social Ecology Program - very idealistic days - so this brought back memories.

[Hydra]

2. Thanks for posts on this :)

[flamingdem]

4. I know right?

Have taken on a spread the word campaign for a little ray of sunshine in the Middle East. I admired the Kurds so much during the Kobane struggle and at the time not knowing they were informed by my ex professor Bookchin. Have to admit I don't remember the class too well but I remember Murray was very kinetic, he paced and could talk for hours. As a result many of us became involved in the fight against Walmart in Burlington. So oddly, Bookchin is relevant in the ME and in the primaries due to his connection with Sanders, or something like that!

[DetlefK]

5. Ocalan is a fucking criminal, terrorist and monster.

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-8903355.html
A german article from 1996.

Germany had the brillant idea to give the terrorist Abdullah Ocalan a safe haven in Germany, so he could grow on the political scene and become a political figure like Jassir Arafat and solve the Turkey-Kurd conflict on a political level.
Ocalan promised that the PKK would stay peaceful in Germany and help the german authorities in hunting turkish drug-smugglers.

500,000 Kurds immigrated to Germany. What followed was a wave of PKK-terror on german soil.

In 1996 alone they blocked several Autobahns, threatened to blow up a gas-station, firebombed banks and stores and brutally dragged a cop from his squad-car and beat him up.
The Kurds tried to deflect the blame by saying that the Turks are doing way worse things to the Kurds in Southeast-Turkey.

Germany couldn't arrest them, because they weren't german citizens.
Germany couldn't kick them out and send them back to Turkey, for humanitarian-legal reasons: The kurdish criminals would have faced torture and death-sentences in Turkey.

In Germany, the PKK was a mafia-like organization that got rid of rivals and internal threats alike with outmost brutality.
Example: A kurdish drug-dealer refused to pay protection-money to the PKK. They chopped his arm off.

Germany outlawed the PKK 1993, immediately overwhelming the german courts with a flood of tiniest crimes, as now any sign supportive of the PKK was a crime.

Meanwhile, the PKK continued by extorting fellow Kurds in Germany.
If you have a job, you pay.
If you own a shop, you pay.
If you get unemployment-money, you pay.
If you sell drugs, you pay.
If you get extra-money for Christmas, you pay extra on Christmas.
(There were even copycat-extortionists who merely claimed to be from the PKK.)
And occasionaly they firebombed turkish grocery-stores.

The PKK demanded 120,000 DeutscheMark from a kurdish grocery-store owner. He went to the cops. But later in court, he suddenly wasn't able to remember the faces of the guys who had blackmailed him...
A 15yo kurdish boy was kidnapped, was able to flee and told how he was put in a PKK terrorist-training-camp. But in court he told that he went with them on his own... to a party that went on really long...

The PKK-extortions and the copycat-extortions of turks and Kurds in Germany continued well into the year 2000. They would stick a knife in your throat and threaten your kids...
One drug-dealer greeted them with a gun when they came to demand protection-money. He fended them off, only to be gunned down in a bar in public.
http://www.abendblatt.de/archiv/2000/article204231119/Schutzgeld-Immer-mehr-Haendler-leiden.html

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"Free Ocalan"- stickers still pop up on some walls from time to time in Germany.

I don't care if he had a political revelation in jail and is a totally different person now. I hope he dies of old age in jail.