The Norwegian, Irish and Spanish states have recently taken the step of recognising Palestinian statehood. Finland has announced that it also plans to recognise Palestine, and the Slovenian parliament is due to vote on the issue. These announcements are to be welcomed as a recognition of Palestinian humanity in the face of Israeli colonialism and oppression. The Kurdish Freedom Movement stands with the Palestinian struggle for existence, and Palestinians’ right to resist against Israeli ethnic cleansing and genocide. The Movement is not opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state, but it recognises that freedom does not come from states. In fact, in the paradigm of the Kurdish Freedom Movement, liberation will only be achieved by developing an alternative to the state itself.
Imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan proposed a move away from the state system, to a new system of organisation based on bottom-up radical democracy, and respect for the autonomy of all peoples. This system of stateless democracy is known as Democratic Confederalism.
Öcalan wrote, from his prison cell, “The system of the United Nations that is based on nation-states has remained inefficient. Meanwhile, nation-states have become serious obstacles for any social development. Democratic confederalism is the contrasting paradigm of the oppressed people. Democratic confederalism is a non-state social paradigm. It is not controlled by a state. At the same time, democratic confederalism is the cultural organizational blueprint of a democratic nation.”
Öcalan has spent 25 years in isolation on the Turkish prison island of İmralı. He has been held completely incommunicado for the past 38 months – with no access to his lawyers, or communication with his family.
Last year, Medya News published a three-part series of articles outlining Öcalan’s vision for lasting peace in the Middle East. We have decided to republish it, in light of Israel’s actions in Gaza, and in the context of the unprecedented global outpouring of solidarity with the Palestinian people. We hope it can help to inspire people in the Middle East, and globally, to think beyond the state model, beyond colonialism, nationalism and racism and towards a free life.
The excerpts from Öcalan’s writing in these three articles are taken from his handwritten submissions from prison to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), later published in five volumes under the title ‘Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization’.
These three articles set out Öcalan’s vision for a Middle East that he says could bring freedom and self-determination to all of the peoples of historic Palestine.
Here is the link to the first part. The second part will follow tomorrow, Sunday 2 June, and the third on Monday 3 June.
Is two-state solution answer to Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
