Sarah Glynn
When you write about politics you can end up scrolling through seemingly endless images of police violence. This week’s images were notable because so many of them showed American riot police violently attacking the students who are being educated to become the next generation of leaders, and also laying into their middle-aged professors. The manufacture of consent had not worked, and the “land of the free” was falling back on authoritarianism, with batons, teargas, and threats to future careers and aspirations. All of which raises big questions about the nature of power and liberal democracy – and also related questions about how some issues create world-defining moments while others fail to get picked up by international radar.
In the Kurdish context, these questions highlight the international silence over Turkey’s ongoing and relentless attacks on the Kurds, and underline the importance of Abdullah Öcalan’s critique of liberal democracy in favour of direct democracy. America’s desperate displays of authoritarianism also serve as a further reminder of the brutal tenacity with which existing elites will attempt to hold onto their power.
Wars remembered and forgotten
The horrors that Israel is inflicting on the Palestinians continue to shock, both by their scale and by their seemingly limitless depths of brutality. In January, Oxfam described the daily death rate in Gaza as “higher than any other major 21st Century conflict”. But it is far from the only place where inhabitants are suffering from relentless attacks intended to make their lives untenable. War in Yemen has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. War in Sudan has reduced families to eating earth and leaves as nearly five million people face imminent famine. And in North and East Syria, Turkish attacks are aimed at forcing societal collapse and demographic change, and are undermining hopes of building a working example of a more direct democracy.
None of these places is generally considered headline news, or even thought worthy of more than a brief mention.
By contrast, the war in Ukraine has been framed by western governments and media as an uncomplicated battle between good and evil, and this has generally been echoed in popular support for Ukraine. It is still socially acceptable to criticise the fact that non-European refugees have not been given the same welcome as that afforded to refugees from Ukraine; but you can risk social ostracism if you call for peace negotiations rather than for fuelling the continued decimation of a generation by pouring in more weapons. Nor should you question the full motivation behind Western support for the Ukrainian side – even though US politicians are congratulating themselves on facilitating the degradation of Russian forces with no cost in American lives. The Global South has resisted the West’s Ukraine discourse at both government and popular levels.
In the case of North and East Syria, Turkey’s unprovoked invasions and continued attacks are an inconvenient fact that Western states do not want to acknowledge. Turkey is a strategically important NATO ally, but also a fragile ally that needs to be placated. They are paid by the European Union to stop refugees (mainly Syrians) from moving on into Europe, and they are a significant trading partner for European countries. Western governments may not welcome these Turkish attacks, but they continue to sell Turkey arms and to label the PKK as terrorists – which Turkey uses to justify every attack they make against Kurds everywhere. Mainstream media draws on Turkish government press releases and concludes every article on Kurds with a reminder that the PKK is included in European and American terrorist lists.
Western governments make a distinction between the PKK on the one hand and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in North and East Syria on the other; but those governments do not support the ideology that all these organisations share, an ideology that is built on the ideas of Abdullah Öcalan and seeks to replace liberal democracy with an inclusive direct democracy.
The Kurds
Kurds have built up support and sympathy through their central role in the fight against ISIS, but knowledge of their current situation is limited. Now they are defending themselves against Turkey, not ISIS, and although Turkey gave ISIS practical backing, this is not widely known. There was public anger, and accusations of betrayal, when Donald Trump gave the green light to Turkey’s 2019 invasion of Serêkaniyê and Girê Spî, but a war of attrition, such as the one Turkey is currently fighting, will find it hard to raise the same response.
Kurdish experiments in direct democracy, as well as in women’s rights and multi-ethnic cooperation, have generated a passionate, but still relatively small core of leftist support; but there is also a segment of anti-imperialist campaigners who might be expected to be supportive but cannot forgive the SDF for allying with the United States in the fight against ISIS.
Without American air support, Kurds had only their determination with which to stand against ISIS fighters that had been able to lay their hands on large amounts of high-powered weaponry. Now, the presence of American troops (and of Russian troops in the west of the region) is all that is stopping a Turkish land invasion. The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria is well aware that the Americans are only there for their own imperial interests, but they don’t want them to leave until there is a political solution for Syria that gives them security against Turkey’s attacks. So far President Assad has resisted all attempts to negotiate a political solution for the country.
While North and East Syria fails to retain Western public attention despite the Kurdish stand against ISIS, and despite Turkey’s attacks being unprovoked, the complicated politics of Yemen and Sudan makes their catastrophic wars even more likely to be overlooked.
Palestine
Palestine is different again. Like Ukraine, Israel has received the unquestioning support of Western governments, but those governments are out of step with a big and growing proportion of the people they are supposed to represent. Even in the United States, a large majority of voters would support the US calling for a permanent ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza. Networks in support of the Palestinians have been built up over decades and these have been able to work with people in Gaza to spread the news of what is happening, and to ensure that the thousands of horrific images of the dead and wounded cannot be ignored.
The genocide of the Palestinians can be seen as a hideous consequence of the Zionist creation of an ethnic nationalist state. The support given to Israel by most Western governments – bar a few honourable exceptions – is harder to comprehend. Israel came into being on the back of guilt for the holocaust and rejection of Jewish refugees, but the country developed into a strategic outpost for the West and exemplar of Western civilisation. Western support for Israel acquired a perceived existential as well as a military dimension – even while (perversely) it exposed the hypocrisy of the civilisation it aimed to defend. American support is making this genocide possible. America’s veto ensures that international mechanisms set up to restrain international aggression cannot function, and, vitally, America supplies Israel with billions of dollars of weapons. Israel can also depend on weapons deals with other western countries.
Reporting by Western mainstream media is heavily filtered, and many politicians label all critics of Israel as “Hamas terrorists”, but people are able to see for themselves the atrocities being committed by the Israeli army, to hear the genocidal calls of Israeli politicians, and to understand the complicity of their own governments. And they feel an obligation to act.
Crisis of democracy
It is frighteningly clear – and not only with respect to Palestine – that liberal democracies have failed to produce governments that represent either the views or the interests of the general population. They give control to people who are generally from a small elite, and who – even if this was not their initial impulse – are driven by a lust for power. It is over 100 years since Mark Twain wrote “We have the best government that money can buy”, but it is still true that those with money have a grossly disproportionate influence on who gets elected and on what they focus on afterwards. This is especially true in America, where presidential candidates can spend over $100 million on their campaign, but it also applies in other liberal democracies. Meanwhile, most people are persuaded that their democratic role is limited to ticking a box every four or five years in order to put into power what is often seen as the least bad option.
As has been repeatedly demonstrated, significant reforms have only happened when elected politicians have come under major pressure from below. The anti-war movement that we have seen growing on American campuses could prove to be the beginning of such pressure, in a repeat of the movement that helped end the war in Vietnam. That historical precedent is no doubt in the minds of both the government and the protestors.
The Vietnam protests were even more brutally suppressed. Fifty-four years ago today, guardsmen of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on students at Kent State University who were protesting against the expansion of the war into Cambodia. Four students were killed and nine were wounded. No-one responsible for the massacre was given a criminal conviction, and two further students were shot dead at Jackson State University ten days later – however, the violent suppression of the protests helped the movement to spread to millions of students over hundreds of colleges and universities.
The failures of liberal democracy point to the importance of Öcalan’s call for direct democracy, and of the attempts to put this into practice in North and East Syria. The aim is to build a decentralised system, where – as far as circumstances allow – power is devolved down to the smallest most local unit, and people in coordinating roles always have to answer to the smaller units down the chain. In this system, there is no hard line between life and politics because everyone can be involved in politics, and that politics relates directly to their lives. What we have seen so far is still very much a work in progress, but Turkey is threatening to destroy all that has been achieved.
North and East Syria
The Syrian civil war provided the power vacuum that allowed the Rojava Revolution to happen, but all organisational structures have difficulties operating under war conditions. Turkey’s attacks are designed to destroy everything that people build, to force people to flee, to destroy confidence in the authorities, and to assassinate experienced activists.
In a recent article, Arthur Pye described the situation in a village near the frontline in 2022: “We sat outside with a group of organizers to discuss the situation over tea. They told us that attendance of community meetings had already been declining due to previous attacks. But after the building itself was hit, participation dropped off dramatically, reduced now mostly to those with formal responsibilities. ‘We keep meeting, because we must resolve the problems of our people,’ said a young organizer named Ahmed. His tone conveyed a stubborn determination – though there was frustration in his voice, too. Like the others, he was proudly committed to his work; it would be much harder now due to the growing fear among community members. ‘They’re just too afraid to participate,’ he concluded.” https://strangematters.coop/arthur-pye-rojava-reporting-turkish-war-crimes-zirgan/
As the residents of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria wait for the threatened major attack, smaller attacks grind on. On Thursday, Anha News Agency reported that attacks on many villages had injured one man and killed many sheep.
The situation has been made worse by a reduction in international aid, which is being diverted to Ukraine and Gaza. Nobody wants to be reliant on aid, but war damage and continuing Turkish sabotage makes this a necessity, not least for the one million IDPs in the region. In addition, according to an NGO worker quoted by the Kurdish Peace Institute, 90% of US aid to North and East Syria is given to projects in Arab majority and not Kurdish majority areas, so as not to annoy Turkey.
Iran also makes life difficult for the Autonomous Administration. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been meeting with Iran-backed militias to plan attacks on the SDF in support of Arab Tribal groups. North Press was informed that in order to “avoid clashes with local people” they will do this in the uniform of a pro-Syrian Government militia.
Iran
From Iran itself, there is more news of arrests and executions. At least 77 prisoners were executed last month, and Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights has already reported three more executions in May. Last week at least 13 men were arrested for taking part in Newroz celebrations.
In what Hengaw describes as a “noteworthy and rare action”, at least 80 families of victims from the crackdown on the Women Life Freedom Movement, from 25 Kurdish cities, have published a joint statement condemning the death sentence given to Kurdish rapper, Toomaj Salehi. They describe him as an “artist of the people” who “echoed the collective heartbeat of society”. Salehi’s sentence has prompted what Le Monde describes as “a wave of indignation in the West”, from artists to governments.
Kolbar News has recorded all the Kolbars, or cross-border mountain porters, who were killed and injured between last May Day and this. Kolbars carry heavy loads over dangerous mountain passes where they become targets for the Iranian military – but for the people of the Kurdish areas there is little other work available. In the last 12 months, 41 Kolbars were shot dead, five died from frostbite or cold related injuries, three died from heart attacks while working, and three fell to their deaths. A further 450 were injured, mainly shot by the military. Eighteen were shot by Iraqi border guards, and eight were injured by landmines, presumably left over from the Iran Iraq War.
The Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Turkey is also continuing their attack on Iraq. They claim to be there only to root out the PKK, but they have constructed a growing network of military bases and talk about creating a 30-40km “security corridor” inside Iraq’s northern border – effectively an area of Turkish occupation. Currently their focus is on Metîna, from where they could, Scharo Maroof suggests, attempt to move into the Gara Mountains.
Also this week, Turkish bombs have killed two Kurds from Iran who had gone into the border mountains to collect medicinal plants, and a third man is missing.
Turkey
In Turkey itself, May Day has again seen workers banned from Istanbul’s Taksim Square, the iconic site of struggle and resistance where the workers’ celebration has been banned more often than it has been allowed, and where 37 workers were gunned down by the state in 1977. https://medyanews.net/why-may-day-why-taksim/ The ban on use of the square was actually struck down by the Constitutional Court in December, but this is not the first Constitutional Court ruling to be ignored by the State.
Thousands came to march to Taksim, but when the authorities refused to budge, the organising committee of trade unions took the decision not to force the issue. Many workers who were not happy with this decision attempted to charge the police lines and were met with pressurised water, pepper spray and rubber bullets. At least 216 people were detained, and another 47 were detained later in their homes.
In another grim reminder of the government’s disdain for workers, Republican People’s Party (CHP) parliamentarian, Sezgin Tanrıkulu, reported that in the years since Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power, 32,000 people had lost their lives in preventable workplace accidents.
Under Erdoğan, government control starts young. They have just published their new draft school curriculum, written without consultation with the teaching unions, which is aimed at instilling conservative, religious, and nationalist values.
The newly published Human Rights Association prison report for 2022-23 observes that torture has become like a state policy that is systematically applied, particularly against political prisoners and minorities. They note how repression in other prisons comes out of oppression in İmralı, where Abdullah Öcalan and the three other inmates are being held in isolation.
Öcalan and two of the other prisoners have life sentences without possibility of parole, but Veysi Aktaş expected to be released, having spent 30 years in prison. Instead, his sentence has been prolonged by a year, dashing not only the hopes of himself and his family, but also blocking off a possible source of information on the situation behind the prison walls, which has been completely shut off from the rest of the world for over three years.
It has been announced that Erdoğan’s much anticipated visit to the White House has been postponed (perhaps as a result of differences over Gaza), however there have been some important meetings this week. On Thursday, CHP leader, Özgür Özel, visited President Erdoğan, and on Friday he visited the DEM Party. The mood seemed good, and Erdoğan has promised a return visit to Özel, but we don’t really know what was said.
Much to the frustration of the DEM Party, one of their newly elected mayors has resigned from the party, having proved himself antagonist to the party’s working methods.
In other news, Kurds have been celebrating Amedspor football club coming top of the second league – a victory that is extra poignant in light of the racial abuse that both fans and players have had to endure. We can only hope this is a harbinger of better things ahead.
Sarah Glynn is a writer and activist – check her website and follow her on Twitter
