Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) Executive Council member Rıza Altun answered questions of ANF English service about the developments taking place in Kurdistan and the Middle East amid what he calls the Third World War.

Altun remarked that;  "The Kurdish resistance in Kobane, Rojava created new circumstances. The international community and public opinion created pressure over the U.S. and other international powers to interfere the situation. The resistance mounted in Shengal, and after that in Kobane, moved the conscience of international community. The relationship between the US-led coalition and YPG was seen as legitimate and necessary as the alliance between the U.S. and Soviet Union against Hitler’s fascism at the time of the World War II. Both sides needed that kind of relationship like the U.S. and the Soviets needed back then. Thus a tactical relationship was developed with the U.S. against ISIS."

Below is first part of our detailed interview with Altun.

Revolutionary movements and people throughout the world, especially in Europe and Latin America, watch PKK and Rojava with growing interest. However, most of them cannot associate the relationship with US-led international coalition with the socialist and anti-imperialist identity of the Kurdish movement after Kobane. Isn’t this a contradiction in your point of view, too? Or is it a temporary situation that arose because of the political, ideological and sociological besiegement and isolation of the Kurds? Or do you have another explanation for this?

To understand the current political situation, one needs to know how it developed in the first place. These are not results of political relationship based on planned strategic and tactical relations. It should be evaluated and seen as more of political and tactical outcomes of a political situation and the course of the struggle and the resistance.

When the latest crisis in the Middle East emerged, PKK already had a 40-years history of struggle. This struggle was essentially against the imperialist-capitalist system in the body of colonialist states that control four parts of Kurdistan in the name of capitalist and imperialist system. For exactly forty years these states supported the imperialist and capitalist colonialist powers and tried everything to supress the freedom movement.

The recent plot against our leader (Abdullah Ocalan) is a result of the efforts by these powers. This is a systemic approach to eliminate our movement. It’s the approach of the imperialism and capitalism. At the start of the Middle East crisis their approach was to exclude our movement and supress and eventually destroy it. This approach was based on the relationship and alliance of the imperialist and colonialist powers. We can see this when we look at what happened in Syria. When the chaos in Syria erupted, many circles in the name of Syrian opposition developed relationships with international imperialism and regional colonialist powers. Kurds were the only side to mount resistance to defend themselves and had no connection with anyone. There was no support for them from any power.

When some powers that developed the Syrian crisis, like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, targeted Kurds through their proxies, our people started resistance in accordance with the ideas of Leader Apo. The Syrian regime and so-called Syrian opposition tried everything in their power to supress this resistance. Kurds then responded when organizations like ISIS, Al-Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham attacked Kurdish regions with the support of the Assad regime. A resistance started here. Basically, this is how it all started.

KOBANE WAS A TURNING POINT

When this battle and resistance started, Turkey, Iran, Syria and other similar powers were supporting the Salafist (radical islamist) groups that were attacking the Kurds in Syria. Other powers, particularly the U.S. and Israel were also supporting these groups. They were developing projects and forced these groups to act in accordance with their interests. The Salafist groups attacked Kurds with this support and this continued until the resistance in Kobane. Kobane was a turning point. Until the resistance in Kobane there was no single regional or international power that supported the Kurds’ freedom movement in Syria. There was no power that developed a tactical relation with Kurds. They collectively did everything they could to eliminate the Kurdish movement. Iran acted together with the Syrian regime to crush Kurdish resistance. On the other hand, the U.S. and Israel tried to supress the resistance by supporting Salafist groups with various policies over Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Kobane was the turning point of the struggle.

SHENGAL RESISTANCE GAVE BREATH TO THE WORLD

The powers which wanted to dominate the Middle East through ISIS, pursued a very deliberate and relentless policy. They followed the same strategy with Genghis Khan or Tamerlane which helped them conquer the entire Middle East in a short period of time: unlimited violence and savagery. When ISIS beheaded hundreds of people in front of the cameras and serviced them to the press, it wasn’t because they were illiterate. It was a result of their strategy to create a climate of panic and fear, then make people surrender. After the first massacres, the fear spread ISIS arrived before ISIS itself and towns, cities were handed to them without any resistance. The first resistance against ISIS was in Shengal. PKK guerrillas and YPG-YPJ fighters in Rojava mounted the first and the only resistance against ISIS when they attacked the Ezidi people here. Although they have an enormous military power, the U.S., Russia and EU countries just watched the massacre; HPG and YJA Star guerrillas along with YPG-YPJ fighters saves hundreds of thousand Ezidis, Christians and Muslims from genocide.

The resistance in Shengal gave breath to the world and made people question the situation away from the climate of panic and fear. They asked “Despite having an enormous military power why do the US, EU and other global and regional powers not act against this atrocity? Do they try to benefit from this barbarity?”  The new situation opened the legitimacy of international powers and regional states to discussion and on the other hand brought prestige for the PKK and our Leader. It destroyed the “terrorist organization” label which was stuck on the name of our movement by Turkish colonialism and imperialism. After this no one could carry on their relations with ISIS or other organizations like them. Especially the countries that define themselves as “democratic states” had to search for new tendencies to continue their existence in the region.

GLOBAL AND REGIONAL POWERS STARTED A NEW PHASE FOR THEMSELVES AFTER KOBANE RESISTANCE

However, despite the resistance in Shengal and its results, regional powers continued with their policy on ISIS and other Salafist organizations. They later diverted ISIS to Kobane and tried to secure its fall into ISIS’ hands. The goal was to destroy the gains of Rojava Kurds, but most importantly the gains of freedom path in the Middle East. This was for everybody’s interest in one way at the time. The regime and its indirect international supporters were looking to benefit from this, in addition to Turkey and Saudi Arabia. ISIS built a tactic and strategic relationship over anti-Kurdish approach of these powers. This is how the attack against Kobane developed.

A great resistance was put up against the attack on Kobane and this resistance was embraced by the people in all four parts of Kurdistan. All the Kurds in Northern, Southern and Eastern Kurdistan showed great sensibility towards Kobane. The longevity of the resistance increased the interest of people of the region and international public opinion. After 100 days of resistance Kobane was on the top of the agenda in the world. After Kobane was on the world’s agenda, the failure of ISIS caused a split. At that point, the regional and global powers revaluated their political and military positions and started a new process on their part.

THE RESISTANCE IN SHENGAL AND KOBANE MOVED THE CONSCIENCE OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

The Kurdish resistance in Kobane, Rojava created new circumstances. The international community and public opinion created pressure over the U.S. and other international powers to interfere the situation. The resistance mounted in Shengal, and after that in Kobane, moved the conscience of international community.

The relationship between the US-led coalition and YPG was seen as legitimate and necessary as the alliance between the U.S. and Soviet Union against Hitler’s fascism at the time of the World War II. Both sides needed that kind of relationship like the U.S. and the Soviets needed back then. Thus a tactical relationship was developed with the U.S. against ISIS. One should address how this relationship started this way.

It is more important to see how this relationship developed what the intentions of the parties in this relationship are, than to reach a conclusion by only determining the ideological positions of the parties. Otherwise for forty years the U.S. is fighting against the PKK and the PKK is fighting against the imperialist system in the body of colonialism. But there is a new situation and chaos in the Middle East that concerns the world system. There is not only oppressed peoples’ and socialist movements’ struggle against imperialist powers in this chaotic situation. There are also struggles between imperialist powers themselves, or between imperialist powers and regional powers or local reactionism. This struggle creates opportunities in which all parties can get into tactic relationships while moving forward to reach their objectives. Therefore, every party tries to do this as they benefit from the power and capabilities of others. Various political and military positions make this possible.

THE CHOICE THAT THE U.S. HAD TO MAKE

At the beginning of the crisis in the Middle East, the U.S. faced several options after the political and military investments it had made in Syria over Turkey and Saudi Arabia, came to nothing. The first option was to leave Syria, i.e. to leave the region. Doing so the U.S. would back down from its world domination politics. US wouldn’t possibly be able to do so. The second option was to invest more on the policies that it pursued over Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which were, however, failing. This would not reveal a different outcome either. The third option was to move further by developing relationship with a new force that proved its success on the ground. This third one was the choice that the U.S. did have to make.

Instead of continuing with Turkey and Saudi Arabia and repeating a previous practice by fighting against this freedom force that had had achieved a success, the U.S. choose to become a partner with the success this resistance revealed, which would obviously benefit itself more. This was a crafty imperialist approach which predicted to attribute these gains to itself. The U.S. calculated this very well and developed a tactical relationship. 

The U.S. started a process based on supporting the resistance of YPG forces as an approach of the international coalition against ISIS. This is more of a tactical process. The freedom struggle of the Kurds in Rojava is based on freedom and equality on a socialist basis. It is the expression of a political path which was developed basing on the brotherhood and unity of peoples. On the other side, the imperialists are fighting to impose their hegemony over the Middle East. These very different strategic and ideological positions entered a process of just a tactical relationship in Kobane in the Middle East. The other developments that followed can be seen as a continuation of this tactical relationship.

In itself, this relationship is a very painful one. On one side the freedom movement is trying to extend its territory and gives a struggle to create a free Middle East by developing democratic solutions, while the other side tries to extend its hegemony in the Middle East. This is not a relationship in which the parties support each other but are in constant conflict.

THIS IS A FIRST IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Can we say that this is a very rare situation, maybe the first of its kind? Is there a tactical partnership that arises from the intersection of the interests of oppressed peoples’ forces and hegemonic imperialistic powers?

Maybe in the Middle East this is the first of its kind. It’s not something that’s unheard of in the world. If we check the history of the struggles for freedom, we can find out a lot of examples. There are some examples in the late history. There are a lot of examples especially during World War I and II and in the Soviet revolution period.

The Soviets and the U.S. saw the common points of their struggle against fascism during World War II. Now when we evaluate this how can we define the position of the Soviet Union? Will we say that the Soviet Union collaborated with imperialism after evaluating its relations with the U.S. or the UK? This will be a very shallow and dogmatic approach.

There are several examples from the October Revolution as well. After the October Revolution there happened economic and political agreements with the capitalists and imperialists. If you look at the nature of these agreements, there is no denial of socialism on Soviet part. There is no denial of socialism when Lenin developed relationships with imperialists. The same thing goes for the agreements made during World War II. Here one can talk about the necessity of developing tactical and strategic relationships and agreement for the October Revolution. Yet the struggle against fascism during World War II required creation of an anti-fascist common front.

How long will these relationships last?

If we look closely, this kind of relationships are limited by the period of the problems’ existence. That means it’s not at the level of a strategic relationship. Like how the agreements of the October Revolutions agreements point out their conjunctional situations and like how these agreements become worthless when the conjunctional situation is over, it was the same during World War II.

The alliance that was developed during the World War II was an anti-fascist stance which emerged from the intersection of homeland defence of the Soviet Union under intense attacks and the interests of other anti-fascist powers. This agreement remained in force as long as the fascist attacks continued. But once the fascism was defeated, all parties returned to their own political positions and moved on in accordance with their respective ideological-political path.

There are not many examples of these in the Middle East. This is the first of its kind, and a unique situation. The conflict and the struggle in the world can be named as the World War III. The Middle East is one of the most affected territory of the global conflict. This means that we may witness some developments that we have never seen before in the region. For example, we may witness complicated tactical and strategic relationships of the regional status quoist states, international imperialism and the socialist revolutionary movements which all act to strengthen their positions. Because the reality in the field is very complicated. There are three main courses.

The first is the imperialist course and involved powers. This is represented by the U.S., Russia and the European Union states. The second course is of the regional status quoist states. These are represented by countries like Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The third course is of socialism, democracy and freedom. This is represented by leftist and socialist popular movements led by the PKK. These three courses in conflict with each other and among themselves, especially the first two ones. Therefore, these forces can continuously develop different relationships and alliances in accordance with the priority of their interests and conflicts. Every power positions itself open to relations and alliances while conflicting with each other. Our definition of “World War III” is based on this reality. When we predicate on this definition of World War III, we will see various new strategic, tactical relations. When this is the case, many powers are supposed to develop tactical relationships in order to move forward to their strategic goals, although it may look contradicting. This goes for everybody. This is within the nature of politics and diplomacy. This should be expected. Therefore, making judgements by looking at the open political and military situations might be a too shallow and narrow approach.

THIS IS A PRACTICAL PROCESS

Taking the right approach means this: Capitalism is in a deep and structural crisis. It’s a global crisis but can be felt intensely in the Middle East. The conflict in the Middle East is taking place at both military and political level. Therefore, an ideological and political approach alone is not enough. An organized and military position is needed at the same time. When you take an organized and military position that means you will constantly fight against the status quo in order to change and transform it and develop a new structure. This is a practical process. If it’s not evaluated correctly and the dialectics of the progress are not implemented in a good way, the dogmatic approach may result in a great elimination. In that case, a situation where the line of freedom cannot be expressed may emerge.

Because of this we need to know and analyse the field very well. We have to be precise when we decide when and what to do against something. When we make gains or capture a place we have to evaluate carefully how it will be defended and how it will be used to build and establish socialism. If we don’t look at it from this perspective we will never be able to understand the freedom path or the positions of regional status quoist states and international imperialism. If we mix all these with each other and stand aside with our theoretical approaches, posing like we are great defenders of freedom; in reality we will gravely harm the struggle and resistance of the people.

These are tactical relationships, this is understandable. Now the Federation of Northern Syria and Rojava forces have relations with the U.S. and Russia. These are great imperialist powers. How can one protect socialist identity when having political, military and economic relations with those powers?

Firstly, I have to tell you this: Our struggle is carried out by carefully considering the historical experiences of other struggles for freedom. You have to take this into consideration. Secondly there is no way that someone will understand us from the real socialism’s point of view. From the practices of real socialism, we know that we cannot carry out a freedom struggle by polarizing the world in form of fronts and defining ourselves within one of these. The world is not in that situation and it’s not possible to carry out a freedom struggle by isolating and marginalising yourself within the world’s capitalist system. We have to see the problem as a whole and act accordingly.

We are living in a capitalist world system. We want to create an area of freedom to struggle against capitalism, imperialism and colonialism. Now we have no opportunity to position ourselves in an existing area of freedom. We want to create one inside this world which is held captive and enslaved. The freedom areas that we want to create are now under other powers’ control. But the social and political groups have very serious discrepancies among themselves. We can only move forward in the name of socialist idealism by benefiting from these conflicts and discrepancies. Creating polarization and taking position in it is not for the benefit of socialist powers.

If we approach the problems with real socialism’s understanding of polarization, we will have to face all imperialist and colonialist powers. But in reality, the imperialist and colonialist powers are not homogenous. There are various contradictions and discrepancies between them. A failure to benefit from these conflicts and to gather strength and positions in the name of socialist idea will be a great loss for the socialist ideology.

If we look at the issue by only differentiating the socialists and capitalists-imperialists, we will be left with only a few whom we can call friends on the ground. And with a compilation of these “friends” it will be very difficult to move forward in this great struggle. When there is an opportunity, everything we take from capitalist-imperialist system will make the socialist movement stronger while making them weaker.

When this is the case, we need to move forward with the necessities drawn by our ideological and political approaches by organizing and opening areas of freedom. There are hegemonic powers, which are in relation with the capitalist system, in front of us and they control those areas. And we have to open a way for ourselves in these areas.

When we look at the reality of the Middle East, there is no certain area of freedom or a certain free group. All areas have been lost throughout the history. The society has been melted in mental aspect within the existing capitalist world system. Countries and regions are invaded by the colonialist and imperialist hegemonic powers. The path of freedom for the society is closed under the name of state sovereignty.

Kurds are developing a freedom struggle under these circumstances. We are trying to create an area for freedom within the social reality which is denied by imperialism and the four colonialist countries (Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria). We need to move forward with very carefully calculated steps and approaches. Taking all powers against us by saying “this is imperialist”, “that is colonialist and capitalist” will mean accepting defeat. That means risking the elimination of the freedom struggle.

So, what needs to be done? We need to know how to create ourselves from nothing by analysing the military, political and social reality of these areas. When you act this way, confronting various powers, developing tactical relations and getting into military and political relations will be inevitable. The important thing is to stick to the ideological, political line and freedom approach. You need to be sure that all of these will serve your objectives. Those who are carrying out the freedom struggle, have to take this reality into consideration and express themselves within this context.

"THE CAPITALIST-IMPERIALIST SYSTEM UNITED AGAINST OUR STRUGGLE"

Now there is a freedom struggle we have been developing. If you look at the history of our struggle you will see that there are appalling difficulties and richness. For more than 40 years the capitalist and imperialist system of the world united against our struggle for freedom. They supported the colonialist powers and made great investments to prevent rising of a freedom movement. Despite that a great struggle has been developed solely with people’s support. The struggle was embraced by the people. This freedom approach which is embraced by the Kurdish society had a huge influence on the Middle East and the (Kurdish) struggle found a place for itself within the conjuncture. Although the world was against it, the existence of a movement which is based on guerrilla, democratic politics and organization of people led to incredible results.

And also this movement had the ability to move on without active support of organizations that call themselves “defenders of freedom” or “against the system”. Most fractions had concerns over this movement and didn’t support it at all.

Today there is a chaos is the Middle East. The chaos is also partly a result of the 40-year struggle by this movement. This chaos turned the Middle East upside down. A new Middle East territory has emerged where the policies of international and imperialist powers went bankrupt. Everybody assumed that capitalism, imperialism or Israel was very powerful. But now they have been rendered weak. The chaos in the Middle east swallowed them all and now they became invisible. And also the structure of the regional powers and the hegemony of the status quoist states has collapsed.

So how did this happen? You can explain this with the crisis of the system or maybe with historical conflicts. But that’s not all. The system’s crisis or historical conflicts should be triggered by a struggle and intervention before it’s transformed into chaos. The forty-year freedom struggle by the PKK has a share on the rise of the chaos in the Middle East and the collapse of the system.

"THIS IS NOT SOLELY A WAR FOR OIL"

Now everyone is struggling to recreate and reposition themselves in the Middle East. This is very important. We have to see this. This center of the crisis of the capitalist modernism is in the Middle East right now. Either the capitalism will recreate itself in the Middle East and prolong its life for another a hundred or more years or the chaos in the Middle East will open a hole within the capitalist modernity system as the region where freedom has emerged. This is why all the world’s powers are in the Middle East and fight. It will be a very shallow approach to explain this solely as “the war for oil”.

This is the ground where the current depression of the worlds’ capitalist system has turned to a World War III. Everybody is here. The struggle here is ideological, political and systematic. The global imperialism wants to develop a postmodern world hegemony and system through this struggle. The regional status quoist states are trying to protect their gains and advantages that were provided to them by the system of the 20th century. The oppressed peoples and societal circles are trying to produce their freedom and equality out of this chaos. This is what’s happening in fact in Rojava right now.

But what do they rely on when developing these relationships? Is it possible to build a socialist society in northern Syria or in the Middle East despite American, Russian and European imperialism?

When we look at the previous progress of the crisis in the Middle East, there is no libertarian line anywhere. There is none in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Gulf States. Because the chaos was progressing mainly as the re-establishment of capitalist modernity and conflict of imperialist and colonialist powers. There was no political order or organization that could express freedom. The people’s search for freedom and their efforts were destroyed by those powers because it was not organized. But when the crisis came to Rojava a new situation emerged based on the path of freedom. The new situation is exactly what emerged from the struggle of the PYD and YPG. For the first time a democratic, libertarian and socialist political line has emerged in the Middle East against capitalist modernity. Because of this, they got united and tried to crush this struggle that was embraced by the Middle East and the world. However, they ended up developing relationship with what they couldn’t eliminate.

What needs to be done in this position? For sure those who are giving a freedom struggle should believe in themselves in the first place. If they need and believe in their ideology, in socialism, in freedom and in social equality, they shouldn’t hesitate to develop relations with anyone.

This question of yours is just like the destiny of the Middle East. If some are giving a freedom struggle and some others are trying to make their own interests dominant, then these parties will inevitably be through a process in a relationship and contradiction. It has to be like this. It can be in the form of consensus and alliance or conflict. For example, the U.S. had to develop a tactical relationship with YPG that it showed no interest in the beginning. But the U.S. is trying every way to remove YPG’s socialist identity and integrate it into the capitalist-imperialist system. This is one of its primary objectives while developing a relationship. But the Kurds and the political line of freedom has its own objectives in this relationship. It’s important who is advancing with whose horse.

I mean the results achieved in this relationship are of strategical and tactical importance for both sides. The positions obtained by Kurds of Rojava and forces of Northern Syria Federation are strategic gains for all socialist and anti-system forces. But the US’ presence in Syria only has a quantitative importance with regard to the imperialist system. Without doubt, these tactical relationships are important for them. We know for sure that these relationships will be in a constantly conflicting manner. But the movement in Rojava has confidence in itself and it is getting favourable results.

Now there is a coalition in Syria which is represented by the U.S. It has all the support of capitalism. There is also another front of this system, Russia. And Russia has a lot of support behind it. With the presence of Russia and the U.S., all hegemonic and imperialist powers of the world are represented in the Middle East. And regional states are in a position of relation and contradiction between these two points. While these powers are trying to impose the dominance of the imperialist world system, they are conflicting with each other as they try to impose their own hegemony as an absolute hegemony.

"ROJAVA, AN AREA OF FREEDOM IN A SMALL PIECE OF LAND"

Under these circumstances, there is now an area of freedom in a small piece of land, called Rojava where a democratic communal area has been formed. We are talking about an area of freedom for the first time. With all material and moral support of the society, this force continues its fight. Meanwhile it wants to establish itself by resisting in ideological, politic and economical means against all the might of world’s capitalist system.

We have to think what this area of freedom means to those who defend freedom. There is an imperialist, capitalist approach that wants to destroy this area completely. There is a burden coming with it. On the other hand there is a struggle to expand this area. We have to understand the conflict and discrepancy very well. We can’t understand the discrepancy without understanding the conflict.

Then YPG has to take advantage of the relationships with Russia and the US. If we only look at the way these relationships are handled, it’s possible to understand the problem anytime.

You talked about the strategic approach of the international powers. What’s Russia’s approach?

In Russia’s strategic approach we see that it wants to enter Syria as a regional power. Who are supporting Russia? Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Russia wants to establish itself by influencing other states in the Middle East. What’s its basic strategic objective? It wants to bring a nation state character to the Syrian regime and wants to turn it into a hegemonic power. We don’t see an approach which evokes democracy, equality or freedom, or an approach which will help to solve the problems by democratic means.

Of course, while manifesting this approach, Russia develops a concept after evaluating the daily discrepancies with its allies. It is pursuing a policy of integrating the areas of freedom led by the Kurds to the regime, to the nation state. It is using its military, political and diplomatic power in this regard. But on the other hand those who carry out the freedom struggle evaluate this power’s situation and try to move forward over the cracks. This relation is very problematic because of that. Russia is in relation with Turkey, Iran and Syria and it wants to integrate the freedom movement to the regime. But despite that, our freedom movement tries to progress in military, economic, political and diplomatic aspect by taking advantage of the cracks in the relations between them.

We talked about Russia… Now I want to ask you about the U.S. What is the strategic approach of the US?

A similar situation also goes for the U.S. Is the U.S. comfortable with the PYD’s politic line of freedom? I don’t think that the U.S. is comfortable with the declaration of cantons or the establishment of self-governance system instead of a state and finally the efforts for the creation of an equal, free society. The U.S. sees those as a conjunctural situation and ignores them. It wants to achieve military victories through tactical relationships. But on the other hand it develops strategic and prudential relationships with the states. Then taking a position against the U.S. without seeing the anti-imperialist character of the tactical relationship is like playing into the hands of the system of hegemonic power.

There is no relationship with the U.S. other than tactical, political and military relationship. The economic model which is based on monopolies is not in force in Rojava. There is no place for the monopolies. The system in Rojava is basically a liberal and an equalitarian, democratic system. We can easily see this on the federal constitution. What is being organized socially? It’s a democratic society and democratic politics.

In economic aspect, establishment of a communal society is the main objective. Therefore an anti-exploitation and anti-monopoly legislation is being prepared. Now here there is no tactical and strategic alliance with Russia, the U.S. or any other capitalist, imperialist power. On the contrary a very different world view is imposed on them. It is being tried to show them that another world is possible. But the capitalist system rejects it and tries to integrate this into the nation state in order to destroy this alternative before it’s born.

Russia and the U.S. have great military might and political power. Those have an obvious superiority over your power and we can talk about an asymmetric power situation here. What are your advantages against these two fronts? Do you have any ideological, political and social advantages?

Of course, in some aspects, we have the advantage over them. Developments in various points prove this.

First of all, the Middle East is where the civilization was born. By civilization I mean the period that starts with the rise of class society until the establishment of capitalist system. We are talking about a process where the humanitarian values were destroyed and corrupted. The society is desperate and hopeless because of that. The current chaos is also the result of this. The society is in a great search for freedom, which is where we have the advantage over them. In general our socialist ideology which can be an answer to society’s search for freedom is our advantage against imperialism and colonialism.

"WE OFFER SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS CREATED BY THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM"

In the Middle East there are immense problems that are based on ethnic, religious, sectarian, class and sexism. The system of the civilization and its last product -the capitalist system- is the creator of these problems. We are offering solutions to these problems which are compatible with the history and the culture of the peoples in the Middle East. In fact, we associate the socialist thinking with the experiences that are present in our people’s history and cultural life. That makes our ideas attractive.

Also we have forty years of history as a movement. This is a history which is dedicated to equality, freedom, justice and brotherhood of the people. Therefore all parts of the society trusts this movement which has similar characteristics with the movements of prophets in terms of devotion. We are expressing this tradition with socialism today.

If a correct ideological, political and organizational approach is manifested, it is always possible to become an efficient power in the Middle East. We proved this right in the region. A lot of defenders of freedom proved this throughout the history.

We made this rise in Kurdistan, in four parts of Kurdistan. But after that in Rojava it emerged as a very advanced situation. This is an important support for us. It’s obvious that if the right approach is manifested, you will achieve concrete results here.

Secondly and most importantly peoples and societies are directly involved in the struggle. Until now the society’s participation in the conflicts, struggles was limited. The society was wither the victim or the oppressed side of the conflict between ruling powers. But especially in the Northern Syria Federation, all fractions of the society are actively involved in politics, military and organizational efforts. Now the imperialist and colonialist powers have very limited capability to agitate one social group towards another and create a war. The new way that the society expresses itself within this frame has led to the rise of a new center and a new social field. This is the most important advantage that we have over them.

"AN ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF AN OCEAN"

For example now we can talk about the Federation of Northern Syria, the Cizire Canton or another conton. When we just talk about this we may not realize how important it is. But being a federation or a canton is not a simple situation. What does this mean? This means creating an island in the middle of an ocean. This is impossible to understand for those who does not envision the enemy. It’s not possible to understand this if one does not feel and experience freedom. 

We say that an attempt to understand the situation with shallow political evaluations will lead to nothing but demagogy.

Then what’s rising here in Rojava? What is rising in Kobane and Afrin? And as a whole what does the Federation of Northern Syria mean? When we think about these we realize that in these areas the movement didn’t only answer people’s search for freedom but also areas to live freely have been created. These areas of freedom start to appear as small islands. And these islands come together and try to form a federation in order to avoid getting marginalised. It is also trying to reach universal status by uniting with the international revolutionary movement.

We should see that capitalism is left without solution against its own structural crisis and the hegemonic structures have a lot of discrepancies. These along with the chaos give the revolutionary powers a great advantage. Therefore people’s search for freedom, the humanity’s longing for a re-attainment of human identity and this longing’s results in the Middle East and Rojava provide opportunities more than enough in order for the freedom struggle to develop.