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Title: From State to Democracy Author: Komun Academy Date: June 27, 2018 Language: en Topics: democratic confederalism, libertarian socialism, kurdistan, Direct Democracy, anti-statism, the State, Komun Academy Source: Retrieved on 2019-09-11 from https://komun-academy.com/2018/06/27/the-new-paradigm/
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK, Partiya Karkêren Kurdistan) emerged in
the mid-1970s as a national liberation movement, largely inspired by the
ideas of actually existing [real] socialism. However, throughout the
party’s development process, the party’s founder and leader, Abdullah
Öcalan, endeavoured to develop an understanding of socialism and
revolution beyond those centred on Rusaia and China. Through this
process, the PKK was transformed from a small ideological group into one
of the most effective military and political forces in the Middle East.
While the guerrilla struggle that has continued since 1984 is one of the
longest-lasting armed uprisings in the world, the PKK’s areas of
organisation have spread from North Kurdistan to the other parts of
Kurdistan (West, South and East) and encompassed the diaspora from
Australia to America and from Russia to Europe. By the end of the 1990,
the PKK had become the largest and most dynamic Kurdish movement. While
all these developments took place on the basis of the national
liberation ideology and understanding of socialism which had been framed
during the founding process of the party, from the early 1990s Öcalan
was intensifying his efforts to renew its ideological and organisational
aims. Öcalan’s aim was to develop a new approach, in particular with a
radical critique of the understanding of actually existing socialism and
openings on the woman question. Although the PKK Congress of 1995 made
some significant changes in this respect, a renewal on the scale desired
did not take place.
The PKK went through a process of radical regeneration after its leader
and founder Abdullah Öcalan was abducted from Kenya in an international
conspiracy and handed over to Turkey in 1999. Öcalan, who has been held
in solitary confinement on the island of Imrali in the Sea of Marmara
since the day he was captured, created a paradigmal change in the PKK by
means of his defence writings submitted to the European Court of Human
Rights, which he prepared on the island. Öcalan’s only contact with the
outside world was the frequently obstructed connection with his lawyers.
In the early years he was allowed to see his lawyers once, for two hours
a week, later reduced to one hour. He was also permitted to receive
visits from close relatives for one hour a month. In these weekly
meetings with his lawyers, Öcalan produced two groups of texts that
would form the fundamental ideology of the party. The first of these was
the text of his defence regarding his trials in Turkey and at the
European Court of Human Rights, which was handwritten and passed to his
lawyers, becoming a fundamental ideological reference point for the
party. The second consisted of notes taken by his lawyers at their
meetings. While until 2005 the lawyers were permitted to take notes at
the weekly meetings, this was later prevented and lawyers put the
conversations into written form after the meetings. These notes that
were communicated to the public through Kurdish TV channels, news
agencies and newspapers, generally dealt with topical political
questions. After years of obstruction, Öcalan’s meetings with his
lawyers ended in 2011. Since 2014, excepting one visit, Öcalan has not
been allowed to meet family members, either.
But the real work that determined the ideological transformation of the
PKK took place between 1999 and 2011, based on the texts which
constituted Öcalan’s defence submissions. These texts may be separated
into two groups: Submissions to Turkish courts and those submitted to
European courts, that is, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in
Strasbourg and a court in Athens dealing with his removal from Greece.
These defence submissions have been published in Kurdish, Turkish and
other languages. The first group of submissions consists of two basic
texts: The main text submitted to the court on Imrali and the appendices
submitted to the Court of Cassation [High Court of Appeals] in 1999 and
to a district court in Urfa in 2001. The titles, as published, of the
two texts mentioned above, are: ‘Resolution Declaration in the Kurdish
Question’ and ‘Urfa: a symbol of history, sanctity and malediction in
the Tigris-Euphrates basin’.
As for the second group of texts submitted to the ECtHR in 2001, the
court in Athens in 2003 and the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR in 2004, two
books consisting of three volumes. The name of the first book,
consisting of two volumes, is ‘From the Sumerian Priest State towards
the People’s Republic I-II (2001). The second book, known as the “Athens
Defence”, bears the title: ‘Free Human Defence’ (2003) and ‘To Defend a
People’ (2004). On account of a subsequent case filed at the ECtHR on
the grounds there had not been a faır trial, Öcalan prepared a new
defence. This work, defined by Öcalan as ‘The Problematisation of
Capitalist Modernity’ was published in Turkish in five volumes between
2009 and 2012.
These defence texts were published by the PKK and were accepted by party
congresses after 1999 as the official party line. Öcalan generally
summarises his stance on the first group of texts submitted to the court
on Imrali and then to the Appeal Court in the following way: “[in my
defence], I aimed neither for classic Kurdish nationalism, nor for a
left-leaning interpretation of it. The era had gone beyond that.’
(Öcalan 1999: 10).
In the second group of texts submitted to the ECtHR, Öcalan deepened his
theoretical approach. The first of the three volumes engages in a
historical analysis of civilisation, commencing with the Middle East,
focusing on the Sumerians as ‘the earliest state-based society’.
Although later on in the book Öcalan deals with other societies and
periods, his main focus is to analyse the state as humanity’s ‘Original
Sin’. This is startling, for he is a political leader of a society that
is described as ‘the most numerous people in the world without a state’.
Nevertheless, Öcalan maintained his crtitique of the state, adding the
experiments in socialism, saying that liberation cannot be achieved by
constructing a state, and advocating instead that democracy should be
strengthened. Like his first defence submissions, this was accepted as a
new manifesto, entitled the Democratic Society Manifesto, at the PKK’s
eighth congress in 2002 (Serxwebûn, 2002).
In the second volume submitted to the ECtHR, Öcalan dealt in detail with
Kurdish society, history and, in particular, with the PKK’s role. While
positioning Kurdish society in the history of civilisation, Öcalan
presents it as a natural society or community vis-a-vis societies with
states. He attributes this naturalness to the existence of deep
Neolithic culture assumed to have continued long in Kurdish tribes.
According to Öcalan, class (state) societies and modernisation have
brought ruin to the Kurds, the PKK becoming the centre of the last
resistance to this process. Within this framework Öcalan endeavoured to
show the limits and congestion point of the PKK. The
ideological-political restrictions of the Cold War continued to
condition the PKK even ten years after this war had ended. With this
study, Öcalan aimed to assess PKK history and to address its past
mistakes.
In defence submissions to the court in Athens and the Grand Chamber of
the ECtHR Öcalan transformed his theoretical ideas into a radical
democracy conceptualisation. This idea of radical democracy was
developed in the context of three connected projects: a democratic
republic, democratic autonomy and democratic confederalism. These three
political projects function as a ‘strategic determinant’. In other
words, they are ideas and instruments by means of which the Kurds’
political demands are redefined and rearranged. This idea of radical
democracy is radical because of its afforts to develop the concept of
democracy beyond the nation and state.
The concept of a democratic republic envisages a reform in the Republic
of Turkey in which citizenship is separated from nationalism. In this
way, democracy will return to ‘the understanding of democracy in early
modern epochs’ and to its radical transformatory power. In fact,
democracy was formulated in the 18^(th) century on the basis of
citizens’ rights and that everyone would govern everyone. However,
throughout the 19^(th) and 20^(th) centuries with the dominant modernist
understanding radical democracy lost its content and gained a cultural
meaning. This vein, which emerged in modern thought, considered cultural
homogeneity to be necessary for the modern state and deemed the
nationalist form of this to be indispensable. This ‘national’ condition
of modernity is exclusive and intolerant; it does not permit any
alternative to those who do not possess the ‘correct’ cultural
characteristics apart from assimilation (real or superficial) or
migration. Other options for the state in this context in addition to
assimilation are displacement, ethnic cleansing or genocide. In Turkey,
Kemalism was formulated from the cultural viewpoint as a modernisation
project, resulting in harsh policies of assimilation towards the Kurds.
Öcalan, in proposing a democratic republic, advocates democracy in the
context of citizens rights.
The idea of democratic confederalism – in subsequent defence submissions
it was developed together with the idea of democratic autonomy – is
defined as a model of “democratic self-government” (Öcalan, 2008: 32).
Öcalan’s radical democracy is intrinsic to the concept of democratic
confederalism which he borrowed from Murray Bookchin. Bookchin, who
called his ideology communalism, proposed a radical new politics. He
recognised ‘the origins of democracy in tribal and village communities’
and eventually arrived at the Libertarian Municipalism project. In this
project, Bookchin envisaged the setting up of local democratic
structures such as “communal assemblies, town meetings and neighbourhood
councils”. As for preventing the danger of this project being depleted
or utilised for solely local aims, Bookchin proposed the principle of
confederalism. By this he meant ‘a web consisting of administrative
councils directly elected by democratic meetings of members or delegates
of the people in villages, towns and even in the neighbourhoods of large
cities.’
Öcalan was influenced by these ideas and from the principle of
confederalism developed a similar understanding. In parallel to his
historical analysis of civilisation based on a critique of the state,
Öcalan also emphasises the failures of actually existing socialism and
national liberation movements. According to Öcalan both of these fell
into the trap of the idea of establishing a state. Instead of this,
Öcalan dwells on the still existing influences of the communal values of
Neolithic society, which have not been entirely eradicated by the
development of a hierarchic society based on the state. These communal
values may be summarised as socialisation based on social gender, a life
in harmony with nature, and a society based on collectivism and
solidarism. These constitute the basis of Öcalan’s understanding of
democracy taking the form of democratic confederalism.
Democratic confederalism based on these values is organisaed on four
levels. At the lowest level are communes in villages and districts.
These communes are linked to each other on a town, city and regional
level. Then there are the social categories such as women and youth.
Another level of organisation emerges in the cultural sphere in the
framework of different ethnic/religious/cultural identities. The fourth
and final level is that of civil society organisations. Democratic
confederalism will organise society through assemblies at the
village/district, city and regional level, organising the whole of
society in this way from the bottom to the top. In other words, the idea
of democratic confederalism is defined as a model of ‘democratic
self-government’. According to Öcalan’, “this project is based on the
self-government of local communities; organised in open assemblies, town
assemblies, local parliaments and broader congresses. The agents of this
kind of self-government are the citizens themselves, not state
officials.”
From this viewpoint Öcalan constantly emphasises that the confederal
structure of this project has absolutely nothing to do with the
‘community of ruling member states’. On the contrary, democratic
confederalism aims to consolidate and deepen de¬mocracy based on
communities. In addition to this, there is a need to reshape judicial
and political processes and the political structure in the country.
Consequently, the model of organising the people beyond the state is to
define their relationship with the existing state or authority. Öcalan
proposes a democratic republic as the form of government in this regard.
It will be possible to find a resolution to the Kurdish question with
this form of government. Öcalan subsequently developed the concept of
democratic autonomy as a form of relationship. Democratic confederalism
is at the same time a match to democratic autonomy as regards the
people’s economic, cultural and social position. Democratic autonomy
expresses the form of relationship with the state and its officials. As
regards Turkey, an alternative of a democratic, political resolution of
the Kurdish question is offered and this resolution necessitates the
constitutional recognition of the Kurdish national identity. However,
this recognition is not proposed by the PKK as a way of drawing a
separating line between the Kurds’ democratic confederal system and the
Turkish state. Instead, an inclusive relationship is envisaged,
expressed thus: “Democratic autonomy is a concept that defines the
relationship with the state … it may be realised within a unitary state
or in a federal system.”
However, this inclusive relationship does not exclude a kind of ‘unity’
between Kurds dispersed in various countries in the Middle East. Since
Öcalan has proposed the setting up of self-governing bodies everywhere
in Kurdistan and wherever Kurds live, democratic confederalism is deemed
to be the main mechanism for the uniting of Kurdistan and the Kurds.
According to Öcalan the Kurdish liberation movement should endeavour to
establish such a self-governing system.
In this way, since 2005 the PKK and all organisations linked to it have
been restructured based on the project called the KCK (Union of
Communities of Kurdistan – Koma Civakên Kurdistan). The KCK is a
society-based organisation created as an alternative to the state. It
aims to organise itself from below in the form of assemblies. “The KCK
is a movement that wages a struggle to form its own democracy; it
neither sees existing nation states as a model, nor does it see them as
an obstacle.”
The main aim in the KCK Constitution is defined as a struggle for the
spreading of radical democracy based on the democratic organisation of
the people and its decision-making authority. The KCK constitution sets
forth a new instrument that surpasses the state mindset in social
relations. In this respect, democratic confederalism, which constitutes
the fundamental idea of KCK organising, is valid everywhere the Kurds
live. This includes Iraq, where Kurds live within a federal state
structure with constitutional rights, including self-government. In the
project there are two key factors: an understanding of democracy as
people’s power, not a form of government and for the state and nation to
be left outside this understanding. ‘Democratic confederalism is the
organisation of the people, in every non-state sphere of life. The
development of democracy in every field of society and life. It
corresponds with the shrinking of the existing state worldwide and the
tendency for society to organise outside of the state to arrange its own
life. … Even if the state obstructs it, the Kurdish Freedom Movement
will exercise its legitimate right to organise democratically to the
end. It will definitely not abandon this goal, saying: “The state is
putting obstacles in place”’.
As a result, while the democratic republic is a reform project for a
state, democratic confederalism and democratic autonomy are beyond the
state and comprise a political idea without a state. Consequently, the
project of democratic confederalism is linked to the democratic republic
project, and according to Öcalan a free Kurdistan can only come into
being in a democratic Middle East (a.g.e. 34–5;).
We mentioned that while following the line of development in Öcalan’s
thought the central importance of these three interlinked concepts
(democratic republic, democratic confederalism and democratic autonomy).
In all these projects the concept of democracy has a pivotal importance.
The understanding of democracy has evolved into a more radical democracy
from the contradiction between the democratic and republican traditions.
For the PKK, democracy is the antidote to centralist structure of the
Turkish Republic based on the the nation state and the French version of
secularism. The most fundamental idea of this approach is:
‘Centralisation has killed democracy’.
The main differences between the democratic-republic project and the
democratic confederalism/democratic autonomy projects is that the focus
of the former is on the definition of the state and citizenship, while
the others focus on the development of an alternative to the state and
the people constructing their own organisation. The subject we are going
to dwell on here is the development of alternatives to the state.
Instead of the projects of democratic confederalism and democratic
autonomy being seen as potentially contradictory as regards an
organisational perspective, it will be more appropriate to consider them
together as strategically harmonising. They provide political direction
to today’s struggle wherever the PKK movement is active.
This paradigmal change the PKK movement has gone through in the 21^(st)
century has made a great contribution to radical political views as
regards a radical difference in approach to the three fundamental
aspects of politics: the state, class and party and ‘non-state politics,
political organisation outside of the party and political themes outside
the class’. From the point of view of the PKK this implied reforming
itself with a series of transformations. In these transformations, the
radical changes made by the PKK on a series of fundamental points such
as the right to self-determination, nation, national liberation,
violence and women are particularly striking.
The principle of self-determination of nations, that was first raised in
the first quarter of the 20^(th) century, left its mark on the past
century. The forms of self-determination expressed both by US leader
Woodrow Wilson, and by the founder of the Soviet Union, Lenin, became a
fundamental plank of many people’s liberation struggles, and an
inalienable part of international law. However, what should not be
forgotten is the truth that self-determination is, first and foremost, a
principle of action defined as political. Hence, when US President
Wilson announced this principle in Congress on 11 February 1918 he
openly emphasised that: “Self-determination is not a mere phrase. “It is
an imperative principle of action which statesmen will henceforth ignore
at their peril.”
Therefore, the PKK, the nucleus of which emerged from the first half of
the 1970s onwards, addressed the principle of self-determination as an
imperative principle of action, as the Kurdish people had been deprived
of all fundamental rights and freedoms and condemned in their homeland
to a lack of status behind even colonial rule. The territories where the
Kurds lived was divided amongst 4 nation states (Turkey, Iran, Iraq and
Syria) in the 1920s and the various colonialist policies imposed by
these states spelt ruin for the Kurdish people. Abdullah Öcalan
expressed this in the following way:
“As a result, the Kurds’ homeland was partitioned and the Kurds were
forced to submit by states’ policies of denial and the thwarting of
their political will. Their social realities were split asunder and they
lost their very selves. To meet their economic needs they had to abandon
their identity and they were deprived of the legal status and
contemporary educational opportunities to be able to recover their
cultural and ideological existence based on their identities. The denial
of their identity turned into a question of their being unable to live a
free life.” (A. Öcalan, Kurdish Question and Democratic Nation Solution,
published in Turkish, p.226).
In such an environment the PKK adopted as a guide the right of
self-determination of the Kurdish people as a fundamental imperative
principle of action. Naturally, its conception and application of this
principle was heavily influenced by the ideological, political and
social characteristics of the period. Following the Second World War,
the national liberation struggles waged in a bi-polar system, first and
foremost in Vietnam and Algeria, led to most former colonies achieving
independence. This profoundly affected the 1970s world. Abdullah Öcalan
later said the following regarding this:
“In that period (1950s to 1970s) when national liberation struggles
peaked and most of these struggles resulted in separate states made this
an almost sole model. …. In fact, the principle of nations’ right to
self-determination was first expressed by US President Wilson after the
First World War and was closely linked to hegemonic US policies. Lenin,
in order not to fall behind Wilson and to gain the support of oppressed
nations and colonised peoples, radicalised the same principle and
reduced it to founding an independent state. A race thus began between
the two systems.” (The Kurdish Question and the Democratic Nation
Solution [Turkish], p. 271–2).
The PKK approached self-determination within the framework of the
understanding of actually existing socialism at that time, advocating
the model of founding a state. However, from the early 1990s onwards
Öcalan’s questioning and criticising of, firstly, the understanding of
actually-existing socialism, and, later, of the nation state ideology in
the early years of the new millennium, demonstrated a radical renewal of
the PKK’s approach. Today, self-determination for the PKK is still an
imperative principle of action, but the way to implement this is not to
establish a state, but to implement the principle of self-government at
every level. The understanding of democratic autonomy constitutes the
fundamental framework of this self-government. The results of this line,
which is based on the Kurds’ determining their own destiny on the basis
of the principle of self-government without inclining to establish a
separate state, wherever they live, first and foremost in Turkey, Iraq,
Iran and Syria, have clearly emerged with the developments in Iraq and
Syria, in the heart of the Middle East.
Consequently, the PKK has reversed Lenin’s argument that “it would be
erroneous to bring a different interpretation to the right to
self-determination apart from the right of a separate state to exist”,
saying that it would be equally mistaken to look at the right to
self-determination as if it contains no other meaning than that of the
right of a separate state to exist. This view is also corroborated in
historical analysis of the modern state as a bourgeois project. (Mustafa
Karasu, Radical Democracy, 2009).
Again, linked to this, the PKK’s concept of nation has also been
radically renewed. In the mid-1970s, when the PKK was being formed, most
socialist and national liberation movements were under the influence of
nation state ideology with the most rigid definition of nation expressed
by Stalin. Stalin’s famous, ‘nations have a common language, territory,
economic life and culture’ was also the starting point for the PKK. With
the new paradigm Öcalan openly criticised this, developing the
democratic nation definition:
“First of all it is necessary to point out that there is not only one
definition of nation. When a nation state is founded the most general
definition is state-nation. If the uniting element is the economy, then
it is possible to call this market-nation …A generalisation that a
nation comprises shared language, culture, market and history cannot be
made, that is, it is not possible to absolutise a single understanding
of nation. This understanding of nation that was also adopted by
actually existing socialism is contrary to the democratic nation. This
definition, which was developed by Stalin in particular for the Soviet
Union, was one of the main reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union.
As long as this definition of nation, which is absolutised by capitalist
modernity, is not transcended, the resolution of national questions will
continue to be in an impasse. The fact that national questions are still
continuing with utmost gravity after three hundred years is closely
linked to this deficient and absolute definition.” (2012, p.432).
According to Öcalan: ‘As for the democratic nation, it is a mutual
society established by the free will of free individuals and
communities. The uniting force in the democratic nation is the free will
of the individuals and groups that decide to be in the same nation,’
adding: ‘The definition of democratic nation expresses a joint life in
solidarity of pluralist, free and equal citizens not tied to rigid
political boundaries, a single language, religion or an interpretation
of history. A democratic society can only be realised through such a
model of nation..’ (p.432).
The approach to violence, the strategic and tactical utilisation of
which was always a significant cornerstone in the PKK’s struggle, has
also gone through radical change. At the outset the PKK’s approach to
violence, ‘the midwife of a new society’, was a classic Marxist one. In
the protracted process of uprising, violence, in the form of guerrilla
warfare, was a fundamental tactic of the struggle. In time violence even
took on a Fanonist significance, gaining an existential character and
the role of social and individual liberator. However, in the new
paradigm the PKK does not envisage a role for violence beyond the
framework of legitimate self defence. (Legitimate Defence Strategy,
2004).
Today, both the state and its capitalist modernity version, the nation
state, are being seriously questioned. It is acknowledged that the
nation state does not benefit humanity and peoples, and even contains
within it a genocidal character that prepares the ground for the
disappearance of different cultures and identities. In the circumstances
of the nation state capitalism’s rule of maximum profit and capitalist
modernity, just as it led to the pain of the First and Second World
Wars, has committed as many crimes against humanity as have been
committed throughout the history of humanity. The most open evidence of
this is the disappearance, or being brought to the verge of
disappearance, of ethnic and faith groups that lived in the Middle East
until 200 years ago. The Armenian and Assyrian-Syriac peoples have been
decimated as a result of this mentality. The Kurds have also been
brought to the brink of destruction under the dominance of nation
states. Alevis, Yazidis, Druze and other faith groups have been driven
out of their homelands as a result of this understanding. The same has
happened to the Circassian peoples who were expelled from the Caucasus
mountains.
The evils of the nation state are too numerous to count. However, it is
not just the nation state of capitalist modernity, all states have
become too heavy for humanity to bear. The first social problems began
with male domination of women and with those higher hierarchically
establishing dominance over other social segments and exploiting them.
After all, the state has been defined as an instrument of oppression of
the ruling classes in society. This has not diminished, and has turned
into the worst form of domination in the present day. The nation state
has become the most severe form of domination. The nation state has
attained the character of being a sphere of dominance and exploitation
of the entire society, with borders, like the boss of a factory
surrounded by walls. While in the past states only represented political
domination, in the capitalist epoch they have developed into a
totalitarian dominance that seeks to rule the whole of society, and to
go as far as dominating the very cells of society.
With the ruling state system intensifying social problems, the state and
government have begun to be questioned more. In the past anarchists
opposed the state as the origin of all evil, gradually developing
ideological, political and paradigmatic solutions on a systematic and
historical basis. In the present day the zenith of analysis regarding
the state and government are those that have been carried out by
Abdullah Öcalan. The most significant difference of Öcalan is the depth
he has reached in analysis of women and the state. He has also subjected
capitalism and the nation state to comprehensive analysis. Öcalan’s
analysis of women, in particular, is of great value, as it has deepened
all the other analyses and helped it attain its true character.
Democratic Confederal System
The government and state are in essence a concentration and
intensification of power, centralisation. In this respect, they are
factors that are opposed to the people. In this respect, there cannot be
a state and government that belongs to the people. The government and
people should not be confused. A popular government is democracy. That
is, not a concentration and intensification of power, with power and
possibilities granted to certain circles, but with it going to the base,
the local, belonging to the people. Democracy and the state can coexist
for a certain time in an accommodation, but the state and democracy are
contrary facts. There is a formula and dialectic, i.e., the more state
there is, the less democracy. The more democracy, the less state. Even
in today’s modernist age, with capitalist ruling states, the diminution
of the state is discussed.
We are now in an era where one can think of a life without a state, a
society without a state, of political, economic, social and cultural
life without a state. Humanity has to find a system where it can be free
of the state that tyrannises it. We have entered the age where we may
think and live without a state. Even if the people may make an
accommodation with the state for a while longer, they must achieve a
political, social, cultural and economic system which does not have a
state. It is not fate to live under a state system, as democracy
expresses the transcendence of the state.
Today, the alternative system to the state is a democratic confederal
system based on an organised democratic society. The people can govern
themselves in a democratic confederal system without being exposed to
exploitation and oppression. A democratic system can establish a
domocratic administration. This may also be called a democratic
authority. In this authority there is no oppression or exploitation, but
there is the reality of a democratic confederal system and government
based on a democratic society. The state belongs to the rulers, while
democratic confederalism is the people’s system.
States now mean crisis, chaos, ruin and unhappiness for humanity. It is
necessary to be free of this calamity. If living under exploitation and
oppression is not in the nature of human beings, in that case neither
the state nor its flag can represent the people and society.
Öcalan has set forth democratic confederalism based on an organised
democratic society as an alternative to the state for all societies, not
just the Kurdish people. This is a system that differences themselves
create, unlike a nation state that creates a single identity. All
differences can attain freedom with their own identity within the
democratic confederal system. In this respect democratic confederalism
is the system of free life for all people and communities. We can also
call this complete democracy. There cannot be real democracy in any
state system. Who can talk of real and complete democracy where there
are rulers?
Democratic confederalism is an alternative to the state. If we say the
time and age of the peoples has come this means the era of democratic
confederalism has arrived. With a state there will be neither democracy,
nor socialism. A state cannot be extinguised with a state. A state can
only be transcended and extinguished by democratic confederalism.
Peoples cannot be liberated by a state and cannot attain real freedom
and democratic life. Peoples will be liberated by democratic
confederalism.
This is Öcalan’s ideological-political line, his paradigm. This is his
understanding of democracy, freedom and socialism. Outside of democratic
confederalism there cannot be people’s government. From this standpoint
the peoples cannot defend the state.