Internationalism is the only solution to the Kurdish Question! [Archive]

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Leo

9th February 2012, 11:03

"We are publishing below a resolution adopted on the developments in Kurdistan, adopted by the recent territorial conference of the ICC section in Turkey. Our resolution, aims to explain clearly who the millions of people encircled by this imperialist war are being forced to give their lives for. It is founded on our position that the only solution for the working class which is being forced into butchering its class brothers and sisters for the sake of the imperialist interests of different nations is class war on the basis of internationalism..."

http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201202/4676/internationalism-only-solution-kurdish-question

:thumbup1:

Искра

9th February 2012, 11:11

Really nice article! :) Especially, because anarchists here started to wank on PKK :)

manic expression

9th February 2012, 11:27

I was hoping to see what the "internationalist solution" would actually look like, but alas I could not find it. From what I can piece together, it seems as though the "internationalist solution" is to forget about the idea of national self-determination altogether...but then that's just a guess.

Leo

9th February 2012, 11:33

"This point reached as a result of all these reforms and negotiations has demonstrated once again that only war can come of the bourgeoisie's peace, that the solution of the Kurdish question can't be the result of any compromise with the Turkish imperialist state, and that the PKK is in no way a structure even remotely capable of offering any sort of solution whatsoever. The Kurdish question can't be solved only in Turkey. The Kurdish question can't be solved with a war between nations. The Kurdish question can't be solved with democracy. The only solution of this question lies in the united struggle of the Kurdish and Turkish workers with the workers of the Middle East and the whole world. The only solution of the Kurdish question is the internationalist solution. Only the working class can raise the banner of internationalism against the barbarism of the nationalist war by refusing to die for the bourgeoisie."

El Chuncho

9th February 2012, 11:42

Искра

9th February 2012, 12:06

Well I don't know what you guys are expecting? If proletariat in Turkey doesn't accept intenraitonalist position there's no use of anything. In pre-revolutionary period communists can only put some ideas forward and fight with internationalist proletariat. If you believe tha PKK is doing something better because of their nationalist shit, you are pretty much funny...

Leo

9th February 2012, 12:11

In other words we'll have to let Kurds get their heads cut off until the Turkish workers decide that they believe in internationalism. And saying that the Parti Karkerani Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Worker's Party, is as much part of imperialism as the Turkish state is actually very ridiculous. For a start, they are not imperial they just want their lands back so that they can live without intolerance and death, unlike the Turkish state.

I agree with Manic, I was hoping for a real ''international solution'' instead just a call to wait for Turkish to refuse ''to die for the bourgeoisie''. How are you going to go about convincing them? Will drop banners, blow up postboxes or what? The point is not about the Kurdish workers waiting, or the Turkish workers suddenly deciding that they believe in internationalism. Consciousness doesn't fall from the sky. Such an interpretation of the actual position is either a conscious straw-man, or betrays a fundamentally idealist perception.

The PKK doesn't "just want their lands". Actually, they don't want lands period. They have no demands of an independent Kurdistan. What they want is regional autonomy - in other words they want to integrate into the Turkish state as the local rulers of Northern Kurdistan. With their parliamentarian deputies and their municipalities, they are half-way there already.

I am sure you see the entire thing with very orientalist glasses, like some sort of romantic, noble savages fighting against an army for their land and freedom, a mixture of Braveheart and Geronimo, but the actual situation is quite different, and the main concern of all the forces involved are geopolitical concerns, such as the border trade, the drug routes, the local alliances and so on, and few actually care about the real oppression of the Kurds in terms of their actions.

The point is that only the class struggle can actually begin to solve this problem. It's not as this never happened before, the recent Tekel struggle in Turkey (http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2010/01/tekel-turkey) is a perfect example of how the internationalist solution begins to develop within the class struggle.

Without the class struggle, without the internationalist solution, Turkish and Kurdish workers will keep tearing each others guts on behalf of their bosses. And Western leftists will continue to masturbate at their deaths.

manic expression

9th February 2012, 12:36

Well I don't know what you guys are expecting? If proletariat in Turkey doesn't accept intenraitonalist position there's no use of anything.
And how are Kurdish workers supposed to believe in anyone who says "well Turkish people aren't on board at the moment so let's just take our ball and go home"?

@Leo, I read that portion of the article a few times over, trying to see what your "internationalist solution" would actually look like...but there's nothing there of the sort. Aside from the rhetoric about not dying for the bourgeoisie, what do you actually propose? Do you stand for Kurdish self-determination or not? Those basic concerns are simply not addressed.

I am sure you see the entire thing with very orientalist glasses, like some sort of romantic, noble savages fighting against an army for their land and freedom, a mixture of Braveheart and GeronimoWow, talk about misrepresentation. Yes, you got us, we're imagining those "orientalist" figures of Braveheart and Geronimo...Scotland, of course, being that most exotic of Oriental locales. Ah, I can hear those Kurdish bagpipes from here. :rolleyes:

I do find it interesting that you don't think it possible for a Kurdish worker to care about the fact that their language isn't recognized...unless s/he also cares about drug routes. That is a glaringly cynical view, and I think it is probably a matter of willful self-deception. Kurdish self-determination doesn't boil down to drug smuggling.

But if you don't think someone's own language should matter to anyone, then you can't expect to relate to anyone anyway.

The PKK doesn't "just want their lands". Actually, they don't want lands period. They have no demands of an independent Kurdistan. What they want is regional autonomySemantics.

Leo

9th February 2012, 14:49

@Leo, I read that portion of the article a few times over, trying to see what your "internationalist solution" would actually look like...but there's nothing there of the sort. Aside from the rhetoric about not dying for the bourgeoisie, what do you actually propose?

Look at the Tekel article to see how class struggle works towards the solution of the national question.

What do we actually propose? We propose the destruction of all the bourgeois states involved, that is Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, by all the working masses in these countries - and this can only happen as a part of the destruction of the capitalist states of the whole world.

Do you stand for Kurdish self-determination or not? Those basic concerns are simply not addressed.

This one is very clearly addressed I believe. We do not stand for Kurdish self-determination. We are for the destruction of all the bourgeois states - not for the establishment of new ones.

Wow, talk about misrepresentation. Yes, you got us, we're imagining those "orientalist" figures of Braveheart and Geronimo...Scotland, of course, being that most exotic of Oriental locales.

A typical feature of orientialism is to identify current movements and characters in the East with those of the history of the West, since among its main features is ignorance about the East and the presumption that it is more backwards than the West in every way imaginable. So naturally, people who look at the Eastern countries with such a perspective have a tendency to identify the contemporary figures and movements there with those from the history of the Western countries, with of course orientalist colors, camels and all.

I do find it interesting that you don't think it possible for a Kurdish worker to care about the fact that their language isn't recognized

Recognized, no, suppressed yes, obviously. This is still a very real problem. In fact it is suppressed although it is actually officially recognized today, there being a state tv-channel in Kurdish.

That is a glaringly cynical view, and I think it is probably a matter of willful self-deception. Kurdish self-determination doesn't boil down to drug smuggling.

But if you don't think someone's own language should matter to anyone, then you can't expect to relate to anyone anyway.

What Kurdish self-determination boils down to is the interests of the Kurdish bourgeoisie, not the status or the situation of the Kurdish language. As Rosa Luxemburg says, "Under the rule of capitalism there is no self-determination of peoples, in a class society each class of the nation strives to ‘determine itself' in a different fashion, and for the bourgeois classes, the standpoint of national freedom is fully subordinated to that of class rule"

The suppression of the Kurdish language is a part of the larger problem of the oppression of the Kurds, the prime target of which are and have always been the Kurdish working masses. The war of national liberation has proven that it has no way of solving the problem of the national oppression of the Kurds.

Semantics.

Given the fact that it has been discovered that the leaders of the PKK had been involved with the negotiations with the National Intelligence Organization of Turkey, demanding the PKK to become the legal police force of an autonomous Kurdish region of Turkey, no it is not semantics, it means that the PKK is actively trying to become an integral part of the Turkish state.

PKK is not nationalist that is wrong.

The PKK is as nationalist as it gets. The standard term for their supporters is patriot.

It is supporting self-determination of Kurds and actually being only initiative to do so.

Which also means it is nationalist, although it is not actually the only initiative to do so.

Anything kurdish was forbidden in turkey, language, music even the word "Kurd" itself.

This is certainly true, and even though they are not officially forbidden today, they are nevertheless suppressed.

If PKK never existed they would still be forbidden.

If the PKK never existed, there would be another similar organization. The PKK is not the only Kurdish nationalist organization, and it is not the first either. There were numerous Kurdish organizations active in Northern Kurdistan before the emergence of the PKK (incidentally, the first period of the PKK is marked by their war against other left-nationalist Kurdish organizations) and numerous Kurdish rebellions in the 30ies, 20ies and even in the 19th century. The history of the Kurdish bourgeoisie or Kurdish nationalism doesn't begin with the PKK.

The national oppression, violence and brutality of an occupying imperialist power such as the Turkish state is bound to create a strong reaction - a reaction which the Kurdish national bourgeoisie has often based its strength around. Just because there is such a reaction, however, doesn't mean that this reaction by itself, and especially when used and manipulated by the bourgeoisie for its own interests, actually offers any solution.

You havent lived the brutal turkish oppression here.

Actually I have, being a Kurd living in Turkey.

If Kurds didnt have any initiative they would be totally annihilated by turkish state and they are still in such danger.

Again, its been proven over and over again that total annihilation of the Kurds hasn't been as easy a thing to achieve as you are portraying it. The massacres of the Kurds in Turkey, especially those in the 20ies and the 30ies, border being called a genocide (incidentally, I think they can be described as such since it is in many ways a continuation of the genocide against the Armenians in particular and the non-muslims in general). What's been done in the prisons in Kurdistan after the coup in 1980 and the horrible massacres in the 80ies and the 90ies, the burning of thousands of villages and so on have also been particularly brutal. And the massacres continue even today, recently dozens of Kurdish civilians, mostly children, were viciously murdered in Turkey by an air strike. The PKK has been active for more than thirty years, and tens of thousands from each side died during the war. These deaths haven't stopped the butchery of Kurdish civilians in the hands of the Turkish state though, nor have they proven capable of solving the problem.

When you speak about why USSR collapsed... Some mention the fact that USSR did not have the capitalist era and wanted to jump to socialism from immature-capitalist state/feudalism and that is why it failed.

Actually, I think the USSR was not socialist but capitalist and imperialist since the mid 1920ies.

In any case, the some who mentioned this at the time of the Russian revolution were the Mensheviks.

You can not expect Kurds to take on a international fight in this status and jump to this level of consciousness.

Why? Because they are so stupid or so backwards or something? Why are we to accept that the Kurdish working masses, who are being exploited as much as the Turkish, or the Farsi, or the Arabic or the English and American workers, are not capable of waging class struggle? Why are we to accept that they have to follow the national bourgeoisie who is not in any way a friend of theirs?

Feudalism is long gone in Kurdistan, the remnants of it having become an integral part of capitalism. I think the Kurdish workers are as capable of waging the fight for their class interests as anyone else.

They were being assimilated years and years but they resisted... They need identity.

Kurds have identity alright. The assimilation did not actually work out that well.

They need a state of their own.

Yes, they need their torturers to wear the green, the red and the yellow instead of the red and the white. Cause it is such a good thing to have a state to torture you.

Oh it is happening in Southern Kurdistan now. It used to be the Republican Guard who shot down the striking Kurdish workers in Silemani, Hawler and Kerkuk. Now it is the Peshmarga.

And where will this state be? In Kurdistan? Yet the biggest Kurdish city of the world today is... Istanbul. There are Kurdish villages scattered all around Turkey, and quite large Kurdish populations in all the Turkish metropoles. Will Kurdistan include Istanbul? If not what do you think will happen to the millions of Kurds living outside Kurdistan?

The internationalism for kurds is being pushed out by turkish nationalists too..

Oh is that so? And what is this "internationalism"? What do you understand from internationalism that you can claim it is being pushed out by the Turkish nationalists?

Internationally a kurdish worker in Turkey does the worst job. A kurd will never have a better situation than a turk in Turkey.

Except, the Kurdish bourgeoisie lives in much better conditions than the Turkish workers as well. It is true that the Kurdish working class generally lives in worse conditions than the Turkish workers. What are communists supposed to argue for though, for everyone to be exploited equally, or for exploitation to be abolished?

Be careful when reading from sources like "Turkish Communist Party" it is actually not a communist party like "Russian Communist Party" which is none either.

It is true that the Turkish Communist Party is not actually communist. Nor can it be called a proper party in any meaningful way, but that is a secondary question. The Turkish Communist Party today is a typically Stalinist and Turkish nationalist organization, which has nothing to do with internationalism. They are for the Turkish state, they defend the Kemalist ideology and what they envisage is a "fully independent, anti-imperialist Turkey". Their understanding of socialism is coming to power through elections and introducing it by decree. They are quite chauvinistic against the Kurds and have actually purged their own Kurdish members and they commonly use the slogans of the Turkish state with anti-imperialist flavors, such as the slogan "We won't let American imperialism divide our country".

Side note. Why are Kurds left alone ? Simply because Turkey is strategically extremely valuable for the west being a border military state against middle east. It is a counter force against Iran. Turkey is a military base for NATO. Turkey is a connection line for resources from middle east and Russia to europe. Especially now the tension gets higher look how western countries declare that PKK is terrorist and attack PKK bureaus in Europe.

Actually the PKK is not, in any way, left alone at all. At different times they relied on the support of numerous different states, as all such organizations do. For a long time, they were effectively a Syrian puppet, being so close to Syrian intelligence that they got the Syrian intelligence Mukhabarat to murder the members of PKK-Vejin, a radical split which argued against Ocalan's personality cult and reformism. They also had pretty close relations with the Russians from time to time, and there was even a point when their Iranian organization PJAK was supported by the Americans. Recently, as the relations between Turkey and Israel worsened, certain Israeli officials declared they would arm and better train the members of the PKK.

Thirsty Crow

9th February 2012, 15:08

You unfortunately use the same arguments turkish fascist/nationalist Kemalists and quasi-nationalist organisations like Turkish Communist Party usesSo, fascists, nationalist Kemalists advocate world revolution, the destruction of every bourgeois state? That's some news.

There is no alternative. I distinctly remember that a head of a bourgeois state propagated such sloganeering. If I were you, I'd refrain from accusing communists of rhetorical and political similarity with fascists and nationalists.

Leo

9th February 2012, 15:13

You unfortunately use the same arguments turkish fascist/nationalist Kemalists and quasi-nationalist organisations like Turkish Communist Party uses.

Yes, because the Turkish fascist/nationalist/Kemalists and the Turkish Communist Party talks so much about Turkish imperialism and the destruction of the Turkish state.

I heard it here in Turkey so often. If you are a Kurd and not supporting PKK tell me a concrete solution please and not the ideas of Kemalists who do everything to divide the Kurdish movement.

The concrete idea is for the Kurdish and Turkish workers to unite with the workers of the Middle East, that is Persians, Arabs, Jews, Armenians, Assyrians and all the rest, and with the workers of the whole world to destroy all the capitalist states, including Turkey.

And I will run in the streets naked if you can show me a single Kemalist arguing for the destruction of the Turkish state.

So any Kurd who does not favor free Kurdistan and rather likes to see Kurds scattered in various states does not look good to me.

I really don't care about how I look to you. However, I'll simply remind you that the PKK does not favor free Kurdistan, it doesn't even demand a free Kurdistan and is content with ruling an autonomous region of Turkey and becoming the local police force of the Turkish state.

Kurds must have a state and solve their problems inside first then there ll be plenty time for internationalism, I explained above with USSR analogy.

Except the analogy does not work in any way. Of course, since you are not responding to the arguments, why not keep repeating what you had said!

Leo

9th February 2012, 16:34

Note to Menocchio: Find about deep kemalist organisation called Ergenekon and the ways how they tried to oppose Kurdish independence movement... There were no methods they did not use... They used communist and leftist arguments and any kind of manipulation. Ergenekon is too messy a subject and you don't wanna go down that road even if what you were saying was factually correct, which actually isn't. Ergenekon allegedly did use certain Stalinist organizations, but not in regards to political arguments since the political influence of the said organizations weren't nearly on the level of having any mass influence whatsoever. These organizations were, allegedly, used for darker objectives, such as assassinations and bombings. Incidentally, according to the Ergenekon investigation, the PKK itself was, at least very much used by this organization, and it is strongly suggested that the PKK was actually controlled by Ergenekon. These are all conspiracy theories though, and I am rather skeptical.

For those who don't know much about all this, Ergenekon is an alleged secret organization within the Turkish state, the deep state as some call it, and an investigation against it has been going on for a few years, sponsored by the AKP government, some sort of a clean hands operation. I see this investigation more as a reflection of the conflict between different factions of the Turkish bourgeoisie and the state, specifically between the more liberal bourgeoisie and the bureaucratic and the military bourgeois elites. There is a lot of manipulation going on about the subject, and those arrested include former generals, truly shadowy figures and also journalists whose only fault seems to be being critical of the government. Fundamentally, though, Kemalism is the official ideology of the Turkish state and no government ruling this state can actually purge the Kemalist cult, and the problem is not the state within the state but the state itself.

Yes I wish that too. But it is too unrealistic.And it is realistic for the PKK which has been fighting a futile war for the last thirty years only to come to the realization that the only way out is to reach a compromise with Turkish imperialism, the root and source of the problem, to actually save the Kurds is?

Why is it that bourgeois options seem so realistic to everyone when they've been demonstrating for a century that they are not capable of wiping their own asses?

The historical solution of the working class, the proletarian and the internationalist solution is a thousand times more realistic than any solution the bourgeoisie can offer.

You talk about a simultaneous world revolution but I don't see it that way. Such a revolution is to come after thousand years perhaps...Well, this is certainly what the ruling classes would like the masses to believe.

In 1914, when all the Socialist Parties of the world supported their own countries in the War, nothing seemed less likely than the revolution. Yet in a mere three years, the working classes of the world were shaking capitalism with a world revolutionary wave, thundering from Russia to Germany, from Italy to the United States, from Hungary to China, which was almost victorious.

To quote Rosa Luxemburg: "The day before a revolution nothing seems more unlikely. The day after the revolution nothing seems less likely".

Not that the world has a thousand years, with global warning and all.

And there is realpolitik and millions of Kurds without a state... bourgeoisie state or not... I really can not understand really a Kurd who is living in an alien state and does not wish a country a homeland for his people... How can you be so confident. I want to live in my own land..And be tortured by the Kurdish bourgeois state rather than the Turkish one?

The reason you can't understand is because you believe having a state is a good thing. It is not. The reason I don't want a Kurdish state is because I actually know what bourgeois states are like, the Turkish one being a prime example. It can't be described as exactly kind towards Turks, it has proven itself to be capable of as much brutality against Turks. What I want is for all the states to be destroyed, and that's not gonna happen by working for one against the other or compromising with them as the PKK has always been doing. It is not that I am for or against an independent Kurdistan (as unlikely as it is), and I do not care one bit about whether Turkey is divided or not given the fact that I want it to be destroyed. It is that I don't think an independent Kurdistan will change anything for the Kurdish working masses even if it is formed and will not even solve the problem of national oppression against the Kurds. The example in the South is a good demonstration.

Because at the end of it, all countries belong not to the people, not the workers but to the capitalists, so even if there is a free Kurdistan it will not be my country or my homeland, as Turkey is not and never will be my country. The working class is a class of immigrants. The working class has no country.

and discuss communism in my own landYou have intentions of becoming a landowner after Kurdistan becomes independent? In which case, I can't imagine why you would possibly want to discuss communism. Otherwise, if you are to remain a worker, it will not be your own land, regardless of the color of the flag flying in the sky.

with workers in my own language, not in turkish or whatsoever.Then do so now. Just because the Turkish government wants to stop people from speaking Kurdish doesn't mean it isn't spoken.

We on our part are certainly trying, and we will hopefully have a website in Kurmanci soon.

And there we are now, discussing in English.

Your option is going to cause further assimilation of Kurds in long term.In the long term, in the very long term in fact, my option will mean an end to all that divide human beings, including nationalism, nationalities, countries and so on as a result of an organic process - and the creation of a unified human community of creative and free producers. This is communism. Yes, communism will mean an end to all nationalities and national divisions.

This will happen way after the destruction of the Turkish state, however. Other than that, I fail to see how being uncompromisingly opposed to the national oppression of the Kurds at the hands of the brutal Turkish state, the destruction of which we are calling for, is going to cause further assimilation.

And if you speak turkish here is the official statement of Turkish Communist Party on Kurdish Problem.. sorry to say but it is very similar to yours: http://www.tkp.org.tr/tkp-kurt-sorun...e-duruyor-1570 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.tkp.org.tr/tkp-kurt-sorununda-nerede-duruyor-1570) Except, it is not since it says that the relationship between the TKP and the Kurdish national movement is one of principled friendship. A cynically hypocritical point of view, given the fact that the TKP has actually organized attacks on Kurdish students in several universities.

This is what their real position is:

http://arsiv.sol.org.tr/resimler/22-10-2007_ff0602c2df18f8036289a8fddc033b74.jpg

The banner says "We will not let US divide our country!", slogans against the division of the country being among the mostly commonly used Turkish nationalist slogans.

Turkish state is responsible for that Kurds are scattered in major Turkish cities.Oh they are responsible for way more than that.

Kurdish mainland is well known is in south-eastern Turkey. So Turkish state will pay the price of burning Kurdish villages and forcing them to immigrate to turkish cities. Hopefully it will, and hopefully it will pay the price of all the brutality and the terror it inflicted on the working masses of the region as well. But not at the hands of the PKK, doing its best to reach an agreement with this state with the blood of the working masses still dripping from its teeth and claws. The Turkish state will pay for its crimes at the hands of the proletariat.

Obs

9th February 2012, 18:47

I think the only solution to the Kurdish question is asking the Kurds what they'd like.

But I guess that's far fucking out for some of you guys.

El Chuncho

9th February 2012, 19:18

I am sure you see the entire thing with very orientalist glasses, like some sort of romantic, noble savages fighting against an army for their land and freedom, a mixture of Braveheart and Geronimo

When you make ridiculous statements like that you invalidate your own argument. How do you know I am not a Kurd myself? But my ethnicity is not important anyway, I'd not see Kurds as noble savages anyway, however, I am not one who believes in just sitting around doing nothing but waiting. The PPK are the best group to tackle Turkish oppression. And as pointed out by another, wonderful member here, we should not get hung up my semantics. The Kurds want to live in a land free of oppression, whether they want it to be a part of Turkey or not. Left-wing ''nationalism'' - really self-determination - is not something to be shrugged off as the same thing as akin to National Socialism. Kurdistan was divided between Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. In most of those countries - with the exemption of Iran - they have had to suffer extreme prejudice and oppression. Why then should they not have an autonomous region or land in which they could live in peace free from the shackles of a stronger cultural dominance? In which they can build a form of socialism which is not yet possible in Turkey? But then, I have always seen Ho Chi Minh as one of my inspirations and he was of course what you would term a ''nationalist''.

I believe in internationalism, but also in stages. Internationalism isn't going to happen over night, the best way to achieve it would be to help form socialist countries based around left-wing nationalism (which is not racial and is more or less a socialist freedom movement). When enough countries are won in the name of socialism, other workers movements will, indeed, follow, and true internationalism (and I mean multicultural internationalism not true monocultural internationalism - which is an impossible pipe dream (at least in the short term) and would probably mean the dominance of the anglophone culture and language over all others) would occur.

If a socialist Kurdish state can be brought about, Turkish and Kurdish workers will not be ''tearing each others guts on behalf of their bosses''. The Turkish workers, if they have not revolted due to the creation of a Kurdish state, would fight on behalf of their ''bosses'' and the Kurdish workers would be fighting on behalf of socialism.

Now, I do not pretend that the PKK are perfect socialists but they are currently the most likely party to lead a socialist movement with the Kurds, because they are at least some form of socialist. Of course I'd say they need to be more Marxist-Leninist and truly Marxist, but they are still the best hope for the Kurdish people.

I do find your notion that the Kurdish independence movement is about protecting drug routes and other such nonsense like that rather than to eliminate oppression for their lives. manic expression puts his points across better than I and I totally agree with him. Your view of the Kurdish people and the PKK is both bizarre and quite cultural-linguistically insensitive.

And how are Kurdish workers supposed to believe in anyone who says "well Turkish people aren't on board at the moment so let's just take our ball and go home"?

Indeed, it is the sort of armchair communist view that we should try to avoid. People cannot just sit around waiting for the support (which might not come for some time) of other groups. Anyone in a situation like that of the Kurds, in which they face death and abuse from a dominant ethnic group, would disagree with just sitting around waiting for internationalism to fall on them. They have to organize and fight to bring internationalism about and national independence such as in places like Vietnam is one of the key routes to internationalism. People should fight to make countries socialist if they want to make the whole world communist.

Leo

9th February 2012, 20:23

Telling that PKK is an Ergenekon connected group is funny and again this argument is supported by turkish nationalists but mainly by AKP in order to cut off support to PKK. It is again a shame to read such a comment from a Kurd.This is not what I am saying, I am saying that this is what is being said and that I am skeptical of the whole investigation.

You should try to read more carefully.

Like said before without the PKK, Kurds were completely lost. There was no other initiative. It makes no sense to say.. ah there would be another and so on. There was this and there is this. It is the best we have.This is, again, a completely ignorant statement. There were not only one but many other initiatives, I can list numerous Kurdish left-nationalist organizations, most of which, the ones that managed to survive the brutality of the Turkish state, were basically destroyed by the PKK itself.

If you really need an answer to this one yes.. I'd rather be tortured by a Kurdish state. This is clear for me. Fine, fight for Kurdish torturers then.

I'd rather fight against torture itself.

You exaggerate Kurdish bourgeoisie by the way. It is nowhere close to Turkish international bourgeoisie. They are just locals and some of them supporting guerrillas if not all.

Turkish state killed a lot of Kurdish businessmen from Kurdish bourgeoisie especially in 1990s. They were thrown into mass graves.Why kill them if they are insignificant? It seems like its you underestimating them.

Obviously, as you once again demonstrate your ignorance, the Kurdish businessmen murdered by the Turkish state agents weren't thrown into mass graves, because they assassinated the businessmen one by one, and the victims buried with actual funerals. The number of such businessmen assassinated numbered eight.

Such a bourgeoisie is welcome in my book. I suppose you don't actually know that the businessmen murdered, such as Behcet Canturk, Savas Buldan, Adnan Yildirim and Haci Karay were actually in the business of drug trafficking. They were murdered because they gave a considerable amount of the money they made from the drug business to the PKK, but they had armed men of their own as well.

The Turkish state murdered many suspected or real supporters of the PKK; artists, activists, journalists, academics and so on. They did not murder members of the big bourgeoisie though, and seldom put them in prison. The PKK, of course, returned the favor and didn't kill Turkish businessmen.

You are talking too far from the facts...:rolleyes:

Turkey will not be destroyed by saying so.No, it will be destroyed by the workers' struggles.

You are living in a fact, holding turkish passport using turkish identity. That is completely a shame... Even it would be a bourgeoisie state I would rather use Kurdistan identity instead of carrying this shame. I am not carrying any shame, because my identity is neither determined by the passport I am obliged to carry or my ethnicity. I am a communist proletarian, and the fact I am living is exploitation and oppression. I am an enemy of what my passport represents and will be an enemy of what all passports represent no matter which one I carry.

Kurdish workers can not go on their struggles in Turkey. They will have no gains regarding to their culture. Their struggle will be dominated by turkish values, by turkish language and turkish way of living and understanding which I am completely against.So you are against Kurds being engaged in class struggle in Turkey because they will have no gains regarding their culture?

Workers, regardless of their nationality, do not struggle to advance their culture. They struggle for their living and working conditions. This is the social basis of the unity of workers. Regardless of what anti-working class nationalists feel about Kurdish workers struggling for their class interests, they do struggle for their living and working conditions, will do it more so as the attacks of the state intensifies and will unite with their class brothers from different nationalities because they have to in order to win.

It might well be that when the Kurdish workers engage in the class struggle, their struggle will be dominated by Turkish values, the Turkish language and the Turkish way of thinking. And when the Turkish* workers engage in the class struggle, their struggle will be dominated by Kurdish values, the Kurdish language and the Kurdish way of thinking. Such is the nature of class struggle. Lets look at what happened during the Tekel struggle:

"The forces of the state staged a sneaky attack against the workers from the start. The riot police stopped the buses carrying workers, and declared that they weren't going to let the workers from the Kurdish cities where Tekel factories are concentrated, but that the workers from the Western, Mediterranean, Central Anatolian and Black Sea regions could pass. This aimed at pitting the Kurdish workers and the other workers against each other, and thus dividing the class movement on ethnic lines. This sneaky attack in reality tore down two masks of the state: that of unity and harmony and that of the Kurdish reform. Yet the workers of Tekel did not fall into this police trap. With the workers from Tokat leading them, the workers from outside the Kurdish cities protested against this position of the police, and insisted with determination on all workers entering the city together and no one being left behind. The riot police, unable to calculate the stance the government was to take, ended up having to allow the workers to enter the city all together. This incident made workers coming from different cities, regions and ethnic backgrounds form deep bonds on class terrain. Following this incident the workers from the Western, Mediterranean, Central Anatolian and Black Sea regions were to express that the strength and inspiration they took from the resistance, determination and consciousness of the Kurdish workers was to contribute greatly to their participation in the struggle and that they learnt much from those workers. The workers of Tekel had won their first victory upon entering the city (...) Another important characteristic of the struggle was how the workers from different ethnic backgrounds managed to unite against the capitalist order despite all the provocations of the regime. The slogan "Kurdish and Turkish workers together", shouted since the first days of the struggle, expresses this very clearly. In the Tekel struggle, lots of workers from the Black Sea region danced to Şemame, and lots of Kurdish workers made the Horon dance for the first time in their lives. (Şemamme is a very famous Kurdish dance, and Horon is a very famous dance from the Black Sea region of Turkey.)" (http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2010/01/tekel-turkey)

* Actually, the percentage of ethnic Turks in Turkey is quite small and the majority of the population is made up of mixtures of other ethnic groups but this is irrelevant at the moment.

I am kurdish and want to live my own culture which is impossible to do with turks.It actually is quite possible. Not that I don't understand why you blame "the Turks", it is quite a normal reaction to give when faced with repression, and one that I can't say I never had. However, the Turkish state is not the Turkish working class, and it is the state which is responsible for the oppression.

And nothing ever exactly works the way the state desire and plan. Especially in the metropoles, Kurdish culture is actually quite strongly appreciated by many who don't even realize what it is they are appreciating. The cuisine in the metropoles is pretty much Kurdish nowadays, there is a lot of Kurdish influence in the music and even in language, due to the fact that Turkish is actually quite a lame language with very few original words, there are lots of Kurdish words. There are people who give their children Kurdish names without even realizing it.

The reason why all this is possible is because the oppression against the Kurds is a national one, not a cultural one.

Turks thinking are heavily damaged by their ideological education they received by schools, a struggle with them is merely impossibleIdeological education means little when one is about to get a 50% pay-cut and face starvation.

They can not throw out and get rid of their nationalism.They will, because they will have to, because capitalism can't help attacking the working class and the working class will have to fight to live.

Kurds have their own way so they get at last respected.The Kurdish workers will get respected as they were in Tekel, with their experience and will to struggle, with what they will teach the Turkish workers.

Kurdish labor struggle divided in different countries like Iran, Syria, Iraq and Turkey will cause assimilation of Kurdish identity in each country differently, Kurds must unite to preserve and flourish their culture. Well, that's an honest nationalist position. You see a conflict between the interests of the Kurdish national and the working class, and you openly declare you are in favor of the interests of the nation, not of the working class. I do wish all nationalists were as honest as you are - it would be much harder to sell nationalism to the workers.

You tell this but your point of view is almost identical to theirs. For one, I am not claiming any friendship whatsoever with the Kurdish national movement. I do have individual friends within the movement, but that is due to my personal background, not my politics.

More importantly, I am not a member of a Turkish organization which basis its positions around the interests of the Turkish nation; but an international and an internationally centralized organization which bases its positions around the interests of the world proletariat. The TKP says "this country is ours" about Turkey. We say "workers have no country".

It is kind of funny, because all nationalisms tend to mirror each other. What you are saying is far closer to the TKP and even to more openly Turkish nationalist parties and organizations, if we replace the terms Turkish and Kurdish in your posts, that is. The rhetoric is remarkably similar, and of course like yourself, the Turkish nationalists don't like it when we denounce the Turkish state or say Kemal was a counter-revolutionary imperialist politician.

When you make ridiculous statements like that you invalidate your own argument. How do you know I am not a Kurd myself? But my ethnicity is not important anyway, I'd not see Kurds as noble savages anyway

Your ethnicity is indeed irrelevant. The orientalist and chauvinistic trend in the Western left of supporting nationalist butchers of the working class in the Third World is what is relevant.

however, I am not one who believes in just sitting around doing nothing but waiting.

I believe you are implying that I am by saying this. I will suffice to say that I am not just sitting around doing nothing but waiting.

The PPK are the best group to tackle Turkish oppression.

Yes, by making secret negotiations with them to become a part of the Turkish police forces, that's the way to tackle Turkish oppression!

And as pointed out by another, wonderful member here, we should not get hung up my semantics.

No, but you all should try to get hung up on facts every now and then.

The Kurds want to live in a land free of oppression

Everyone wants to live in a land free of oppression. The point is that it isn't possible under capitalism.

Left-wing ''nationalism'' - really self-determination - is not something to be shrugged off as the same thing as akin to National Socialism.

Well, there is certainly nothing remotely socialist about it.

Kurdistan was divided between Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. In most of those countries - with the exemption of Iran - they have had to suffer extreme prejudice and oppression.

Actually, not with the exemption of Iran.

Why then should they not have an autonomous region or land in which they could live in peace free from the shackles of a stronger cultural dominance? In which they can build a form of socialism which is not yet possible in Turkey?

Because socialism is built by workers, not nationalist elites.

But then, I have always seen Ho Chi Minh as one of my inspirations and he was of course what you would term a ''nationalist''.

And a Stalinist, and an agent of Soviet imperialism and so on and so forth.

I believe in internationalism, but also in stages. Internationalism isn't going to happen over night, the best way to achieve it would be to help form socialist countries based around left-wing nationalism (which is not racial and is more or less a socialist freedom movement). When enough countries are won in the name of socialism, other workers movements will, indeed, follow, and true internationalism ... would occur.

Then just say that you don't actually have anything to do with internationalism except as a very distant ideal, and you are all about stages and socialism in one country.

If a socialist Kurdish state can be brought about, Turkish and Kurdish workers will not be ''tearing each others guts on behalf of their bosses''. The Turkish workers, if they have not revolted due to the creation of a Kurdish state, would fight on behalf of their ''bosses'' and the Kurdish workers would be fighting on behalf of socialism.

A socialist Kurdish state being brought about in the way you're imagining it is, well, pretty much impossible. Stalinism is dead. Sorry.

I am no prophet, although I will say that Kurdistan is not likely to be the first place in the world where the revolution will be victorious. Nevertheless, the working class always rises in international waves. When there is revolution in Kurdistan, it won't be alone in the world and even if there hasn't been a revolution in Turkey yet, it won't be without friends there too.

Now, I do not pretend that the PKK are perfect socialists but they are currently the most likely party to lead a socialist movement with the Kurds, because they are at least some form of socialist.

Actually, they are not. Nor do they claim to be so. They consider socialism to be a failure. They are democratic confederalists.

GoddessCleoLover

9th February 2012, 20:29

Obs raises an excellent point. Aren't the Kurds entitled to the right of self-determination?

Tim Cornelis

9th February 2012, 20:35

I think the only solution to the Kurdish question is asking the Kurds what they'd like.

But I guess that's far fucking out for some of you guys.

^ This is populism ^

Should we never argue about the conditions of people other than our own ethnicity? What if the Kurdish people answer what they'd like is to annihilate all Turks? Of course they don't, but implicitly arguing that we should not bother discussing the Kurdish issue because we're not Kurdish is ridiculous.

GallowsBird

9th February 2012, 21:11

I have read that article with great interest, for it is always interesting to read the sort of nonsense that makes the Left look completely out of touch with the needs and goals of of much of the world's proletariat; especially when it is written under the "guise" of Anti-Imperialism.

In the article you imply that the PKK are imperialist, but I can't find any definition (Marxist, Anarchist or even Bourgeois) that the PKK, as much as some of us may disagree with them, fit into.

Here are some definitions from dictionaries.

Imperialism
(ĭm-pîr'ē-ə-lĭz'əm)
n.
The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations.
The system, policies, or practices of such a government.

im·pe·ri·al·ism [im-peer-ee-uh-liz-uhm]
noun
1.
the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies.
2.
advocacy of imperial interests.
3.
an imperial system of government.
4.
imperial government.
5.
British . the policy of so uniting the separate parts of an empire with separate governments as to secure for certain purposes a single state.

Marx would almost certainly have disagreed with the view that the Kurds do not have a right to self-determination and to remove themselves from the power of an Imperialist conqueror.

Or are we to agree with countries like India from being independent from the British Empire while thinking that the Kurds should not break from the Imperialist Turkish state. What the article seems to be implying is not that if the Turks remove the bourgeois state and replace it with worker control of the country then the Kurds would be better served but that the Kurds should forget about their fight for self-determination until the Turkish worker have done so.

This seems to be a misunderstanding on Marx's views on Indian liberation:

"The Indians will not reap the fruits of the new elements of society scattered among them by the British bourgeoisie, till in Great Britain itself the now ruling classes shall have been supplanted by the industrial proletariat, or till the Hindoos themselves shall have grown strong enough to throw off the English yoke altogether."

Note that Marx does not say that the "Hindoos" should wait until the proleteriat has overthrown the ruling classes but that they would be served only when that happens, if they hane not already removed the "yoke" of the British Empire.

I am sure you see the entire thing with very orientalist glasses, like some sort of romantic, noble savages fighting against an army for their land and freedom, a mixture of Braveheart

Yeah, we are all sitting here in our mock-Islamic palaces with Indian raga music playing while eating our Cantonese cuisine and ruminating upon the nature noble savagery as represented by Tonga in the 'Sign of Four'.

I take it you don't know that Orientalism was very much interested in the Islamic "Oriental" Ottoman Empire; a Turkish state. I am not sure why you feel supporting an Indo-European speaking group break away from country founded by Nomadic Altaic tribes from Central Asia is particularly Orientalist.
Maybe I missed something and don't know enough about Orientalism; I may have to go to the Scottish Borders (just outside my door) to get some more first hand experience of the nature of the noble Oriental warrior.

But back to the article. You say in the article "The only solution of the Kurdish question is the internationalist solution. Only the working class can raise the banner of internationalism against the barbarism of the nationalist war by refusing to die for the bourgeoisie." without giving any real practical solution. What does this entail? Why should the Kurds not wish to speak their own language? How long will the Kurds have to wait till the Turkish worker, and for that matter the "working class" in general to liberate them? Why can't the Kurds have the right to decide their future? There are many questions not answered.

Also it isn't addressed in the article that most of the Leftist parties in Turkey support Kurdish national liberation.

manic expression

9th February 2012, 22:15

Look at the Tekel article to see how class struggle works towards the solution of the national question.
It'll take me a bit to get through it, but by "solution", I assume you mean everyone forgetting that nations ever existed in the misty past. Is this internationalist or anti-nationalist?

What do we actually propose? We propose the destruction of all the bourgeois states involved, that is Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, by all the working masses in these countries - and this can only happen as a part of the destruction of the capitalist states of the whole world.We know that. What do you intend to replace all that with? A Kurdish worker state? No state at all? I only ask because I didn't find anything in the articles.

This one is very clearly addressed I believe. We do not stand for Kurdish self-determination. We are for the destruction of all the bourgeois states - not for the establishment of new ones.You can have Kurdish self-determination without a bourgeois state, can you not? Again, the deciding question is if you're internationalist or anti-nationalist.

That aside, if you're against Kurdish self-determination, you're losing a chance to promote progress for Kurdish workers. I'll get to this more deeply in a bit.

A typical feature of orientialism is to identify current movements and characters in the East with those of the history of the West, since among its main features is ignorance about the East and the presumption that it is more backwards than the West in every way imaginable. So naturally, people who look at the Eastern countries with such a perspective have a tendency to identify the contemporary figures and movements there with those from the history of the Western countries, with of course orientalist colors, camels and all.Which brings us back to the question of who brought up camels in the first place.

Recognized, no, suppressed yes, obviously. This is still a very real problem. In fact it is suppressed although it is actually officially recognized today, there being a state tv-channel in Kurdish.I see.

What Kurdish self-determination boils down to is the interests of the Kurdish bourgeoisie, not the status or the situation of the Kurdish language. As Rosa Luxemburg says, "Under the rule of capitalism there is no self-determination of peoples, in a class society each class of the nation strives to ‘determine itself' in a different fashion, and for the bourgeois classes, the standpoint of national freedom is fully subordinated to that of class rule"

The suppression of the Kurdish language is a part of the larger problem of the oppression of the Kurds, the prime target of which are and have always been the Kurdish working masses. The war of national liberation has proven that it has no way of solving the problem of the national oppression of the Kurds.Wrong, Kurdish self-determination encapsulates the interests of the Kurdish workers as well. We can look to a concrete example to illustrate this: do you deny that the interests of workers were improved when the US was forced out of Vietnam? After all, it didn't take a working-class revolution in the 50 states of the US to bring about an historic victory for the workers of Vietnam...the establishment of self-determination is what did it.

A nation isn't a state (or else the Kurds wouldn't exist today), a nation is an entity that is made up of the different classes of its economic system. Thus, the independence of Kurdistan, even if it were bourgeois, would signify quantitative gains for Kurdish workers. As you so eloquently said here: The suppression of the Kurdish language is a part of the larger problem of the oppression of the Kurds, the prime target of which are and have always been the Kurdish working masses.

The important thing is that Kurdish independence would, inherently and unquestionably, remove that ugly oppression from the shoulders of all Kurdish workers. A Kurdish independent state would never pursue any such policy, which means workers' interests would be met. Now, we can even look to improvements in the lives of Turkish workers: would they any longer be sent to fight the war against the Kurds, the war of the Turkish capitalists? No, this would end.

So Kurdish self-determination is in the interests of Kurdish and Turkish workers...why are you against it?

Given the fact that it has been discovered that the leaders of the PKK had been involved with the negotiations with the National Intelligence Organization of Turkey, demanding the PKK to become the legal police force of an autonomous Kurdish region of Turkey, no it is not semantics, it means that the PKK is actively trying to become an integral part of the Turkish state.Yes, it is semantics. The PKK is demanding what might be feasible in the short term. Condemning them for that is dishonest...it would be like calling pro-Palestinian voices who are OK settling with a two-state solution for the time being pro-Zionist (and drug runners on top of it). The fundamental fact is that of self-determination, and sovereignty within Turkey will represent an important step toward that...more importantly, it will, as you've pointed out, represent unqualified improvements in the lives of Kurdish workers.

Red Commissar

9th February 2012, 23:35

black magick hustla

10th February 2012, 02:31

read the sort of nonsense that makes the Left look completely out of touch with the needs and goals of of much of the world's proletariat; especially when it is written under the "guise" of Anti-Imperialism.

\

says the nerd with a stalin avatar

black magick hustla

10th February 2012, 02:34

commieathighnoon

10th February 2012, 06:04

I must agree with mr hustla. What is the likelihood that a sustainable and credible bourgeois state can be carved out of Turkish Kurdistan? That their own "national" bourgeois will not intensify the rate of exploitation? That massive fratricidal war on ethnic lines in the area will not result in many more workers being bound to "their" new bourgeois state, bleed white to defend the new national machinery of their own factory owners and financiers?

I do not believe the 20th c. horror-show of would-be nationalisms and liberation wars turned out this way simply because of bad luck, or "you lose some, you win some." In many cases, I think it is indisputable that the act of winning national sovereignty in war was mutually exclusive to the constitution of that national proletariat as a "class-for-itself" with the world proletariat. How many decades were lost where "patriotic bourgeois" leaders dragging their respective working-classes and their possible allies in a wild goose chase of autarchic development schemes, regional politicking and squabbling, and integration into the world capitalist system. The "natlib uber alles" position seems to cling to a very stilted "stageism" in a national context: you get the impression that we somehow arrive if we keep struggling along these lines in a world without "imperialism" and where each nation has been liberated, then maybe you can strive to end value-production, classes, and states. Rather, capitalism reproduces imperialism and national oppression and national inequality and asymmetry among states constantly and continuously. While it should be opposed vigorously, it cannot be opposed to the task of world proletarian social revolution, nor can it in my view be said to inhere in particular nations or groups of states; it is a constantly reproduced dynamic in capitalism, which relates dialectically to its other forms of motion.

Many reflexive supporters of national liberation in all contexts have no real program for how this is to be done, what is likely to follow, and the likely relationship of this to proletarian mobilization. Marx and Engels supported the national question only contingent to the total historic prospects for the world proletariat: they supported the organization of the German nation and states into a Hohenzollern monarchy, while they opposed the liberation of Balkan states where they thought Ottoman weakness would give breathing space to Tsarist reaction.

GallowsBird

10th February 2012, 08:30

says the nerd with a stalin avatar

Oh noes... :crying: :crying: :crying: :crying:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Before flaming you should read why I have it; it's in two threads but I shall point you to one, and that is the thread about best avatars. It is actually self-deprecating humour* (much like your tendency; I presume) hence on my user-page has a cover of Fantastic Adventures featuring evil comic book villain Stalin.

Also, I'd rather be a "nerd" than a moron. Next time come up with something better; I'd give you a C- as atleast you tried.

*Not that having an historical person important to one's movement is a bad thing. I just don't usually do it unless in a jocular way.

El Chuncho

10th February 2012, 08:33

its funny how the tankie/stalinist highschool circus

Unlike the seeming majority of LeftComs, Marxist-Leninists are usually out of school and even college. A quick trip to our group might show you that most of use are at least over 20. Marxism-Leninism/Marxism-Leninism-Maoism also probably makes up the biggest percentage of revolutionary groups outside of Europe and the US, so I'd argue that we are hardly ''out of touch'', we just do not pander to Eurocentric ideologies.

That is irrelevant though because none of the ''Stalinists'' in this thread can be seen as ''tankies'' for none of use agree with the heavy-handed action against Hungary which happened AFTER Stalin's era. Stalin died in 1953, the Soviet action against Hungary was in 1956.

Anyway, your petty sectarian flaming doesn't really do much for this thread at all.

brigade talks about how "out of touch" and "unrealistic" are the aims of the article when the PKK has been waging a three decade war and the only thing that has happened now and in the foreseeable future is working people sent to butcher each other. "self determination" is completely unrealistic in this era and it is if anything, a museum artifact. the butchers in the PKK and the turkish state will pay for their heinous crimes if the proletariat ever revolts.

Again this ''ever'' appears. Well, they never will unless they get enough motivation to do so (like the formation of another socialist nation or state to inspire them).

Self-determination might seem unrealistic to you, but it is certainly more realistic than believing that the workers of the world will just automatically just rise up and declare internationalism. How Utopian can you be? OK, you keep your pipe-dream and we'll (M-Ls etc.) keep working on bringing internationalism around in stages (such as self-determination).

GallowsBird

10th February 2012, 08:38

its funny how the tankie/stalinist highschool circus brigade

I have been out of "Highschool" for many years, son; but at least I graduated from it I guess. Haven't been to a Circus for many years; never thought of joining one but if that is your idea of a great stimulating job then who am I to argue!

talks about how "out of touch" and "unrealistic" are the aims of the article when the PKK has been waging a three decade war and the only thing that has happened now and in the foreseeable future is working people sent to butcher each other. "self determination" is completely unrealistic in this era and it is if anything, a museum artifact. the butchers in the PKK and the turkish state will pay for their heinous crimes if the proletariat ever revolts.

Rather than flaming, why don't you actually address the issues. The article has said the same things "PKK bad... worker butchery... proletarians revolt... blah blah blah" but hasn't come up with anything other than suggesting some vague notion of "internationalism". Sorry to burst your magic fluffy-wuffy cozy-wozy bubble Hustla but if you make a claim against something it is generally a good idea to suggest a valid, feasible alternative.

blake 3:17

10th February 2012, 09:00

I'm a Trotskyist who supports the PKK.

GallowsBird

10th February 2012, 09:12

I'm a Trotskyist who supports the PKK.

Good. The start of a Trot-Tankie coalition obviously!

Self-determination might seem unrealistic to you, but it is certainly more realistic than believing that the workers of the world will just automatically just rise up and declare internationalism. How Utopian can you be? OK, you keep your pipe-dream and we'll (M-Ls etc.) keep working on bringing internationalism around in stages

Nothing is done in stages it all has to be spontaneous like human combustion!

Incidentally, I find it highly reactionary and, dare I say, imperialistic to suggest a people should have absolutely no say in regards to their nation. I think Lenin was correct when he said:

It would be wrong to interpret the right to self-determination as meaning anything but the right to existence as a separate state.

black magick hustla

10th February 2012, 09:20

*Not that having an historical person important to one's movement is a bad thing. I just don't usually do it unless in a jocular way.

i could care less, all of stalin's fanboys are equally hilarious/cute/stupid to me.

That is irrelevant though because none of the ''Stalinists'' in this thread can be seen as ''tankies'' for none of use agree with the heavy-handed action against Hungary which happened AFTER Stalin's era. Stalin died in 1953, the Soviet action against Hungary was in 1956.

blahblahblahblahblah im uninterested in the vicisitudes of "antirevisionist" dinosaurs and their younger ilk and hotel bristol and the heroic deeds of hoxha i dont give a fuck. the only thing i know is that if someone calls himself an antirevisionist irl i will laugh at them

:shrugs: that is obviously a strawman. nobody says that the workers of the world would rise "together" at the same step as if they were dancing a tune or whatever. what communists say is that proletarian revolution won't come out of defending a bourgeois faction against the other. a quick gloss at the history of "national liberation movements" makes it obvious that working class militants always end up against the wall in the new "liberated" state, and that, no "liberated" state ever achieved self-determiantion, because national liberation today is impossible.

[quote]Rather than flaming, why don't you actually address the issues. The article has said the same things "PKK bad... worker butchery... proletarians revolt... blah blah blah" but hasn't come up with anything other than suggesting some vague notion of "internationalism". Sorry to burst your magic fluffy-wuffy cozy-wozy bubble Hustla but if you make a claim against something it is generally a good idea to suggest a valid, feasible alternative.

honestly, i cant stomach sometimes icc's sloganeering cuz as you said, can be seen as a bit forced and artificial but, it is not more unrealistic, irrelevant, and pathetic than a bunch of western stalinists choosing sides over the internet and giving their meaningless internet support to a bourgeois faction and making hilarious, non empirical, and utterly dogmatic claims that communism and internationalism can happen through self determination, which has never happened ever.

blake 3:17

10th February 2012, 09:28

honestly, i cant stomach sometimes icc's sloganeering cuz as you said, can be seen as a bit forced and artificial but, it is not more unrealistic, irrelevant, and pathetic than a bunch of western stalinists choosing sides over the internet and giving their meaningless internet support to a bourgeois faction and making hilarious, non empirical, and utterly dogmatic claims that communism and internationalism can happen through self determination, which has never happened ever.

It's not an abstract issue for those of us in North America or parts of Europe -- The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by most NATO countries.

bcbm

10th February 2012, 09:30

unless youre sending them money or arms it is an abstract issue

black magick hustla

10th February 2012, 09:34

It's not an abstract issue for those of us in North America or parts of Europe -- The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by most NATO countries.

its more abstract to you than it is to leo, who is a kurd that lives in turkey lol

manic expression

10th February 2012, 14:23

its funny how the tankie/stalinist highschool circus brigade talks about how "out of touch" and "unrealistic" are the aims of the article when the PKK has been waging a three decade war and the only thing that has happened now and in the foreseeable future is working people sent to butcher each other. "self determination" is completely unrealistic in this era and it is if anything, a museum artifact. the butchers in the PKK and the turkish state will pay for their heinous crimes if the proletariat ever revolts.
First of all, that's an ad hominem. One might be a high schooler and one might be a tankie (one might even be a member of an actual circus), but it would have no bearing on the merits of comments on an article. I don't recall anyone making condescending assumptions about the OP's education level, probably because it would be petty and low.

Secondly, you don't seem interested in comprehending what has been clearly stated. It's not that the aims of the article are merely unrealistic (though IMO they are), it's that there are no viable solutions presented. In my estimation, it's not an internationalist solution, it's an anti-nationalist non-solution.

Thirdly, self-determination isn't unrealistic at all. The Vietnamese achieved it with greater odds against their favor, and the lives of Vietnamese workers are all the better for it. Your own dim prognostications don't imply that it's not a worthwhile and ultimately achievable goal.

Fourthly, this is no more and no less "abstract" than 99% of discussions on this forum. Not that it matters too much, but I've taken part in actions on this very question and I know people who are quite directly affected by it, and thus I'd like to better understand it and better refine my outlook upon it. One need not be personally hurt by an issue to want to contribute their opinion. If you are disinclined to look upon this idea with approval then I suggest you drop all remaining pretense of being a leftist...post-modernist literary criticism would seem a more appropriate arena for your interests.

Lastly, your use of the word "nerd" to belittle an opposing argument would be a bit more believable if you had an avatar that wasn't a math equation. Stay classy. :rolleyes:

#FF0000

10th February 2012, 14:46

Thirdly, self-determination isn't unrealistic at all. The Vietnamese achieved it with greater odds against their favor, and the lives of Vietnamese workers are all the better for it. Your own dim prognostications don't imply that it's not a worthwhile and ultimately achievable goal.

lol yeah we all know how independent vietnam is from global capitalism these days give me a break

manic expression

10th February 2012, 14:51

lol yeah we all know how independent vietnam is from global capitalism these days give me a break
lol yeah we know how it doesnt matter that 2 million vietnamese workers were murdered by imperialism but now theyre not lol

SHORAS

10th February 2012, 15:25

All these armed groups are part of the imperial game, backed by this or that regime against another.

At the end of the day, if you're for the Kurds or the 'Palestinians' you're for nationalism and a bourgeois state you are not basing your politics on the working class as a whole.

Credit goes to Leo for the insightful comments against all this nationalist garbage which is not communist at all.

#FF0000

10th February 2012, 15:38

lol yeah we know how it doesnt matter that 2 million vietnamese workers were murdered by imperialism but now theyre not lol

i dunno what that has to do with anything. you said that vietnam achieved self determination and that is simply not true. they're totally integrated into global capitalism and joined the World Trade Organization.

SHORAS

10th February 2012, 16:40

If you really need an answer to this one yes.. I'd rather be tortured by a Kurdish state. This is clear for me.

You are living in a fact, holding turkish passport using turkish identity. That is completely a shame... Even it would be a bourgeoisie state I would rather use Kurdistan identity instead of carrying this shame.

Kurdish labor struggle divided in different countries like Iran, Syria, Iraq and Turkey will cause assimilation of Kurdish identity in each country differently, Kurds must unite to preserve and flourish their culture.

What difference does it make who you get tortured by? If you are tortured by someone of the same nationality it is exactly the same, it's not better or worse. The whole point is to get rid of what causes torture not to pick and choose a preference over who is doing the torturing.

Don't you understand that communists want rid of nations and don't respect nationality, that they identify as proletarian, working class i.e have no nation. I certainly identify with my class not my nation and that is a communist perspective. I don't know if you think you are a communist or not I don't regard you as one.

You say Kurdish labor struggle in various countries but why separate it from the rest of the class in those countries? Why not a working class struggle in all of those countries? Cos you are scared of losing your 'culture'? Well, I'm afraid culture is not a constant, unchanging thing - unless you're conservative. I wouldn't bother with what you are saying normally but others seem to be agreeing with a lot of what you are saying which I find shocking and sometimes idiotic. I am so glad I didn't have to go through all this leftist bullshit in some Stalinist or Trotskyist group.

Sinister Cultural Marxist

10th February 2012, 18:02

(1) It is perfectly reasonable for a group of people-peasants, workers and middle classes alike-to demand national independence when they feel that the central State has done nothing to protect their rights to language, culture, seasonal time, local autonomy etc.

(2) The Internationalist Communist struggle is not furthered by these nationalist struggles (at least not directly) and International Communists should not say otherwise.

These are not two mutually exclusive claims. Insofar as nations should be divided it is up to the people within those areas ... they want independence because of the conditions which they face. However at the same time, independence does nothing to protect the workers of Kurdistan or Turkey from an economic system based on the private right to property.

Ocean Seal

10th February 2012, 18:55

Hooray for internationalism. Workers of the world rise up and overthrow the bourgeoisie. And while you don't lets continue the destruction of an ethnicity because to do anything aside from writing pamphlets is against Marxism. Left-Communism is the only path forward, just keep writing articles.

El Chuncho

10th February 2012, 19:07

These are not two mutually exclusive claims. Insofar as nations should be divided it is up to the people within those areas ... they want independence because of the conditions which they face. However at the same time, independence does nothing to protect the workers of Kurdistan or Turkey from an economic system based on the private right to property.

I am sorry but making a socialist state, then another, then another etc. will help with internationalism in the long run. You cannot just expect the whole world to rise up at the same time. That is utopian pipe-dreaming nonsense. Very irrational.

However, if socialist states are formed it is a start and will lead to workers elsewhere gaining some hope. There is some truth to the ''domino effect'' though it was not as extreme (sadly) as the US claimed. But the foundation of the Soviet state in Russia did inspire similar revolutions, from China to Cuba. If enough states are won in the name of socialism, it will be a further step in the right direction for international communism.

Rooster

10th February 2012, 19:46

I am sorry but making a socialist state

Oxymoron

You cannot just expect the whole world to rise up at the same time. That is utopian pipe-dreaming nonsense. Very irrational.

Straw man argument. That and/or you don't know what you're talking about.

El Chuncho

10th February 2012, 19:54

Oxymoron

In your opinion, but you can have socialists states (such as in the USSR), stateless communism comes after the creation of socialist states (a transitory state, if you will)

. Also for ''socialist state'' to be an oxymoron, the terms should contradict each other. They don't. The basic definition of ''socialism'' is not contradicted by the definition of ''state''. If I said ''social-capitalism'', it would be an oxymoron.

You could, however, argue that ''communist state'' is an oxymoron.

''Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing, but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.'' - Karl Marx, ' Critique of the Gotha Program'.

'A state of the exploited must fundamentally differ from such a state; it must be a democracy for the exploited, and a means of suppressing the exploiters; and the suppression of a class means inequality for that class, its exclusion from democracy' - V.I. Lenin, http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/equality.htm

Straw man argument. That and/or you don't know what you're talking about.

I certainly know more about what I am talking about than you based on your worthless post which offered no insight on internationalism at all. Why don't you offer real solutions on how to gain internationalism rather than tired old rhetoric and 14-word post filled with nothing but hot air.

commieathighnoon

10th February 2012, 19:57

Historically, when the working-class itself, for itself (that is to say, not a bureaucratic organism consisting largely of 'declasse' intelligentsia and middle-class, basing itself on opportunistic support for property-holders; allying with 'patriotic' bourgeoisie; and postponing communism for endless bourgeois programs) rises up, it does so in a profound and thoroughgoing wave of revolutionary activity. Witness 1848-49, 1871, 1917-1921(-1927), 1968-1980, and the like.

The Bolsheviks surmised their opportunity and likelihood of helping bring about socialist revolution in the context of a capitalist crisis and war, and hoped be the opening skirmish of an at least Europe-wide socialist revolution. They failed, but while the entire world may not have risen up all at once, there were insurrectionary strikes in nearly every country with industrial workers. It is not implausible that a wave could have swept much of industrial Europe, and a bloc based on the real dictatorship of the proletariat could have laid claim to a lion's share of world industry, and could not help but to undermine what was left of capitalism elsewhere (North America, Japan) and could not help but be a huge sign to a way forward for the world's workers. I think future revolutionary opportunities will take a similar form, and it remains true that the best chances for a communist future involve a thoroughgoing revolutionary wave, that sweeps up a winning share of the world's industry, economy, and working-class.

Most ML parties cannot be said to be following Marx's political project, were in very little sense actually based on the working-class, and consistently fought for sub-revolutionary ends. Third World Marxism has very little in common with the self-emancipation of the proletariat, and in retrospect seems the ideology of Third World civil servants out of power, who hope to seize power and jerry-rig a fascimile of Stalin's Russia, in hope of keeping class struggle under control, amassing industrial base, and attempting to remain 'independent' of world capitalism. It must be assessed as a universal failure. Furthermore, the "socialist states" which did exist historically only did by spinning-off and basing themselves on the USSR. Without the USSR, there's no prospect for setting up a Stalinist model state, anywhere. Just look at Nepal--the party of the peasantry (which is what it really is) has inserted itself into the bourgeois state and now helps make sure exploitation may function day-to-day.

Rooster

10th February 2012, 20:16

In your opinion, but you can have socialists states (such as in the USSR), stateless communism comes after the creation of socialist states (a transitory state, if you will)

No sorry, not just my opinion. You have read State and Revolution, haven't you?

. Also for ''socialist state'' to be an oxymoron, the terms should contradict each other. They don't. The basic definition of ''socialism'' is not contradicted by the definition of ''state''. If I said ''social-capitalism'', it would be an oxymoron.

Don't make me correct your grammar. Social-capitalism would be even less of an oxymoron than state-socialism. Kinda shows how little you actually understand even the basics of marxist theory. Jeez, do I have time to actually baby sit all these kids and teach them the fundamentals? No, not really. I'm surprised you even tried to compare the two there.

You could, however, argue that ''communist state'' is an oxymoron.

Typically, you view the removal of classes in a state as a reformist policy. Where's the revolution?

''Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing, but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.'' - Karl Marx, ' Critique of the Gotha Program'.

Uh huh, the revolutionary transformation of one into the other, yeah. I get it. I've read it. Explain to me where it says socialism there though.

'A state of the exploited must fundamentally differ from such a state; it must be a democracy for the exploited, and a means of suppressing the exploiters; and the suppression of a class means inequality for that class, its exclusion from democracy' - V.I. Lenin, http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/equality.htm

Oh Lenin! Ye font of all truth and knowledge! Incidentally, where was the worker's democracy?

I certainly know more about what I am talking about than you based on your worthless post which offered no insight on internationalism at all. Why don't you offer real solutions on how to gain internationalism rather than tired old rhetoric and 14-word post filled with nothing but hot air.

Hey, I'm just pointing out where you're making straw men arguments and oxymorons. If you stopped doing it then I'd stop pointing it out.

El Chuncho

10th February 2012, 21:34

No sorry, not just my opinion. You have read State and Revolution, haven't you?

Yes I have.

I think you need to read it again. I can pick quite a few quotes from 'State and Revolution', such as:

''As a matter of fact, Engels speaks here of the proletariat revolution “abolishing” the bourgeois state, while the words about the state withering away refer to the remnants of the proletarian state after the socialist revolution. According to Engels, the bourgeois state does not “wither away", but is “abolished” by the proletariat in the course of the revolution. What withers away after this revolution is the proletarian state or semi-state.''

And:

''We all know that the political form of the “state” at that time is the most complete democracy. But it never enters the head of any of the opportunists, who shamelessly distort Marxism, that Engels is consequently speaking here of democracy “dying down of itself", or “withering away". This seems very strange at first sight. But is is “incomprehensible” only to those who have not thought about democracy also being a state and, consequently, also disappearing when the state disappears. Revolution alone can “abolish” the bourgeois state. The state in general, i.e., the most complete democracy, can only “wither away".

And:

''We have already said above, and shall show more fully later, that the theory of Marx and Engels of the inevitability of a violent revolution refers to the bourgeois state. The latter cannot be superseded by the proletarian state (the dictatorship of the proletariat) through the process of 'withering away", but, as a general rule, only through a violent revolution''

Don't make me correct your grammar.

Hmm. :rolleyes: I forgot that you share Sam-b's childish interest in correcting grammatical errors to try to push your own views. Acting like a grammar clown doesn't make you seem intelligent just childish. Also, you should probably not get into the habit of acting like that, lest others feel the need to hound you for grammatical errors too.

Criticizing the grammar is simply an ad hominem attack.

do I have time to actually baby sit all these kids and teach them the fundamentals?

Babyish/trollish nonsense. :rolleyes:

Typically, you view the removal of classes in a state as a reformist policy.

No, I see stateless communism as the inevitable outcome of a revolution.

Uh huh, the revolutionary transformation of one into the other, yeah. I get it. I've read it. Explain to me where it says socialism there though.

It doesn't and doesn't really need to. If you have, indeed, read Marx and Lenin as you claim, you'd know that the socialism precedes communism. Maybe if I say ''proletariat state'', you'd understand the point better? You should, at least.

The states of the Soviet Union were socialist states, or proletariat states if you wish, because they were in a transitory stage between capitalism and stateless communism. A proletariat revolution would not be the sudden end of the state, only the end of the bourgeois state. The proletariat state will wither away and lead into pure communism.

''Now the question is put somewhat differently: the transition from capitalist society - which is developing towards communism - to communist society is impossible without a "political transition period", and the state in this period can only be the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.''

''The expression "the state withers away" is very well-chosen, for it indicates both the gradual and the spontaneous nature of the process.''

Oh Lenin! Ye font of all truth and knowledge!

Lenin might not be a ''font of all truth and knowledge'' but I do believe he is pretty much right, as any Leninist would.

Hey, I'm just pointing out where you're making straw men arguments and oxymorons. If you stopped doing it then I'd stop pointing it out.

I am making neither straw men arguments nor oxymora. You did, however, make a post of little substance which was merely flaming. You'll disagree with both my claims here so we'd have to agree to disagree.

Some members of this thread, and Left Communists in general, seem to think we should just sit around and wait for international revolution to crop up spontaneously; if they do not believe that, they should explain how they will formalize internationalism without at first creating states or republics founded on socialist principles. I believe that a socialist state is a transitory stage between capitalism (and the bourgeois state) and communism. The proletariat states that Lenin referred to are the same ones I referred to when I used the phrase ''socialist states''. You can also replace my ''socialist states'' with ''socialist republics'' if you like, as I believe Lenin also used the term (or more correctly, his English translators did!).

"The proletariat needs the state, not in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist". - Engels

''Only in communist society, when the resistance of the capitalists have disappeared, when there are no classes (i.e., when there is no distinction between the members of society as regards their relation to the social means of production), only then "the state... ceases to exist", and "it becomes possible to speak of freedom". Only then will a truly complete democracy become possible and be realized, a democracy without any exceptions whatever. And only then will democracy begin to wither away, owing to the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold horrors, savagery, absurdities, and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to observing the elementary rules of social intercourse that have been known for centuries and repeated for thousands of years in all copy-book maxims. They will become accustomed to observing them without force, without coercion, without subordination, without the special apparatus for coercion called the state.'' - Lenin.

Leo

11th February 2012, 13:25

It'll take me a bit to get through it, but by "solution", I assume you mean everyone forgetting that nations ever existed in the misty past.

Read the article mate.

We know that. What do you intend to replace all that with? A Kurdish worker state? No state at all? I only ask because I didn't find anything in the articles.

The worldwide period of transition towards communism. (http://en.internationalism.org/ir/1_problems_mc.htm)

You can have Kurdish self-determination without a bourgeois state, can you not?

Not really, no.

That aside, if you're against Kurdish self-determination, you're losing a chance to promote progress for Kurdish workers.

Why?

lol yeah we know how it doesnt matter that 2 million vietnamese workers were murdered by imperialism but now theyre not lol

Wrong, Kurdish self-determination encapsulates the interests of the Kurdish workers as well. We can look to a concrete example to illustrate this: do you deny that the interests of workers were improved when the US was forced out of Vietnam?

Yes, I do. Obviously, people stop dying because of war when any war is over, however all wars end and it matters little who wins. If this is why the victory of Vietcong was progressive, an ARVN victory would have been equally progressive. The victory of the Vietcong did not bring the dead back.

A nation isn't a state (or else the Kurds wouldn't exist today), a nation is an entity that is made up of the different classes of its economic system. Thus, the independence of Kurdistan, even if it were bourgeois, would signify quantitative gains for Kurdish workers.

So, lets say, do you support the Iraqi Kurdish autonomous government? Or think that it has brought significant gains for the Kurdish workers? They are still being shot when they go on strikes. And they were considering banning Kurmanci in order to make their own dialect of Kurdish the officially recognized one.

The important thing is that Kurdish independence would, inherently and unquestionably, remove that ugly oppression from the shoulders of all Kurdish workers. A Kurdish independent state would never pursue any such policy, which means workers' interests would be met. Now, we can even look to improvements in the lives of Turkish workers: would they any longer be sent to fight the war against the Kurds, the war of the Turkish capitalists? No, this would end.

So Kurdish self-determination is in the interests of Kurdish and Turkish workers...why are you against it?

And as stated before, the biggest Kurdish city of the world today is Istanbul. Any improvements in the situation of the working masses of Kurdistan will be balanced by pogroms against the Kurds in the Western metropoles of Turkey.

And situations like these are never as simple or black and white as you portray this one. There was a moment, perhaps more than thirty years ago, that the PKK was talking about murdering all the Alevi population in Kurdistan after the revolution. There is a fairly large population of the Zaza people in Kurdistan, who speak a language of their own, Zazaki. Some claim they are Kurds, others, including a significant portion of the Zaza people say they are not. The Kurdish nationalist movement is basically hell-bent on describing them as Kurds. Given the history of the Turkish state, calling the Kurds "mountain Turks" because of the sound of their footsteps in the snow, I am hesitant to claim the Zaza are Kurds and not a separate people in themselves. And then there's the Assyrians, the Christians and so on, who have been oppressed for hundreds of years.

An independent Kurdistan, as unlikely as it is, would be a new development, neither for the better or for the worse though. The working masses will keep getting screwed and national oppression will continue. An independent Kurdish state will not solve the problem of national oppression, we aren't living in the 19th century anymore.

Yes, it is semantics. The PKK is demanding what might be feasible in the short term. Condemning them for that is dishonest...

If they are demanding one thing while having a secret agenda and making their propaganda on the basis of their demands, it is them who are dishonest, not me for calling it out.

They don't have any such secret agenda, however. Quite possibly, the PKK is closer to certain factions of the Turkish state than to Souther Kurdish forces such as the KDP and the PUK. They actually want what they say they want: to legally and officially rule the Turkish Kurdistan as a part of the Turkish state. With their numerous municipalities, they are half-way there.

it would be like calling pro-Palestinian voices who are OK settling with a two-state solution for the time being pro-Zionist (and drug runners on top of it).

Well, Fatah, who's been policing Palestine on behalf of the Israeli state, has clearly been pretty pro-Zionist.

Kurdish laborers are in a different position because they are scattered in various countries. I am tired of telling importance of this every time. In all these countries they receive healthcare in foreign language, they go to court in foreign language, they are educated in foreign language. They are being assimilated and losing their cultural values.

The die is cast by some Kurdish intellectuals and leaders in order to unite Kurds and nothing can prevent this

Yes, because it is the Kurdish intellectuals and the leaders who mater here, not the Kurdish workers.

Turkey is currently number 1 in the world in political imprisonment numbers.

Actually I'm pretty sure that's not true, although that is not to deny that there are lots of political prisoners in Turkey and a Kurdish Scare is going on.

When kurdish youth goes to streets in order to protest this they are beaten by youth of turkish laborers.

Are they now? I thought they were beaten by the police.

Some members of this thread, and Left Communists in general, seem to think we should just sit around and wait for international revolution to crop up spontaneously

Left communists believe that the international revolution will develop out of class struggles. So no, we don't say we should just sit around and wait, we say we should participate and try to push forward the struggles of our class.

Leo

11th February 2012, 14:30

You live in Turkey and you ignore the absolute truth... It makes no sense so discuss with you, I have understood that. You know very well what I am talking about... I don't even need to mention police.I know that fascists, directed by the state have attacked demonstrations in the past, not just the demonstrations of Kurds but also the demonstrations of Turks and I know that the Turkish bourgeois media tried to represent things like these as the reaction of the people. I'm assuming this is what you are referring to. In which case, I'd say try to take what the Turkish media says with a bit of salt, and don't believe in everything you've seen in the television.

But Turkish citizens are police anyway without badges, they do not require police. They do police duty themselves.I'm sorry but this is laughable. The police is deep down despised by everyone in Turkey, including the Turks. And it is not just the Kurds the police is randomly murdering.

Turkish laborers attacking Kurdish homes in western Turkey... with slogans "Allahuakbar" and "Our Martryrs will never die and Turkey will never be divided" "Kurds out !"It is actually telling how naive you are in thinking that the state and the agents of numerous factions of the state have got not a single finger in all this, that it is actually somehow the fault of the "Turkish laborers" and in thinking what the Turkish media is saying about these lot is actually the pure truth.

The crowds used for these sort of things actually tend to be made up of petty-bourgeois elements and lumpens actually.

There is no way you can work with Turks... They have never supported Kurdish identity. It is not the police, I repeat it is Turkish laborers. End of story.End of your story, perhaps. Yes, there are chauvinistic tendencies among the Turkish working class. These tendencies have been created by the Turkish state consciously, and there are still many trying to keep them alive, on the payroll of the state.

And yet, when the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered at the hands of one of such men, hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Istanbul and chanted the slogan "We are all Armenians".

During the Tekel struggle, which everyone defending Kurdish nationalism seem to be making an effort to ignore, Kurdish and Turkish workers got so close that they used each others slippers and toothbrushes. The working class has shown again and again that it is capable of overcoming chauvinism in the class struggle.

There are people from UK here they must know when London backstreet events started by poor people of London, Turks have attacked english demonstrators. Even there...They did, aye. But not because they were Turks. They attacked the demonstrators because they were shopkeepers, who didn't want their precious property to be looted by the demonstrators. Theirs was a petty-bourgeois class reaction, not a national reaction.

Turks are severely plagued by nationalism/racism.So are you, it seems.

manic expression

11th February 2012, 14:45

Read the article mate.
I did, and I don't think I was wrong. In fact, the article clearly states its opinion that while the strike will bear important lessons, the article doesn't want to try to draw any lessons. Again, there is a glaring lack of a constructive alternative here. How can one call oneself a progressive if they refuse to talk about what that progress would look like except in platitudes?

The worldwide period of transition towards communism. (http://en.internationalism.org/ir/1_problems_mc.htm)A lot of words signifying nothing. The article itself admits that it has no real idea what it wants to do, and only goes through the obligatory list of things that every Marxist this side of Bernstein agrees with.

So I'll ask again: what do you intend to replace the status quo with?

Until this is at all answered, your analysis will fail at its most important task.

Not really, no.Ah, so there's no self-determination for the Cuban nation?

That is, if you believe there is a Cuban nation, and if you don't then you should call your viewpoint anti-nationalist instead of internationalist.

But then we also come back to the fact that even when workers abolish capitalism, you tell them that they haven't, so your above assertion is essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Why?Because the establishment of sovereignty for Kurdistan would remove a great amount of oppression (that you yourself have noted on this very thread) that directly affects and hurts Kurdish workers. It would also have the added advantage of making it so that Turkish workers are not sent to kill and be killed for the interests of the Turkish state.

If you don't think these worthwhile goals, that is your prerogative. It is only too bad because it contradicts the very excellent arguments you posted previously.

Yes, I do. Obviously, people stop dying because of war when any war is over, however all wars end and it matters little who wins. If this is why the victory of Vietcong was progressive, an ARVN victory would have been equally progressive. The victory of the Vietcong did not bring the dead back.The victory of the Vietnamese (calling it a victory of the Vietcong is pretty myopic, they were drained after 1968 anyway) made it so that Vietnamese children could grow up without the very real threat of US bombs being dropped on their heads on the way to school. Without being put in concentration camps. Without being forced into Catholicism. Without having their villages burned down and their family and friends raped and murdered.

Again, if you don't think this worthwhile then that is your choice, just don't expect your conclusion to have any relevance to the interests of the Vietnamese masses. Your "progress", it seems, prefers no progress.

So, lets say, do you support the Iraqi Kurdish autonomous government? Or think that it has brought significant gains for the Kurdish workers? They are still being shot when they go on strikes. And they were considering banning Kurmanci in order to make their own dialect of Kurdish the officially recognized one.I think it was a gain that Kurds in Iraq were no longer attacked by Iraqi forces as they were in the Iraq-Iran war, yes. Do you disagree?

And as stated before, the biggest Kurdish city of the world today is Istanbul. Any improvements in the situation of the working masses of Kurdistan will be balanced by pogroms against the Kurds in the Western metropoles of Turkey.Except Istanbul isn't a Kurdish city, it's a city with many Kurds. But that aside, you're projecting that idea without proving it. It is not a foregone conclusion that there would be pogroms, and even if there is a danger that that would happen I do not think it appropriate to base communist goals on the anticipated reactions of reactionaries. It would be like saying that the Russian Revolution was bad because it indirectly resulted in pogroms against Jews in Ukraine.

But I do note with appreciation that you think improvements in the situation of the working masses of Kurdistan would be facilitated by greater self-determination. It does agree with your previous argument that Turkish policies on the Kurdish language is a concrete form of oppression against the Kurdish masses. I only wish you could see that removing it would, logically, be progressive.

And situations like these are never as simple or black and white as you portray this one. There was a moment, perhaps more than thirty years ago, that the PKK was talking about murdering all the Alevi population in Kurdistan after the revolution. There is a fairly large population of the Zaza people in Kurdistan, who speak a language of their own, Zazaki. Some claim they are Kurds, others, including a significant portion of the Zaza people say they are not. The Kurdish nationalist movement is basically hell-bent on describing them as Kurds. Given the history of the Turkish state, calling the Kurds "mountain Turks" because of the sound of their footsteps in the snow, I am hesitant to claim the Zaza are Kurds and not a separate people in themselves. And then there's the Assyrians, the Christians and so on, who have been oppressed for hundreds of years.

An independent Kurdistan, as unlikely as it is, would be a new development, neither for the better or for the worse though. The working masses will keep getting screwed and national oppression will continue. An independent Kurdish state will not solve the problem of national oppression, we aren't living in the 19th century anymore.I do not deny those things. I do not hold that the PKK is perfect. I do not hold that they are ideal. What I do say is that a sovereign Kurdistan would

If an independent Kurdistan would be no better or worse than the status quo, then perhaps you should tell us why you don't think the Turkish state's policies there are so bad after all. Surely, if it makes no difference if the Turkish state is carrying out military operations and oppressing Kurds, then you should take some time to explain why it doesn't matter to Kurdish workers.

Further, if an independent Kurdistan would be no better or worse than the status quo, then what do you propose? Remember, something concrete.

If they are demanding one thing while having a secret agenda and making their propaganda on the basis of their demands, it is them who are dishonest, not me for calling it out.

They don't have any such secret agenda, however. Quite possibly, the PKK is closer to certain factions of the Turkish state than to Souther Kurdish forces such as the KDP and the PUK. They actually want what they say they want: to legally and officially rule the Turkish Kurdistan as a part of the Turkish state. With their numerous municipalities, they are half-way there.That's not at all what I'm saying, my point is that in many cases an organization will lessen its demands if it thinks they're more readily practicable. To take an example from Marx's own lifetime and his own comments, Lincoln had to settle short of complete abolition in the Emancipation Proclamation...and yet it was a signal piece of progress for the masses.

The PKK might be willing to compromise in order to make some headway, but it is indeed unfair (a better word than dishonest here, I'll admit) to try to use this in order to undermine the idea of Kurdish self-determination. Political positions and moral absolutes are usually two different things, and self-determination is not the black and white issue you want to make it out to be. Greater sovereignty for Kurds would help Kurdish workers in a concrete manner, as you have already pointed out a few times. Autonomy within Turkey would grant greater recognition to Kurdish language, culture, rights and legal status. Those are concrete gains that you, if you do take the side of progress for workers as I believe you do, should support.

Well, Fatah, who's been policing Palestine on behalf of the Israeli state, has clearly been pretty pro-Zionist.Good thing, then, that not all those who are willing to settle on a two-state solution are Fatah.

Yes, because it is the Kurdish intellectuals and the leaders who mater here, not the Kurdish workers.It seems as though the ICC's own narrow view of "progress" is what matters to the article, and nothing else.

Case in point: Vietnam not being torn apart by imperialist bombs, to you, isn't a positive development. Vietnamese people not being raped, tortured and murdered in large numbers by American soldiers, to you, doesn't matter.

Thus, it is a purely philosophical argument that you make, not a materialist one.

Left communists believe that the international revolution will develop out of class struggles. So no, we don't say we should just sit around and wait, we say we should participate and try to push forward the struggles of our class.Which, translated to the conditions facing the Kurds of Kurdistan, means sit around and wait until Turkish workers have decided that they're all good and ready.

manic expression

11th February 2012, 14:51

And it is not just the Kurds the police is randomly murdering.
I don't think that's the point. US cops murder lots of people, but they murder Blacks with greater frequency.

During the Tekel struggle, which everyone defending Kurdish nationalism seem to be making an effort to ignore, Kurdish and Turkish workers got so close that they used each others slippers and toothbrushes. The working class has shown again and again that it is capable of overcoming chauvinism in the class struggle.
You are misrepresenting the argument. We are not saying that overcoming chauvinism isn't possible or good...quite the opposite, in fact. What we are saying is that overcoming chauvinism means, inherently and inevitably, Kurdish self-determination. Or do you think that class-conscious Turkish workers would not object to the Turkish state's policies in Kurdistan and demand that they come to an end?

I think it is somewhat whimsical to say "so Kurdish and Turkish workers can get along...OK, great, now we don't have to do anything about the fact that the Turkish state is systematically oppressing Kurds until the entire world has a simultaneous revolution".

dodger

11th February 2012, 15:04

Dr Zaun Here I have to ask you to excuse my ignorance. Do Kurds generally assist Turkish progressives, that is shelter them, attempt to make common cause? After all they share a common enemy in the Turkish state.

manic expression

11th February 2012, 15:09

i dunno what that has to do with anything. you said that vietnam achieved self determination and that is simply not true. they're totally integrated into global capitalism and joined the World Trade Organization.
It probably has to do with millions of Vietnamese workers not being murdered and being able to live in a country free of imperialism. That they're now part of the WTO does not negate what has been achieved. If you think the defeat of imperialism there doesn't matter then is there any reason for you to oppose the US invasion?

Leo

11th February 2012, 15:20

You are behaving extremely irresponsible in this forum by misinforming about events going in Turkey. Turkish fascists are not directed by state. They are naturally so, they receive this education in their families. I am sure you really believe all this, but you would be mocked even in the Kurdish nationalist circles if you say this in Turkey.

Turkish media does not show the facts a bit. If 1000 Kurdish houses are attacked Turkish media only shows 2-3 of them.So you don't believe them when they underestimate the terror against the Kurds but you believe them when they say it was the people who did it?

Only a little group of people did this and these single events prove nothing. Most of those people are just liberals who actually dislike their own turkish identity, it is nowhere a class-conscious demonstration. As stated, that "only a little group" included hundreds of thousands. Some were without a doubt liberals, some were leftists, some were Kurds, and many weren't. It wasn't a single demonstration though, as there was another demonstration recently, hundreds of thousands strong, with the same slogans. True, it wasn't class conscious, but it expressed a certain solidarity.

Too much credit for the TEKEL struggle which actually turned nothing more than a protest against government, which lacked any ideology. TEKEL struggle was mainly supported by opposition parties like kemalist CHP and some leftist turkish nationalists. As expected it came to an end without any concrete product.You really have the mentality of a scab, don't you?

Where are those good turkish laborers demonstrating against imprisonment of thousands of Kurds ? Working under 4-C conditions.

Nice... Advocating Turkish shopkeepers...I am not in anyway defending what they did, I am merely explaining why they did it.

Are there only Turkish shopkeepers in England ? Where are Indians ? Arabs ? Greeks ? Italians ? Chinese ? Why did not they attack protesters ? I'm sure some of them did, however Turkish shopkeepers simply happened to be the largest in the areas where the riots took place.

Trying to trick me with my own words and misinterpreting them on the highest level.But you are a nationalist bordering racism, with your "all Turks are evil" attitude.

To be honest, what you are saying is so backwards, reactionary and ultra-nationalistic that the PKK itself would pretty much condemn you as a pork-chop nationalist.

Despite all that is wrong about the PKK, not even they've ever descended to such a caricature of nationalism and do have the courtesy to always say that it is the Turkish state, not the Turkish people they have something against.

Look mister I don't know you and I do not believe you are Kurdish.I don't care what you believe in.

I don't think that's the point. US cops murder lots of people, but they murder Blacks with greater frequency.Undoubtedly.

You are misrepresenting the argument. We are not saying that overcoming chauvinism isn't possible or good...quite the opposite, in fact.Well, you are saying this. Not Dr. Zaun.

What we are saying is that overcoming chauvinism means, inherently and inevitably, Kurdish self-determination.Which is not something which will overcome chauvinisim.

Or do you think that class-conscious Turkish workers would not object to the Turkish state's policies in Kurdistan and demand that they come to an end?Obviously they would, and they would fight against the Turkish state with the Kurdish workers.

I think it is somewhat whimsical to say "so Kurdish and Turkish workers can get along...OK, great, now we don't have to do anything about the fact that the Turkish state is systematically oppressing Kurds until the entire world has a simultaneous revolution". This is a clear misrepresentation of the actual position.

The position is that chauvinism, and by extension national oppression, can only be broken by the class struggle and in the class struggle and that the world revolution is something which flowers from the class struggle itself.

manic expression

11th February 2012, 15:28

Undoubtedly.
Right, which is why self-determination for Blacks would be a giant step of progress for the workers of that nation. No longer would they have to fear the lead of racist cops. That is an improvement all socialists should stand for, no?

Which is not something which will overcome chauvinisim.
It will signify an overcoming of chauvinism, sure. Will it eradicate all anti-Kurdish feelings in every human being? No, but then again that's not why it's being promoted. It's being promoted because the policies of chauvinism would lose their ability to oppress Kurdish workers. I think you would agree that it is the actions of the Turkish state we must seek to address first and foremost.

Obviously they would, and they would fight against the Turkish state with the Kurdish workers.
Precisely, which means they would have no problem with Kurdistan being recognized and sovereign.

This is a clear misrepresentation of the actual position.

The position is that chauvinism, and by extension national oppression, can only be broken by the class struggle and in the class struggle and that the world revolution is something which flowers from the class struggle itself.
OK, thanks for the clarification, but as I said above, the policies of chauvinism can and have been broken by national liberation, with progress for the working classes of both: the defeat of imperialism in Vietnam, to return to this, brought about a wave of leftist activity in the US and meant that American workers would not be sent to kill and be killed for the interests of the imperialists. Pretty good stuff all in all, I think.

SHORAS

11th February 2012, 15:30

By the way Zaun, I don't doubt any suffering going on in Turkey or wherever I just think your ideas and practice are wrong. It is simply a matter of fact that workers and other oppressed strata will have to unite in struggle regardless of nationality, ethnicity or whatever and it is through struggle, coming together, myths, prejudices and hatreds are destroyed. No one says this is easy but it is necessary. The aim, communism i.e the society we want, free of wage-labour must always be in mind.

There are people from UK here they must know when London backstreet events started by poor people of London, Turks have attacked english demonstrators. Even there....

This is an interesting point, but what did you notice about the people who may have done this? They were middle class, shop owners, protecting their property! Did being Turkish really have much to do with it? I think any middle class elements would react the same way. In fact I heard of other British white shop owners damning the 'rioters'. The other elements who may have tried to attack 'rioters' were nationalists (racists etc) of the EDL, BNP, variety who were British themselves.., is it any wonder the head of the EDL is a small business owner? There were Turkish and Kurdish who came out defending the youth as well. It is more a question of class than nationality. I predict the latter were mostly working class and not small business/shop owners!

KrasnayaRossiya

11th February 2012, 15:54

iNTernationalism=good,but patriotism is good too,in russia there are very many communists patriots.only some anarchists and such are rootles cosmopolitans,as people say.;)

black magick hustla

11th February 2012, 16:24

such are rootles cosmopolitans,as people say.;)

gj using antisemitic slurs

KrasnayaRossiya

11th February 2012, 19:31

i dont use that term but some people i know do ;)

Искра

11th February 2012, 21:05

i dont use that term but some people i know do ;)
well you just did :rolleyes:

black magick hustla

11th February 2012, 21:39

the working class has no culture

manic expression

11th February 2012, 21:59

the working class has no culture
So you're saying workers have no culture?

SHORAS

11th February 2012, 22:24

the working class has no culture

Is there such a thing as proletarian culture of fraternity, solidarity and maybe even community?

black magick hustla

11th February 2012, 22:31

Is there such a thing as proletarian culture of fraternity, solidarity and maybe even community?

not really. sometimes, but i wouldn't call it uniquely proletarian.