RAÚL ZİBECHİ
Born in Montevideo in 1952, Raul Zibechi is an intellectual who joined and worked with the left and socialist movements at a very young age. Raul Zibechi, the author of ‘Imaginary dialogues with Öcalan: Updating critical thinking, concludes that “this dialogue, which [he] entered with the thought and perseverance of Öcalan, is an example for those of us who are still committed to change the world.”
What he taught us from Imrali prison is that this is something we cannot do without changing ourselves. Because change, like movement, is one and many, we can not do without a part of it. He expresses that Leader Apo takes an introspective approach and expresses the moral and motivation which the leader creates in himself and in people who think like him.
A reflection of Che’s unbinding spirit
Raul writes in his article that what was imagined in Latin America at the time was to “become Che” and describes Leader Apo as a “reflection of Che’s unbending spirit.”
“Indeed, the world in which we are born needs people like Che. There is a need for uncompromising and upright fighting personalities like Che, believing that another world is possible even if one remains in the world. Who can say that Leader Apo is not a good companion and good follower of Che in this regard?”
Raul Zibechi on Leader Apo’s views on women
“As far as I know, the Kurdish revolutionary movement is working deeply on the problem of women, so that the subject of female domination undergoes the entire movement in every aspect of its activities.”
Leader Apo’s views on the state
Leader Apo believes that the crisis of civilization cannot be overcome by the restoration of fascism or by Real socialism. Contrary to what most left-wing currents think, he supports a return to socialism, free from deviations; “the issue is deeper and it is theoretically and politically connected with the creation of something new.”
Raul believes that the tools should be clean as well as the goals, which Leader Apo attaches great importance to; “the primary role attributed to ethics in the construction of a new world goes hand in hand with two other issues that are often overlooked in the socialist field: the importance of individuality (which is not individualism), the prerequisite for the act of these individuals is that we desire a society of free individuals; which then aids the restoration of the role of civil society, which is referred to as the third field in Öcalan’s language…”
The nation-state is not part of much of the history and experiences of the people, but is an imposition of colonialism and creole elites. ”
Raul emphases what Leader Apo has said about both the state and capitalism: “the conquest of the state, says Ocalan, corrupts even the most loyal revolutionary.”
“Öcalan asserts that capitalism is power, not economy”
The real revolution is not the struggle for rights against the boss of the worker, it is to resist proletarianism all together, to fight against unemployment and against the position of being a worker; because this struggle will be socially more important and ethical.
”Öcalan sees both the radicalism and the power of criticism against the old, saying that the most radical and anticapitalist tradition is critical thinking, which has been forgotten today.”
”I think that Öcalan has gone much further than other militants of our generation in his critiques of Marx as well as Marxism. Marx’s work is a “mental example of concealment” with positivist and economist traces, and this worldview is the reason for the failure of one hundred and fifty years of freedom and democratic society struggle, not only through analysis but also as a free spirit that doesn’t believe anything” he expresses.
MECHTHİLD EXO
Mechthild Exo is a professor of transcultural and international developments at the University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer in Germany and a member of the Brussels Gynecological Centre. He has set the title of his writings, in this regard, as ‘Making connections: gynaecology, women’s liberation and peacebuilding.’
In discussing the importance which Leader Apo gives to education to transform people and society, Mechthild says; “Abdullah Öcalan once said that revolutionary processes are always primarily educational processes. It depends on the constant thinking about one’s own character and its effect on the domination relations that are active in us and that we reproduce.
Patterns have deeply populated our thinking styles, relationships, and a whole lifestyle. All genders should try to understand this, to educate themselves, to think about themselves and to free themselves from it – free from marginalist and dominating mindsets and characters, to enter a struggle against them.”
Leader Apo: Without gender equality, all demands for freedom and equality would be meaningless and misleading. Just as peoples have the right to self-determination, women must also self-determine. This is not a question that can be postponed.
On the contrary, in the construction of a new civilization, women’s freedom will be essential to the achievement of deep equality. We know that if women do not take their destinies into their own hands, during the process of the revolution, then no one comes to mind after the revolution.
As we have seen in many revolutions, the dominating masculine mentality against women has been merely reshaped after the revolution.”
PROFESSOR DAVID GRAEBER
The world-famous anarchist, anthropologist and an activist professor David Graeber describes Leader Apo’s Dialogues for The Construction of a Free Life as “the integrity of theory and practice as a form of writing”.
His most striking finding is: ”In my opinion, the best can be understood if it is seen as self-conscious and highly specific efforts to grapple with this widespread problem (how to provide intellectual support from top-down theoretical leadership to a bottom-up movement).
For the first time in history, we are faced with an example that uses the conceptual writings of the leader of a vertically organized political movement that sees its leader as the Primary Theorist as a way of persuading his followers to reject this model. There is no one who has done this before. The transition from a statist paradigm to a stateless and anti-state paradigm is not as easy as it is thought to be, and many organizations or leaders who have tried this way have been wiped out in history.
If all social relations become commodities, society will no longer exist…
Commodification, continues Leader Apo, “which not only cuts the relationship between people, but also breaks the relationship between people and their natural environment leading to an “ecological disaster. To accept the commodification of society mentally means to stop being human. This means more than barbarism.
Commodification is violent and is the most extreme form of detachment from humanity; the most genuine and human form of value: creation (having children, mother love, sociality, etc) cannot and should not be transformed into numbers.”
“In my view, what Öcalan does with his writings is not only a call for a society that disrupts the practices of commodification, which constantly harms the integrity of reason, morality, and what is called “emotional intelligence, but also the effort to reconstruct this whole disaster” he says.
Another assessment by David is related to all of the defences of Onder Apo as per the New Paradigm: “The Manifesto of Democratic Civilization consists of a unique combination of historical, autobiographical and theoretical considerations rather than a mere manifesto.”
KASIM ENGIN
