ANTONIO NEGRI
NEWS DESK
Sunday, 17 Dec 2023
Italian philosopher and political theorist Antonio (Toni) Negri, died in Paris at the age of 90.
A friend of the Kurdish people, and an avid reader of Abdullah Öcalan's books, Antonio Negri defined the Kurdish leader an "Antonio Gramsci for his own country. An example for everyone."
As a tribute to Negri we publish the text he wrote after reading "The Age of Masked Gods and Disguised Kings".
The text is published in "Building Free Life. Dialogues with Öcalan"
In the message he wrote when he sent the text, Negri wrote: "I would really love to express directly to Öcalan my respect for him and the honour in introducing his writings."
It is extraordinary to read this book by Öcalan, a man in jail but still capable of developing a thought that destroys all closure, a political leader who - under impossible conditions - continues to produce and renew an ethical and civil teaching for his people. An Antonio Gramsci for his own country. An example for everyone.
In this book, Öcalan discusses the origins of civilization and the dualism (class and civilization) that has characterized our civil life since the beginning of history: on the one hand, the state and, on the other, the community. What is being uncovered by him in anthropological and ethnological terms, of the history of Indo-Aryan languages and the social structures of the Fertile Crescent and subsequently of the development of civilized society is really a great metaphor, a paradigm that anticipates the figures of capitalist society. In these pages - he tells us - “I first investigated how the ground was prepared for the rise of “capitalist modernity” and I showed how false is the claim of capitalism to present itself as a definitive final system” - otherwise said, how false the claim is that capitalism represents the “end of history”. This imperial fairy tale, circulated after the end of the Cold War, represented the capitalist hope of a stable and permanent status quo, in which the hegemony of the capitalist elites was definitive and their accumulation of wealth finally guaranteed. Öcalan mocks this hope and shows how it is not only false in itself but harmful to every regime of truth, to every honest possibility of telling the truth. The latter consists in being part of the transformation of history and the struggles that determine it: only in this way can truth be grasped in its relativity and affirmed in its absoluteness. But that's not enough. Here he also studies - the main thesis of this volume - “the struggle (which can be traced back to at least five thousand years ago) between civilization-State and democratic civilization, the latter consisting of pre-State agricultural and village communities. All ideological, military, political and economic relations, all conflicts and struggles, take place under these two main systems of civilization”. Now, “the system of statist society, built on the basis of the intertwined formation of classes, cities and states, has multiplied up to the financial phase, the last phase of capitalism, which is based mainly on the exploitation and oppression of farming communities and villages and, later, of urban workers. The continued existence of the statist civilization for five thousand years in spite of the democratic civilization is essentially possible due to its ideological hegemony. Systems based on coercion and tyranny can only succeed if they have ideological hegemony. Therefore, the main conflict takes place not only at the level of class division, but also at the level of civilization”.
It is from these assumptions that derives the programmatic reconversion that Öcalan has impressed on the Kurdish national liberation movement since the 1990s, transforming it into a project of “democratic autonomy”. Öcalan states that the three evils of contemporary civilization are nation-states, capitalism and patriarchy and all together constitute what he calls “capitalist modernity”. The aim of “democratic autonomy”, instead, is to recreate a political and moral society that has been destroyed by capitalist modernity. What happened in Rojava, in Kurdish Syria, gives us an idea of what decolonized democratic autonomy can be and a measure of the power of that idea.
Let’s observe this premise well: it is a declaration of theoretical war against - it is still Öcalan who speaks - “the primitive nationalism that aspires to a nation-state”. Let’s observe the revolutionary power of this affirmation, both in the world of ideas as well as in the sphere of politics. Let's look at it in an era in which left and right tend to be confused in sovereign, nationalist and reactionary ideologies. But Öcalan insists: his rejection of nationalist sovereignty is also specifically directed against any traditional left-wing movement that adheres to these concepts and therefore “to the stupid ideologies on which the western capitalist system is based”. Öcalan’s position reminds us of the struggles that the autonomous movements in the second half of the last century supported against those “third worldist” positions that (especially in the anti-colonial movements) in the name of national unity, forgot all connotations of class, thus delivering themselves up to being neutralized and tampered with by the capitalist command! This theoretical war is therefore developing with great consistency, identifying in the Kurdish people - this “nation that is not a nation” - a true example of an engine of struggle against the “capitalist modernity”, that is against capital and every sovereign conception of the nation. “The great majority (of this people), which aspires to a life in freedom, will find their own vanguards to realize this desire. This majority has both the strength to leave the medieval way of life behind and the strength to flee from the nation-state ideal offered by the system and considered a power by capitalist modernity - a system that has not provided any other people with the possibility of living in freedom. Given the historical, geographical and hereditary peculiarities of Kurdistan and the Kurds, democratic confederalism is the most suitable political form. This form of administration also offers the best chance of achieving the ideals of equality and freedom. It is on this model of community, in the political form of the “democratic confederation”, that Kurdistan and the Middle East can be rebuilt.
It is not enough to admire the formidable “last-ditch effort” of the perception of a Geist of the performative history of a community, of a democratic confederation, that this man, undisputed leader of a community of free people, scattered throughout the world, has been able to imprint on a struggle for national liberation, transforming it into a completely new and powerful figure of proletarian internationalism. Other leaders of national liberation processes and decolonization projects, such as Aimé Césaire and Leopold Senghor, had refused to accept the doxa that self-determination requires a sovereign state. But these authors and leaders have not kept their promise. The strength of Öcalan and his people in moving towards the “democratic confederation” has been successful to date.
Öcalan defends the right to utopia and testifies that every revolutionary can only do so. Let us not be moved, however, by this enlightened option. Öcalan’s utopia - as we soon discovered - is extremely concrete: it is embodied in the struggles and the order of the zones liberated by the Kurdish communist militias! A real utopia, that is what Öcalan supports, a precious gem that strongly opposes the rebirth, so common today, of national-fascisms. The utopia of the democratic confederation of peoples embodies a real process that will win every battle.
Öcalan is a prisoner who is becoming mythical, as was the case with Mandela in the twentieth century, so it’s his case in the twenty-first. He expresses a series of concepts that in the 21st century are increasingly becoming the building blocks for the political construction of a new world.
Sunday, 17 Dec 2023
Italian philosopher and political theorist Antonio (Toni) Negri, died in Paris at the age of 90.
A friend of the Kurdish people, and an avid reader of Abdullah Öcalan's books, Antonio Negri defined the Kurdish leader an "Antonio Gramsci for his own country. An example for everyone."
As a tribute to Negri we publish the text he wrote after reading "The Age of Masked Gods and Disguised Kings".
The text is published in "Building Free Life. Dialogues with Öcalan"
In the message he wrote when he sent the text, Negri wrote: "I would really love to express directly to Öcalan my respect for him and the honour in introducing his writings."
It is extraordinary to read this book by Öcalan, a man in jail but still capable of developing a thought that destroys all closure, a political leader who - under impossible conditions - continues to produce and renew an ethical and civil teaching for his people. An Antonio Gramsci for his own country. An example for everyone.
In this book, Öcalan discusses the origins of civilization and the dualism (class and civilization) that has characterized our civil life since the beginning of history: on the one hand, the state and, on the other, the community. What is being uncovered by him in anthropological and ethnological terms, of the history of Indo-Aryan languages and the social structures of the Fertile Crescent and subsequently of the development of civilized society is really a great metaphor, a paradigm that anticipates the figures of capitalist society. In these pages - he tells us - “I first investigated how the ground was prepared for the rise of “capitalist modernity” and I showed how false is the claim of capitalism to present itself as a definitive final system” - otherwise said, how false the claim is that capitalism represents the “end of history”. This imperial fairy tale, circulated after the end of the Cold War, represented the capitalist hope of a stable and permanent status quo, in which the hegemony of the capitalist elites was definitive and their accumulation of wealth finally guaranteed. Öcalan mocks this hope and shows how it is not only false in itself but harmful to every regime of truth, to every honest possibility of telling the truth. The latter consists in being part of the transformation of history and the struggles that determine it: only in this way can truth be grasped in its relativity and affirmed in its absoluteness. But that's not enough. Here he also studies - the main thesis of this volume - “the struggle (which can be traced back to at least five thousand years ago) between civilization-State and democratic civilization, the latter consisting of pre-State agricultural and village communities. All ideological, military, political and economic relations, all conflicts and struggles, take place under these two main systems of civilization”. Now, “the system of statist society, built on the basis of the intertwined formation of classes, cities and states, has multiplied up to the financial phase, the last phase of capitalism, which is based mainly on the exploitation and oppression of farming communities and villages and, later, of urban workers. The continued existence of the statist civilization for five thousand years in spite of the democratic civilization is essentially possible due to its ideological hegemony. Systems based on coercion and tyranny can only succeed if they have ideological hegemony. Therefore, the main conflict takes place not only at the level of class division, but also at the level of civilization”.
It is from these assumptions that derives the programmatic reconversion that Öcalan has impressed on the Kurdish national liberation movement since the 1990s, transforming it into a project of “democratic autonomy”. Öcalan states that the three evils of contemporary civilization are nation-states, capitalism and patriarchy and all together constitute what he calls “capitalist modernity”. The aim of “democratic autonomy”, instead, is to recreate a political and moral society that has been destroyed by capitalist modernity. What happened in Rojava, in Kurdish Syria, gives us an idea of what decolonized democratic autonomy can be and a measure of the power of that idea.
Let’s observe this premise well: it is a declaration of theoretical war against - it is still Öcalan who speaks - “the primitive nationalism that aspires to a nation-state”. Let’s observe the revolutionary power of this affirmation, both in the world of ideas as well as in the sphere of politics. Let's look at it in an era in which left and right tend to be confused in sovereign, nationalist and reactionary ideologies. But Öcalan insists: his rejection of nationalist sovereignty is also specifically directed against any traditional left-wing movement that adheres to these concepts and therefore “to the stupid ideologies on which the western capitalist system is based”. Öcalan’s position reminds us of the struggles that the autonomous movements in the second half of the last century supported against those “third worldist” positions that (especially in the anti-colonial movements) in the name of national unity, forgot all connotations of class, thus delivering themselves up to being neutralized and tampered with by the capitalist command! This theoretical war is therefore developing with great consistency, identifying in the Kurdish people - this “nation that is not a nation” - a true example of an engine of struggle against the “capitalist modernity”, that is against capital and every sovereign conception of the nation. “The great majority (of this people), which aspires to a life in freedom, will find their own vanguards to realize this desire. This majority has both the strength to leave the medieval way of life behind and the strength to flee from the nation-state ideal offered by the system and considered a power by capitalist modernity - a system that has not provided any other people with the possibility of living in freedom. Given the historical, geographical and hereditary peculiarities of Kurdistan and the Kurds, democratic confederalism is the most suitable political form. This form of administration also offers the best chance of achieving the ideals of equality and freedom. It is on this model of community, in the political form of the “democratic confederation”, that Kurdistan and the Middle East can be rebuilt.
It is not enough to admire the formidable “last-ditch effort” of the perception of a Geist of the performative history of a community, of a democratic confederation, that this man, undisputed leader of a community of free people, scattered throughout the world, has been able to imprint on a struggle for national liberation, transforming it into a completely new and powerful figure of proletarian internationalism. Other leaders of national liberation processes and decolonization projects, such as Aimé Césaire and Leopold Senghor, had refused to accept the doxa that self-determination requires a sovereign state. But these authors and leaders have not kept their promise. The strength of Öcalan and his people in moving towards the “democratic confederation” has been successful to date.
Öcalan defends the right to utopia and testifies that every revolutionary can only do so. Let us not be moved, however, by this enlightened option. Öcalan’s utopia - as we soon discovered - is extremely concrete: it is embodied in the struggles and the order of the zones liberated by the Kurdish communist militias! A real utopia, that is what Öcalan supports, a precious gem that strongly opposes the rebirth, so common today, of national-fascisms. The utopia of the democratic confederation of peoples embodies a real process that will win every battle.
Öcalan is a prisoner who is becoming mythical, as was the case with Mandela in the twentieth century, so it’s his case in the twenty-first. He expresses a series of concepts that in the 21st century are increasingly becoming the building blocks for the political construction of a new world.
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