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On Wednesday, 4 January 2017, Chris Slee via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > > > > http://kurdishquestion.com/article/3759-rojava-or-northern-syria > > > On 27 December in the town of Rmeilan (Rimelan), the Northern Syria > Constituent Assembly voted to remove "Rojava," meaning "Western" > (Kurdistan), from the name of the federal system; initially named the > "Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria-Rojava" and now called the > "Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria". > > > The aim is to make it clear that the democratic federal system is not just > for Kurds but for all Syria's ethnicities. > > > Chris Slee > I posted this on Facebook with the following comment. Maybe I need to add here that finding anything of positive value or interest in what the PKK current and allies do doesn't mean uncritically endorsing everything they do. A multi-ethnic, non-sectarian effort within a Balkanising, disintegrating Syria. It also brings up complicated questions of national and cultural identity within a radical project. The strategy as Phil Hearse has pointed out http://links.org.au/kurdistan-workers-party-pkk-analysis-hearse-parker-de-jong appears to have more to do with the "cultural-national autonomy" ideas of Otto Bauer and the Austro-Marxists than with communitarian anarchism of Murray Bookchin that are cited as the basis of "democratic confederalism". I don't think the point is whether these ideas as theories or strategy are in some abstract or overall sense "better" than more orthodox Marxist ideas that accept self-determination as a right for oppressed nations but are rather negative about promoting cultural and national identity (for one thing John Ridell has argued http://links.org.au/node/208 that the Bolsheviks in power went a bit Austrian in practice). I think the point is these ideas might be relevant to the concrete situation in the Middle East. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
