This year, between the 3rd and 5th of November, we as Liberación had the opportunity to participate in a conference which we can characterize as historical. The first International Youth Conference gathered over 400 people from 95 organizations, movements and parties, representing 45 countries from all over the world. It was an opportunity to meet, gather and coexist, where we discussed, breathed, ate and danced our struggles. Where strategic and critical discussion bloomed; where we had the chance to learn from the current and historical trajectory of dozens of movements and peoples, each adding to our understanding of the world-system where our struggles take place.
Those familiar with history may find this experience echoing along the halls of a not-so-distant past. It shares its notes and rhythms with a similar instance from nearly 60 years ago; we are, of course, talking about the Tricontinental, which took place in 1966. In fact, the relationship between these two moments materializes in the declaration of principles shared on November 5th in Paris, where we put forth our broad agreements to fight against capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism. The youth of today inherit the legacy of 1966. If the Tricontinental kick-started a period of collaboration in struggles across the world, then the International Youth Conference shares this same goal: to join our struggles in a tune that makes us all stronger. Indeed, the conference allowed for the confluence of a large part of the struggles that are currently taking place all over the world, giving us the opportunity to create alliances at the global, regional and local levels.
In this context, we hope to humbly add to the discussion with the most important lessons we took from the conference.
I. A sun over the mountains
The dawn of the conference is heralded by the sun rising from behind the mountains of Kurdistan, ancestral land of the Kurdish people, currently fractured by those scars in the earth that we call borders and split along four states: Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. In all of these states, the Kurdish people are ethnically and religiously minoritized. The discrimination and persecution that they face varies by the state imposing its cultural hegemony on the land, but without a doubt the one that most violently persecutes the Kurdish people is the Turkish state.
The development of the Turkish repressive apparatus, a bloody orchestra for which president Erdogan (founder and head of the Party for Justice and Development (AKP), which rules together with the Party for Nationalist Action (MHP)) carries the conductor’s baton, is the living example of militarization and fascism acting in service of the delirious desire to restore the Ottoman Empire; it incessantly persecutes, imprisons, murders and exiles the rebellious seeds that grow and pollinate across its territory. In Turkey, the Kurdish movement counts tens of thousands of political prisoners, among which is Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) and the pen behind many of the revolutionary ideas of the current Kurdish movement. All these prisoners are subject to brutal carceral regimes. In particular, Öcalan has been in total isolation for nearly three years.
Under this cloud of oppression, a ray of light bearing the warmth of hope shines through: a movement promising a new world. The Kurdish movement proposes a project that breaks with the tradition of national liberation, because it no longer views the custody of a state linked to ethnicity as necessary; instead, the Kurdish movement builds towards the development of a liberated land, where different cultural traditions coexist under the banners of cooperation, mutual aid and assemblyism – this configuration is called Democratic Confederalism. Additionally, the anti-patriarchal struggle takes on an important role in this project, under the theory called jineologie – the science of women. For the Kurdish revolutionary project, the liberation of the people in unimaginable without the liberation of women[1]. In a region where the patriarchy finds some of its crudest expressions, this is doubtlessly a remarkable theoretical and practical development from which there is much to be learned.
This is the sun that rises from behind the mountains of Qandil.
II. A new moon on the global horizon
The crisis of capitalism roars like the waves that tumble along the ocean on a dark night. The rupture of the United States’ unipolar hegemony grows and grows every evening, creating conflicts that stain beaches red with blood in regions of economic and military interest for emerging and dwindling world powers. Here, we’ll allow ourselves to borrow an expression from our Zapatista siblings: the capitalist hydra is rearing its heads in many different corners of the world.
We can see how the composition of our struggles rhyme. We are peoples who rise up against the interests of capitalism, which seeks to extract everything that creates life, and the states that dominate us are growing their military capacity to suffocate our resistance. We see that the state of exception in Wallmapu has been going on for over two years to try to stop the tide of Mapuche liberation that is reclaiming ancestral lands from the hands of lumbar companies; we see how Filipino liberation forces now face not only a state absolutely controlled by the United States, but also the growing extractive and military interests that China has in the Southeast Pacific region; we see the deadly symbiosis of the Zionist project and the arms industry’s profits.
We see how, across the globe and in similar ways, we are systematically incarcerated, killed or disappeared for facing the capitalist beast and the different [super]powers that vie for the honor of being its favorite executioner. We see how, despite how loudly the capitalist hydra echoes on the waves, expressions of resistance and struggle grow and bloom.
The crisis pulses like a heartbeat, and the light of a new moon shines on the faraway horizon.
III. The constellations of Abya Yala
In the dark of the night, the Milky Way lights sky above the peoples of Abya Yala. If the new moon shows us how the struggles of the world rhyme, well, in Abya Yala we are doing much more than just rhyming.
Our enemies have the same skeleton. Their spinal chord is, of course, global capital, backed primarily by the United States but with growing interest from other superpowers (“Greetings to the ‘Lithium triangle’” – from China with love!). What protects the vital organs is the ribcage – a series of governments (generally alternating cosmetically between a fascistic right and a “progressive” “left”) that have maintained their repressive policies in crescendo and their economic policies a carte blanche for the powers of the spinal cord. Lastly, the twenty-seven bones of the hand are stronger or weaker, more or less articulated, depending on the territory, but they correspond to narco forces, which simultaneously work with and dispute the power of the governments of the ribcage. This hand strikes heavy blows against our movements, disputing terrain both physically and at the consciousness level.
So, our enemies share a skeleton, but we share our stars – and they shine like suns in their own right. We’ve seen some of the same key patterns of resistance repeated across different peoples. Strong and exemplary anti-patriarchal movements have grown in Abya Yala in the past few years, which have transformed social consciousness and, in many cases, won important victories. We also see many focal points of intense and often very advanced struggles against extractivism, primarily on the part of indigenous peoples in the region, which use similar forms of self-organization, direct action and sabotage.
In Abya Yala, there are many stars that light the sky tonight.
Conclusions, or the sounds of the sky
In this conference, we learned about the sun, the moon and the stars, and now the wind that dances in the night carries the far-away sound of a roar. As it nears, we take the opportunity to listen attentively to the whispers of these celestial bodies:
- Stars shine brighter when they shine together. If our enemies and our struggles share so many core traits in the different territories of Abya Yala, then we must urgently understand our struggles as sibling-struggles. Furthermore, we must create this siblinghood through a practice of greater articulation and synchronicity.
- We cannot ignore the sun, especially as it promises and advances so much. Thus, it seems necessary to consider the Kurdish movement as a strategic ally to the sibling-struggles of Abya Yala, and to keep acting in solidarity, learning from and keeping in contact with it.
[1] The Kurdish movement’s anti-patriachal politics are specifically focused on the liberation of women, with no mention of expressions of gender and sexuality outside cisheteronormative confines. We permit ourselves to note that, as Liberación, we find it difficult to conceptualize an anti-patriachal struggle that does not include these non-cisheteronormative expressions in a central capacity.
Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan and all the political prisoners of the world!
From the Andes to Qandil, peoples’ struggles advance!
Autonomy and land!
☆ LIBERACIÓN ☆
November 2023
