Today's Topics:
1. blackrosefed: Turkey, KURDISH RESISTANCE AGAINST THE CURFEWS
IN BAKUR: AN OVERVIEW AND AN ANARCHIST MESSAGE From a comrade in
Turkey (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Alternative Libertaire CAL Grenoble - policy,
Against the state of emergency in Paris and Montpellier 17 in
Strasbourg December 19 by AL Alsace, AL Marseille, AL
Montpellier, AL Moselle, AL Nantes (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Alternative Libertaire AL - policy, Douai: shameless
butt-clamp on the railway (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #255 (Nov) - Education:
secular morality Genealogy (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
After the stalling of the peace process between the governing Justice and Development
Party (AKP) and the Kurdish freedom movement (in short, the KFM, which supports the legal
political party called the People’s Democratic Party [HDP]), a new phase of oppression
has begun through the imposition of draconian curfews. According to HDP Co-Chair Figen
Yuksekdag, the curfews have so far affected 1.3 million people, with 200,000 forcibly
displaced. Resistance against the curfews are emerging in Kurdish cities in Turkey (in the
region called Bakur in Kurdish). Anarchists and libertarian socialists should give global
support to this resistance. ---- The peace process was broken by the current President
Tayyip Erdoğan. The AKP quickly turned back to its conservative, nationalist and right
wing roots during the election cycle on the pretext of maintaining public order. This
means the use of security forces (mainly special police forces) to pacify the Kurdish
population in Turkey. It should be noted that the Kurdish side was also not happy with the
peace process due to the AKP’s disallowal of communication with their imprisoned leader,
Abdullah Öcalan, since January 2015. Much of the Kurdish side has maintained dismal
feelings from an additional unwillingness of the AKP to make any real reforms for the
collective rights of Kurds, as well as the AKP’s hatred of the Rojava insurgency and its
covert support of ISIS.
In this atmosphere, after the bombings of an HDP demonstration in Diyarbakır (known in
Kurdish as Amed), of anarchists and socialists in Suruç and, most recently, of the peace
demonstration held by different NGOs and trade unions in the middle of Turkey’s capitol
city Ankara — the peace process was completely stalled. In the context of these bombings,
in which hundreds of people were killed (not including the ongoing civil war between
Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) guerrillas and the army), the KFM started to declare
“self-governance” in many cities in Bakur in order to push the Turkish state to return to
the peace process. These “self-governments” are forming citizen solidarity committees to
help the sick, poor and disadvantaged, as well as to work on cultural and political
projects. Speaking objectively, behind their revolutionary rhetoric of refusing to accept
unjust state institutions, these are modest and practical attempts at a social solidarity
organizing that will remedy the evils and alienation caused by the state criminalization
and punishment of ethnic minorities. Most of these “self-governments” are in working class
neighbourhoods and are organised by residents themselves, who are already excluded from
most of state services. The municipalities, however, are held by HDP co-mayors (from the
Democratic Regions Party [DBP], the fraternal party to the HDP) who support the
declarations of self-government. In response, the State has currently arrested 20,
discharged 22 and is searching for six of the HDP and DBP co-mayors. Despite the arrest of
municipal co-mayors, the people have elected replacements (without the consent of the
state) and the municipalities continue to function extralegally in Bakur in a way that is
reminiscent of a dual power situation.*
Residents of the city of Silvan protest against Turkish military occupation and curfews.
The Turkish state’s fight against what it considers to be a terrorist population has now
taken a new form under these emerging conditions. From 1987 to 2002, the Turkish state
maintained a “state of emergency” and martial law (called OHAL — Olağanüstü Hâl Bölge
Valiliği) in all cities and provinces where the Kurdish freedom movement was strong. In
this way, the state burned thousands of villages and displaced hundreds of thousands of
people in the hopes of destroying the base of support for the Kurdish movement guerilla
forces. These policies resulted in a massive increase in the urban Kurdish population, who
are now very aware of the assimilationist policies of the Turkish state and its constant
threat of violence against all popular demands for democracy, equality and freedom. The
lifting of the state of emergency was one of the demands that the EU placed on Turkey for
its membership accession process, and its lifting was also a component of the peace
process. With the end of the peace process, the current AKP government is oppressing the
urbanized Kurdish population more precisely. The new model of oppression is based on
targeting “the problematic neighborhoods and towns” (which translates to the areas where
the KFM is strong) to destroy the established Kurdish solidarity and political
organizations. By this, the state aims to terrorize the rest of the Kurdish neighborhoods
and cities into abandoning their emotional and political ties with the Kurdish movement —
in hopes of later integrating them into the AKP’s Islamic capitalism project, all with the
help of reactionary and Islamist Kurdish organizations active in Bakur.
Against these attacks the Kurdish youth, especially those whose family members were
directly killed by the Turkish State or ISIS in Syria, have taken a stand to protect the
democratic autonomy project and the Kurdish population. Many people in cities and towns
began building barricades and digging trenches to counter the police raids. This resulted
in terrible clashes between unarmed youth and militarized police equipped with tanks in
city centers. The police have attacked civilians with automatic weapons, and used
artillery and helicopters to shell neighborhoods. After the elections of June 7th (in
which the AKP lost its majority in parliament thanks to the rise of the HDP), a total of
163 days of curfew were implemented in 6 cities and 17 towns. As of December 10th, 161
civilians were killed by the state during the curfews.** These curfews also have had a
terrible effect on women, children, the elderly and the sick. It has also caused many
people to migrate to other cities.
The streets of the historic central district of Sur, Diyarbakir, after a curfew by the
Turkish state.
The Kurdish freedom movement certainly has a complex past, which includes problematic
actions and a hierarchical structure. On the other hand, with their continuous fight
against the state, the Kurdish population developed a certain anti-statist notion and
feeling that is evident at the micro level in their daily interactions, civil rights
organizations and neighbourhood assemblies, as well as on the macro level with their
attempt at forming an autonomous administration in the Rojava cantons across the border in
Syria. This transformation is also expressed in the mass legal civil movement and extends
to the more hierarchical military side as well. At the most basic level, the Turkish
state’s attacks to kill the will of the Kurdish people is unacceptable in any humanist,
anarchist, or progressive terms. The practices of Rojava can be criticised, but the AKP
government continues to oppress the Kurdish people and continues to support ISIS.
Moreover, the mainstream media is making government propaganda by presenting the murdered
children and young teenagers as terrorists. In this way they ensure the silence and even
nationalistic applause of the Turkish population. The scarcity of information and neutral
witness accounts opens the way for more abuse by the state. Those abuses include
desecration of the dead: stripping murdered women nude, bombing guerilla cemeteries, and
dragging corpses behind armored police vehicles. On the parliamentary level there appears
to be no sign of a peace resolution on the horizon. The HDP is trying to stop the war but
in the current situation the AKP is against any sort of dialogue on the issue as appealing
to the to state-sponsored ideology of Turkish nationalism serves their interest and
empowers them in elections. In response, the Kurdish youth restate their willingness to
defend self-governance and democratic autonomy, as their relatives were killed in the past
by the state just as their comrades are now killed by ISIS.
On paper these curfews are just harmless bans on leaving the house and going out into
street, just as it was on national census days in the past. The the official fee for
breaking curfew is a couple of hundred Turkish Liras ($60 US), but every day Kurdish
youths are paying the price with their lives. People protesting or defending their streets
(nearly all of whom are not militants and definitely do not have guns) are met with lethal
force by police armed with tanks and artillery fire. Yesterday (December 14, 2015) two
Kurdish youths were killed in Diyarbakır again while protesting against the curfew in the
Sur district of Diyarbakır byl bullets from cops. Their names were Şiyar Salman and Şerdıl
Cengiz. The latter was a university student at Tunceli University (another Kurdish city
whose name was changed, the original name was Dersim). He came to Diyarbakır for the
DEM-GENC congress. (DEM-GENC is a congress of student and young societies connected to
Kurdish Freedom Movement.) His last Facebook post was:
“Politically, I am an anarchist. I hate states, laws and confinement. I can’t stand seeing
animals in cages. People must be free, just as love must.”***
Many of the youth killed were pursuing the same dreams as the people killed by ISIS in
Diyarbakir, Suruç and Ankara. This is the best representation of the people and their
struggle against the Turkish state that is trying to annihilate them both within its
borders and also in Rojava. Currently, the state has ordered teachers to leave the cities
of Cizre and Silopi to prepare for another wave of attacks against civilians: anyone
staying in the city will be considered as a terrorist target. Today thousands attended the
funeral of these two boys, Şiyar and Şerdıl, despite the curfew. Kurdish people won’t
forget their idealist youth who were murdered with police bullets just because they were
trying to prove that another world is possible, a world without the state and where every
living being can be free. It is now time for anarchists and libertarian socialists
globally to take a stance of solidarity with the Kurdish freedom movement and support
their demands for peace and self-governance for everyone everywhere.
An anarchist banner in Diyarbakir.
It is crucial for revolutionaries to engage with international struggles so that we can
strengthen a global movement of exploited classes against capital, the state, and
oppression. Black Rose militants have been working at their local level to organize
solidarity events and build Rojava solidarity coalitions, while gradually building
international political connections with the popular struggle. We encourage other
revolutionaries to organize local solidarity coalitions that can act together as a unified
political force.
http://www.blackrosefed.org/kurdish-resistance-against-the-curfews-in-bakur-an-overview-and-an-anarchist-message/
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Message: 2
Against the permanent state of emergency that gives carte blanche to the prefects and the
police to silence dissent, bow forces widens. After events in Marseille and Metz, a
unified call flows at national level, and meetings have already been announced in Paris
and Strasbourg. ---- The introduction of a state of emergency since the terrible attacks
of November 13 is not limited to the suppression of terrorism. He hits the social movement
through a series of ban on demonstrations, but also violations of freedom of assembly,
expression, movement ... ---- In defiance of the rule of law, arbitrary, administrative
and police sanctions are taken against activists of demonstrators or social movement
organizations, accompanied by intimidation.
In parallel stigma campaign was launched, as was found on November 29 instead of the
Republic in order to justify the use of these anti-terrorist measures against the social
movement as a whole.
Several hundred activists and demonstrators are not violent-were beaten, threatened,
insulted, spied on, arrested, prosecuted, house arrest and / or for some convicts. They
and they have nothing to or with the terrorists, but the prefects and police, enjoying
their new powers raged to silence protest throughout France.
A constitutional reform is announced for a job ease the state of emergency and thus
administrative sanctions, without judicial supervision, outside the rule of law.
Yet the penalties in cases of terrorism (night search, house arrest, ban on
demonstrations, dissolution of organizations ...), already exist in the law, but under
judicial control.
In the hands of authoritarian rule, the entrenchment of the state of emergency would be a
formidable weapon turned against democracy and social justice, and deprivation of
nationality would be a mass weapon to a racist policy.
Respect for the freedom to express, assemble and express themselves;
For the immediate lifting of the state of emergency, and against the permanent state of
exception;
Stay of proceedings against the demonstrators, activists of social movements, and against
the stigmatization of migrants and neighborhoods;
Abandonment of the entrenchment of the state of emergency and the deprivation of nationality;
Unit Meeting
December 17, 2015-19 hours
A working scholarship Paris
rue du Château d'Eau, subway Republic
A calling (first signatories): AC, ACORT, ADTF, AMF, APEIS, ATMF, ATTAC, CEDETIM, CFPE, 75
CGT, CNT RP, Col.! 3C, Col. disobedient, Col. 18th without voice COPAF, CRLDHT, CSP 75,
DAL, it Right, Social Ecology, FASTI, Women Equality, Copernicus Foundation, FTCR, FUIQP,
GISTI, Decreasing Climate Initiative, IPAM, MCTF, MRAP, Res. Left for a decolonial, Union
of Magistrates, SNES PJJ, Solidaire, students with Solidaires SUD Air, SUD PTT, out of
colonialism, Survival, UJFP, UTIT ...
With the support of: Alternative Libertaire, CGA, Togetherness, NPA, OFC, PG ...
In MONTPELLIER, is also December 17
Meeting to debate 19 hours
room Guillaume de Nogaret (space Pitot)
at the initiative of the General Assembly against the state of emergency
with the support of (first signatories): Alternative Libertaire, BDS 34, Red Block,
CCIPPP, CGA, CMF, Postal code, PG, Solidaires-Students ...
Buffet shared free price
IN STRASBOURG is December 19
Unit Meeting
Saturday, December 19 to 18 hours
Salle Saint-Louis
12, rue du Cygne, Strasbourg (Petite France)
At the call of G, LO, NPA, JC, collective Their wars our dead.
IN GRENOBLE, it was December 16
More than 200 people marched to the call for AL, NPA, OFC, CGT, Solidaires, LDH ... Three
protesters including two Solidaires trade unionists were arrested without reason by police.
At Nantes, it was December 12
Nearly 1,000 people gathered at the call of Nantes collective strength, with the
participation of Alternative Libertaire, NPA and others
In Marseille, it was December 12
300-400 people marched to the call for Alternative Libertaire, CNT-f, Collective George
Abdallah, CRI, Togetherness, FUIQP, Postal code, MSDE, OCML-VP, PG, Network for decolonial
left Palestine Solidarity Marseille .. .
In METZ was the Dec. 10
Serpenoise street rally "against the state of emergency and extreme right" attracted
several hundred people to the call of the CNT, the League of Human Rights, Basta, the NPA,
Alternative Libertaire, Boycott Divestment Sanction (BDS), French Jewish Union for Peace,
the Young Communist League.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Contre-l-etat-d-urgence-a-Paris-le
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Message: 3
A UMP politician lying on rails to defend the public service; PS and PCF officials who
take a drink with the MEDEF to encourage ... A surreal scene that has suffered from the
emergence of disturbing villains libertarians. ---- The libertarian communists are honest
defenders of public service, is well known. Although most honest, in any case, that
politicians PS, RS, Modem, or PCF who love to stage their valiant feats on the matter, as
soon as they govern, they do the opposite! ---- Saturday, December 12 took place a
beautiful tricolor gathering at the train station to protest against the suppression of
the judgment in Douai TGV Lille Nantes. ---- The catch is that this gathering was
organized by the elected Douaisis: PS, Republicans, Modem, Communists and ... Medef! To
defend the public service and of course users.
The former UMP mayor of Douai went up to lie on the rails in front of the TGV ... It was
not a surprise since the skit was announced in advance in the newspaper La Voix du Nord.
Following this masquerade, an aperitif was to be offered by the city outside the station.
JPEG - 235.8 kb
Medef, proud to slum it in a demo ...
Damien cc / AL Douai
JPEG - 273.1 kb
... well, in rather good company.
Damien cc / AL Douai
This small communication campaign could very well unfold. It was reckoning without the
eruption of naughty leftists who wanted to take a drink with the Medef. And shouted at the
fifty present: "It was you who screwed up the public service and now you cry. "
When elected officials began chanting "Defend our TGV" on the dock, was hammered in return
from the platform opposite: "The Medef in jail! "Some PCF elected were then overshadowed
on tiptoe (too late, we saw you) ...
Soon enough, 10 policemen came to identify disruptive, who nevertheless continued their
din. And called for the arrest of former UMP mayor to act blocking. If one of us had acted
as a clown, it was the guard in live view, not to mention the unfair trial against our
comrade Fouad Harjane on similar charges in 2006.
The state of emergency, apparently, it's not for everyone!
Eddy (AL Douai)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Douai-pince-fesses-ehonte-sur-la
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Message: 4
The Republican moral fact, since September 2015, the subject of education that extends to
the end of the CP. What libertarian look can I install it? ---- Secular morality education
is not new in itself: introduced in the 1880s, these courses only disappear in the late
1960s. ---- Therefore, it is interesting to consider that libertarian activists and trade
unionists have been able to write about it. We must remember that the anarchists were not
opposed to morality. Peter Kropotkin has devoted much of his work to reflect on moral
consistent with anarchism. He is also the author of a pamphlet entitled The Anarchist
Morality where, besides his naturalistic work on mutual aid within species, he mobilizes
the work of the philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau, author Sketch of a morality without
obligation or sanction. Thus Kropotkin wrote: "Be strong! Passionate and full of
intellectual energy and you déverseras on others your intelligence, your love, your
strength of action! This is what reduces all moral education, stripped of the hypocrisy of
Oriental asceticism. What humanity really admire in the moral man is his strength is the
exuberance of life, which led him to give his intelligence, his feelings, his actions,
asking nothing in return. "
Propaganda by deed
Sébastien Faure
Sébastien Faure, anarchist activist, founder, in the early twentieth century, an
alternative school, the Hive, written for his part: "The power of example - The largest
moralistic strength is the example. Evil is contagious; Good is too. The example of one
way affects almost all-powerful on the child, by reason of its malleability. "The moral
act can be inspired in others, especially in children, by example. Not with lessons that
we learn morality. The exemplary behavior of the teacher did more to morality than
speeches. This position joined that anarchists have called the "propaganda of the deed"
that can not be reduced to plant bombs. The "fact" means any type of action that
encourages others to adopt the anarchist ideal.
Albert Thierry
The teacher revolutionary and libertarian syndicalist, Albert Thierry, in his Reflections
on education goes to support a moral teaching: "I love the moral and I taught it with
complacency. [...] While it is good that grow day, these children perfect justice and
duty, how will they take it if they have not received the first concept? Moral neutrality:
it is immoral [...] And morality is the very space of revolt. "The ethics course is
perceived by Albert Thierry as a school time giving it the opportunity to advocate the
values that are those of the rebellious souls. In an article entitled "Direct action in
education", he adds: "Once I thought you had to make them men. But this task is far beyond
the power of a master. (All the better, too.) I consoled if I only did domestic criticism.
For example (there are others), trade union officials. [...] I like the moral: it contains
all life. And when I speak, I always let me interrupt. [...] I did not lie. I said simply:
this is what exists. But I said, it can change ". The moral lesson is not intended to
indoctrinate students. It is a time used to make students think the world around them.
This is to help the emergence of a critical social consciousness.
Today however, we can consider the teaching of moral and republican values as a
regimentation. But does this mean that advocate equality between men and women and the
fight against discrimination and racism are values that as libertarians we do not have to
defend? It would be surprising. Because one can assume that a libertarian communist
society presupposes the fight against social divisions of race and gender.
However, what appears questionable well in this defending the values of the republic is
that in no case are only the values of the republic: they are values of humanity. Indeed,
the French Republic does not have the monopole exemplary - far from it - feminism and
anti-racism. In all societies, there existed men and women who fought for emancipation. It
would probably have the French Republic ceases européanocentrisme chauvinism and about the
values of emancipation. Why suggest a student than to be on the side of emancipation, it
must acculturate and reject its geographical roots? From this point of view, it is
interesting to note that this is when the veil emerged affairs in the public space that
the notion of intercultural education has disappeared from the official text of Education.
General discourse on values
The teaching of ethics was conceived as a way to unite students around common values in
order to avoid social divisions. But that is a hypocrite project. Indeed, if social
divisions, it is naive and illusory to pretend hide by common values. It is the French
Republic itself every day flouts its own values by practicing spatial segregation in
neighborhoods where people are located concentrated immigrant origins and social
difficulties. It is also the French Republic that denies its own values when throne in
last place in OECD countries in academic reproduction of social inequality. If we really
want to fight against social divisions, we must tackle their material roots and not just
general discourse on values.
Finally, one can question the depth of moral lessons on racial and gendered discrimination
by teachers who in their everyday life have no commitment to feminism and anti-racism. How
to be convincing to the students, when one is outside his classroom listless face of
social injustices?
Irène (friend of AL)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Education-Genealogie-de-la-morale
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