Sociology of Freedom

Abdullah Öcalan, Havin Guneser

Description

When scientific socialism, which for many years was implemented by Abdullah Öcalan and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), became too narrow for his purposes, Öcalan deftly answered the call for a radical redefinition of the social sciences. Writing from his solitary cell in İmralı Prison, Öcalan offered a new and astute analysis of what is happening to the Kurdish people, the Kurdish freedom movement, and future prospects for humanity.

The Sociology of Freedom is the fascinating third volume of a five-volume work titled The Manifesto of the Democratic Civilization. The general aim of the two earlier volumes was to clarify what power and capitalist modernity entailed. Here, Öcalan presents his stunningly original thesis of the democratic civilization, based on his criticism of capitalist modernity.

Ambitious in scope and encyclopedic in execution, The Sociology of Freedom is a one-of-a-kind exploration that reveals the remarkable range of one of the Left’s most original thinkers with topics such as existence and freedom, nature and philosophy, anarchism and ecology. Öcalan goes back to the origins of human culture to present a penetrating reinterpretation of the basic problems facing the twenty-first century and an examination of their solutions. Öcalan convincingly argues that industrialism, capitalism, and the nation-state cannot be conquered within the narrow confines of a socialist context.

Recognizing the need for more than just a critique, Öcalan has advanced what is the most radical, far-reaching definition of democracy today and argues that a democratic civilization, as an alternative system, already exists but systemic power and knowledge structures, along with a perverse sectarianism, do not allow it to be seen.

The Sociology of Freedom is a truly monumental work that gives profuse evidence of Öcalan’s position as one of the most influential thinkers of our day. It deserves the careful attention of anyone seriously interested in constructive thought or the future of the Left.

Sujets

• Fatty Joins the Force
• Civil society
• Guérilla (homonymie)

Informations

• Publié par: PM Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781629637730
• Langue: English

Extrait

calan s works make many intellectuals uncomfortable, because they represent a form of thought that is not only inextricable from action but also directly grapples with the knowledge that it is.
-David Graeber, author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Melville House 2011)
calan s writings, written in captivity, are in the tradition of the ideology of the PKK, a left national liberation movement that seeks to change its own society. However, calan, apparently also one of those whose political thinking has been sharpened by the forced abstinence from daily politics, has succeeded in further developing his political thought in captivity.
-Thomas Schmidinger, author of The Battle for the Mountain of the Kurds (PM Press 2019)
calan s plea to build a strong and complex self-organized civil society without taking direct action against the state is similar to Zapatismo in Chiapas . Finally, this calls to mind Karl Marx s realization: An idea becomes material violence when it seizes the masses. And Abdullah calan s message has seized the masses in Kurdistan.
-Nikolaus Brauns, historian and journalist, author of Partisanen einer neuen Welt (Buchmacherei 2018)
Where else would you expect to find a world-class political genius than prison? And I don t use the word genius lightly.
-Peter Lamborn Wilson, author of Ploughing the Clouds (City Lights 2001) and Sacred Drift (City Lights 2001)
calan is the Gramsci of our time.
-Tamir Bar-On, author of The World through Soccer (Rowman Littlefield 2014) and Beyond Soccer (Rowman Littlefield 2017)

In ancient Greek philosophy, kairos signifies the right time or the moment of transition. We believe that we live in such a transitional period. The most important task of social science in time of transformation is to transform itself into a force of liberation. Kairos, an editorial imprint of the Anthropology and Social Change department housed in the California Institute of Integral Studies, publishes groundbreaking works in critical social sciences, including anthropology, sociology, geography, theory of education, political ecology, political theory, and history.
Series editor: Andrej Gruba i
Recent and featured Kairos books:
Building Free Life: Dialogues with calan edited by International Initiative
Practical Utopia: Strategies for a Desirable Society by Michael Albert
In, Against, and Beyond Capitalism: The San Francisco Lectures by John Holloway
Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism edited by Jason W. Moore
We Are the Crisis of Capital: A John Holloway Reader by John Holloway
Archive That, Comrade! Left Legacies and the Counter Culture of Remembrance by Phil Cohen
Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons by Silvia Federici
Autonomy Is in Our Hearts: Zapatista Autonomous Government through the Lens of the Tsotsil Language by Dylan Eldredge Fitzwater
The Battle for the Mountain of the Kurds: Self-Determination and Ethnic Cleansing in the Afrin Region of Rojava by Thomas Schmidinger
Beyond the Periphery of the Skin: Rethinking, Remaking, and Reclaiming the Body in Contemporary Capitalism by Silvia Federici
For more information visit www.pmpress.org/blog/kairos/

The Sociology of Freedom: Manifesto of the Democratic Civilization, Volume III
Abdullah calan
2020 PM Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-62963-710-5 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-62963-765-5 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-1-62963-773-0 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019933020
Cover Image: Perperik by Ercan Altunta , oil and natural colors on canvas, 60 80 cm
Cover by John Yates / www.stealworks.com
Interior design by briandesign
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PM Press
PO Box 23912
Oakland, CA 94623
www.pmpress.org
Printed in the USA.
Published with International Initiative Edition
International Initiative
Freedom for Abdullah calan - Peace in Kurdistan
P.O. Box 100 511
D-50445 Cologne
Germany
www.freeocalan.org
Original title: zg rl k Sosyolojisi
First published in 2009 by Mezopotamien Verlag, Neuss
Translation by Havin Guneser
Contents
FOREWORD
ONE
Preface
TWO
Introduction
THREE
Some Problems of Methodology
FOUR
The Question of Freedom
FIVE
The Power of Social Reason
SIX
The Emergence of the Social Problem
Defining the Problem of Historical-Society
The First Major Problematic Stage of the Monopoly of Civilization
From Rome to Amsterdam
Eurocentric Civilization s Hegemonic Rule
Social Problems
The Problem of Power and the State
Society s Moral and Political Problem
Society s Mentality Problem
Society s Economic Problem
Society s Industrialism Problem
Society s Ecological Problem
Social Sexism, the Family, Women, and the Population Problem
Society s Urbanization Problem
Society s Class and Bureaucracy Problem
Society s Education and Health Problems
Society s Militarism Problem
Society s Peace and Democracy Problem
SEVEN
Envisaging the System of Democratic Civilization
Definition of Democratic Civilization
The Methodological Approach to Democratic Civilization
A Draft of the History of Democratic Civilization
Elements of Democratic Civilization
Clans
The Family
Tribes and A irets
Peoples and Nations
Village and City
Mentality and Economy
Democratic Politics and Self-Defense
EIGHT
Democratic Modernity versus Capitalist Modernity
Deconstructing Capitalism and Modernity
The Industrialism Dimension of Modernity and Democratic Modernity
The Nation-State, Modernity, and Democratic Confederalism
Jewish Ideology, Capitalism, and Modernity
The Dimensions of Democratic Modernity
The Dimension of Moral and Political Society (Democratic Society)
The Dimension of Eco-Industrial Society
The Dimension of Democratic Confederalist Society
NINE
The Reconstruction Problems of Democratic Modernity
Civilization, Modernity, and the Problem of Crisis
The State of Anti-System Forces
The Legacy of Real Socialism
Reevaluating Anarchism
Feminism: Rebellion of the Oldest Colony
Ecology: The Rebellion of the Environment
Cultural Movements: Tradition s Revenge on the Nation-State
Ethnicity and Movements of the Democratic Nation
Religious Cultural Movements: Revival of Religious Tradition
Urban, Local, and Regional Movements for Autonomy
TEN
The Tasks in Rebuilding Democratic Modernity
Intellectual Tasks
Moral Tasks
Political Tasks
ELEVEN
Conclusion
NOTES
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
PUBLICATIONS BY ABDULLAH CALAN IN ENGLISH
Foreword
John Holloway
It is a great honor to be asked to write this foreword. 1 I do it with pride, for who the author is and for the movement he represents. I do it to express my support for him in his struggle against a terrible imprisonment and my support for the struggles of the people of Kurdistan in their attempt to create a different world, a different way of living, in the midst of the most terrible violence. I do it to protest against the brutality of the Turkish state and of all the other complicit states.
The book was written by Abdullah calan in prison. Arrested illegally in Kenya by NATO forces in 1999, he has been incarcerated since then on the prison island of mral . For much of that time he has been held in total isolation and frequently punished by having his books and pen and paper removed, in breach of basic rights stipulated in the Geneva Convention. In spite of this, he has succeeded in writing five volumes explaining his political ideas, volumes to be presented in his defense at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The present book is the third volume, written in prison in 2008 and published here in English for the first time. Through all these years of imprisonment, calan s ideas have been a major source of inspiration for the Kurdish movement in its struggles, centered on the province of Rojava in northeastern Syria, to create a different way of living, a form of social organization that they call democratic modernity.
The danger in writing a foreword to a book written by such a towering figure is that one sanctifies him, saying simply how wonderful! thus contributing to the formation of a personality cult that is undoubtedly present in the movement itself. This is very clearly not what calan wants. At several points in the text he makes clear that for him this is part of a dialogue, and that he is looking for reactions to his ideas.
When I started reading the book, I was clear that I wanted to express my support but not at all sure that I would be convinced by the book itself. This initial attitude then gradually fell away and turned into a very different reading, one in which I was absorbed by the force of the argument. I say gradually, because, coming from Europe and Latin America, it took me a while to adjust to a different frame of reference and become engaged in an argument that is not about a world over there but critically and crucially about my world, our world-about our world and the possibility that we can still pull the emergency brake on the train of destruction and create something different.
calan s book is an important contribution to the dialogue of hope, a