r/Democra_Confederalism

Disclaimer: This is just my point of view and not in any way something to be taken on face value. I know people have different views on this.

I think we need to recognize the difference between co-optation and recognition. In the Maghreb/Tamazgha, only Morocco and Algeria have recognized Tamazight as an official language, Morocco in 2011 and Algeria in 2016. This did not come out of nowhere; it came through struggle and literally blood. Since independence, Amazigh activists and everyday people were jailed and tortured by these states, which feared a diverging identity that could fracture their attempts to homogenize society during the Cold War. That attempt was always impossible, given that regional identities in the Maghreb are inherently diverse.

Morocco and Algeria followed Arabism not out of genuine concern for West Asian or North African causes, but purely to preserve the newly independent state. The first thing the Moroccan state did after independence from France and Spain was to disarm the Amazigh and Arabized tribes from the Rif, the Atlas Mountains, and the Souss. In Algeria, tensions inside the FLN between pan-Arabists and local Amazigh officers from Kabylia persisted well after independence, as the state leaned heavily into Arabism.

Many states in the West Asian-North African region did this, whether monarchies or republics, because they needed legitimacy and a unified identity to rule. Tunisia was more successful at this due to its smaller number of self-identifying Amazigh people. Libya, at some point, would simply make you disappear if you challenged the state. These two countries did not have to concede to Amazigh demands because Morocco and Algeria are different, they have huge Amazigh populations. Arabist identity succeeded in countries like Jordan and Egypt, for example. In Jordan, the kingdom already had Arabized Circassian and Armenian populations in the cities and a dominant Arab Bedouin culture in the rural plains and deserts. Egypt is the same: the Siwa Amazigh, Nubians, and other minor ethnic groups are negligible in front of the dominant Arabized culture, from the Bedouins of Sinai to the fishermen and farmers of the Nile, and the Coptic and Egyptian Arab-speaking intelligentsia in the cities.

Historically, the countries we call today Algeria or Morocco were never centralized nation-states, but rather autonomous tribal confederations, federations, and nomadic tribes who traded, grew agriculture, and herded sheep. The central great cities, in Morocco's case, what we call the Imperial cities, were the trade hubs and places where the central state would organize its political power. The main purpose of this central state was to defend against foreign armies and protect trading routes passing through tribal lands from bandits, in exchange for swearing loyalty and paying taxes.

This brings me to the Arab Spring. After 2011, the Algerian and Moroccan governments realized they could no longer create a homogeneous national identity. Their increasing alignment with Western interests, given the West's dominant position following the Cold War, brought them into a contradiction: their people had become very anti-imperialist and in touch with international movements that threatened the states' own interests and power within this world order.

So, they started co-opting the already rich and existing movements for Tamazight and Amazigh identity. Morocco began sponsoring Amazigh cultural events; Algeria did the same. Over time, they desperately started to identify Amazighism with the state. For example, in Morocco, which has always been pro-Westernn, you will often hear people from a new Moroccan Irredentist movement that you need to align with the state because it is the one that protects Amazigh culture. If you do not, you are labeled an Islamist or pro-Hezbollah and pro-Palestine. They argue that if you do not support the current relationship with the Israeli state, you must be Nasserist or Islamist. They are desperately trying to co-opt a new Amazigh culture instead of recognizing the already existing one. They are trying to convince us that Amazigh culture is Zionist, capitalist, monarchist, or pro-military junta, depending on the country, and that it is tied to the leader and his worldview.

This is why I consider it co-optation rather than recognition. Some of the most neglected areas in Morocco and Algeria are Amazigh. In Morocco, there are still people suffering from the 2023 earthquake, while some rich Moroccan nationalist is happy that a Moroccan football player in the national team has Tifinagh script on his socks. We have Tifinagh everywhere, but what about the people who speak Tamazight? Who identify as Amazigh? Aren't they as important? Recognition and co-optation are different words.

Liberation comes from the individual and the masses liberating themselves in a coalition of progressive liberatory forces not from a savior or a state.

One of the most important innovations in the thought of Abdullah Ocalan and the Kurdish movement compared to previous currents of socialism is the centrality of the gender question and the liberation of women. It argues that human sociability and culture emerged around the leadership of the women, acting as a moral force that brought society together in the form of what we today call the "commune".

The start of the problem is then traced back to violent usurpation of the role of the women by groups of men who slaved women, children and the rest society and created a hierarchical caste system of male domination. This is what then allowed for the emergence of class division in society and lead to the creation of the state civilization and, eventually, capitalism as its latest form.

The liberation of women therefore is not a "secondary contradiction" to be resolved after the revolution, but the fundamental condition for the establishment of socialism. In other words, only with the liberation of women and the overcoming of sexism can a communal and socialist culture emerge. As long as this is not addressed, any attempts at establishing socialism will carry inside themselves the seed of oppression known as the "male-dominant mentality" which will seek to impose itself over society by reproducing the structures of the state and capitalism.

Even if there can be many differences of opinion among them, I believe this is one point that current socialist movements must agree on if they want to succeed. I would be interested to know what others think about it.

Also, this is another article that compiles some of Ocalan's recent writings about this topic for those interested: https://www.revistalegerin.com/post/women-commune-and-the-new-socialism

Palantir is a global threat to all people of this world.

AI and security contractor companies should be regarded with the same animosty and lens we view the Imperialist, Reactionary and counter-revolutionary powers of global capitalism.

A lot of people tend to forget that Palantir is not an american problem but a global people's problem.

We already see Despotic states in the middle east use Israeli spy software like Pegasus on dissidents as a treat for normalization of relations with that state.

A lot of Monsters are salivating at this prospect.

Organize worldwide!