6 minute read
LOOKING BEYOND THE STATE
by Eurovisie
Lara Kristjansdottir
However greatly varying contemporary debates seem to indicate change, progress or development, an overarching concern which will evidently never disappear from the heart of political affairs is the contested nature of the state body: how much power should be handed to the state, what role should it play and what relation it should have to the individual, which is considered a part of it, or situated outside it. Throughout the pandemic this everlasting topic has notably adopted arguments of how far the state should be authorized to go in curtailing the freedom of the individual, as well as what role it should take upon itself in mitigating consequential economic damages. Regardless of the precise claims these debates are structured around, it is clear that the discussions on the nature of the state is bound to be contested for a long time to come.
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Considering the vast and encompassing discourse surrounding the foothold right-winged governments have gained throughout Europe and the wider world, and not to mention the influence such developments have on the conceptualisation of the state, it is perhaps worthy to reflect on the nature of the political unit in a broader light. It remains the case that regardless of the immensity of the topic of ‘left or right’ understandings of the statist form, the dialogue still rarely opens up for considerations of viable alternatives for political organization. Indeed, we remain largely lacking in political repertoire to imagine a radical restructuring of the Westphalian system of sovereign states which was established as the foundation of the international order nearly four decades ago.
From the 17th century, the world became seen – from European imperial eyes - as an area made up of commanded spaces of states where authority would be placed in a representative unit enclosed within territorial borders. The independent establishment of a political community pronouncedly distinct from the nation-state would be rather difficult to conceptualise and we would probably question why such an entity would be formed, what political and ideological foundations such an entity would be based upon, and who would be considered members of it. The statist form comes with evident challenges, and its relation to territorial spaces and peoples is
undoubtedly and perhaps inevitably complex. It remains clear that not only is the mere co-existence of states in various regions around the world continuously being challenged, but that various ethnic groups suffer long-lasting subordination by state structures. In the Middle Eastern context, the history of the Kurdish people has been one of anti-colonial resistance and struggle for self-rule which persists to this day. The group of 35-40 million, the world’s largest body of stateless people, has since the First World War fought towards democratic self-rule through political and ideological means, to counter their peoples’ subordination by neighbouring states which are themselves outcomes of European colonialism.
The Rojava region of northern and north-eastern Syria has proved to be a notable exception to the widespread re-assertion of authoritarianism and ethno-sectarian conflict in the wider Middle Eastern space. Since it gained foothold in Rojava after the 2012 uprising, the primary political project of the Kurdish resistance movement, that of democratic confederalism, has been regarded as particularly progressive and successful in reinforcing recognition for the Kurdish struggles for liberation and self-determination.
A primary pillar of the ideological and political model of democratic confederalism is its presentation of a radical alternative to the subordination of Kurds and other suppressed people of the Middle East through the dismantling of the state structure, the patriarchy, the exploitation of capitalism and aftereffects of colonialism. The direct positioning of the project against the
territorial sovereignty of the nation-state intrinsically strives to ‘liberate’ Kurdistan and the Kurdish peoples through an ideology that dismisses hierarchies of ethnicities or nationalities. Such a stance was developed in stark contrast to the Turkish statist nationalism, the structures of which have suppressed the Kurdish freedom movement for over a century.
Democratic confederalism reinstates the ‘authentic’ social relations which have throughout time been significantly weakened by capitalistic development and which center mutual understanding and co-existence, through a voluntary social agreement between the various ethnicities, religions and nationalities that inhabit the space. The ideology ultimately considers the state form oppressive towards the society and works to deconstruct its hierarchically established institutions and frameworks and let localisation direct social relations and political organization by way of place-based instruments of self-governance.
Such an organization presents itself as a true form of democracy, as statist forms can vary in their in- or exclusivity of all ethnic, social and religious groups. However we may interpret values of democracy, progress or autonomy, it is apparent that the integral bases of socio-political organization can differ more than we might have imagined.
The moral and political philosophy of the spatial units that make up our world order differ greatly as well, a realisation which becomes far more pronounced when looking beyond ‘left and right’ considerations within the governmental state form. By constructing a system based on local self-administration, the autonomous region of Rojava has managed to centralise moral values of gender equality, ethnic and national pluralism and ecological protection in a way which might be unattainable within the state. We can confidently say that the society takes on a different shape as the state structure is unravelled and local communities and new guiding values are put at the forefront.
This is seen in Rojava’s insistence on the fundamental and active role played by women in the struggle for self-determination, as the construction of gender and statist hierarchies are thought of as historically at the core of injustices and the manyfold inequalities harming our world. Women are not only represented on all levels of political governance, but also constitute front-line combatants within military units, and intersectional feminist principles are not only sought to be accommodated, but to be centralised. The Rojavan model of feminism is then intrinsically different in operation from that of its neoliberal Western counterpart. This difference is notable, since the latter primarily sees the solution to women’s oppression as the removal of barriers or the creation of opportunities, while the Rojava movement’s structures actively seek to undermine all power dynamics with regard to gender, ethnicity, class, or the environment. Considering such contrasts, it becomes apparent that a radical reconfiguration of the political unit brings effects which extend to fundamental aspects of our very existence.
Although it is certainly difficult to predict whether the project of democratic confederalism will succeed as an alternative spatialisation and governance strategy, or whether it will manage to overcome patterns of authoritarianism, conflict and oppression, it certainly opens up new ways of conceptualising the nature of the Westphalian international system, and the state itself.
