Is PYD Collaborating with Imperialism ? by Ridvan Turan

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr is aware of confusion about the relationship of PYD - PKK to Imperialism and our comrade Nickglais has published the Maoist Rebel News Views on his Democracy and Class Struggle site which stresses the collaboration but he has also published material which shows contention.

This article from Turkey throws more light on the contention and collaboration question..

The following piece – “PYD emperyalizmle işbirliği mi yapıyor?” -was written by Rıdvan Turan, the General Secretary of the Socialist Democratic Party (SDP) in Turkey, and confronts allegations made by some on the left that the PYD is ‘collaborating’ with imperialism. 

It originally appeared in Özgür Gündem and has been translated into English below.  

The US airstrikes on ISIS positions around Kobanê and the subsequent delivery of weapons to the PYD has caused a fictitious debate within the left around the question of imperialism.

The debate is revolving around whether or not accepting weapons from the United States is the same as collaborating with imperialism.

I am of the opinion that this thesis’ approach to imperialism is counter to Marxist-Leninism insomuch that ignores any manner of engagement with existing praxis and the current conjuncture of class forces.

But the basis of this question also has a dimension that is related to the way Kurdish resistances have been approached historically.

It is no secret that among those who make this criticism there is tendency to view the processes around Kurdish nation-building and the struggles in this direction as collaboration with imperialism from a denialism inspired by Kemalism.

The directives from the Comintern to support the Kemalist regime against the Kurdish rebellions, which were proclaimed to be ‘backwards’ and ‘feudal,’ are well known, as is what the Turkish Communist Party actually did around this question.

There are some, both then and now, who have already sized up everyone by employing their “god given” anti-imperialism rubric and who have long since sacrificed the right of self-determination to national chauvinism. They have an easy time proclaiming the Kurds to be collaborating with imperialism while not seeing their own state’s collaboration with imperialism.

It carries no value that the PKK has for years avoided coming to resemble the KDP, but their acceptance of the delivery of weapons from the United States under the shadow of massacre is collaboration.

This rote recitation of the same discourse does not change despite the fact that the characteristics of the system in Kobanê have been determined by a leftist paradigm, and the Kurds remain unable get out from under the accusation of collaboration.

What kind of abandonment of reason is this that instead of seeing the success of the Kobanê resistance as a step forward for the revolutionary center forming in the Middle East and of supporting the resistance they joyfulling shout out “look you see – they are collaborating with imperialism”?

Is it not necessary that one choke on one’s own words when claiming that the PYD is collaborating with imperialism while a people resist – man, woman and child – face to face against gangs which have themselves been produced by imperialism?

There is more than two years of cooperation, in both word and deed, between the United States, Turkey and the KDP around the Rojava question.

Do not forget that just yesterday US imperialism and Turkish colonialism was pressuring the PYD to become a part of the Free Syrian Army and fight against Assad.

Do not forget that they wanted the PYD to join the National Council of Syrian Kurds (ENKS), which is controlled by Barzani, and be rendered powerless; do not forget the border politics nurtured by the alliance between Turkey and Barzani, nor the implementation of an undeclared embargo.

Up until the debate about military aid, imperialism had many times attempted to manipulate Rojava through the use of regional powers. Those who are now sounding the alarm about collaboration never once raised their voices against these colonialist/imperialist onslaughts.

Why do you think that those who now degrade the acceptance of arms delivered by the United States while under the shadow of a communal massacre as collaboration with imperialism have for years never brought attention to this movement’s liberatory and anti-imperialist stance? Let me tell you, because of an unredeemable social chauvinism.

Collaboration is not accepting military aid while under the threat of massacre but of entering into imperialist dependency and colonial relations. 

To claim that the acceptance of weapons has this meaning is to discount the class struggle entirely.

The character of such relations are defined not in the “moment” but over the course of a “process.” The reverse means to claim that imperialist dependency and colonial relations are established independently and automatically from the momentary circumstances determining the class struggle.

To advance this argument is to see imperialism as ‘Almighty.”

Remember that it was Lenin’s transportation from Switzerland to Saint Petersburg with the necessary material support of German imperialism that produced one of the finest moments of the First World War. The hope of the Germans was to contribute to the confusion in Russia and work toward the overthrow of the Czar. As a result Germany would end the Russian war and send all of it forces on the Eastern front to the Western front.

The plan was carried out and civil insurrection broke out in Russia.

The Soviet revolution became the most important response to those who in that period claimed that Lenin was a German agent. It was not the support which Germany gave to Lenin that determined the character of the process but the revolution which emerged from the creative forces of the class struggle in Russia.

The class struggle has long since provided an answer to the question “is Lenin a great revolutionary or a collaborator with German imperialism” to all of those who were incessantly ringing the warning bells of collaboration.

Just as it is now. We see that some are running the risk of declaring Lenin an imperialist collaborator and even a German agent in order to declare that the PYD is collaborating with imperialism.

One is surprised and cannot help but ask: where is the dignity of all this hostility to the Kurds?

SEE IMPORTANT ARTICLE ON KEMALISM AND FASCISM HERE : http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/kemalism-and-fascism-revolutionary.html

The 175th Anniversary of the Chartist Uprising in Newport

Children re-create the demands of Chartism to celebrate the 175th Anniversary

Just six weeks after the referendum in which Scots rejected independence by 55 to 45 percent, a new YouGov poll for the Times has found that 52 percent now back a split from the union, as Labour sees its support in Scotland gradually diminish.

Just six weeks after the referendum in which Scots rejected independence by 55 to 45 percent, a new YouGov poll for the Times has found that 52 percent now back a split from the union, as Labour sees its support in Scotland gradually diminish.

The YouGov poll put support for the union at 48 percent. The figures will give more momentum to the pro-independence Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP), which wants to see another referendum as soon as possible.

Another vote on whether Scotland should remain in the 300-year-old union with England may be triggered in 2017 if the UK votes to leave the EU. The Scottish are much more pro-European than the English, and want to stay in the European Union.

While Scots believe the results of the last referendum have left the country divided, a separate poll for STV found that two-thirds of Scots want another referendum within a decade.

The results of the YouGov poll came out after the Scottish Labour Party suffered a bad week. Johann Lamont, the leader of Scottish Labour, resigned amidst a barrage of criticism of the party’s central London HQ and that the Scottish division of the party was merely a “branch office” of London.

The poll showed that just 22 percent of Scots believe the Labour Party represents their interests and a further 65 percent do not believe it does a good job of representing them.

The figures also show that Scots believe Lamont did the right thing by resigning, with 58 percent backing her decision to quit. A quarter of respondents said that Scottish Labour has no freedom to carry out policies different to the Labour Party as a whole.

Jim Murphy, who is tipped as the favorite to take over the helm of the party in Scotland, is expected to say as part of his leadership campaign that the Labour Party currently has no vision for Scotland.

“If Labour wants to win we must first change ourselves. The Scottish people want change – they couldn’t be clearer. They also want better and many want Labour to be part of that improvement. But when they look at us they think we’ve not listened. It sure looks like that from where they sit so who can blame them?” Murphy told supporters in Edinburgh.

The United Kingdom consists of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. England is home to about 85 percent of the population, but Scotland – with a small population of just under five million – is richer in natural resources and has about one-third of the UK’s land mass.

Source RT

Subordinating Nations to Corporations -The Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

We publish part of an article of Paul Carline on TTIP for information

GATT – the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade – had come into effect as early as 1948. Its stated purpose was the “substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis”.

It was not universally accepted, but it survived until 1994, being replaced the following year by the World Trade Organisation. But GATT was a multilateral agreement – not a specific US-EU one. NAFTA – the North American Free Trade Agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico – followed seamlessly on from GATT, being signed into existence in 1994.

Proposals for a specific US-EU trade agreement initially named TAFTA – the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement – also date from the early 1990s, but negotiations began only in 2013 for a rebranded Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – TTIP^[6]. If approved, the agreement would be the biggest trade deal ever. The US and EU together account for 40% of global GDP.

From the start the meetings between negotiators have been held in secret. It was not until the negotiating mandate, agreed by the European Council on 17 June, 2013, was leaked by some German Green MEPs that the public – and even members of parliament in the EU member states – were able to see what TTIP was all about. 

A copy of the mandate can be accessed here.^[7] There is a warning on the first page: “NB: This document contains information classified EU RESTRICTED whose unauthorised disclosure could be disadvantageous to the interests of the European Union or of one or more of its Member States”. The “interests of the European Union” referred to here appear to be those of the institutions only – not of its 500 million citizens.

The mandate is a wonderful example of what Rudolf Steiner meant by “empty rhetoric”. The preamble refers to “common principles and values”, including “shared values in such areas as human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law”. It nominally commits the parties to “sustainable development and the contribution of international trade to sustainable development in its economic, social and environmental dimensions, including … full and productive employment and decent work for all, as well as the protection and preservation of the environment and natural resources”. Glorious window-dressing.

If this were true, one would expect representatives of human rights, environmental, labour and other organisations to be at the negotiating table, or at least be able to make formal representations.

In fact, between January 2012 and April 2013, wehen the mandate was being worked on, the EU Commission met business lobbyists behind closed doors on 119 occasions; meetings with trade unions and consumer protection organisations occurred only 11 times.

The mandate also claims that “the Parties will not encourage trade or foreign direct investment by lowering domestic environmental, labour or occupational health and safety legislation and standards” – but there is cause to doubt the strength of the partners’ commitment to these laudable aims, for very good reasons. The proposals include something called ISDS – “Investor-to State Dispute Settlement” – probably the most contentious part of the agreement. The negotiations “should aim to include … fair and equitable treatment, including a prohibition of unreasonable, arbitrary or discriminatory measures” and “full protection and security of investors and investments”. This would be ensured by the provision of “an effective and state-of-the-art investor-to-state dispute settlement mechanism”. Companies and/or investors who felt that their legitimate right to make a handsome profit on their investment or trading deal had been frustrated or denied the – for example, by a change in government policy – will be able to sue the government in a special court before a panel of three private lawyers, whose decisions cannot be appealed.

Pared down to its essentials, the rhetoric means that investors must be freed from the fear of losing money on their speculations, and the expected profits of companies entering into contracts anywhere within the US and EU must be guaranteed. And we thought “free market” capitalism was about taking risks!

Fortunately, ISDS is not an unknown quantity. It is already in use in other trade and investment agreements and it has acquired an unenviable track record. An excellent study by the Seattle to Brussels Network entitled “A Transatlantic Corporate Bill of Rights” notes that “US and European companies have driven the investor-state litigation boom of the past two decades. By far the largest number of the 514 known disputes initiated by the end of 2012 were launched by US investors, who filed 24% of all cases. Next in line are investors from the Netherlands (50 cases), the UK (30) and Germany (27). Together, investors from EU member states have filed 40% of all cases.

EU and US companies have used these lawsuits to challenge green energy and medicine policies, anti-smoking legislation, environmental restrictions on mining, health insurance policies, measures to improve the economic situation of minorities and many more. The following are just some of the bizarre judgements that have resulted:

- Philip Morris V. Uruguay and Australia: through bilateral investment treaties, US tobacco giant is suing Uruguay and Australia over their anti-smoking laws. The company argues that warning labels on cigarette packs and plain packaging prevent it from effectively displaying its trademark, causing a substantial loss of market share.

- Vattenfall V. Germany: in 2012, Swedish energy giant Vattenfall launched an investor-state lawsuit against Germany, seeking €3.7 billion in compensation for lost profits related to tow of its nuclear power plants. This followed the German government’s decision to phase out nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

- Achmea v. the Slovak Republic: at the end of 2012, Dutch insurance company Achmea was awarded €22 million in compensation from Slovakia. In 2006, the Slovak government had reversed the health privatisation policies of the previous administration, requiring health insurers to operate on a not-for-profit basis.

- Corporations against Argentina and Greece: when Argentina froze utility rates and devalued its currency in response to its 2011-2002 financial crisis, it was hit by over 40 lawsuits from companies like CMS Energy (USA) and Suez and Vivendi (France). By the end of 2008, awards against the country had totalled $1.15 billion. In May 2013, Slovak and Cypriot investors sued Greece for the 2012 debt swap which Athens had to negotiate with its creditors in order to get bailout money from the EU and the IMF.

- Lone Pine v. Canada: on the basis of NAFTA, US company Lone Pine Resources Inc. is demanding $250 million in compensation from Canada. The ‘crime’: the Canadian province of Quebec had put a moratorium on “fracking” in response to concerns about the environmental risks from this technology.

Other specific fears are that American companies, including Monsanto, will use ISDS to force EU governments to accept GM products and agriculture, chlorinated chickens and growth hormone-treated beef. Public procurement is another target: “The Agreement will aim at enhanced mutual access to public procurement markets at all administrative levels (national, regional and local), and in the field of public utilities … ensuring treatment no less favourable than that accorded to locally established suppliers”. This would enforce the opening up of many public services to private takeover.

Fears that the European Commission’s own policies could lead to the privatisation of all public water companies across Europe led campaigners to launch a European Citizens’ Initiative – a new transnational democratic right included in the Lisbon Treaty.

In effect, it is little more than a petition to the European Commission to consider a proposal i.e. it does not in any way force the Commission to act, even when an initiative satisfies the extremely demanding conditions: a minimum of 1 million signatures of support to be collected within 12 months and from a minimum of 7 EU member states.

At an estimated cost of 1€ per signature, it is an expensive business for campaigners.

Nonetheless, the Right2Water ECI exceeded expectations, collecting an amazing 1,884,790 signatures under the slogan: “Water is a human right”.

This put considerable pressure on the Commission, which announced that the provision of water services had been excluded from the Directive on the awarding of concession contracts.

However, were TTIP to be adopted, it is likely that this would be merely a temporary reprieve, as public providers could be threatened with punitive damages under ISDS. Monsanto, which earlier announced that it was pulling out of Europe, may also be waiting to use TTIP and ISDS.

Nonetheless, people and civil society organisations on both sides of the Atlantic have woken up to the threat from TTIP and have begun to take action to preserve some measure of sanity in international trade. On 15 May, 240 demonstrators were arrested in Brussels next to the European Business Summit venue. Four days later, a letter signed by more than 250 civil society organisations was sent to EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht calling on the Commission to open up the TTIP negotiations to public scrutiny.

Director of Friends of the Earth Europe, Magda Stoczkiewicz, said: “These negotiations have the potential to impact upon many aspects of life for citizens here and in the US, from food and chemical safety to the environment.

The European Commission cannot remain deaf to civil society calls for transparency – people have the right to know what’s at stake”.

On the same day, 650,000 signatures collected online and in the street in Germany against TTIP and for the preservation of democracy were handed to the leading candidates for seats in the new EU Parliament. Backed by more than 240 European organisations, a European Citizens’ Initiative to demand the repeal of the TTIP negotiating mandate was launched in September, but the Commission has rejected it on what appear to be flawed legal grounds.

The ECI coordinating committee intends to appeal the decision at the European Court and in any event to continue campaigning against a deal that would only reinforce a predatory capitalism that has come more and more to embody the “bushonomics” of G.H.W. Bush:

“The continuous consolidation of wealth and power into ever fewer, ever tighter, and ever righter hands”.

“Corporations everywhere may well agree that getting rid of regulations would be good for corporate profits. Trade negotiators might be persuaded that these trade agreements would be good for trade and corporate profits. But there would be some big losers – namely, the rest of us” (Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economist).


SOURCE: http://syncreticstudies.com/2014/11/01/transatlantic-trade-and-investment-partnership-ttip-cui-bono/

THE BATTLE OF LLANHILLETH 2 MAY 1822 BY GETHIN AP GRUFFYDD.

 

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr says these events in Welsh Working Class History are buried has are the events of 1935 in Blaina.

The History Commission of the Yr Aflondwwch Mawr will is working on a People's History of Wales to be published in June 2015 at the Welsh Socialist Republican Congress.

In 1822 matters in the Southern Iron and Coal Mining districts became such of much discontent, as rife as 1816 amongst the workers none more so than in Gwent where the Tarw Scotch had arisen again to organise a radical struggle in the interest of the Iron and Colliery workers and their familes. This struggle none so violent as in the early months of 1822 after Iron Masters reduced the price of cut coal, effectivelly an huge cut in wages, this began a thirteen week strike that was to conclude in defeat with leaders  imprisoned. But not with out a major confrontation in area of Llanhilleth referred to at the time as a battle between the striking workers and soldiers, Chepstow Yeomanry and Scotch Greys Dragoons sent to occupy the area between Crumlin and the Ebbw Valley Iron  Works. Obviously word of Tarw Scotch plans had been devulged to the authorities by informers, a plan where by militant workers would attempt to stop Coal reaching the Iron Works from the Crumlin Wharf of the Monmouth Canal, loaded on to horse drawn railway trams for the military escorted journey northward. A 10 mile route both ends of which had been occupied by the military whilst other military were ordered ahead along the rail track to prevent it's destruction, they were less than a mile into their advance when they were ambushed by workers throwing rocks down upon them. A bugle call signalled a short retreat untill the military vanguard was joined by acompany of Yeomanry guarding the trams arrived, another attempt was made to advance but before doing so a magistrate read the Riot Act. 

Who won? most certainly the workers did not entirely lose as that night up untill 9th May, the 'Herds' of the Tarw Scotch roamed this area and other localities of their 'Black Domain' carrying out what could be described as 'Guerrilla Warfare' with continued attacks on coal Trams, up to 30 in number were destroyed that night. Trams were pushed into the Monmouthshire Canal and others set alight, at Llanhilleth an huge bonfire was made of trams which still burned three days later. Other than this rail traks were rippped up, the Sirhowy Tramway was all but completly ripped up and thrown int the river. The Cambrian News of 8 May 1822 reported that the destruction through out the 'Black Domain' was with out parallel in the Southern Coal Fields, not least the struggle was far from over as the Scotch Cattle were to continue to rule in the Black Domain up to 1835. There after it appears this 'Workers Underground Resistence Movement' were to merge with the Chartist militants and no doubt marched with the Chartist Army in the Newport Rising of 4 November 1839. The Tarw Scotch were to reappear again in Welsh History in the 1850's but this time over in the Aberdare Valley of North Glamorgan, I shall research more in time.

What an inspirational story and fitting I include it in my I'r Gad Battlefield Campaign blog for two reasons; the one being fact that there is no marker or memorial to this battle which should and could be placed at Llanhilleth, why not? Neither is it annually commemorated and again why not? Perhaps this 2 May it could be launched in a small event at Llanhilleth to discuss my suggestions and place floral tributes in memory of this battle and possibility of workers having been killed? I am quite happy for a 'bona fide' left wing body/person or local Gwent History Group to adopt this Initiative. Something sound and sensible as 'Radical Wales', 'Everyones Favourite Comrade' maybe? or even 'My Little Republic' which is Gwent based, there is a great need to give the Tarw Scotch struggle more attention and promotion. 

They are as the Revolutionary workers leader and the Five Roads Radical Rebecites the forgotten heroes of Welsh History and history of popular struggle, forgotten for political and dare I say it Welsh pacifist reasons. I shall certainly return to LLanhilleth as this time around I was only on a flying visit of the 'Black Domain', to Blackwood, Tredegar and Mynydd Llangynider. The whole area is loaded with Workers/Peoples history and is quite a beautifull region, not a 'Post Industrial Wasteland, well deserves my other a weekend 'holiday' there.

Martyrs and militants - some background history : MerthyrRising

17 Oct 2005... I find it very interesting that Rebeccites could ...
merthyrrising.blogspirit.com/.../martyrs-and-militants-some-background-history.html - Cached

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1. 
   

   Scotch Cattle, Sirhowy Valley

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1. Scotch Cattle - workers' secret organisation in Monmouthshire and South Wales valleys.
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   Nantyglo Round Towers, Nantyglo, Wales

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   The Thomas Lewis Line

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   BACKGROUND: 

   
   

   1. 
      

   
   

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      Riotous community:

      
      

   File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick ViewEighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Wales was full of riotous gatherings with ..... Edward Pugh, writing in 1816, recalled 'scenes of barbarity ..... Denbigh continued to be a centre for discontent: in April 1795, serious rioting ...earlymodernweb.org/archive/riotous_community.pdf

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RED REMEMBRANCER: Rural Revolt, is not just about Rebecca.

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