To the worldwide Anarchist comrades. With greetings.
Some time ago the Anarchism Era wesite published an announcement, in which the news of the formation of the Anarchism Era Federation was revealed. According to the title and the content of that announcement, this formation is necessary to enable all individual anarchists across the globe, regardless of race and place of birth, to join the federation.
As a group of Kurdish speaking Anarchists and Libertarians from Inside Iraq and abroad, we are always pleased to hear the news of revolutionary initiatives and activities across the globe. We are also happy to hear of the existence of any anti-state, anti-capitalism actions and we do not see ourselves as separated or outside any world movements or activities that are against the authority, against hierarchy, against the capitalist system and society. However, the announcement of the so-called Anarchism Era Federation, supposed to become an International Federation, raises more questions than provide answers.
Our purpose in this clarification is not to evaluate the announcement in detail or to highlight and develop all the points of our critics and disagreements. Here, we only indicate a few important and obvious points:
No revolutionary body of the class struggle would ever announce its existence before its actual birth in practice, especially a body that grants itself with a status as big as an International Federation. Regrettably, the announcement does not mention at all the process of its founding and does not provide any concrete information about all the fractions that are supposedly integral parts within that Federation.
The only thing that can be noticed in this announcement is the existence of previous preliminary versions attempts, as allusion for the announcement. Those previous versions look like the initial intention towards the final proclamation and indicate that the decision can be the act of one or several individuals.
The announcement does not clarify, in any aspects, its position about the International of Anarchist Federations, which was established in 1968 and incorporates most world-wide anarchist federations and it is still alive, active, and growing. We think that the reason for not mentioning IFA is either related to having different positions or to differentiate themselves, either to their ignorance of IFA’s existence, or to their rejection by IFA and other Federations of International Anarchist movements.
The decision of announcing an International Federation, through a bureaucratical, sectarist and unilateral mechanism indicating the adoption of militantism and voluntarist rules. This is completely in contradiction with the grounds of the historical approach of Anarchism that is based on total acknowledgement to the practical, spontaneous emergence of real actions and active elements within the social struggle, not on the principles of ideological wills and intentions. This position is clearer when this announcement does not at all make any reference to the inhuman, anti-life and anti-nature roots of the class domination, hierarchical structure of the capitalist system. It only briefly and vaguely mentions “the overthrowing of capitalist and religious governments!”, as though, the human need for emancipation is about a political revolution, not a social and global revolution.
In the previous versions of this announcement, there is a mention of army struggle, but it is removed in the final version, without any explanation or the reasons for its omission. Furthermore, the announcement’s lack of clarification about the rejection of “pacifism” tendency, as a common practice among militantist groups and currents, which, can be used as against “violence” and as conciliator “peacemaker”, sings of advocating the extremist ideology, far from a global class understanding of the fundamental basis and needs of the emancipatory revolution of the exploited class. Consequently, we must ask the authors of the announcement: by which measures, could the anarchists who stand against Violence, be called “Pacifists”?
It is worth mentioning that in the announcement, by putting accent on the armed struggle and armed uprising method, to claim their adherence to the practice of Makhnovist insurrectionary movement. This itself is a misunderstanding of the nature of the Makhnovist movement, which was essentially a social uprising of workers and peasants through co-operative communes. It is a lack of understanding, the fact was the grounds that forced that movement was self-defence which led to armed organisation against German, Austrian, White and Red Armies and their militias. This was not due to the will of transforming of the social contests to armed actions or military militantist groups.
There is a discriminatory issue of a unilateralist, generalising, centralist, and authoritarian practice that can be noted in their decision taking approach, as matters were decided without consulting and contacting other existing Anarchist individuals and groups. The authors of the announcement, plainly, by using the term of “ anarchists in Lebanon, Chili, Spain, Iraq and Kurdistan Region”, and as the geographical words mean, show that they talk and decide in the name of all and for all the anarchists who live in those countries. Here, all the anarchists who live in the countries that are mentioned in the announcement, face an answer to the question: Do all the anarchists of the countries mentioned agree and share the same positions that are expressed by the federation and the announcement?
We leave the answer to that question to the comrades who live in those countries. Considering the “Iraq and Kurdistan Region”, after a thorough examination, we do not know the existence of any individual who has a practical and socially active role, agree with that announcement. Therefore, we as anarchists and libertarians who Kurdish speakers, either as within the Forum of Kurdish speaking anarchists and as well as the local Sulaymaniyah/Iraq forum of anarchists, do not fall with any centralised, hierarchical, political, and armed actions. We believe in the social and autonomous organisation of social struggle, revolution, and self- running society.
For the reasons mentioned above, we as a group of Kurdish speaking anarchists and libertarians, either in the area of “Iraq and Kurdistan Region”, either outside, do not support that announcement and we are unaware of the process of declaring and the formation of that federation. As a result, without going into details and touch on our fundamental differences with them, we consider this type of initiatives as sectarist and in conflict with what is so far known as anarchist movement from an historical basis.