Majorityrights News > Category: Activism

What stands logistically in the way is that the Kurds seek a homeland, and that would entail a piece of Syria, which Assad does not want to relinquish. However, the Kurds do seem prepared to negotiate with Assad for the right, somehow, to live alongside the Syrians, within what Assad would like to maintain or re-claim as greater Syria - parts of which Assad was forced to abandon in 2012. We should encourage their reconciliation and alliance; and for other ethnonations to ally with them despite the shit-hole nations of Turkey and Israel in opposition.

The Guardian,  23 Feb 2018: “Why are world leaders backing this brutal attack against Kurdish Afrin?”

Islamist militants – with Turkish army support – are wreaking havoc with a pocket of peace and sanity in the Syrian war.

‘Afrin’s population doubled during the conflict, as hundreds of thousands of mostly Arab refugees had come to shelter with its original, overwhelmingly Kurdish, population.’

Three years ago the world watched a ragtag band of men and women fighters in the Syrian town of Kobane, most armed only with Kalashnikovs, hold off a vast army of Islamist militants with tanks, artillery and overwhelming logistical superiority. The defenders insisted they were acting in the name of revolutionary feminist democracy. The Islamist fighters vowed to exterminate them for that very reason. When Kobane’s defenders won, it was widely hailed as the closest one can come, in the contemporary world, to a clear confrontation of good against evil.

Today, exactly same thing is happening again. Except this time, world powers are firmly on the side of the aggressors. In a bizarre twist, those aggressors seem to have convinced key world leaders and public opinion-makers that Kobane’s citizens are “terrorists” because they embrace a radical version of ecology, democracy and women’s rights.

Turkey’s attack on Syrian Kurds could overturn the entire region.

The region in question is Afrin, defended by the same YPG and YPJ (People’s Protection and Women’s Protection Units) who defended Kobane, and who afterwards were the only forces in Syria willing to take the battle to the heartland of Islamic State, losing thousands of combatants in the battle for its capital, Raqqa.

An isolated pocket of peace and sanity in the Syrian civil war, famous only for the beauty of its mountains and olive groves, Afrin’s population had almost doubled during the conflict as hundreds of thousands of mostly Arab refugees had come to shelter with its original, overwhelmingly Kurdish population.

At the same time its inhabitants had taken advantage of their peace and stability to develop the democratic principles embraced throughout the majority Kurdish regions of north Syria, known as Rojava. Local decisions were devolved to neighbourhood assemblies in which everyone could participate; other parts of Rojava insisted on strict gender parity, with every office having co-chairs, male and female, in Afrin, two-thirds of public offices are held by women.

Turkey’s attack on Syrian Kurds could overturn the entire region.

Today, this democratic experiment is the object of an entirely unprovoked attack by Islamist militias including Isis and al-Qaida veterans, and members of Turkish death squads such as the notorious Grey Wolves, backed by the Turkish army’s tanks, F16 fighters, and helicopter gunships. Like Isis before them, the new force seems determined to violate all standards of behaviour, launching napalm attacks on villagers, attacking dams – even, like Isis, blowing up irreplaceable archaeological monuments. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, has announced, “We aim to give Afrin back to its rightful owners”, in a thinly veiled warning to ethnically cleanse the region of its Kurdish inhabitants. And only today it emerged that a convoy heading to Afrin carrying food and medicine was shelled by Turkish forces.

Remarkably, the YPG and YPJ have so far held off the invaders. But they have done so without so much as the moral support of a single major world power. Even the US, the presence of whose forces prevents Turkey from invading those territories in the east, where the YPG and YPJ are still engaged in combat with Isis, has refused to lift a finger to defend Afrin. The British foreign secretary Boris Johnson has gone so far as to insist that “Turkey has the right to want to keep its borders secure” – by which logic he would have no objection if France were to seize control of Dover.

The result is bizarre. Western leaders who regularly excoriate Middle Eastern regimes for their lack of democratic and women’s rights – even, as George W Bush famously did with the Taliban, using it as justification for military invasion – appear to have decided that going too far in the other direction is justifiable grounds for attack.

To understand how this happened, one must go back to the 1990s, when Turkey was engaged in a civil war with the military arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ party, or PKK, then a Marxist-Leninist organisation calling for a separate Kurdish state. Whether the PKK was ever a terrorist organisation, in the sense of bombing marketplaces and the like, is very much a matter of contention, but there is no doubt that the guerrilla war was a bloody business, and terrible things happened on both sides. About the turn of the millennium, the PKK abandoned the demand for a separate state. It called a unilateral ceasefire, pressing for peace talks to negotiate both regional autonomy for Kurds and a broader democratisation of Turkish society.

This transformation affected the Kurdish freedom movement across the Middle East. Those inspired by the movement’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, began calling for a radical decentralisation of power and opposition to ethnic nationalism of all sorts.

Turkey starts ground incursion into Kurdish-controlled Afrin in Syria - Read more

The Turkish government responded with an intense lobbying campaign to have the PKK designated a “terrorist organisation” (which it had not been before). By 2001 it had succeeded, and the PKK was placed on the EU, US, and UN “terror list”.

Never has such a decision so wreaked havoc with the prospect of peace. It allowed the Turkish government to arrest thousands of activists, journalists, elected Kurdish officials – even the leadership of the country’s second largest opposition party – all on claims of “terrorist” sympathies, and with barely a word of protest from Europe or America. Turkey now has more journalists in prison than any other country.

The designation has created a situation of Orwellian madness, allowing the Turkish government to pour millions into western PR firms to smear anyone who calls for greater civil rights as “terrorists”. Now, in the final absurdity, it has allowed world governments to sit idly by while Turkey launches an unprovoked assault on one of the few remaining peaceful corners of Syria – even though the only actual connection its people have to the PKK is an enthusiasm for the philosophy of its imprisoned leader Öcalan. It cannot be denied – as Turkish propagandists endlessly point out – that portraits of Öcalan, and his books, are common there. But ironically what that philosophy consists of is simply an embrace of direct democracy, ecology, and a radical version of women’s empowerment.

The religious extremists who surround the current Turkish government know perfectly well that Rojava doesn’t threaten them militarily. It threatens them by providing an alternative vision of what life in the region could be like. Above all, they feel it is critical to send the message to women across the Middle East that if they rise up for their rights, let alone rise up in arms, the likely result is that they will be maimed and killed, and none of the major powers will raise an objection. There is a word for such a strategy. It’s called “terrorism” – a calculated effort to cause terror. The question is, why is the rest of the world cooperating?

• David Graeber is professor of anthropology at the LSE and author of Debt: The First 5000 years; he was involved in the Global Justice Movement and Occupy Wall Street

Related Story: Watch for The PKK as a revolutionary group fighting for ethnonationalism

....four stories of White homelessness:

Former professor stopped sleeping in homeless shelters because he “didn’t like the element”  - “the element” is a code word for “blacks and their typical behavior”

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Nick Fuentes vs. RC Maxwell | Civic Nationalism Debate.

Fuentes stakes-out some classic arguments against civic nationalism and specifically in this case, against those arguments for inclusion of blacks within the nation. While a full endorsement is not implied, he establishes a plateau from which to elaborate, differ and/or transform.

ContraPoints has done his/her homework as well, also enough to stake out a polemic - by contrast to Fuentes, ContraPoints argues in defense of blacks - giving explanations/excuses for what are taken by those who dislike them to be typical black behavior (bad) - again, providing a position for difference, elaboration and/or transformation.

A new PhD, “Mexie” the Vegan and anti-capitalist activist, considers that to be her favorite ContraPoints video, one that all “racists” (and anti-racists) should see.

Going Vegan: A Discussion with Mexie | ContraPointsLive

Taylor does some good work - bringing this lawsuit against Twitter is commendable - Twitter’s prohibition of free speech is a travesty given that it is functioning as a public utility; its having gotten its corporate start with US government help; its remaining dependent upon the US Government created and sponsored internet network; and public telecommunications lines. Taylor also handles with aplomb stigmatic issues of blacks and their hyper-assertive biopower, as he did in his debate with black nationalist Tariq Nasheed. Nevertheless, he yields to Jewish crypsis, infamously having said, “they look huWhite to me” ...and now that Jewish interests seek fusion with the White right, their media refers to Taylor as a “White Nationalist.”

BBC, “White nationalist Jared Taylor sues Twitter over ban”, 22 Feb 2018:

White nationalist Jared Taylor is suing Twitter after the social network banned his account as part of a crackdown on abusive content.

Mr Taylor’s lawyer says the suspension of his account is a form of censorship, accusing Twitter of discrimination.

Twitter declined to comment on the case but has previously said that its tools are “apolitical.”

Mr Taylor is head of American Renaissance, a website that champions “racial difference”.

He had his account suspended in December, with Twitter explaining that it prohibited accounts affiliated with the promotion of violence, something Mr Taylor denies applied to him.

Mr Taylor has filed his case in California, in the state Superior Court in San Francisco. He argued that Twitter violated Californian law protecting free speech in public spaces - a law that has not previously been applied to the internet.

His lawyer Noah Peters wrote online that everyone should be “terrified” about what he called Twitter censorship. “Our lawsuit is not about whether Taylor is right or wrong. It’s about whether Twitter and other technology companies have the right to ban individuals from using their services based on their perceived viewpoints and affiliations.

“Allowing Twitter to censor content is extremely troublesome given Twitter’s self-proclaimed mission to ‘give everyone the power to create and share ideas instantly, without barriers’.”

New Observer, “Who is killing the Whites Trying to Stop the African/Asian Illegal Ivory Trade?”, 8 Feb 2018:

The vicious murder of anti-elephant poaching activist Esmond Martin in Kenya last weekend is the second murder of a high-profile white anti-ivory trade activist in Africa, coming as it does only five months after the shooting assassination of Tanzanian-based Wayne Lotter.

Martin, who was stabbed to death at his home in Nairobi, Kenya, was famous for his decades-long activism to save Africa’s elephant population from the uncaring rampage of African poachers who supply the Far East with illegal ivory.

Esmond Martin and his beloved elephants.

According to statistics issued by his affiliated organization, Save the Elephants (STE), without urgent action to save their species, elephants could be gone from the wild within a single generation.

According to STE, 100,000 elephants in Africa were killed for their ivory in just three years between the years 2010 and 2012.

In 1979 there were 1.3 million elephants, but current estimates that there are just between 419,000 and 650,000 African elephants left alive—and overall, their numbers are still “catastrophically declining.

Martin, a UK national by birth, was one of STE’s most famous activists, and the world’s leading ivory trade expert. STE said in a statement that his surveys “shone a powerful spotlight on the wildlife markets around the world that are sucking ivory, rhino horn and countless other African species into their maw.

“By charting the scale of these markets and tracking fluctuations with rigour and consistency, he provided a solid foundation for action to close them down. On Friday he was in our office, excited to see the Laotian translation of his latest report into Laos’ growing trade, and eager to discuss how it could be used to greatest effect,” the statement continued.

“Conservation has lost an important figure, elephants have lost a great champion and the shock of Esmond’s death will be felt around the world.”

Wayne Lotter was a South African- wildlife conservationist who was the co-founder and president of conservation organisation the PAMS (Protected Area Management Solutions) Foundation.

Lotter’s organization was involved in funding the National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit in Tanzania which pursued a number of high-profile ivory traffickers, and regularly received death threats.

His most high-profile success was in 2015 when his intelligence work left to the the arrest of a Chinese woman, Yang Feng Glan, known as the “Queen of Ivory” who ran a $2.6m ivory smuggling ring along with a large number of Chinese nationals living in Africa.

Lotter was shot dead on August 16, 2017 while travelling in a taxi in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in what was clearly a targeted assassination.

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This Vox article concludes:

What we don’t know

  The shooter’s motive

A safe bet is that the shooter’s motive was rather an incoherent motive of broad revenge against societal incoherence and therefore lack of accountability, agency and warrant that socially delimited human ecologies would otherwise afford.

VOX, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida: what we know:

At least 17 people are dead. The 19-year-old suspect is in custody.

Parents wait for news after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Joel Auerbach

A shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, has left at least 17 people dead. Students and adults are among the victims.

A 19-year-old male suspect, Nikolas Cruz, has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder. Cruz, a former student at Stoneman Douglas, took an Uber to the school Wednesday afternoon. He was armed with an AR-15 rifle, law enforcement officials said, which he used to carry out his rampage. He fled the scene on foot, blending in with the rush of students pouring from the building. The massacre unfolded in less than 10 minutes, according to the timeline released by the Broward County Sheriff’s office.

“That should not happen in Parkland. It should not happen anywhere in this country,” Broward County Public Schools superintendent Robert Runcie said on Wednesday night. “We have got to find a way for this to stop.”

The investigation is still in its early stages. Details could change with more information. Here’s what we know — and don’t.

What we know

- Around 2:30 pm on Wednesday, just before class dismissal, the fire alarm went off, and shooting began. A law enforcement official told told CBS News it was believed the suspect pulled the fire alarm before the shooting rampage.

- At least 17 people were killed in the school shooting. At least 14 others were wounded, with five individuals sustaining life-threatening injuries. Teenagers and adults are among the victims, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.

- The victims we know of so far: Jaime Guttenberg, Martin Duque, Alyssa Alhadeff, Aaron Feis, Gina Montalto, Nicholas Dworet, Luke Hoyer, Carmen Schentrup, Meadow Pollack, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Cara Loughran, Helena Ramsey, Alex Schachter, Chris Hixon, Scott Beigel, and Peter Wang. The Miami Herald has the full list with photos and more information.

- The lone suspect is 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. He was taken into custody off school property about an hour after the shooting, the sheriff said.

- Cruz confessed to the shooting, according to a sheriff’s report. He’s been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

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Her kind, anyway, since this particular woman is spoken-for. She’s an ingenious pioneer, living off the grid in the “North-West Front” ...she isn’t bad looking either.

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