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The global crisis of civilization is nowhere more visible than in the Middle East. Wars, authoritarian regimes, social fragmentation, and ecological collapse converge into a single, devastating picture. Abdullah Öcalan argues that the solution to this crisis must be found in the same place where centralized civilization first emerged 5,000 years ago.
The fourth volume of Öcalan’s Manifesto of Democratic Civilization traces the region’s deep historical crises while highlighting the many traditions of resistance—religious, cultural, communal, and antiauthoritarian—that have survived despite millennia of state domination. These traditions, he argues, provide the building blocks for a future beyond capitalist modernity.
Drawing on the theoretical framework laid out in earlier volumes, Öcalan offers a bold rereading of Middle Eastern history, revealing how patriarchy, hierarchy, and empire became entrenched, and how they can be dismantled. He presents democratic confederalism, a moral and political society, and an ecological, women-centered economic order as the essential pillars of a new civilizational model.
In this volume, Öcalan emerges not only as a strategist for resolving the Kurdish question but as a visionary for democratizing the entire region. He closes with urgent questions that speak directly to our global moment: How should we live? What must we do? And where do we begin?
“Öcalan, from his cell, reminds
us that freedom is not a point of arrival, but a living process, a weaving that
is remade collectively, an ethical construction that challenges us in every
decision, in every word, in every step. His thought, in dialogue with the
rebellious spirit of the people, becomes a vital tool for thinking about
emancipation beyond classical forms of politics. That is why reading his work
is not only an intellectual act, but a profoundly political act.”
—Rosario Aquím Chávez,
Bolivian activist, poet, and educator
“Öcalan’s works have
played a key role in inspiring one of the most widespread movements of
real-life revolutionary transformation in recent memory.”
—David Graeber, author of Debt and
The Dawn of Everything
“One should conclude that Abdullah
Öcalan is nothing less than a Kurdish Nelson Mandela.”
—Slavoj Žižek, author of The Courage
of Hopelessness
“Öcalan’s
utopia—as is soon discovered—is extremely concrete; it is
embodied in the struggles and the order of the zones liberated by the Kurdish
communist militias! A real utopia, the one that Öcalan supports, a
precious gem that strongly opposes the rebirth, so common today, of national
fascisms. The utopia of the democratic confederation of peoples embodies a real
process that will win every battle.”
—Antonio Negri
“In these times of accelerating climate
change and deepening crises, the product of centuries of imperialism and the
past few decades of hyper neoliberalism and ecological destruction, your
struggle for freedom and peace has become our struggle, and your example a
beacon for untold millions who will yet follow.”
—Barry Gills, professor of Global Development Studies at the Faculty
of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: Universal History and the Middle East
Chapter 2: Crisis And Depression in Middle Eastern Society
Chapter 3: Historical Resistance and the Search for Solutions in Middle Eastern Society
Chapter 4: European Modernity and New Hegemonic Powers in the System of Central Civilization
Chapter 5: The Crisis Of Middle Eastern Society and Democratic Civilization as a Solution
Conclusion
Abbreviations
Index