An Ethics of Violence Based on Practice: The Rojava Revolution

• In Event: 075 - Section on Marxist Sociology Paper Session. Co-Revolution: Bringing Anti-Systemic Movements Together

Abstract

It is always difficult to discuss revolutionary violence. The complex picture involves catastrophic human and natural costs, increasingly corrupt guerilla armies, the fact that preaching of non-violence sometimes come from the oppressor, the legitimate right of the oppressed to violent revolt, and the apparent issue of where to stop. Thus it is a challenging task, and those who engage with it usually either reject violence a priori or claim blanket legitimization in the name of the oppressed. In this paper, we reject both ends and argue that violence of oppressed can be neither thoroughly rejected nor completely legitimized in theory. Instead, we claim that an ethics of violence that aspires to theorize legitimate use and its limits should be based on a certain praxis. Our specific inspiration is the Rojava Revolution, in which the Kurds and other ethnic groups of Northern Syria have been struggling to establish an autonomous zone built on principles such as direct democracy, grassroots mobilization, nonhierarchical structures, self-defense, and radical gender equality. What informs the argument is the resolute commitment to defensive, restricted and democratic violence of the people of Rojava, even under the genocidal threat of the ISIS. Through a discussion of the prevailing approaches to violence and the issue of how to distinguish different practices, we argue that the Rojava Revolution is offering us exactly the praxis we could hope for.

Authors

• Huseyin Arkin Rasit, Yale University

• Ezgi Deniz Rasit, Northeastern University