Abdullah O. calan Boeken

The prison writings of Kurdish freedom fighter and PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan

To understand how capitalism has come to engulf our world, we must understand how it developed out of classical civilization. Its historical roots lie in the emergence of hierarchies, power, monopolies, and the nation-state, argues Abdullah calan. Capitalism: The Age of Unmasked Gods and Naked Kings is the second book in a new five-volume work called Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization. Together, they present the synthesis of calan's political thinking. This volume completes his journey through the history of civilizations, preparing the ground for the upcoming volume on The Sociology of Freedom.

This book contains Öcalan's groundbreaking defense speech in the trial at Imrali Island in which he was later sentenced to death.

This manifesto offers the essence of Öcalan's ideas on society, knowledge, and power, and they are crucial for understanding the Kurdish revolution. Öcalan argues that a criticism that limits itself to capitalism is too superficial, and in this work, he turns his eyes to the underlying structures of civilization.

Abdullah Öcalan actively led the Kurdish liberation struggle as the head of the PKK from its foundation in 1978 until his abduction on 15 February 1999. He is regarded as a leading strategist and the most important political representative of the Kurdish freedom movement. Under isolation conditions at Imrali Island Prison, Öcalan authored more than 10 books which revolutionised Kurdish politics.

After the dissolution of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) in 2002, internal discussions ran high, and fear and uncertainty about the future of the Kurdish freedom movement threatened to unravel the gains of decades of organizing and armed struggle. From his prison cell, Abdullah Öcalan intervened by penning his most influential work to date: Beyond State, Power, and Violence. With a stunning vision of a freedom movement centered on women’s liberation, democracy, and ecology, Öcalan helped reinvigorate the Kurdish freedom movement by providing a revolutionary path forward with what is undoubtedly the furthest-reaching definition of democracy the world has ever seen. Here, for the first time, is the highly anticipated English translation of this monumental work.

In this brochure Öcalan's political project, the Democratic Confederalism, is developed systematically. A fundamental criticism of the nation state is followed by a description of its possible alternative, a transnational grass-roots democracy. The texts that form this brochure have been compiled from Öcalan's recent, still untranslated books.

This brochure is important in the light of developments in Kurdistan and in the region. With the revival of sectarian and nationalist conflict in many areas of the world and the consequences of an aggressive capitalism, Öcalan’s proposals and an evident effort to implement them in Rojava and Bakur might be just the right remedy for the war-stricken region. He calls upon everybody to build and defend free life and humanity.

In this booklet, we tried to give a short summary of Abdullah Ocalan's theses. We hope that these will contribute to the discussions on how to build an international peace movement and achieve globalisation from below. We are confident that these theses shall be met with interest and would like to further discussions on these issues raised therein.

The author is primarily recognized for his national liberation struggle against the Turkish state and his role in the peace process between the PKK and Turkey. However, he has also engaged in a profound struggle within the Kurdish community for transformative change, particularly regarding women's freedom. His observations of socialist practices and his theoretical work since the 1970s have led him to conclude that the enslavement of women is the root of all other forms of oppression. This enslavement is not biologically driven but stems from women's historical role as founders of the Neolithic matriarchal system. Consequently, women and society are bound by ideological slavery, coercion, and economic control. He argues that the current dynamics between men and women give rise to various forms of inequality, despotism, and militarism. While male dominance is deeply entrenched, he asserts that men are also enslaved within this system. To genuinely understand concepts like equality, freedom, democracy, and socialism, it is essential to analyze and dismantle the historical structures that oppress women. The exclusion of women from scientific discourse necessitates a radical alternative, emphasizing that the key to resolving social issues lies in a movement for women's freedom, equality, and democracy, rooted in the science of women, or jineolojî in Kurdish.