‘THE ARAB UNION IS A PRODUCT OF CHANGING POLITICAL INTERESTS’

After many years, the government in Damascus has once again joined the Arab League. On the basis of which political interests this development took place? Could you evaluate the possible consequences for the oppressed peoples of the Middle East?

The Arab League is an important basic organizational phenomenon in the region. The driving force at the center of the Arab League is Saudi Arabia. First of all, Assad was not overthrown, despite all the efforts of the Turkish state after the Arab popular uprising, despite the economic siege etc. policies of the US imperialists, despite the sectarian approaches of states like Qatar that play important roles in the Arab League. Although they tried to make it look like they had plans for a free Syria, in fact, they wanted to establish a political Islamist, reactionary, shariaist, Taliban-like state like the IS. This did not happen. Here Assad put himself on the defensive. He opened channels with Iran. He received military and economic support. He opened channels with Russia. He received its military and economic support. Saudi Arabia has understood the change in the situation that this picture has brought about. It wants to play a primary role in the region. In 2016, it developed a project called ‘Vision 2030’.

‘NOT ONLY BASED ON OIL’

Here, they have turned to open trade routes, especially in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, to develop their own information technology, to open up important areas of construction, industry and the information sector, especially the military industry. They developed a strategy of becoming an important power in the region by building the infrastructure for these. In order to implement this strategy, the fragmentation of the Arab League had to be resolved. The most basic condition for opening to the Mediterranean is through Syria. Improving relations with Turkey. Opening to the Persian Gulf requires good relations with Iran to ensure trade from there. This was not enough, they also developed a project with the imperialist states that would implement it. One of the main financiers of this is China. China also has a belt-road project. They also cooperated in this project to some extent. In other words, a process is underway in which China wants to develop not only the oil-based producer-seller capitalist form, but also the technology and information industry.

‘THEY TRIED TO CREATE A MILITARY DIMENSION WITH RUSSIA’

Naturally, they achieved this. With Russia, they especially tried to build the military dimension of this. They made big agreements. Saudi Arabia has also developed actions that would even confront the US in the event of a major crisis. It has pushed back against America’s demand to increase oil prices. This was not something Saudi Arabia could do under normal conditions. There is such a picture. What are the obstacles in front of this picture? The lack of Arab unity. There is the Israeli-Palestinian war and the wars in Yemen and Algeria, which affect it indirectly. It sat at the table with Iran and in this sense they are implementing their own projects and plans. In this sense, the Arab League is an important step that Saudi Arabia stands at the center of, serves its general strategic plan and leads it to success.

‘IMPERIALIST REACTIONARY INTEREST ALLIANCES ARE WAR ALLIANCES AGAINST OPPRESSED PEOPLES’

Now, of course, this will have repercussions and consequences for the peoples of the region, for Rojava. It also has a dimension that concerns the Turkish state. This is what it means for Rojava. When Syria is included in the Arab League, Rojava and Syria as a whole will face the following threat. For example, Russia was trying to get Turkey to sit at the table with Iran, Syria, Moscow and Iran. Russia has played a role in approving and opening the door to the invasion of Rojava in Northern Syria in many areas, providing the grounds for, supporting and paving the way for all the current threats and attacks. It has its own interests at stake. But the Arab League can create other situations in this sense. I do not necessarily mean this in a positive sense. This is also the case in terms of the contradictions between the imperialist and regional reactionary states.

For example, can the Turkish state relate to or attack Syria, which is part of an Arab Union, as it did yesterday? This is important. There are things that this has brought before us. In essence, this picture should be seen as a process of overcoming the internal contradictions of the reactionary states in the region and the capitalist system that depends on them, and as a process of rebuilding and developing capitalism, and this will continue. Of course, the laborers, workers, the oppressed, the poor and women will suffer the consequences. No matter which front they are on, no matter what level of contradictions they have, in essence, whether it is Iran, Russia, Turkey or Saudi Arabia, this is one of the contradictions of imperialist globalization and the fundamental problems of capitalism.

‘ALL CAPITALISTS COME TOGETHER WHEN IT COMES TO THE OPPRESSED’

They interact a lot, they have to interact a lot. They have an intricate relationship. This is inevitable and their contradictions deepen in this sense. Because this means a struggle for power. But when it comes to the oppressed, for example the Kurdish people, oppressed peoples, women, revolutionaries, communists, socialists, all capitalists come together. Naturally, we will see their contradictions. We know that they are at the center and that they can always take a position against us, that they are fighting and will fight, that they will form a unity against us in order to take us over. Because if they don’t do this, they cannot run the capitalist system they want to build or these dictatorships. In the coming period, their unity also leads to the conclusion that the laborers and peoples in the Middle East and the region need to unite and struggle much more. We need to act with the awareness of this, with a political perspective, organize ourselves and embrace the struggle in this way.

‘THE THREATS OF THE DEFEATED FASCIST CHIEF REGIME TO THE ROJAVA REVOLUTION WILL INCREASE’

The peoples of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan finished the election marathon consisting of two rounds. The fascist chief triumphed against the fascist restorationist front. Based on this result, what kind of a process awaits the people of Rojava-Northern and Eastern Syria?

Let me answer your question starting from the second. The contradictions I have just mentioned have an equivalent here. Erdoğan, the dictator of the fascist chief regime, was elected, yes, but it was not that easy. As you know, he achieved it by cheating and trying all kinds of ways. The main issue is this. The chiefdom regime has entered into a historical and contemporary reckoning with whatever threatens its existential line, ideology and state. In other words, we know how hard the Kemalist dictatorship tried to hold on to the geography they called Misak-ı Milli 100 years ago. They failed because they inherited a defeated Ottoman Empire. Not that they gave up. All state parties are included in this. CHP, İYİP are also included. MHP-AKP are all in the same bloc. Now, having suffered such a defeat, the AKP-MHP fascist chief regime will naturally feel stronger. The trump card in its hand has strengthened. In this sense, it will continue the invasion attack and threat that it left unfinished with the election process. We need to see this.

‘ERDOGAN NEITHER GAVE UP, NOR RETREATED, NOR PAUSED’

In fact, when we look at the process, there have been constant attacks on Rojava with UCAVs, artillery shelling and invasion attempts. As we have just discussed, it has been constantly bombing Shengal and Maxmûr, with massacres and assassinations, and imposing an economic embargo. Its hostility towards the Rojava autonomous administration is not over, it will do what it has done until today. It started to occupy this geography in 2015. By changing the population density, committing massacres, displacing the Kurdish population, committing all kinds of infamy and crimes against humanity, it settled Al Nusra, Al Qaeda, ISIS and political Islamist fascist gangs here. It has given nothing but oppression to the peoples. And now it continues to do so. In other words, it has neither given up, nor regressed, nor paused. It is necessary to see that we will face a similar picture in the following period. It is not necessary to have a very special political mind, consciousness, interpretation and intelligence to say this.

‘THE DUTY OF COMMUNISTS IS TO CORRECTLY DESCRIBE THE CHARACTER OF THE TURKISH STATE AND TO STRUGGLE AGAINST IT’

Then it is our duty, the duty of the people of Kurdistan, the people of Rojava, the communists of Rojava, to convey this picture well, to explain it, to describe the character of the Turkish state correctly, to show that it is not the policy of individual parties, but the policy in line with the regional and historical interests of the Turkish state. We need to explain this correctly to the peoples of Rojava, Bakûr and Turkey by waging both ideological and political struggle.

‘THE PROPAGANDA THAT A FASCIST STATE WILL CHANGE IN THE ELECTIONS IS A BIG MISTAKE’

There is no other way for us to overthrow the fascist dictatorship except resistance and struggle. Elections are a field of struggle for a certain period, you make propaganda for a certain period. You organize the peoples with this consciousness, you make propaganda aiming to overthrow fascism. We know that elections will not bring anything. As long as this state structure of the colonialist, fascist dictatorship is not dismantled, how will politics change. We saw it in the election alliances. In Kurdistan, against the PKK and the Kurdish freedom struggle, they put Hezbollah into parliament today under HUDA-PAR. The MHP and others are all similar. The person called Sinan Oğan is part of the racist, Turkic synthesis of fascism. So we are faced with a more severe picture. In this sense, the state has organized itself more, so it is a big mistake to propagandize that such a fascist state will change with elections, with the arrival of a party.

‘THE CONTRADICTIONS OF IMPERIALISM ARE DEEPENING’

Considering all these and other developments, what would you like to say about the future of the Middle East in the near and medium term?

There is a great polarization in the Middle East and in the world. For example, you know that the imperialist USA and the European Union are in the process of redividing the world. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the world was declared. The former Soviet republics were redistributed and turned into areas of exploitation and colonial cheap labor and consumer areas of capitalism, and they were intoxicated with victory there. But at this stage they have reached their limits. The imperialist contradictions and the internal contradictions of capitalism are creating themselves. It came to the fore with Russia’s war against Ukraine. China came to the agenda in the form of its economic and political redivision and colonization of the world. In this sense, the European Union, Germany, France and Italy found themselves again in the Middle East and Africa in this sharing process. The states in the region wanted to change the old borders and open up new spaces for themselves. In this sense, there is a polarization, a taking sides. The Middle East also has its share of this, as we have already mentioned. Saudi Arabia’s main orientation in the region. For example, China’s and Russia’s refusal to accept the direction drawn by the US, and their desire to get a bigger share of the distribution, always bring them face to face.

‘CONTRADICTIONS WILL CREATE NEW CONFLICTS AND WARS’

This process will be characterized by ups and downs, conflicts, internal tensions and indirect wars. Because there is no other way to overcome this process. Because there is a demand to share the market again. Because capitalism wants more profit, a share of the market. It does not accept the existing sharing areas. And Russia and China are at the forefront of these. This will increase contradictions, wars and regional wars. When we look at it now, polarization is developing along this axis. In other words, it is between the imperialists and it is not in a position to be finalized or resolved in the very near future. At least in the next 5-10 years, new alliances will continue to develop and develop along with these alliances. In other words, the states of the region and the imperialist states in cooperation with them will want to develop their hegemony areas, colonial areas, and expand to new areas of cheap labor and cheap raw materials.

We see this today in the Middle East and especially in Africa. China and Russia have turned Africa into a redistribution area. Russia and China are carrying out intensive economic and military activities in this region. The Middle East also gets its share from this. Then what remains is this. The imperialists are engaged in a war of division at the regional and world level. They are doing this by using economic, military, diplomatic, political embargo and all kinds of means and methods. Aren’t these mutual indirect wars, regional wars? Redesigning, redrawing, redrawing, redistorting the borders of territories, the borders of nation states, all of this is happening. This is how it is in the Caucasus, the Middle East, the Balkans and Africa.

‘MIDDLE EAST REGIONAL REVOLUTION AGAINST IMPERIALIST ENCIRCLEMENT’

It is necessary to see and understand correctly what capitalism, imperialist globalization and its capitalist movement and its representatives want to do in the region and in the world. It is necessary to read correctly the policies of these alliances and their moves to colonize the process and the region and to draw it into wars, and to develop the right policies against them and to organize our peoples on the right ground. The idea of a regional Middle East, regional revolution and federation is very valuable and meaningful in this sense. This is the only thing that can be opposed to this. Then the practical organization of this becomes vitally important. This is not just a matter of program and theory. The imperialist and regional states are in a polarization and organization in this sense. We saw it in Iran. How it responds to the women’s revolution by executing and massacring women every day. We saw it in Sudan against the revolutionaries and women and oppressed peoples in Turkey, women led the revolution.

‘IT IS NECESSARY TO CALL THE PEOPLES TO STRUGGLE’

But then one of the fascist juntas was supported by imperialist Russia and the other by imperialist Europe. In other words, by suppressing this uprising of the oppressed with blood, they tried to prevent the oppressed from playing a role in the region and coming to power with these reactionary dictatorships by establishing reactionary, sovereign dictatorships and military juntas. Rojava is very important in this sense. It stood in an important place that broke this siege. Then it is necessary to advance this. Both for the survival of the Rojava revolution and to create a revolutionary, democratic, populist, women’s, libertarian, ecological society in the Middle East. It is necessary to organize all oppressed peoples in the Middle East, those in favor of freedom, women, around the idea of a Middle Eastern regional federation and revolution, to call them to struggle, to be the practical pioneer of this, to take practical steps, to create a great power of war and action. This will not only strengthen the Rojava revolution, but also break this capitalist and reactionary imperialist siege. I think this is the only real project and the only field of struggle that will bring freedom and democracy in the real sense, for the peoples and women, for all the oppressed, for nature, for all these social segments.