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Comrades!

The terrorist attack of 20th July to the gathering of the Federation of Young Socialists at the Cultural Centre of Arama in the border city of Suruç, in Turkey, in which 32 people of our comrades, who were to be sent off on the mission of reconstructing Canton in Kobanî, were brutally killed, once again, with all its clarity and manifestation, revealed the irreconcilable conflict between ISIS’s barbarism and the socialist alternative of Kobanî. It is now crystal-clear that the present situation in the Middle East, chained to war and madness, is the harbinger of an age in which the question of “socialism or barbarism” carries an all the more clearer and unprecedented significance. There is no coincidence that among the superpower states of the middle east which are, as it were, swollen by the incomes of oil export each of which, in a way, manifestly indicating the tension-free harmony of capitalism and undemocratic regimes, it has been the Kobanî canton – and that of Jazira canton and Afrin – that, along with an attempt to vehemently resist against the bestial monster of ISIS, have set forth a genuine alternative. Not only against this terrorist state of ISIS, but also against all other states of the region. As far as the canton ceremony is concerned, we are doubtlessly witnessing successful examples of direct democracy, cooperative autonomy and self-governing, just solidarity, and socialist secular democracy, which literally suggest no less than a complete detachment from the despotic heritage of the powers of the region – from an anemic parliamentarianism with its dictated democracy or discriminative identity-seeking to tribal militarist-theocratic capitalisms. The humble light arrows that ascend from the depths of darkness of the days and nights of the middle east, crippled by demise and anarchy, are enlivened and become enduring with the aid and endeavor of all our comrades in Kobanî, Afrin, Jazira, Diyarbakır, Istanbul, Ankara, and, of course, by the egalitarian and liberating sacrifices of our other comrades in other countries of middle east.

We, too, like you, believe that the victorious resistance of Kobanî and the noteworthy political achievement of the Democratic Party of the People in Turkey are inseparably tied to one another and that they can only be perceived in light of their internal relations to the extent that it can be claimed that we are dealing with a single political project that, due to the circumstances and various possibilities, is applying different methods and means to meet the same objective. We consider both of these inspirational and hope-bearing political experiences as an opening of a democratic front at the heart of one of the most undemocratic regions of the world which is only gained through creative resistance against the multifaceted reactionary forces – once in form of a seemingly normal capitalist state with the extremist ambition of the recreation of an Islamic empire (Turkey) and elsewhere as the military state minion of regional capitalisms with a pretentious face of an ideological and executive Islam (ISIS). Where the leftist forces in the other countries of the middle east – either due to the external suppression or internal impasses – have become disintegrated, marginal, and ineffective movements, your perseverance in the parallel pursuit of a single unified leftist project in two separate fronts inspires the regional empowerment of a movement that thirsts for but freedom, equality, and solidarity. Our support for your political determination in your relentless campaign against the reactionary and the capital front is in fact a part of our own determination in contributing to a common political project which is the agenda of all leftist forces of the region.

Turkey’s state – which has now and thanks to the mulishness of its so-far-surviving Party of Justice and Development turned into a bizarre juxtaposition of nationalistic Ottomanism, political Islamism, and neoliberal economy – has been long playing but a reactionary role both in Turkey and throughout the region. In response to the recent terrorist attack, Erdoğan’s administration is trying to kill a number of birds with one stone: repairing its global image stained by cooperation with ISIS through self-victimization and launching a seeming assault to ISIS, and attempting to bring the formation of a coalitional government into impasse by implementing a premature parliament election, and, in parallel to all this, making an attempt to strengthen its weakened position in Turkey by the use of the nationalistic clichés and retrieving the considerable vote-loss in favor of its related party in order to compensate its recent political defeat by means of stirring PKK into an armed reaction against its recent actions and abandoning the peace strategy so that PKK appears as a threat against the national security of Turkey and an untrustworthy counterpart for political compromise through which it gets to win the sympathy of the Turkish nationalists who are against making any deal with PKK and thus providing the ground for the political suppression of PKK members and the other opposition members and ultimately all the leftist opposition forces, above all, the “Democratic Party of the People.” They are also after penetrating into the north of Syria under the pretext of fighting with ISIS, which in turns weakens the position of the democratic coalition, getting to control its moves in the region and, most importantly, preventing the triple cantons to join each other. In this regard, the emphasis placed by the Democratic Party of People and the other leftist forces on maintaining the peace pact – despite the unilateral truce role played by Turkey’s state – and their avoidance of falling prey to military retaliation and their resistance against the temptation to parliamentarian cooperation in the area of national politics while remaining loyal to their own principles, their progressive political agenda and position and their attempt to strengthen solidarity with the social movements and to continue to rely on the organization of the masses and turning the blame against the Party of Justice and Development, has all together, even to this point, succeeded in taking a vital step in revealing the vicious agenda of Erdoğan’s administration for tilting the balance of the political power in Turkey. In this regard, the call made by The Democratic Party of the People for the public besiege of all the pro-peace, democracy, and freedom forces and social classes, in form of a demonstration in Istanbul in 26th of July, can function as an effective tactic in empowering the anti-reactionary front.

We all know, beyond any reasonable doubt, that to what extent constituting a common democratic ideal depends on superseding beyond the national identities and borders and the opening of the universal and global sphere for everyone. The belief in the idea of internationalism is essentially and despite the rise of all sorts of ethnical regional reactionary identity-seekings in the Middle East can only be attained through strengthening regional solidarities and attracting all those people who, regardless of the particular national interests, have passionately invested on human values. That is why we, as a number of freedom-seekers and egalitarianists of Iran, reach hands to you from across the national borders that have separated us from each other and take an oath of solidarity to stand with you. In a battle that you have started with your political will and determination against ISIS’s barbarianism, in one side, and Turkish state’s hypocrisies, in the other, we are your companion and our hearts are with you. It is true that we did not stand by you, shoulder to shoulder, in the demonstration and assemblies that you have called for in 26th of July, in Istanbul; yet we hope that you felt our deep sympathy with your aim. There is no doubt that, these days, the hope for a better future for the entire Middle East is only rendering itself possible through your united bodies and determined visages.