JINHA

ISTANBUL – Zeynep Gambetti, a political science professor at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, says that the time of direct democracy is here.

The Associate Professor in Boğaziçi University's Department of Political Science and International Relations, discussing the rise of grassroots democratic organizing in the Kurdish movement and elsewhere, noted that in Greece, Latin America, and Spain, "direct democracy is being talked about again."

"In Turkey, people still haven't come to terms with this. Turkey is still on the path of the national development mindset," said Zeynep. "I'm of the opinion that representative democracy has lived out its life." Zeynep noted that the idea of democratic autonomy developed by the Kurdish movement in Turkey was a way of reclaiming the idea of democracy from the AKP and other ruling political parties who have diluted and abused the term in Turkey.

"Because we are reemphasizing its values, reemphasizing that democracy is necessary," said Zeynep. "Democracy is the representation of the grassroots. It's not elections every five years and it's not just something in the constitution. If there aren't masses and grassroots behind the law, it's condemned to staying on paper. Hitler didn't feel the need to change the Weimar Constitution because when there's no one behind the constitution, it doesn't really matter if it stays or goes."

Zeynep has previously compared experiences of local democracy in the Kurdish and Zapatista movements in her 2009 article "Politics of Place/Space: The Spatial Dynamics of the Kurdish and Zapatista Movements."

"The Zapatistas organized themselves in a particular region against a one-party state and centralized administration. They had to take up armed struggle, because they were of the opinion that without armed struggle, they would not get a series of rights," she said. Although she said the Kurdish movement has many parallels, she noted that the Zapatista movement developed over a shorter period of time.

The Zapatistas quickly built international solidarity in the wake of the signing of NAFTA and at the same time built up local autonomy. Zeynep said that although the Kurdish struggle has taken place over a longer period, both movements developed comparable approaches to local organizing—including control of local government and a high rate of participation of women.

"But there is this difference: the Mexican government couldn’t control the region where the Zapatista movement was. The state had a weak point, so organizing was easier," she said. "When we look at the Zapatista movement, Chiapas is a small place." She said that forms like neighborhood assemblies and village communes, developed in the Zapatista and Kurdish movements, promise a new kind of politics.

Zeynep noted the importance of recent developments for the prospects for this kind of grassroots democracy in Turkey. Over the weekend, Kurdish and Turkish women's groups came together in Istanbul to work for women's role in the Kurdish peace process. Although the workshop was just one of many concrete steps being taken recently signaling the "pluralization of the Kurdish movement" (also represented in the rise of the Peoples' Democratic Party [HDP]) Zeynep said its results would be meaningful.

"It's very important what comes out of the Women's Liberation Workshop [in Istanbul]," she said. "Let's see what our experiences have gotten us."

(ekip/fk/cm)