Analysis of the political context
This section is meant to put the Scottish Histories of Resistance work and project into a context. History and learning are always political things, that change us as we do them and change the world around us. There are reasons we need to learn new things and there are reasons we need this project - why history? Why now? Why in this way?
Members of the Jineoloji Committee have been asked to contribute this section. Jineoloji is a radical reimagining of science, learning, and knowledge, that has been proposed by the Kurdish Women's Movement but can be applied in any context. The Kurdish Movement has a practice of putting any meeting, learning space, or project into context by giving a political briefing at the beginning. This helps us understand better where we fit into the world, and into histories of resistance and struggle. It has helps us take ourselves seriously, and see the meaning of what we do, even at the smallest and most local level.
Here we will attempt a (very brief!) look at the global political situation, followed by zooming in on Scotland. Then we will ask what this means for a project like this one.
Global political situation
We are living in a time of crisis. Often this is seen as a crisis of the dominant system, but the system is in fact working as it should — it is thriving off crisis. War, environmental catastrophe, disease, and economic collapse are all events which benefit the system. Crisis allows for the powers of capitalist modernity to increase their domination over humanity.
We can call this the Third World War, a conflict that begins with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Although in West we might think that there has been no global war since WWII, this is an illusion. Throughout the last three decades, powerful states have engaged in proxy wars, using conflicts outside of their own borders to indirectly fight for power. Although it’s presented as a fight between ideologies — democracy vs. authoritarianism, liberalism vs. conservatism — these states are in fact different sides are part of the same, capitalist coin. This is a fight for supremacy in a capitalist world. War and militarism benefit capitalist and state powers both economically and politically; and they allow for these same powers to wage war on society. That is why we are presented with narratives to make us align ourselves with our oppressors.
We look at the world and see pain and suffering everywhere. The words we are given to describe what we see are meant to obscure reality and direct our thoughts in a certain direction: we're meant to focus on inequality rather than capitalism, green industry rather than environmental and climate destruction, lack of representation rather than racism. And we're meant to see these problems as isolated elements, when they in fact together form a complete picture of capitalist modernity. It is our duty to see this full picture.
At the root of this capitalist, imperialist, statist world system is patriarchy: the original form of domination and power-seeking that has taken away collective power from communities, and turned social worlds upside down. Patriarchy stands in opposition to life. It corrupts and distorts all social relationships — not just those between genders, but between all living beings. Patriarchy takes the nourishing, collective parts of life and turns them into individualistic, privatised impulses. Our struggle is anti-patriarchal because it is a struggle for life.
We can see this struggle going on in every territory, including our own. The political questions we grapple with are both local and global — how we face them matters to our communities and also to the world.
Local
In Scotland, we can see the question of political autonomy is central: a society's desire for local, democratic decision-making becomes a question of national independence. These two things are actually very distinct from each other: a state is not a guarantor of democracy, not even when it is born out of a struggle against colonisation. Our desires for autonomy must always be greater than the state. This requires us to ask certain questions: independence from what and for what? And what kind of autonomy do we desire? This also requires looking at our histories. How to grapple with the nuances of colonialism, with Scotland having been both colonised but also a colonial power, when simple narratives are what we have been taught to seek?
These questions of autonomy are tied to capitalism: how much autonomy can people in Scotland dream of in a world devastated by neoliberalism and governed by the needs of capitalism? How do we recover and rebuild communities splintered by Clearance, economic extraction and political policies like Thatcherism? These questions are tied to other complicated and intersecting questions of power: how do we reckon with Scotland’s past and present as part of Empire, and also as a place of resistance against colonialism and imperialism? How does seeking freedom and autonomy in Scotland relate to similar struggles elsewhere in the world?
In asking and beginning to answer these questions, we start to get to the heart of why the struggle for life in Scotland is inseparable from the struggle in every part of the world.
Learning, memory, and resistance
The Kurdish movement uses the term 'special warfare' to refer to attacks on society and resistance that are not physically violent - through the media; spread of drugs and other addictions; isolation and separation; and mentalities that turn us against each other and ourselves to name just a few. Everyone is in some way on the frontline of this war, whether we like it or not, but its methods often specifically target certain groups, such as women or youth, who have historically led resistance and struggle.
This term is very similar to the one coined by Scottish poverty and housing activist, Cathy McCormack. She talked about the War Without Bullets, that silently eats away at us through the fabric of our own lives - the impacts of the class system on the physical and mental health of our communities. Speaking in the 90s, she made this point at the same time in history as the Kurdish Women's Movement outlined their liberation ideology. The mountains of Kurdistan and the schemes of Glasgow are not as distant as they seem.
It's easy to look at the world today and feel very hopeless and small. It's also easy to feel like resistance is something distant - either in time or space. This is an impact of this very special, bullet-less warfare, that stops us understanding ourselves and our situation, and so stops us acting before we even start. It is important to recognise this as a war, because the powers waging it — such as states and capital — certainly approach it with all the purposefulness and violence of warfare. It is a war not just to maintain their power but to expand it. One of our weapons to defend ourselves in it is to know our histories: in order to better understand the stakes, and to learn from past resistance.
The reality is that all across the world there is and always has been resistance to oppression of all kinds - for everything we can analyse in our political context that looks bleak, there is a force for an alternative. Our context here in Scotland is no different - and it is also connected to global and international resistance, making both more meaningful. We have a duty to remember this, and to reconnect with it.
To study histories of resistance is an act of struggle in itself. Social movements have suffered (not always accidental) memory loss and become cut from the legacy of what makes us strong. This suits the system very well. We have a responsibility to find the hidden histories, inspiring histories, legacies of resistance, freedom, and love. We can also help to create the world we want to live in by producing the knowledge that serves it and makes it stronger.
We do this as part of our communities and wider society. We are not outside observers, but a part of what we are learning. At its best, this project can transform us, create relationships, and guide us in how to live and act. We look forward to going on this journey together.