First conference of the Mesopotamian Ecology Movement (MEM)

Final Dec­la­ra­tion of the 1st Con­fer­ence hold on April 23–24, 2016, in Wan – North Kur­dis­tan

On April 23 and 24, 2016, in the city of Wan (Van) the first con­fer­ence of the Mesopotami­an Ecol­o­gy Move­ment (MEM) has been held with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of 100 del­e­gates from the provinces Amed (Diyarbakir), Dîlok (Gaziantep), Riha (San­li­ur­fa), Merdîn, Muş, Wan, Elih (Bat­man), Siirt, Der­sîm and Bedlîs (Bitlis), from Turkey with activists from the fol­low­ing move­ments and groups Gaya mag­a­zine, Anti Nuclear Plat­form, Green Resis­tance, Green News­pa­per, Green and Left Par­ty, Black Sea in Rebel­lion, Defense of North Forests, Water Right Cam­paign, Der­sîm-Ovacik Munic­i­pal­i­ty and with of the Ger­man ICOR and the East-Kur­dis­tan group Green Chiya. Includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the DTK, KJA, HDK and HDP there were in total 170 peo­ple join­ing the first big gath­er­ing of the MEM since its buildup.

The con­fer­ence in Wan has been orga­nized in a peri­od of inten­sive polit­i­cal strug­gles by peo­ple in Kur­dis­tan for free­dom and self-gov­er­nance which may change sig­nif­i­cant­ly the future of a region, but demands many vic­tims.

Based on the trin­i­ty city-class-state and the method of dom­i­nance-cap­i­tal accu­mu­la­tion, the cap­i­tal­ist moder­ni­ty cre­ates a breath­less and unpro­duc­tive life for the soci­ety as well as it faces the nature with every kind of destruc­tion. On behalf of the exist­ing hege­mon­i­cal sys­tem the nation-state und its gov­ern­ments dis­perse the social-sol­idary char­ac­ter of the soci­ety and impos­es unem­ploy­ment, pover­ty, unhealthy nour­ish­ment via indus­tri­al and GMO’s and the cul­tur­al-social dev­as­ta­tion on the peo­ple. Huge destruc­tive projects like the GAP (South­east­ern Ana­to­lia Project), Ilisu Dam, Mun­zur dams, Green Way, Cer­at­te­pe Min­ing and Kanal Istan­bul are devel­oped and real­ized with the aim to enable the forests for con­struc­tion, to com­mer­cialise the waters, com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the land, to con­trol nature and peo­ple and pro­mote the con­sump­tion of fos­sil fuels which is noth­ing else than the move away and alien­ation of peo­ple to their orig­i­nal nature and life.

Cur­rent­ly, the rul­ing regime in Turkey car­ries out a bru­tal­i­ty which is incom­pa­ra­ble in the recent his­to­ry of Kur­dis­tan and the Mid­dle East and has a new per­fid­i­ous dimen­sion. Hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple from Sur, Nusay­bin, Hezex, Kerbo­ran, Far­qin, Şır­nak, Gev­er, Silopi and Cizre are dis­placed force­ly from their cities which are under a sys­tem­at­ic destruc­tion. While doing so, the world pub­lic keeps silent on the destruc­tion of nature and cities and all mas­sacres.

The deny­ing and monist men­tal­i­ty of the nation-state and the unlim­it­ed prof­it-com­pe­ti­tion and dom­i­na­tion seek­ing char­ac­ter of the cap­i­tal­ist moder­ni­ty has brought the world into the cur­rent grave state. Thats why social dis­as­ters turn into eco­log­i­cal dis­as­ters and vice ver­sa. The soci­ety and the human­i­ty has to say stop to this devel­op­ment. If this sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ues then we will pass over a point from where a turn­about would be not pos­si­ble any more. In this sense also the raise of an eco­log­i­cal resis­tance is very impor­tant.

Despite of the destruc­tive men­tal­i­ty and prac­tice a return is pos­si­ble. It is nec­es­sary to raise the eco­log­i­cal strug­gle both against the wars and the elim­i­na­tion of life areas and our cul­tur­al and social val­ues through destruc­tive and exploita­tive numer­ous projects like dams, coal plants, min­ing. In this line the eco­log­i­cal strug­gle has to be done and spread under the max­im “Lets com­mu­nal­ize our land, waters and ener­gy and set­up the demo­c­ra­t­ic free life”. It is the right time to defend the demo­c­ra­t­ic nation against the nation-state, the com­mu­nal econ­o­my based on anti-caputal­ism and anti-monop­o­lism against cap­i­tal­ist fast prof­it seek­ing log­ic and large indus­tri­al­ism, the organ­ic agri­cul­ture, eco­log­i­cal vil­lages and cities, eco­log­i­cal indus­try, ener­gy and tech­nol­o­gy against agri­cul­ture and ener­gy poli­cies imposed by cap­i­tal­ist moder­ni­ty.

With the con­scious­ness that the eco­log­i­cal strug­gle is the touch­stone for the lib­er­a­tion of the whole human­i­ty we are aware that every action may bring us clos­er to a free indi­vid­ual and free soci­ety. We under­stand that our strug­gle towards reach­ing our nature and soci­etal truth, which are the fun­da­men­tals of our exis­tence jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, is an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion for the lib­er­a­tion of peo­ple and nature in our world. With a big exite­ment, which we feel deeply, we take our posi­tion in this strug­gle.

Our par­a­digm, the her­ald of bright ages of the 21st cen­tu­ry’s and com­ing mil­le­ni­ums, is the one of a rad­i­cal demo­c­ra­t­ic, com­mu­nal, eco­log­i­cal, women lib­er­tar­i­an soci­ety. In this sense the ecol­o­gy strug­gle is beyond being any strug­gle but the vital essence of the free life par­a­digm. With­out ecol­o­gy the soci­ety and with­out human and nature the ecol­o­gy can not exist. Ecol­o­gy, as the essence and self to mil­le­ni­ums old uni­ver­sal dialec­tic of for­ma­tion, dialec­ti­cal­ly weaves all process­es of enti­ties con­nect­ed to each oth­er and like the rings of a chain.

In this sense the strug­gle against cap­i­tal­ist moder­ni­ty; is the strug­gle to devel­op demo­c­ra­t­i­cal, social and lib­er­atar­i­an mind­set, the strug­gle to become a social sub­ject against the sta­tist — sov­er­eignist mind­set. This can only devel­op with social enti­ty, with a strug­gle of free­dom, with a stand against to the sys­tem that puts up the nature-soci­ety-indi­vid­ual for the inter­ests of cap­i­tal-rent and hege­mo­ny.

In the Mid­dle East, the his­to­ry of ecol­o­gy has­n’t been writ­ten like the his­to­ry of woman. Like for free woman it is nec­es­sary to know the his­to­ry of woman, for a eco­log­i­cal soci­ety it is nec­es­sary to know the his­to­ry of ecol­o­gy. In this sense, by open­ing up ecol­o­gy acad­e­mies, it is necesseary to include eco­log­i­cal con­scious­ness to the pro­grams of all social spheres and aca­d­e­m­ic edu­ca­tions as an essen­tial extent. Like orga­niz­ing our own assem­blies, the respon­si­bil­i­ty to ensure the orga­ni­za­tion of social sphere and insti­tu­tion­al stud­ies with eco­log­i­cal con­scious­ness and sen­si­bil­i­ty is vital. In rela­tion to demo­c­ra­t­ic and eco­log­ic soci­ety’s con­struc­tion, impor­tant things been agreed upon in our con­fer­ence. At the same time with the deci­sions, that have been tak­en in our con­fer­ence, an intel­lec­tu­al, organ­i­sa­tion­al and oper­a­tional con­tri­bu­tion has been aimed for the glob­al eco­log­i­cal move­ments. Some ofthe deci­sions that have been tak­en are:

- To estab­lish a strate­gic intel­lec­tu­al, orga­ni­za­tion­al and oper­a­tional
coor­di­na­tion with nation­al and inter­na­tion­al ecol­o­gy move­ments in order
to enhance com­mon dis­cus­sions and actions against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and exploita­tion.
— To strug­gle against the men­tal, phys­i­cal and ide­o­log­i­cal destruc­tions
in vital things for life such as ener­gy, water, forests, soil,
urban­i­sa­tion, agri­cul­ture-seed, tech­nol­o­gy; based on the approved
poli­cies of the Mesopotami­an Ecol­o­gy Move­ment at the con­fer­ence to rise
the strug­gle with­in the aimed con­struc­tion of a new life
— To fight against the sys­tem that demol­ish­es the urban set­tle­ments, that burns the forests in Kur­dis­tan; to treat pub­li­cal­ly the eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion expe­ri­enced in Kur­dis­tan and to map the dev­as­ta­tions with­in the war.
— To plan actions with oth­er ecol­o­gy move­ments against the destruc­tion of cities in Kur­dis­tan; to ensure active par­tic­i­pa­tion in sol­i­dar­i­ty plat­forms that have been estab­lished in these cities.
— To main­tain the strug­gles pro­tect­ing the cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al sites/values that faces extinc­tion such as Hasankeyf, Diyarbakır-Sur, Mun­zur Val­ley, “Gele Goderne” due to ener­gy and secu­ri­ty poli­cies in Kur­dis­tan.
— To devel­op a Kur­dis­tanesque eco­log­i­cal mod­el.
— To be more and reg­u­lar present in print­ed and dig­i­tal media organs and
to estab­lish ecol­o­gy acad­e­mies.
— To car­ry out the legal strug­gles in par­al­lel to ongo­ing actions and cam­paigns.
— To expand the own orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­tures in all Kur­dis­tan and Mid­dle-East.