politics – Centre of the Web

The door called the organization

May 4, 2026May 8, 2026 !Epic Tomorrows

By Kim Ja-heun

Human relationships are like that. When people gather, whether they like it or not, they must open their mouths to speak. You have to reveal words that could have remained hidden, and you must listen to words that would have been irrelevant had they gone unheard. Furthermore, in any gathering of an organization, words inevitably pour out—this way and that. As the mass of the organization grows, the volume of words swells, branching out in every direction.

Even on a single agenda, conflict arises because thoughts differ. It is not a matter of “This is my thought, what is yours?” but rather an attempt to inject one’s own beliefs into others: “My thought is right, so why is yours like that?” It would be ideal if conflicting opinions reached a consensus, but when they don’t, the situation escalates into raised voices and flushed faces. When the clash is over petty interests rather than a grand cause, a sense of self-reproach washes over me as I watch, listen, and participate: Good heavens, why do I even have to be here? It feels like a homework assignment where the distinction between right and wrong will never reach a resolution.

Yet, I also realize that the opinions each person puts forward can be interpreted as a desire to do things well. If a few say one thing but the majority says another, it could be that the majority is right. When opinions are expressed, synthesized, and deduced to create something new, the resulting conclusion might return as a different kind of vitality.

Late at night, returning home through the pouring rain in Gwanghwamun, a junior colleague who lives in the same direction and I got into an extension of the meeting’s debate on the subway. My junior argued that the activities of the Self-Discipline Committee are ultimately political and that we must, therefore, increase our influence through numbers. To be honest, I couldn’t actively agree. My conviction is that a writer’s political expansion should be expressed through their writing. As political assertions clashed with my professional philosophy, the junior—who seemed to be from “Venus”—exclaimed, “Ah, senior, you’re being frustrating again!” I, coming from “Mars,” grew weary of the same problems repeating and closed my tired eyes, saying, “Hey, let’s just stop now.”

***

On a day like today, I feel an immense fatigue from belonging to an organization. Is it regret, or perhaps a realization? I think to myself that if I hadn’t joined this organization in the first place, I wouldn’t have to deal with this bitter energy on my way home so late. I realize once again that I am, by nature, ill-suited for the confines of an organized framework.

Closing my eyes, I sink into thought. I wonder, as my junior poet said, how a senior writer who is respected should behave. And is that junior, who says such things, behaving correctly as a senior respected by their own juniors? While pondering what human relationships are all about… I eventually lean toward the positive: Yes, this is all just everyone trying to do their best!

They say that as you get older, you should keep your mouth closed and your wallet open. Since I am not in a position to gallantly open my wallet, I suppose I should act my age by simply keeping my mouth firmly shut.

Libertarian socialism & social ecology

DAANES / Rojava under existential threat

January 23, 2026May 18, 2026 !Epic Tomorrows

Update published on 18th May 2026 from the Rojava Information Center: https://rojavainformationcenter.org/2026/05/the-assault-on-north-east-syria-violations-during-saa-january-2026-offensive/

The most left wing political territory in the world, according to some: the Democratic Administration of North East Syria (DAANES), known colloquially by the Kurdish name Rojava, is under threat of being totally destroyed.

DAANES is a Kurdish-led political experiment which sprung up during the Syrian civil war (2011+), based on direct democracy and inspired by the teachings of the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, who was in turn inspired by the American scholar-activist Murray Bookchin, who pioneered a system of thought and action known as social ecology: a synthesis of Marxism, anarchism and deep ecological sensibilities, otherwise definable as a deeply ecologically integrated kind of libertarian socialism or social anarchism.

In this time of global disorder and what seems to be the irrevocable albeit currently slow Collapse of modern civilization, with far right ideologies and groups gaining ground globally, fed, as in the 1930s, by economic crisis and the horrific and increasing gap between the richest and the poorest, but this time exacerbated by an underlying ecological overshoot (including the climate crisis), and lubricated by an internet that knows no sense, so that the far right may pop up in any society, at any time, the Rojava experiment is to many leftists an excruciatingly rare beacon of hope and revolutionary action. The fact that it could soon end, is deeply tragic.

I think I did not realise, until yesterday, that just knowing in the back of my mind that Rojava existed, was an ongoing source of strength to me, and an orientation point for how populations can organise in times of Collapse, for the collapse of Syria from 2011 was in a sense a microcosm and reflection of the broader Collapse that is underway globally. I have not been involved in any Kurdish solidarity activism for many years, but I remember with gratitude how my brief involvement with the Kurdish Solidarity Network in the UK led to a longer-lasting and more profound (online) link with the Institute for Social Ecology based in Vermont in the U.S., cofounded by Murray Bookchin, that autodidactical heavyweight mentioned above.

The Kurdish revolution was not perfect, of course; was an ongoing struggle, and there are of course links, I have it from good sources, between sections of the Kurdish SDF forces (Syrian Democratic Forces: the military arm of DAANES / Rojava) in Syria and the PKK in Turkey and Iraq, despite negations of this on the ground. The PKK, classed as freedom fighters by some, and terrorists by others. After speaking to many Turkish students of English in my teaching job, I now have a less than rosy picture of the PKK, if rosy it ever was. This complicates my support of Rojava and makes it equivocal, even to myself. Moreover, since the anti-Semitism of Ocalan has emerged, reflecting anti-Semitism in Turkish-Kurdish society (and my wife is Jewish) this support has become even more equivocal. Yet a strong kernel of support remains.

I am not extremely well-versed in the politics of the Middle East, but my understanding of the situation, which I think is workable enough, is that the Kurds in NE Syria are currently being betrayed by the HTS-led Syrian government which contains jihadist (by which I mean extreme Islamist) elements. This current Syrian government (still a new government) had promised some kind of peace deal with DAANES in the north, or at least specifically with the SDF. The SDF were to be integrated with the national Syrian army. This is despite some all-female units in the SDF -the famous ISIS-bashing YPJ units- declaring their wish to remain independent from the Syrian army.

Yet, any agreement has now been breached, and any ceasefire broken. Syrian government forces are currently claiming back land from the Kurds in a lightning offensive, with no intention, it seems, of preserving those radically democratic institutions. There have been military clashes and deaths. Moreover, the escape of ISIS prisoners from previously Kurdish-run prisons is being facilitated or at least not stopped, by the national Syrian forces. Those same ISIS members whom the Kurds in Rojava so courageously defeated in the mid 2010s, at which time America and its allies were happy to help -but no more.

One of the most inspiring things about the Rojava experiment has been the incredibly high level of gender equality aspired to, in line with radical direct democracy, including mix-gendered co-chairs of democratic assemblies, from the street level to the regional level, and special womens assemblies and other womens groups to advance feminism in the DAANES region. This level of gender equality is otherwise unheard of, in the Middle East, and surpasses even many Western countries` practices of gender equality. With images circulating on social media of Syrian government-aligned forces mocking the captured female soldiers of the YPJ, and one particularly horrible video of a man mocking a dead woman by holding up a braid cut from her head, the conflict between the patriarchal, Western state-recognised new government of Syria, and the radically left wing, feminist political project led by an ethnic minority in the region, could not be more stark, failures of the revolution notwithstanding.

It is warming to see the calls to international activists coming out from Rojava now, and the response of the so-called Kobane caravan, which is a movement of people from all over the world now travelling to Kobane (a key Kurdish city within DAANES) to help militarily defend Rojava. I have my own life plan to advance libertarian socialist and feminist politics, and although I will not be travelling to Kobane to put my life on the line, the least I can do is raise awareness about what is happening there. It would be pointless for me to exclaim DEFEND ROJAVA! on this little blog, although of course we should defend Rojava, first of all in our minds. But this is just a beginning for me. A trying-to-make-sense of what is happening. I hear that the Kurdish citizens of Rojava are mobilising with weapons like never before, surpassing even the mobilisation of the 2010s, and Kurds from the wider Kurdistan region are trying to get to the DAANES territory to help. Alongside the Kobane caravan, I wish them every success in defending Rojava. Please share this with anyone who may be interested, and for updates visit the Rojava Information Center here: https://rojavainformationcenter.org/

Ecology of the absurd

World War Three / WWIII (Part 1: Venezuela)

January 4, 2026January 5, 2026 !Epic Tomorrows

This series of posts is written in association with the Epic Tomorrows project. Epic Tomorrows is due to relaunch in the middle of 2026. Watch this space.

I hold the following to be true:

Modern civilization is undergoing Collapse. For more on this, I recommend that you start here: https://www.collapsologie.fr/en/
Countries and governments realise that the climate crisis, and underlying ecological overshoot, are not globally solvable within capitalism in any meaningful way that does not end GDP growth, and that the so-called green transition is not ultimately workable within capitalism. Rather than implementing globally coordinated socialism and massive economic / energetic-industrial degrowth (which would be necessary to mitigate the Collapse that is currently unfolding due to the climate crisis, ecological overshoot and the associated debt-based infinitely growing fantastical global economic system) many countries and governments are preferring, consciously or in a self-deceiving way, to pursue a last-man standing approach to global resources and the climate crisis. Countries / governments are therefore grabbing what global oil reserves remain and foolishly assuming adaptation to, rather than mitigation of, extreme climate collapse.
It is assumed by most countries that capitalism will / must continue, still based on fossil fuels for the time being, and whether consciously or in a self-deceiving way, it is assumed that a pathway of war —ideally a total all-consuming world war— could help mitigate global Collapse and allow capitalism to continue, by stimulating a global war economy and simultaneously depopulating the world to a significant degree, and crippling some major economies, with the sum result of a lower ecological footprint of humanity on the planet, thus mitigating the climate crisis and ecological overshoot to some extent (and advancing some so-called national interests at the expense of some other national interests). This disgusting plan / pathway does not however specifically account for global GHG emissions produced by the military sector, and associated destruction of ecosystems and food systems even within the so-called victorious countries.
Civilizational Collapse may indeed be relatively subverted / delayed by a global war, but ultimately such a war is likely to lock in an acceleration of Collapse, as war and Collapse scenarios share common points which feed off each other, such as infrastructure and supply chain disruption and degradation, the break down of law and order, massive pollution and destruction of ecosystems, the reliance on fossil fuel energy / weapons systems etc. Apart from the energetic-ecological, industrial, and geopolitical impact of a global war, of course it cannot be morally justified.
The US administration of Donald Trump has been quite open that control of Venezuela`s oil industry is a central motivation for the recent invasion. Control will be given to American oil companies, it has been announced. This fits with the narratives presented above. (This is despite other lesser motivations, such as distracting from the Epstein files, and curbing immigration from Venezuela; the claim of attacking Venezuela to stop the flow of drugs is of course false, as the US DEA has itself stated that the vast majority of cocaine and fentanyl do not enter the US from Venezuela. Of course, attacking Venezuela is seen as more socially acceptable than attacking Mexico, from where more drugs enter the US, as president Maduro is / was a dictatorial leader in some respects, but using the drugs argument has some symbolic value amongst the American people). Many citizens of Venezuela are happy that Maduro has been arrested, but this does not justify the true motivations of the Trump administration.
Within the context of all of the above, the global knock-on effects of the US invasion of Venezuela and the lack of intervention from other NATO / UN members could include: greater confidence of other NATO / UN members in invading other countries without recourse, whether for arbitrary reasons, especially to secure oil and other resources, or for apparently more logical reasons, such as the reunification of China; a further acceleration in the disintegration of the so-called international rules based order established after WWII, including NATO, the UN and economic bodies like the IMF —a disintegration which includes a decline in the global hegemony / purchasing power of the US dollar; an increased impetus for movements for global social justice, but also for terrorist activities against the US and US allies.
The Trump administration`s neocolonialism as exemplified by the recent invasion, alongside its policy of global tariffs aimed partly at trying to avoid the increasing insecurity of global infrastructures and supply chains in times of Collapse, could be seen as a last desperate attempt to maintain America`s global energy dominance and economic hegemony. This could be the beginning of the end (within a decade or two) for a prosperous America and by implication a prosperous West in general. The so-called collapse of the West is only a subtrend or precursor to a more comprehensive / global Collapse of modern civilization.
I do not see the invasion of Venezuela as the beginning of World War Three / WWIII, like many sensationalist YouTube videos claim to, for example. However, such events as this could certainly help destabilise international relations to prepare the ground for a potential global war. I perceive such a war to be likely but not certain, as opposed to Collapse in general, which I see as certain / already underway. (Note, the current level of armed conflict around the world has not been this high since WWII.)
Collapse is a process and not an event, and likewise global war. There will always be room for pockets of humanity to live in peaceful, inspiring and internationally cooperative ways, however difficult this may be to achieve. And some countries will fare better than others. It is the mission of Epic Tomorrows (to be relaunched this year) to help facilitate such islands of coherence, even amidst war and Collapse.