The Academy of Democratic Modernity has published a new booklet called 'The Resistance of Culture'. The booklet can be downloaded here

Presenting the work, the Academy wrote: "As an idea generator of an entire social movement, Abdullah Öcalan evaluates the enormous importance of cultural resistance as part of the forces of democratic modernity that oppose violence and capitalist exploitation. Ethnic movements of indigenous communities - as expressions of the concept of democratic nation, are, for him, as much a part of these as the revival in democratic traditions of religious-cultural practices , as well as movements for urban, local and regional autonomy."

In the introduction, the authors wrote that "we can generally define culture as the whole of the structural and meaningfulness that human society has formed in the historical process. It is possible to define structuralities as the set of institutions open to transformation and their meaning as the coordinated level of meaning or enriching and diversifying content of the transformed institutions. If we strengthen the definition with an analogy, it is possible to define structurality as the material and concrete framework of the structure, and meaning as the content of this material, concrete framework, the law that makes it move, make it emotional and thoughtful."

The authors added: "Here, we are getting closer to Hegel’s concepts of “nature” and “spirit.” It is possible to say that the meaning that Hegel ascribed to these concepts two hundred years ago and the content of the definition he made for these concepts became competent with later scientific developments. The narrow definition of culture is also used quite frequently. Here, culture is tried to be determined as the meaning, content, law and vitality of the structure. Regarding society, we define culture in the narrow sense as the meaning world, moral law, mentality, art and science of society. Political, economic and social institutions are integrated with this narrower meaning, and a broader definition of general culture is introduced. Therefore, one can only talk about society itself as an entity if it is fundamentally institutionalized and has meaning in terms of content."

The Academy of Democratic Modernity

The Academy of Democratic Modernity aims to spread the ideas and experience of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement and its paradigm of Democratic Modernity. Its publication activities are intended to initiate joint discussions with activists, academics and various anti-systemic and social movements in order to move forward in our search for a radical alternative to capitalist modernity and to realize a free life for all. In doing so, it strives to disseminate and discuss Abdullah Ocalan’s ideas and concepts in different languages. It also produces brochures on specific topics that emerge from his various writings.