Asabiyyah: Social Solidarity, Jineology and the Sociology of Freedom

Asabiyyah is an ancient word in Sumer language, dating 3000 b.C. and meaning social solidarity - as discussed in the book 'Sociology of Freedom' (2020) by Abdullah Ocalan leader of the Kurdish people, who has been imprisoned for the last 25 years in a Turkish island. The term refers to pre-patriarchal, pre-state, pre-capitalistic societies based on reproduction, women-centered civilizations, and social solidarity - where the latter is seen as the engine of history (beyond 'mechanical' or 'organic' solidarity, and outside limites of dualistic dychotomous Western thinking).

Social solidarity ties are pivotal for all different forms of democracy. Today, analyzing 5000 years of patriarchy the Kurdish Women's Movement proposes to decolonize, de-patriarchalize, and re-write social sciences from women's standpoints, producing eco-sustainable economies; socially useful knowledge (instead of profit-driven knowledge); new ways of political participation; non-violent forms of social life; non-oppressive pedagogies; the re-evaluation of traditional medicine and social ecology. In North-East Syria, Rojava, and in refugees camps, in Makhmur, Iraq, an experiment of Democratic Confederalism is taking place among different ethnic and religious groups (Armenian, Kurds, Ezedi, Arabs, Turkoman, Syriac), living togheter to build equality in the respect of differences. A new type of social solidarity in action was born, with functioning forms of direct democracy; radical hospitality and revolutionary love, besides family ties; deep social responsibility and the recognition of the necessity to overcome toxic gender relations and hierarchies among cultures. The project of Jineology (Women's Science) inspired many publication involving feminists and scholars-activists (Meral Duzgun, JMEWS, 2016; Piccardi, Barca, Springer-Nature 2022; Al-Ali, Käser, Cambridge, 2020) reflecting the urgent necessity for all sciences to become social; for political decisions (about resources and priorities) to become really democratic, i.e., taken collectively, from the small communities to the cities, to districts, in different articulations of what has been called 'free life together'.