Lecture held on democratic integration in Tabqa

On Wednesday, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Tabqa canton organized a lecture on the concept of democratic integration, in which the party members, along with representatives from the Martyrs' Families Council, residents of Tabqa, and displaced people from Afrin and Shahba Cantons, participated. The lecture was held in the Culture and Art Center in the city center.

The lecture began with holding a minute of silence, after which Manal Mohamed, the member of the PYD Women's Council, delivered the first part of the lecture. She explained the concept of democratic integration, stating that it represents the theoretical and practical core of the democratic nation project. This project, she explained, is a comprehensive alternative to the nation-state system and capitalist hegemony, which have caused social, political, moral, and environmental crises in the Middle East and the world.

Manal Mohamed clarified that integration is not merely a relationship between separate components, but rather a historical process of reconnecting elements that have been fragmented over centuries through the separation of individuals from society, women from public life, peoples from one another, and nature from humanity.

She emphasized that integration is a civilizational framework for reshaping society on democratic and ethical foundations, not simply a theoretical concept.

Then, Thuraya Mostafa, the member of the General Council of the PYD in the province, presented the second part of the lecture, which addressed the meaning and how to return to nature. She explained that understanding the trajectory of human thought, from the first moment of listening to nature until the closing of eras upon themselves, is not an intellectual luxury, but a political and ethical imperative for understanding our current reality. When humanity lost its original connection to nature and the "meaning" that arose from participation and sharing declined, it began to drift away from the roots that constitute the source of identity and belonging.

Thuraya added that one of the most prominent aspects of the current crisis is the transformation of humanity from a producer of meaning to a consumer of ready-made meanings. Centralized political systems and the accumulated effects of modernity, which severed the connection between humanity and its natural and social environment, have created an alienated individual, even within their own homeland.

She emphasized that this alienation renders individuals incapable of understanding their roles in shaping their destiny, transforming society into isolated groups that accept what is imposed upon them from above, instead of building their choices based on the living foundation of society.

The lecture concluded with interventions from the audience who emphasized that the democratic integration is a single comprehensive vision and not a set of separate ideas, but rather an interconnected system. The individual cannot be free without a democratic society, society cannot be democratic without women’s equality, women cannot be liberated without a non-authoritarian ethical political structure, this cannot be achieved without a sustainable participatory economy, and all of this cannot be built without a balanced relationship between peoples and identities.

J.J

ANHA