The allegedly free individual of capitalist individualism, who has been provoked into being at odds with society, essentially lives a life of abject slavery.

~Abdullah Öcalan1

For many years a human rights discourse has been the main point of reference for the Western-type liberal republicanism. What distinguishes the regimes of this kind from others, according to their supporters, is their respect for civil freedoms. However, with the recent rise of authoritarianism around the world, civil liberties have come increasingly under threat everywhere.2

But reality is that even before that, liberal theories have showed limited understanding of civic freedoms,3 which has allowed such systems to abuse human rights through the construction of legal justifications for abuses and other dubious policies.4

The problem that liberalism has in regards to civil liberties is that it views them through its individualistic lens, thus making it myopic to the collective dimensions of individual rights – those being social, economic, gender, cultural, etc. realities. This political myopism has prevented Western-styled systems from successfully dealing with human rights abuses by state institutions or dominant actors.

Each and every society determines certain norms, freedoms, boundaries, and duties to its individual members and to itself as a whole, thus advancing certain ways of life while limiting others. The fact is that despite all the talk of “rule of law”, the real sovereign in any hierarchical system are the ruling elites. Social ecologist Modibo Kadalie underlines that organizational forms based on hierarchy contain within themselves the preconditions for abuses of freedoms and liberties, suggesting that:

Anytime you have a hierarchic organization, you’re going to have racism, you’re going to have gender [inequality], and you have big problems of people thinking they’re better than other people, people thinking they know more than other people. So, you have to be aware of all of that. The basis of it is hierarchy which is held into place by a state, be it national, local, or inter mediate.5

Of course, there are major differences between political configurations based on multi-party parliamentarism and ones based on totalitarian non-pluralism. The problem is that even the most liberal of Western republics, where there are some checks and balances on those in power, is still based on the logic of domination. They are still based on the logic of the social contract as envisioned by Thomas Hobbes – a reality that views people as hopelessly individualistic, and thus, in need of an extra-social guardian. This role is given to the State, a bureaucratic top-down entity that rules over society in a soulless manner, whose very existence ensures the persistence of power discrepancies in society. Thus, this worldview outright begins with the acceptance that not all people can be equal – some will assume the role of shepherds, the rest that of the sheep. The bureaucratic State’s elevated detachment from the social base is underlined by Hobbes’s choice of name for it – the biblical monster Leviathan – with which he emphasizes its extra-social character. This worldview embodies hierarchy – a word that comes from Ancient Greek and literally means “rule of the holy” or “rule of the high priests”.

Needless to say, in such a social configuration, where the stratification of the people into rulers and ruled, there cannot be real equality no matter how much checks and balances are introduced. For freedom and justice to persist, what is needed is a substantial and equitable decentralization of power among all members of society. And here comes the worldview, advanced by the democratic tradition.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau also advances the concept of a social contract, but his starting point is the innate equality of all human beings, stating that “man is born free, but is everywhere in chains”. He negates the supposed necessity for extra-social hierarchical entities, insisting instead that it’s up to people themselves to set the norms and boundaries of their life in common, insisting that, “to renounce freedom is to renounce one’s humanity, one’s rights as a man and equally one’s duties”.6

Trinidadian thinker and activist CLR James, one of the great voices of the democratic tradition from the 20th century, underlines the profound revolutionary implications of this approach by noting that:

Rousseau says the contract is not in regard to any government at all. He says the contract is between us, as people, to form a society; but we have no contract with any government; the contract is strictly between us…7

Despite dynamic social struggles and several revolutions directed at claiming democratic rights, it was the two world wars and the prolonged cold one that cemented the State form as the only political entity compatible within the framework of capitalist globalization and the only arbiter in regards to human rights.8 Thus, the scales were tipped against the grassroots, which push for more empowerment and liberties, and in favor of ruling classes that strive at any cost at sustaining their privileged and exploitative position within society.

Within one such situation there seems to be no viable solution beyond the dominant two options: a future that seems to be in the grip of authoritarian leaders who would treat their subjected populations as they please; or a past and present that offers nothing but a precariousness in regards to people’s freedoms. Thus, a need for a third alternative arises, advanced by social movements around the world. One of them is the Kurdish freedom movement and its leading voice – the imprisoned Abdullah Öcalan.

Since his abduction in 1999 by an international conspiracy, Öcalan has called for a dialogue on the perspectives of a stateless and non-capitalist direct democracy in the Middle East and around the world. Through his plethora of books, an attempt is made at analyzing history and different aspects of social life through the lens of the democratic tradition. Among the concepts at which he has made a significant contribution is that of human rights, offering a reconceptualization that goes beyond the individualistic perceptions of State-centered ideologies.

Öcalan rejects the dominant purely individualistic notion of rights, insisting instead that they bear meaning only within communal contexts of democratic empowerment, social justice, gender equality and ecological balance. As he writes, what is individual is also social and that what is social is also individual; the one bears the other within itself, Individualism means nothing if there is no sociality.9

Like Castoriadis’ social and individual autonomy, for Öcalan individual liberties are interwoven within the broader political architecture that determines the management of public affairs. Without people being able to directly and meaningfully participate in decision-making that concerns their collective coexistence, they can never really be free as individuals. And the same goes the other way around – no society can claim to be socially just if it does not guarantee freedom for its individual constituents. This is the pluralist essence of direct democracy in a nutshell.

For Öcalan there is no abstract citizen identity that is detached from a communal and democratic context – from spaces of collective action, decision-making, and shared identities. And this is particularly true for human rights, as they have been won through hard and continuous collective struggles, rather than by lone individuals or handed from above by benevolent rulers. In this context Öcalan underlines that:

The concept of an abstract citizen is nothing but liberal babbling. The citizen can gain a concrete meaning only by belonging to a group, community, or civil society.10

In our current political context there supposedly are guaranteed and non-negotiable human rights, but despite that there are constant abuses of them, with no clear solution within the dominant societal architecture. And with liberal societies rapidly descending into fascism, the precarity of the liberal rights-centered discourse is even more evident. If we pay attention to Öcalan’s analysis, we can begin to understand why this is so, and why our liberties remain in precarious condition as long as our societies are managed in a top-down manner by bureaucrats and capitalists. He insists that:

Affirming individual rights but not collective rights and in fact the total rejection of collective rights is a fascistic approach. Recognition of individual rights and freedoms is worthless in the absence of recognition of collective rights and freedoms.11

Because of these conclusions Öcalan proposes a radical alteration of the way human rights are perceived – shift away from both liberal individualism and authoritarian communitarianism. His democratic alternative aims at blending together collective participation with societal pluralism – a type of optimal equilibrium. As he suggests:

The primary goal should be to attain the optimal equilibrium between sociality and individuality. In the final analysis, social freedom not based on individual freedom is as doomed to failure as individual freedom not based on social freedom. Fundamental human rights can attain more value without attacking the right to be a society, knowing that they can only exist with a society and by not succumbing to extremely individualistic, irresponsible, and antisocial tendencies.12

This logic has serious revolutionary implications for the way our societies are being run, implying paths that must be avoided, or altogether abandoned, as well as other roads that might take us forward. Using this analysis as a compass, Öcalan suggests that the organs and institutions that belong to the tradition of domination not only cannot offer help in people’s struggle for individual and collective rights, but that they are actually an obstacle. Thus, the State, the capitalist market, and other bureaucratic structures must be abandoned. Because of this Öcalan offers the following principled compass:

Not focusing on the State must be a point of principle. Societal freedom stands in contradiction to the state-focused work. State-focused work can only be carried out on behalf of the dominant power. For social forces whose goal is freedom, it is entirely obvious that their focus must be on democracy as a “non-state” policy, because they have a fundamental duty to oppose domination rather than be associated with it.13

The basis of a renewed conception of human-rights should be based on the features of the democratic tradition that advance the equality, yet uniqueness and invaluability, of each and every human being. This has also implications on the specificities of a certain institutional approach that can allow for human rights to be fully exercised by all. Following from this, Öcalan insists that individual rights and freedoms can become meaningful only within a democratic society.14

The logical conclusion of these thoughts is that the political environment from within which a real respect for, and expansion of, human rights can emerge is the one of genuine equality. In this type of setting individuals, in their role of active citizens, take active part in the self-management of public affairs through grassroots institutions such as communes and public assemblies, which in turn are coordinated by councils and people’s congresses of revocable delegates. Within one such political architecture there is a radical decentralization, such as the establishment of confederations of communes, that sustain and respect individual and communal traits, rather than aiming at their (often violent) homogenization into one single nation, as is the case with the Nation State. Öcalan puts it in the following way:

In contrast to a centralist and bureaucratic understanding of administration and exercise of power, confederalism poses a type of political self-administration where all groups of the society and all cultural identities can express themselves in local meetings, general conventions and councils. This understanding of democracy opens the political space to all strata of the society and allows for the formation of different and diverse political groups. In this way it also advances the political integration of the society as a whole.15

In conclusion it must be stressed that the struggle for human rights cannot be left or channeled through the very institutions of domination that are so prone to abuse them. It must be an affair of the grassroots, stemming from democratic organs of the people like communes, assemblies and other expressions of political empowerment. For far too long have the same ruling class that oppress and exploit us, claim to be the guarantee for our freedoms and rights. It is in the here and now that the democratic tradition urges us to abandon the bureaucratic systems of domination, such as the State and the capitalist market, and return to the essence of humanity, based on grassroots action, on collective decision-making, and on coexistence on an equal basis. It is from this basis that we can create a world where people are equal and unique.

1 Abdullah Öcalan: The Political Thought of Abdullah Öcalan: Kurdistan, Woman’s Revolution and Democratic Confederalism (London: Pluto Press, 2017), available online at https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/abdullah-ocalan-the-political-thought-of-abdullah-ocalan?utm_source=chatgpt.com

2 Bequelin, Nicholas. “Human Rights on the Edge: Can Human Rights Survive the Decline of Global Western Hegemony?” Social Europe, 10 February 2025. https://www.socialeurope.eu/human-rights-on-the-edge

3 Deveaux, Monique. “Normative Liberal Theory and the Bifurcation of Human Rights.” Ethics & Global Politics 2, no. 3 (2009): 171–91. https://doi.org/10.3402/egp.v2i3.2055

4 Sanders, Rebecca. “Human Rights Abuses at the Limits of the Law: Legal Instabilities and Vulnerabilities in the ‘Global War on Terror.’” Review of International Studies 44, no. 1 (January 2018): 2–23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210517000377

5 Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, JoNina Abron-Ervin, and Modibo Kadalie: Black Anarchist Legacies (Active Distribution, 2025), p46.

6 Do, T. “Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Concept of Freedom and Equality.” Trans (São Paulo) 23, no. 1 (2023). https://www.scielo.br/j/trans/a/CYJ9Ff7tzjdsMD5Nb8vZwms/?format=html&lang=en

7 CLR James: Modern Politics (Oakland: PM Press, 2013), p33.

8 Bosshard, Michaela A. “Tensions between Collective and Individual Human Rights.” Ideas for Peace. Accessed October 6, 2025. https://ideasforpeace.org/content/tensions-between-collective-and-individual-human-rights/

9 Abdullah Öcalan: The Road Map to Negotiations (Cologne: International Initiative Edition, 2012), p25.

10 Abdullag Öcalan: The Road Map to Negotiations (Cologne: International Initiative Edition, 2012), p24.

11 Abdullag Öcalan: The Road Map to Negotiations (Cologne: International Initiative Edition, 2012), p25.

12 Abdullah Öcalan: Beyond State, Power, and Violence (Oakland: PM Press, 2023), p481.

13 Abdullah Öcalan: Beyond State, Power, and Violence (Oakland: PM Press, 2023), pp295-296.

14 Abdullah Öcalan: The Road Map to Negotiations (Cologne: International Initiative Edition, 2012), p31.

15 Abdullag Öcalan: Democratic Confederalism (Cologne: International Initiative Edition, 2011), p26.

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