Commoning the Komal: The Toronto Kurdish Community Centre

Abstract

Within the walls of an unremarkable two-story storefront in a strip mall in suburban Toronto, a distinct alternative practice of radical politics and life is taking place. In fact, what would appear to be an extension of the Kurdish social movement, as it is understood, is being practiced against a backdrop of the refugee experience within the metropolitan city limits of Toronto. This practice of what is arguably feminist anarchism has identified itself in recent years by the title "Democratic Confederalism". Democratic Confederalism in its feminist anarchist framework reflects an understanding of what is known within the Marxist tradition as "the commons". This paper seeks to show that the Kurdish Community Centre has, over nearly three decades, evolved for its members within Toronto into a space that attempts to practice this radical feminist politics mirroring our understanding of "the commons". However, as with many leftist social movements, struggles with the glaring divide between theory and praxis across space and time mark the centre's main concerns. Limited by the diasporic experience, these Kurdish refugees are faced with trying to navigate their anti-state Kurdish revolutionary struggle within a nation that has provided them refuge. This paper will explore what is understood as "komal" (community) and how these community centres have come to represent the Kurdish social movement in diasporaric spaces through refugee lived experiencesparticularly that of the Kurdish woman's. Their radical feminist politics, which have been most prominently articulated in the movement through armed struggle against oppression in urban and rural spaces, can only be reflected in a Canadian setting by the TKCC working to form solidarity with various other oppressed groups who share similar politics --a variety of third world, women-of-color feminism that is about critique and spaces of coalition building unlike that of second wave white feminists. Traditionally the movement's feminist project claims to be that of disidenfication. Contrasingly, in Canada where their identification as Kurds and as refugees is an organizing epistemology, pushing policy by lobbying the Canadian government becomes essential.