Yubraj Aryal

Today, looking at the Middle East, through and beyond the dust and smoke of war, it is apparent that new forms of politics and democracy are being shaped in social practices and by social experimentation. We are referring to the people's councils that have been established in various places in the Kurdistan region, and through which people are taking greater responsibility for and control of their daily lives and the places where they live. Those involved refer to these councils in the context of ‘democratic autonomy’ and ‘democratic confederalism’, which indicates that they are not simply to be considered as just local initiatives, but also contribute to a larger project or idea and way of thinking about and doing politics. We may not fully comprehend this form of politics, yet this should challenge academics and those interested in developing new forms of democracy to take a closer look.

At The promotion of international exchange of ideas can immensely contribute to the enhancement of global peace and mutual understanding because it provides one community an opportunity to know and thereby respect to the thoughts and ideas, values and belief systems of others, as well pragmatically apply those ideas and values in different social and cultural locations. This is particularly important to the intellectuals of the non-western space because on the one hand, postcolonial theoretical orientation has taught us to resist the strategic mindsets embedded in western systems of thought; on the other hand, we have a need to know and learn them not only to properly resist them but also to pay reverence to the humanistic contents and beauty of western humanities and toabsorb them in order to create and enrich our own humanities.

In the Spinozist universe man is free from the moral dogma of good and bad imposed from outside, but with a responsibility to understand the natural laws with which his own body encounters with other bodies in nature, as well as the nature of affections such encounters produce. Freedom here is understood not as acting freely but having ‘adequate ideas’ of how one body in nature encounters other body. For Spinoza, a free man knows how to act according to the nature of laws of his own body. This knowing makes him a free man. By knowing the laws of nature, he acts to maximize his pleasure. Spinozist universe is not free and man’s action is not free. Everything works with the necessity. But in knowing that he is determined in a way he is determined makes man free. It is because this understanding makes him active. And the more one becomes active, the more free man one becomes.