Accidental Anarchist: Syria, Intervention, & Catalonian Independence / Carne Ross
Carne Ross is a former British diplomat, Middle East and WMD expert, who resigned in 2004 after giving what was then secret information to a British inquiry into the Iraq War. Carne became acutely aware that the information being presented to the public leading up to the Iraq War was misleading and false. After he left his position as a diplomat, he founded the world's first non-profit diplomatic advisory group, Independent Diplomat, which advises democratic countries and movements around the world.
This year, Carne was featured in the documentary Accidental Anarchist, a film that follows his path from British diplomat to an advocate for anarchism. This film follows Carne's journey to find and eventually witness anarchist principles in action during the Occupy movement, the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s in Catalonia, as well as contemporarily by the Kurds in Rojava. Rojava is a region in northern Syria, that during the chaotic Syrian Civil W ar was able, and continues to this day, to practice a form of anarchism effectively while simultaneously fighting off ISIS as well as maintaining autonomy in that region.
In this conversation, Carne and I briefly discuss his path toward anarchism, the complexity of the Syrian Civil War and the ethics surrounding intervention in that conflict, as well as the recent referendum in Catalonia to secede from Spain and become an independently governed nation, and what this means for the future of the nation state in the 21st century.
Episode Notes:
Find out more about Carne's work at his website
Carne's non-profit Independent Diplomat
Learn more about the documentary Accidental Anarchist
