Introduction to Tekmîl
What it is, and why we do it.
In Cooperation Denton, we deeply value our fellow community members who are organizing with us for a Denton that is truly a grassroots democracy of neighbors. We believe in each other and our individual and collective potentials so much that we make regular practice to constructively criticize each other and ourselves and reflect on our work together in a loving way in regular quick meetings. We give and receive this criticism as a gift, recognizing that we each want to be our best selves for each other and Denton. In no way do we use this process we call tekmîl to bring each other down or punish each other, but only to build us all up. Each time we practice this process, we reaffirm our commitment to each other, the people of Denton, and the more cooperative, ecological, gender liberated, and directly democratic world we want to live in. And we strike a balance between changing oneself and changing a political paradigm. We learned this practice from our friends participating in the revolution in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, also called "Rojava" by Kurds and considered a part of "Beth Nahrain" by Syriac/Assyrians. In the article below, an internationalist from the US shares his experiences with the tekmîl process. We also have embedded a couple of excellent videos that really go into detail on what tekmîl provides and how it actually works within the Kurdish freedom movement.
Tekmîl: Creating a Culture of Constructive Criticism - Komun Academy