Syria’s Kurdish Contradiction

By Bill Weinberg

OCTOBER 8, 2017

A KURDISH RADICAL LEFT movement influenced by anarchism is, improbably, now receiving Pentagon support in the war for northern Syria. This movement, in fact, is now the United States’s closest partner among the indigenous forces fighting to take the Islamic State’s capital at Raqqa. This paradox is examined in a profusion of new books about the role of the Kurds in the world’s most confusing ongoing war.

Supporters of the Kurdish movement, which has established an autonomous zone in its region of Rojava, see it as a utopian experiment in direct democracy, and were inspired by its women fighters successfully resisting the ISIS invasion of its territory. The movement’s detractors, in contrast, call it an authoritarian one-party state in league with the Assad regime. There has been growing tension between the Rojava Kurds and the main Syrian opposition.

Meredith Tax in her openly enthusiastic A Road Unforeseen: Women Fight the Islamic State traces the development of Rojava’s militant feminism to roots in Turkey’s Kurdish rebel movement. This story begins with the founding of the separatist and socialist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in 1978 and its subsequent guerilla war against the Turkish state. This set off a brutal round of CIA-backed counterinsurgency that cost thousands of lives.

Tax acknowledges that the PKK began as an authoritarian movement, and received some support from the Hafez al-Assad dictatorship in Syria. But she sees the movement growing more democratic, especially after its Fifth Congress in 1995. The PKK became part of a broader struggle for Kurdish cultural rights long denied by Turkey’s nationalist state, dramatically exemplified by Leyla Zana, the parliamentarian imprisoned in 1991 for speaking Kurdish on the chamber floor.

The decisive turn in the PKK’s transformation came after the capture of its leader Abdullah Öcalan in 1999, who rethought his politics in prison, taking inspiration from late American anarchist writer Murray Bookchin and from Mexico’s Zapatista rebel movement, which has sought local autonomy for indigenous peoples rather than secession.

Öcalan reformulated the PKK’s goal as “democratic autonomy” in the Kurdish East of Turkey rather than a separate state, and (despite the paradox that this was a diktat coming down from him as leader) a new model based on power flowing up from local councils.

This movement began to spread to the Syrian Kurds after the spontaneous 2004 uprising in the north Syrian town of Qamishli. This led to the establishment of the Rojava autonomous zone in 2012, under leadership of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), an entity in the PKK’s political orbit. Two years later, Rojava was invaded by ISIS, and Kurdish resistance at the Battle of Kobani became a global meme.

Tax portrays Turkey as conniving with ISIS forces, allowing them to use Turkish territory as a staging area for attacks on Rojava. She notes that while ISIS has launched attacks in Turkey, the most deadly of these have targeted Kurds and their leftist supporters — not the Turkish state. But she is not completely uncritical of the Rojava movement, noting its “cult of personality” around Öcalan.

In one note of hope, Tax writes that the Local Coordination Committees (LCCs), which launched Syria’s pro-democracy struggle in 2011, “resembled Rojava communes in many ways,” with their ethic of council-based democracy. But she uses the past tense, even while acknowledging that these committees continue to function amid the profusion of ruthless armed actors. She doesn’t note that they have become the de facto local government in some areas where other authority has broken down.

In the even more partisan Revolution in Rojava, co-authors Michael Knapp, Anja Flach, and Ercan Ayboga provide an in-depth look at the self-governance system in the region, but show less sensitivity about the divisions between Syria’s Kurdish movement and Arab-led opposition.

In their introductory historical overview, they refer to the past “Syrian occupation” of Rojava — actually surpassing the line of the Rojava leadership in implying that the region is not really part of Syria. They credit the Assad dynasty with “going beyond Alawite circles” to fill the state apparatus. This is a reversal of reality; after seizing power within the ruling Ba’ath Party in 1971, Hafez al-Assad began systematically favoring his own Alawite people, a practice continued by son Bashar.

They predictably show greater acumen in describing oppression of the Kurds under Arab nationalist rule in Syria, documenting how large numbers were systematically stripped of citizenship, and quoting one official who unsubtly referred to the country’s “Kurdish question” as a “malignant tumor.”

The authors detail the uprising in which the PYD took over Rojava in July 2012 — contrary to claims that the regime simply abandoned the territory. “The state had no substantial military force” when the uprising began, the authors admit, making for a quick victory. Still — it was an uprising.

The authors see little hope for unity between the PYD’s autonomous zone and Syria’s general (Arab-led) opposition. They dismiss the main opposition body, the Syrian National Council, as “dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The authors acknowledge Pentagon support for the PYD’s militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). But they emphasize that the United States did not recognize Rojava’s declaration of autonomy and “does not support the Rojava project politically.” They add that the United States “averts its eyes from the war crimes of the Turkish government in North Kurdistan.”

Like Tax, the authors cite the LCCs as having “ideas that are compatible with Democratic Autonomy.” But they see the Rojava zone as their ideal, concluding that its survival is “also the survival of hope for a free, communal life and a gender-liberated, ecological society.”

A similarly idealistic account is found in Struggles for Autonomy in Kurdistan, by authors Eliza Egret and Tom Anderson, who made trips to both Turkish Kurdistan (Bakur) and Rojava. Tracing the movement’s trajectory “from Marxism-Leninism to Democratic Confederalism,” they first detail the autonomous system in Bakur. Neighborhoods, towns, and provinces each have their own rebel assemblies, forming a system of parallel power. A similar council-based system now governs Rojava.

This book emphasizes the “culpability of the U.S.” in the counterinsurgency in Turkey’s east. For instance, the Turkish government used Lockheed Martin F-16 warplanes for airstrikes on the village of Roboski in December 2011 that left 34 residents dead. Other American, British, and Turkish arms companies are named as complicit in the repression.

These companies certainly deserve criticism. But the authors’ failure to express any outrage at the far greater Russian and Assad regime bombardment of civilians in Syria undermines their moral authority. They also fail to grapple with the reality that the Rojava Kurds are now being assisted by US warplanes.

Janet Biehl, the American writer and activist who translated Revolution in Rojava from the German, also translated an earlier account by the Hamburg-based TATORT Kurdistan (“Crime-scene Kurdistan”), Democratic Autonomy in North Kurdistan.

A report from a delegation to Turkey’s east, it also describes the system of dual power. It emphasizes the professed multi-ethnic character of the autonomous structures (with participation from minority peoples, such as the Qizilbash), and its repudiation of ethnic nationalism. Leaders of civil organizations are interviewed, such as the Peace Mothers, made up of mothers of Kurdish guerillas who have organized to press both sides for a political solution to the conflict. So are leaders of agricultural and light industrial collectives. One in the town of Colemerg is growing a local cucumber variety to make “resistance pickles.”

Biehl also contributes to an anthology on Rojava produced by an activist collective in New York, A Small Key Can Open a Large Door. This book also offers a discussion of the precarious role of the Kurds in the “Great Game” of geopolitics. Many foreign powers have sought to exploit the Kurds for their own aims, while “ultimately thwarting the Kurdish dream of freedom across a unified Kurdistan.”

The authors see US support for Rojava as “simply a matter of pragmatism.” They warn leftists in the West against the “essentialist” error of dismissing the Rojava movement because of this support, rather than understanding the pressures that have led the revolutionary Kurds to accept it.

The Small Key writers are clearly anarchist in their politics. They don’t try to impose their own ideology on the movement, but see the autonomous administration in Rojava as a “stateless government,” with a vision that “draws heavily from contemporary anarchist, feminist, and ecological thought.”

Janet Biehl was the longtime companion of Murray Bookchin before his death in 2006, and is today a torch-bearer for his theoretical legacy of “social ecology.” Bookchin initially styled himself as formulating a new anarchist movement for the post-industrial age, with an emphasis on community and harmony with the natural world. But late in life he repudiated anarchism for what he called “communalism” or “libertarian municipalism” (libertarian in its original sense of anti-authoritarian, definitely not its more contemporary sense of laissez-faire capitalist), which sees the municipality as the highest level at which direct self-government is possible.

The Next Revolution, a posthumously published collection of Bookchin’s late essays, makes clear that he sought to “replace the nation-state with a confederation of municipalities.” He still advanced a model in which decision-making power flows up from below. This can be seen as a kind of compromise between a pure anarchist position and a more pragmatic conception of power.

One essay explores a critical antecedent for such thinking — the anarchist uprising in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Bookchin faults the anarchists for rejecting a seizure of power at a public plenum after the workers’ insurrection had crushed the fascist military rising of General Francisco Franco in the city. “If we are to learn anything from this crucial error,” Bookchin wrote, “it is that power cannot be abolished […] Power that is not in the hands of the masses must inevitably fall into the hands of their oppressors.”

The Rojava leadership clearly accepts this principle. But this opens the anarchist critique of power as inherently subject to abuse, even when delegated from below through an organic participatory process.

The idealistic views of Rojava are sharply contrasted by those of partisans of the general (Arab-led) Syrian revolution. Khiyana (Arabic for betrayal) is an anthology by supporters of the Syrian opposition movements, accusing large elements of the Western left of making a paradoxical peace with the fascistic Assad.

Such icons of the left as Julian Assange, Cynthia McKinney, Slavoj Žižek, and The Nation magazine are refreshingly lambasted for loaning propaganda cover to Assad’s regime and painting the opposition as monolithically jihadist. But some of the contributors — themselves mostly on the Marxist left — are contemptuous of both the Rojava revolution and its leftist supporters.

Sam Charles Hamad, for example, is dismissive of the perception (advanced by Tax) of Turkish state connivance with ISIS: “Daesh [ISIS] is not allied with Turkey but has declared war on it.”

Leila al-Shami has an open challenge for the leftists now mobilizing to support Rojava but remaining equivocal, uninterested, or hostile regarding the general Syrian revolution. Writing during the ISIS siege of Rojava, she asks

whether international solidarity for Kobani arises from the Kurdish ethnicity of its defenders (i.e. they’re not Sunni Arabs), from support for the political position of a party (the PYD/PKK), or from the principle that all people have the right to defend themselves from terror, whether in the form of religious or nationalist fascism, and to determine for themselves how to organize their lives and communities. If it arises from the latter principle, then the same solidarity extended to the Kurds must be extended to all revolutionary Syrians.

Conflict, Democratization, and the Kurds in the Middle East is an anthology exploring the interaction between Kurdish ethnic struggles and the pro-democracy movements in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran alike. Eva Savelsberg’s entry on Syria will make difficult reading for those enthused by the Rojava project. She portrays the PYD as an arm of the PKK that sees Turkey as the enemy and has sought “to prevent the Kurdish population from effectively participating in the revolution.” She dismisses talk of “federalism” and “democracy” as “buzzwords.” She mentions a disturbing 2013 incident at the Rojava town of Amuda, in which YPG fighters fired on protesters, leaving eight dead.

But other of Savelsberg’s claims may be dubious. She writes that Rojava’s constitution “has never been officially published” — yet it appears as an appendix in A Small Key. She concludes with arrogance: “[I]t is currently unrealistic to think that the Kurds will play any meaningful role in democratizing Syria — or even their own society.” This assessment is almost surreally at odds with the portrayals of Tax, Biehl, and fellow enthusiasts of the Rojava model.

The challenge for those wrestling with Syria’s Kurdish question is to seek a middle path between the cynicism of Savelsberg and the idealism of the Rojava experiment’s ideological proponents. It is more evident each day that the defeat of ISIS in northern Syria could only open an Arab-Kurdish ethnic war, which could also be exploited as a proxy war by regional rivals Turkey and Russia. This would not serve the interests of anyone but the jihadis, despots, and imperialists. It will take some honest grappling by the partisans on both sides in order to avoid it.

¤

Bill Weinberg is the author of Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico (Verso Books, 2000) and is currently at work on Pachamama Rising: The New Indigenous Struggles in Peru. He is editor of the online CounterVortex.org, where he blogs on global autonomy struggles.

PKK: The revolution of Rojava will continue to grow and expand

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Rojava revolution, the PKK said: "We are convinced that the revolution will continue to grow and develop in the coming period."

ANF
NEWS DESK
Tuesday, 19 Jul 2022, 12:49

19 July marks the tenth anniversary of the start of the Rojava revolution. The Rojava Revolution is a globally incisive event, as it represents the first and most radical democratic awakening of the 21st century, combining democratisation with ecology and women's liberation. This is happening on the basis of the philosophy of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan. The PKK is the expression and core of the Apoist philosophy and therefore has a close ideological connection to Rojava. On the anniversary of the revolution, the PKK has published a message of greeting, stating the following:

"THE REVOLUTION WILL GROW"

"We welcome 19 July as the tenth anniversary of the Freedom Revolution. We congratulate all the people of North and East Syria and their freedom forces for creating this revolution, which has become a beacon of hope for humanity. It has continued for ten years at the sacrifice of thousands of martyrs. We remember with respect and gratitude all the heroic martyrs in the person of comrades Şilan Kobanê and Xebat Dêrik. We firmly believe that the revolution will continue to deepen and expand in the second decade.

"THE PERIOD OF MASTERY AND PROFESSIONALISM HAS BEGUN"

In every revolution, the beginning, the first week, the first month, the first year and the first ten years are important because they are associated with great difficulties. The historical process of the freedom revolution in Rojava was, accordingly. However, all the peoples of northern and eastern Syria, especially the Kurdish, overcame the difficulties and obstacles by believing in each other and standing shoulder to shoulder. They succeeded in bringing the revolution to its present level. Now, the period of inexperience and dilettantism of the freedom revolution has been overcome and the period of mastery and professionalism has begun. We believe that the revolution will grow and develop even further in the coming period.

"THE APOIST PARADIGM WILL BE IMPLEMENTED EVEN MORE EFFECTIVELY"

The freedom revolution in Rojava is the first area where Rêber Apo's [Abdullah Öcalan] theory of democratic modernity was implemented to this extent and depth. It developed successfully on the basis of the educational and organising work that Rêber Apo had carried out in the region between 1979 and 1998. Despite mistakes and shortcomings, the paradigm of a free, ecological and democratic society of women was insisted upon. It is certain that if we learn the lessons of the past decade, the Apoist paradigm will be implemented even more clearly and effectively in the coming period.

In the last ten years, the Freedom Revolution of Rojava has been most successful in implementing the line of the democratic nation. In a region where all kinds of nationalist conflicts turned life into a bloodbath, the peoples of northern and eastern Syria, mainly Kurds and Arabs, but also Syriacs, Armenians, Turkmen and Circassians, have come together on this line and created a free life and a democratic administration together. They have shown and proved to the whole world that it is possible to live a free life in brotherhood without bloodshed and conflict. They did this in an environment of attacks, provocations, incitement and provocations of all kinds. We once again congratulate and commend the people of northern and eastern Syria for this.

"WOMEN'S LIBERATION - REVOLUTION WITHIN REVOLUTION"

It is clear that the freedom revolution in Rojava is, above all, also a freedom revolution of women. In this area, where revolutions take place within revolutions, great changes have been realised in the last ten years that might otherwise have taken a century to create. Women, who in the previous period could hardly participate in life outside the home and family, have become equal and pioneering participants in all areas of social and political life on the basis of a great deal of educational and organising work. The woman who has liberated herself on the basis of consciousness-raising and organising is both the creator and guarantor of a free society and democratic self-government. Despite some revolutionary developments, there is undoubtedly still much to be done and overcome in this area. We are convinced that with planned and organised efforts, these developments can be brought to fruition in the second decade.

"THE AKP-MHP REGIME IS BEHIND THE ATTACKS OF MERCENARY FORCES"

Although the Rojava Freedom Revolution began bloodlessly, it is well known that since its first anniversary it has been subjected to a multi-layered and very intense attack by fascist mercenary forces. Many of these groups, especially the ISIS, the FSA and al-Nusra, the Syrian offshoot of al-Qaeda, attacked the revolution and tried to stifle it. Moreover, the AKP/MHP regime in Turkey has openly and decisively participated in these attacks. This is absolutely certain. The Turkish state even launched its attack on Afrin in January 2018 and occupied the canton directly after the defeat of ISIS in Raqqa in October 2017. Nine years of revolution were therefore put into the defensive war against the fascist mercenary forces and the AKP/MHP regime.

"RESISTANCE OF ROJAVA BECAME THE FREE HUMANITY RESISTANCE"

The peoples of North and East Syria and the freedom forces of the YPG and YPJ have bravely resisted for nine years in defence of the revolution and the country, with more than ten thousand martyrs. This resistance represents the hope of humanity and has extended beyond the borders of northern and eastern Syria to the whole world. It has become a free humanity resistance. Hundreds of young people from all over the world, from Asia to Europe to America, came to North and East Syria and joined the resistance, fought bravely and fell. This situation has further developed and deepened the internationalist character of Rojava. On this occasion, we once again commemorate with respect and gratitude the internationalist martyrs of the defence of the revolution of Rojava and declare that their memory will live on in the worldwide struggle for freedom and democracy.

"OCCUPIED TERRITORIES WILL BE LIBERATED"

The peoples of North and East Syria and their freedom forces have repelled all attacks by mercenaries, especially ISIS, east of the Euphrates and liberated humanity from this scourge. In view of the fact that even regular armies could not withstand ISIS and had to flee, the fact that the freedom forces of Rojava defeated ISIS on a line from Kobanê to Raqqa and ended its territorial rule is of historical significance. This has made the freedom revolution of Rojava a victorious revolution. We believe that the same attitude will be shown against the attacks of the AKP/MHP invaders and the occupied territories will be liberated.

Undoubtedly, the initiatives and efforts such as the building of communalist life, the development of democratic self-governments, the establishment and functioning of democratic confederalism through the revolution are also of historical significance and are exemplary experiences for all. The fact that the whole society, especially women, turned to self-defence training and organising to defend the revolution and the country is truly historic and very inspiring. We are convinced that all this will be successfully implemented in the coming period.

"THE REVOLUTION HAS JUST BEGUN"

Of course, the task is not yet finished and the revolution is not over. On the contrary, everything has just begun. Major difficulties and obstacles may arise again. Attacks and new threats of occupation by various forces, especially the Turkish state, continue. All this requires a multifaceted, creative approach and good preparation in every respect. We believe that the peoples of North and East Syria and their freedom forces will train and prepare themselves in awareness of all this; they will successfully carry out all tasks of construction and repel all kinds of occupation attacks. On this basis, the freedom revolution of Rojava will continue to be a beacon of hope for all oppressed humanity.

Within this framework, we congratulate once again the tenth anniversary of Rojava and wish the people of North and East Syria every success in their efforts to broaden and deepen the revolution. On this basis, we assure that all our people and humanity will stand by them and always provide the necessary support."

Rojava Information Centre publishes new report about the Rojava Revolution

History of the Revolution: Much Achieved, Still Much to be Done, is the title of the new report about the Rojava Revolution published by RIC.

ANF
NEWS DESK
Wednesday, 20 Jul 2022

The Rojava Information Centre (RIC) celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Rojava Revolution by publishing a new report called "History of the Revolution: Much Achieved, Still Much to be Done".

In the introduction of Part One, RIC wrote: "The ‘Rojava Revolution’ began exactly ten years ago, on July 19th 2012, when three predominantly Kurdish-inhabited areas of Syria declared their autonomy from the central government.

Since then, a democratic, autonomous administration has attempted to create a grassroots, gender-equal and ecological society in these areas. Communes and councils, the democratic representatives of the population, organize life and administer society.

The political model has thus established itself in decided opposition to the old Ba’ath regime. Numerous people within society are involved in a wide variety of local and social activities – from the communes and councils to working in the health sector, the women’s movement or in self-defence structures."

The introduction underlined that "Rojava has also been synonymous with the war against the Islamic State (ISIS), the occupation of Turkey, overcrowded refugee camps, water shortages, crop failures and widespread poverty. But against the backdrop of an ongoing war, occupation, an embargo due to the Syrian Civil War, and a precarious humanitarian situation that makes basic staples scarce, Rojava has held its ground for ten years. The areas controlled by the democratic ‘Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria’ (AANES) have grown since 2012 and now include a third of Syrian territory and nearly a fifth of its population.

A decade on, the continued existence of North and East Syria (NES) – the more inclusive name of the region, which encompasses Kurdish-majority Rojava and the Arab-majority areas on the banks of the Euphrates – is an achievement in and of itself. In the eleven years since 2011, the Rojava Revolution has remained committed to its former values and consolidated its achievements, even as all other gains of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings were squashed or coopted by national governments. This revolution, however imperfect, thus has something to teach the world about staying power."

Internationalist Berxwedan: The experience of Rojava can be used also in Italy

The Rojava International Conference so the presence of internationalists speaking 27 different languages. Zeryan Berxwedan said that "this conference can be an inspiration not only for Rojava but also for my country, Italy."

MUSTAFA ÇOBAN
QAMISHLO
Sunday, 27 Mar 2022

VIDEO 10:00 MIN 

Internationalist Zeryan Berxwedan said that they are trying to carry the ideology of the revolution in Rojava to their countries and emphasized that ideological solidarity is extremely important to defend the revolution. Stating that the foundation of the Rojava revolution is the philosophy of Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan, Zeryan Berxwedan said: "As Leader Apo said, we have to analyze our societies and find humane solutions for our society. Therefore, Abdullah Öcalan's thought is that internationalist studies are as important as those in Rojava. It is extremely important for the continuation of our lands."

Zeryan Berxwedan, one of the delegates to the 1st Rojava Internationalist Conference, which saw the participation of all internationalist structures and institutions in Rojava, talked to ANF about the conference.

What did the first Rojava Internationalist Conference mean to you?

The conference was very emotional for me. First of all, because we came together as internationalists to talk about issues that are important here or in our countries. Another impressive thing was that you had friends speaking 27 different languages ​​at the conference. Personally, I have never met so many comrades from different parts of the world in Italy before.

This means that as society and comrades we need a stronger unity in the world to go beyond the system and create something else. The conference was definitely very emotional. It gave energy and strength on an emotional level to continue a work that is not only in Rojava but also in our countries. In contact with other countries in the world, we understand that the fundamental problem is always the same, the system that oppresses and kills various societies in different parts of the world.

What was discussed regarding the role of women in internationalism?

The role of women is extremely important. Because women have been oppressed by this system for 5,000 years. As a result, women experience this system much more severely than men. In internationalism, women can be pioneers both ideologically and practically. The role of women internationalists is very important to convey the values ​​of humanity and equality that we do not usually find in our countries.

What were the key points that emerged at the conference?

It was important that we got together. Because we deepened the internationalist work in Rojava. There are different plans. Here in Rojava there are more ideological formations; trying to connect more internationalists from various structures. But above all, one of the most important points for me is to try to understand how we will transfer the energy and ideology of the Rojava Revolution to our countries and how we will continue this work. Because most of the time, when we return to our countries, we feel lost and cannot understand how to continue this revolutionary work.

Because we change. We change our perspective; we change our personality. When we return to our world, to our societies, we often do not know how to continue revolutionary work. One of the important points of the conference, one of its plans, was how to continue the revolutionary work here and take it to our countries.

What kind of international revolution experience did the Rojava Revolution reveal?

The Rojava Revolution has had a great impact on internationalism and internationalist comrades. Because it is a new hope for a new society and a method of social organization. Not only that, but through the ideology of the Kurdish movement, as internationalists, we can work on ourselves to be better, more humane people, disconnected from the individualism and capitalism of our society.

The values ​​of internationalism are definitely one of the core values ​​of humanity, with the desire to create a better humanity, free from wars and repression. As a result, many internationalist comrades are trying to live together a new form of society, deciding to fight against the system we live in every day and, especially, to provide solidarity with oppressed peoples. The basic values ​​are to remain human, to be able to feel the pain of others, because the pain of oppressed peoples is also our pain. Because even if there is one person, the world is not free, a person cannot live freely but continues to live in a violent state.

We need to create international ideological solidarity

Of course, internationalism in Rojava defends the revolution not only with weapons, but with the most classical form of defense; but at the ideological level, we are trying to carry the ideology of this revolution to our countries and lands. Defense is, of course, physical, but also ideological. In order to defend this revolution, it is extremely important to create ideological solidarity not only in Rojava but also in our countries. Internationalist solidarity is very important in these times. Because, as we see in the world, the system renews itself against society and the peoples.

As you can see, a war broke out between Russia and Ukraine in Europe. Therefore, internationalism is extremely important to bring together the various existing ideologies and different societies around the world. Comrades must work on this, understand how we can create a new society free from wars, free from the state and capitalist powers, killing whole communities and people for economic and political interests, as we have seen better lately.

So where does this revolution come from and can it be applied everywhere?

Of course, the basis of this revolution is Abdullah Öcalan's thought, a revolutionary thought based on humanity and differences. It can be applied anywhere in the world, even in our societies. Of course, it should be applied with many differences. As Leader Apo said, we have to analyze our societies and try to find humane solutions for our society. Therefore, Abdullah Öcalan's thoughts are extremely important for the continuation of internationalist work here in Rojava as well as in our lands.

Could you feel your own international identity at this conference?

As an Italian, I felt that this conference was important. I started to think about how I could transfer the values ​​of this experience to Italy, to my comrades, friends and family. I think Italy is a country that is very open to change. This conference can be an inspiration not only for Rojava but also for my country. I definitely felt that the problems raised by many of the comrades present at the conference were my problems, as we came from similar places and from the same system.

Therefore, we can create something else. I have hope that we can create our own organization inspired by the Kurdish movement in Italy. Abdullah Öcalan's ideas are conveyed in a different geography, a different society, a different history, and we can.

Do you have a message for your country or the world public opinion?

I want to tell people around the world that there can be another society, another method of social organization. Here there is hope for everyone, because it is a humanistic organizational system based on differences, love of life, peace, a human ideology that starts with people and society, and is not based on power and the state. What I want to say is that in order to understand where we can find common ground, it is necessary to try to analyze our struggles, analyze our lives within the system, continue this struggle and continue to hope for a different world free from the violence of the world.

Swiss MP Prezioso and activist Bucher: The PKK must be removed from list of terrorist organisations

EAG parliamentarian Stefanie Prezioso and activist Flurin Bucher said that the PKK's inclusion on the EU list of terrorist organisations is a wrong and unfair decision, and drew attention to the struggle of the PKK and the Kurdish people against ISIS.


ÖNER POLAT
BERN
Sunday, 20 Feb 2022, 11:24

The petition launched to remove the PKK from the EU list of terrorist organisations continues in Switzerland as well as in the rest of Europe. EAG parliamentarian Stefanie Prezioso and activist Flurin Bucher, who were among the signatories of the campaign, told ANF about the importance of the campaign and why they supported it.

Radical Left Coalition EAG parliamentarian Stefanie Prezioso said that "it is a great mistake and injustice that the PKK is included in this list. The main reason for the PKK's inclusion in this list is the PKK's representation and value. I will continue to demand the removal of the PKK from the list and the freedom of Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan, against the wrong and unjust decision of these states that cannot reconcile these values and representation with their so-called criteria."

Bucher: Rojava is an example for everyone

Activist Flurin Bucher spoke of his admiration for ecology, women's liberation and direct democracy in Rojava.

He said that he has supported the Kurdish people's struggle since he became aware of its struggle for existence and the revolution in Rojava. Bucher said that there are enough arguments for the PKK to be removed from the list of terrorist organisations and added that international institutions, non-governmental organizations and political parties should also support the petition.

He said that he met the struggle of the Kurdish people in an action held in Switzerland for the Morio Refugee Camp in 2021, and added that he was amazed by the Kurdish people's struggle against the oppression of the Turkish state and the barbarism of ISIS. "The first thing that caught my attention was the Make Rojava Green Again project. In 2021, we organised a panel on the climate movements in Switzerland and the ecology model created in Rojava.

Ever since I learned that this ecology model was created by Kurdish fighters who resisted the massacre committed by ISIS in Shengal in 2014, my interest and admiration for the Kurdish people has increased. With the struggle of the Kurdish people against ISIS, the European states were able to secure their own peace and tranquillity. All these reasons are sufficient to remove the PKK from the terrorist organisations list."

‘Rojava Alliance’ declared in St. Gallen

Activists declared the ‘Rojava Alliance’ during a protest march in St. Gallen, Switzerland against the Turkish attacks on Kurdistan.


ANF
ST. GALLEN
Sunday, 20 Feb 2022, 17:35

A march was staged in the Swiss city of St. Gallen on Saturday under the motto “The war begins here – Solidarity with Kurdistan” in protest at the Turkish attacks against Maxmur, Shengal and Rojava.

Activists declared the ‘Rojava Alliance’, which is made up of several groups from Switzerland, Austria and Germany. The alliance announced that their goal was to establish a cross-border network.

The voice message sent by an internationalist in Rojava was played during the demonstration where a speech in the name of Young Socialists (JUSO) pointed to the alternative model built in Rojava.

Demonstrators denounced the cooperation of European governments and companies with Turkey, recalling the latest waves of deadly attacks carried out by the Turkish state against Shengal and Maxmur in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) and Rojava (northern Syria) that directly target civilian settlements in violation of international law.

The alliance noted that three territories in Rojava have been occupied by the Turkish state since 2017, since when atrocities, exploitation and demographic changes have been executed.

Recalling the ISIS attack on al-Sinaa prison in Heseke on 20 January, the alliance said that the Turkish state carried out simultaneous air raids on Maxmur, Shengal and Rojava after this failed attempt. According to the alliance, this was an act of “retaliation” and greatly hampered the fight against ISIS.

The alliance put emphasis on the importance of solidarity with the people and the revolution of Rojava in order to protect the achievements.

The alliance listed their demands as follows:

1- The Turkish army and allies should immediately retreat from Kurdish autonomous regions.

2- Kurdish autonomous regions should be recognized and peace negotiations that include Kurdish representatives should be conducted.

3- Economic and military cooperation with Turkey should be ceased and all kinds of arms exports should be stopped immediately.

4- The criminalization of Kurdish activists in Germany, Switzerland and Austria should be brought to an end.

KURDISTAN

Unremitting Turkish Attacks Leave Rojava in Peril — and in Need of Solidarity

By Martin Winiecki 

February 15, 2024

Source: TruthOut

The future of this experiment is on the line as much of its civilian infrastructure has been destroyed since October.

Alongside all the heartbreaking tragedies in the Middle East, a radical alternative is under threat in the region. In northeast Syria, not long ago the scene of this century’s most horrible bloodshed, millions of people of different ethnicities are building a stateless, post-capitalist, post-domination society.

Since October 2023, the Turkish military has bombed Rojava’s villages, cities and civil infrastructure on a daily basis — supported by arms supplies from the United States and other Western countries. Around 80 percent of electricity and water stations have been destroyed, leaving millions of people without heating, energy and sufficient water supplies. And while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemns the Israeli genocide against Palestinians, he’s hypocritically taking advantage of the world’s attention on Gaza to hide his own.

The reason for the relentless airstrikes since October 2023 isn’t “terrorism,” as Erdoğan repeatedly claims. Rojava poses a core threat to any existing government, especially those with imperialist ambitions, by showing the world a viable model of peaceful multiethnic coexistence, grounded in lived political, cultural and ecological autonomy.

Guided by one of the most democratic constitutions in the world (first adopted in 2014 and updated in December 2023), the people of Rojava have established a system of decentralized self-governance based on grassroots decision-making in popular assemblies since 2012. Decisions are made as much as possible by the those who are concerned and affected by them, and bureaucracy is used only when people can’t make decisions at the community level.

The war on Rojava relies on a near-total media blackout, the (at least tacit) support of NATO, Russia and Iran, and weapons deliveries by the U.S., Germany, U.K., Spain, and other countries. The U.S. in particular plays a Machiavellian double game: On one hand, it protects Rojava through its military presence; on the other hand, it uses its military cooperation with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up of self-organized self-defense units (the female YPJ and male YPG), to weaken the democratic grassroots structures while simultaneously providing Turkey with the very weapons to crack down on Rojava. On January 26, the Biden

 administration approved its latest sale of F-16 fighter jets worth $23 billion to Turkey.

What is more, the longer Israel’s assault on Gaza continues, the likelier the danger of a regional spillover that Rojava’s adversaries are keen to use against them. One of the motives driving the intensifying hostilities between the U.S. Army and Iranian allies is the Iranian regime’s interest in crushing or at least containing the Kurdish liberation movement.

Apart from some prominent solidarities — including former senior British diplomat Carne Ross, dubbed the “accidental anarchist” by the BBC, and leftist intellectuals like Noam Chomsky, Silvia Federici and David Harvey — and mentions in The New York Times and The Guardian, Rojava has received little coverage by international media and virtually no political support from any existing government or the United Nations. They were even denied a seat at the negotiating table for the future of Syria, despite controlling a third of its national territory.

The Kurdish Struggle’s Change of Vision

As surprising as its appearance on the world stage may seem, Rojava didn’t emerge out of nowhere — it’s the result of the Kurds’ long and difficult anti-colonial resistance.

The Kurdish people — a population of roughly 40 to 45 million — are the world’s largest ethnic group without its own state.

In the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, when European colonial powers drew the map of a post-Ottoman Middle East, they divided the Kurds among four ethnocentric nation-states. Subsequently, Kurdish people suffered 100 years of genocidal colonial erasure to wipe out their language, culture and political organization, and turn them into Turks of Turkey, Arabs of Syria and Iraq, and Persians of Iran.

But countless and ongoing war crimes with near-total impunity have failed to achieve that goal.

In 1978, Abdullah Öcalan founded the Kurdistan Workers Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan or PKK) in an attempt to liberate the Kurdish people from the systemic violence of colonial oppression and waged a guerrilla war against Turkey, aiming to establish a socialist Kurdish state. Tragically, 40,000 people have died in the armed conflict since 1984, mostly Kurds killed in Turkish counterinsurgency campaigns.

Since his imprisonment by the Turkish secret service with the help of the U.S. in February 1999, exactly 25 years ago today, Öcalan has been serving a life sentence in solitary confinement where he’s been subjected to torture and other cruel and degrading treatments. Since March 2021, he has been denied access to all means of communication and contact with the outside world, including his lawyers and family.

In prison, Öcalan underwent a fundamental change of vision. While Öcalan and the PKK continue to be regarded as “terrorists” in many countries, he has unilaterally declared a ceasefire nine times and served as the lead negotiator in an attempt to resolve Turkey’s Kurdish question at the negotiating table from 2013 and 2015.

Fusing inspiration from thinkers like Murray Bookchin, Andre Gunder Frank, Immanuel Wallerstein and Fernand Braudel with his own lessons of the Kurdish liberation struggle and memories of his people’s matrilineal traditions, he abandoned Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy and outlined a new political vision for Kurdistan: “Democratic confederalism” aims to chart a pathway away from the oppression under “capitalist modernity,” nation-states and patriarchy by establishing decentralized autonomous communities and regions with direct democracy, women’s liberation and social ecology.

“The real power of capitalist modernity isn’t its money and its weapons, [but] its ability to suffocate all utopias […] with its liberalism,” wrote Öcalan.

Liberation Beyond Nation-State and Patriarchy

In July 2012, as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops faced an armed insurrection in southern and central Syria, a popular Kurdish-led uprising in the Kurdish-majority northeastern part of the country quickly filled the power vacuum and put these ideas into practice. By 2017, the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria or, as it’s more commonly known, “Rojava” (Kurmanji for “West” Kurdistan) encompassed 5 million people and made up roughly a third of Syria’s territory.

Albeit a regular misunderstanding, Rojava doesn’t aim for a Kurdish nation-state. To the contrary, it rejects nationalism and is an experiment for how people of different ethnicities and religions can peacefully live together and self-organize beyond the constraints of the nation-state. To foster social cohesion among Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Turkmen, Armenians and Ezidis, among Muslims and Christians, Rojava’s system involves mechanisms for the radical inclusion of minorities in the popular assemblies, a community-based system of restorative justice that encourages dialogue, reparations and reconciliation among conflicting groups and needs-based resource sharing among all groups. As communities self-organize, they find less need for enforcement through courts and police. Rojava is a lived example of political anarchism: democracy without a state.

Trying to wean itself off of dependence on oil and imports of food and other basics, the revolution’s economy is powered by thousands of worker-owned cooperatives that have arisen since 2012 and are oriented towards an ecological society. One of their goals is self-sufficiency through regenerative agriculture and renewable energies.

But perhaps its most crucial foundation of “democratic confederalism” is women’s leadership at all levels of society. Beyond structures for political and economic gender equity — such as women-run cooperatives and the agreement that all assemblies are at least co-chaired by women — the Rojava revolution has established social and educational practices for restoring female authority. There are women’s councils at the community level to deal with conflicts and domestic violence, women’s houses and villages for female bodies traumatized by war or domestic violence to heal with each other, and women’s academies and studies (“jineology”) for Rojava’s women to reclaim the intellectual power stolen by patriarchy: their capacity to make sense of history, thought and the world in their own right. That being said, Kurdish feminism isn’t satisfied with equitable access to power and privilege within the existing system; it sets out for a fundamental reorganization of society from the bottom-up.

Recognizing the oppression of women as the oldest form of slavery, Öcalan proclaimed that any liberation of life can only be achieved through a women’s revolution and that this involves restoring the relational ties of communal and ecological existence which have been corroded by hierarchical patriarchal rule. This marks a deep shift in political thinking. As the late David Graeber writes about Öcalan’s insights in the preface to his Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization:

It is almost universally assumed that creating equality or democracy in a small group is relatively easy, but that to operate on a larger scale would create enormous difficulties. It’s becoming clear that this simply isn’t true. Egalitarian cities, even regional confederacies, are historically commonplace. Egalitarian households are not. It’s the small scale, the level of gender relations, household servitude, the kind of relations that contain at once the deepest forms of structural violence and the greatest intimacy, where the most difficult work of creating a free society will have to take place.

 

As Nilüfer Koç of the Kurdish National Congress emphasizes, the revolution understands that a post-domination society can never be imposed — it can only develop organically to the extent that its members build trust with each other and learn to cooperate, to practice empathy and function within consensus and choice.

That isn’t to say that Rojava is flawless; far from it. It’s as riddled with contradictions as any attempt to turn such ambitious ideals into practice. Challenges include competition between military and grassroots democratic structures, lack of participation in assemblies, pushback from traditional Arab sheikhs against feminist policies, material shortages and reliance on oil revenues. The people of northeast Syria themselves see their revolution as a learning process that involves trial and error. Self-critically acknowledging and correcting mistakes is one of its core practices.

However, their achievements are nonetheless remarkable, which is why it has spread beyond the Kurds to other oppressed ethnic and religious groups like Arabs and Christians, and even beyond Rojava to the Ezidis in Sinjar/Shengal (Iraq) who have been recovering from mass rape and massacres under Daesh (Arabic acronym for the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant”). In Iran, the Kurdish women’s movement inspired a mass uprising against the Mullah regime last year, centered around the feminist ethos captured in the slogan Jin, Jiyan, Azadî (“woman, life, freedom”). And recently, the resisting Druze community in the southern Syrian city of Sweida has turned to the Kurds with an interest in implementing their governance model.

Might Rojava actually provide a bottom-up alternative for peaceful coexistence beyond nationalism, gender oppression and religious fundamentalism in the wider region?

Persecuted From the Beginning

From early on, the people of northeast Syria needed to defend their revolution against significant hostility. In the first years, its SDF made up of the YPJ and YPG were at the heart of the world’s battle against Daesh, which nearly crushed Rojava in its early phase.

The YPJ/YPG lost thousands of fighters in a fierce and devastating war, but ultimately defeated Daesh in 2017 assisted by (mainly) American airstrikes. However, scores of captured Daesh fighters — including many European nationals — remain in Rojavan prisons. Deadly sleeper cells continue to threaten a return.

In early 2018, less than a year after Daesh’s defeat, Turkey and its Jihadist Syrian allies invaded and occupied the Rojavan canton of Afrin, carrying out war crimes and forcing half a million people to flee their homes. In autumn 2019, Turkey launched airstrikes on border towns further east, invaded and captured an area of nearly 5,000 square kilometers including Ras al-Ayn, Tell Abyad and Manajir, resulting in the displacement of 300,000 people. In the occupied areas, the majority Kurdish population continues to suffer from what the United Nations calls a “grim” human rights situation, rife with ethnic cleansing, forced displacements and seizures of land and properties.

Erdoğan makes no pretense of his intentions to crush the revolution. His plan is to permanently occupy a 30 kilometer-wide strip along the 600km border between Turkey and Syria and to carry out massive population engineering: displacing native populations and forcibly moving up to one million, mostly Arab Syrian refugees, into the area.

The Turkish attacks on Rojava are linked with the repression of Kurdish democratic autonomy within Turkey, as it’s simply irreconcilable with Erdoğan’s totalitarian, nationalist agenda. A massive crackdown followed the electoral rise of the Kurdish-progressive HDP in 2015 and the emergence of autonomous political structures in the Kurdish-majority parts of Turkey.

After international outcry in 2019, Turkey needed to stop its invasion on Rojava halfway through. Yet, despite a ceasefire agreement, Turkey has never let up on its perpetual war; it has merely changed its tactic: Continue the war but stay under the radar of international attention.

In April 2022, Turkey opened another front against Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq, violating international law and using massive amounts of chemical weapons.

Both the Turkish and Syrian regimes weaponized the devastating earthquake of February 2023, which hit mainly the Kurdish regions of Turkey and Syria and killed over 55,000 people, against them. Purposely withholding aid deliveries and delaying reconstruction, the disaster has left the Kurds even more under siege.

Another threat comes from a reinvigorated Assad regime, which after consolidating its dominance over most of Syria has been welcomed back into the Arab League. Rojava has unsuccessfully negotiated with Assad in search of a political solution. Their proposal is for a confederal political system, which would ensure both grassroots democratic structures and Syrian territorial integrity. However, Assad’s rapprochement with Erdoğan throws this possibility into great doubt and makes it seem more likely that both authoritarian regimes, regardless their hatred for each other, band together to crush the democratic alternative in their backyards.

Since October 5, daily Turkish airstrikes on energy, water, food and health infrastructure in hundreds of villages and cities are making conditions in Rojava increasingly unlivable. The Autonomous Administration struggles to provide basic functions and accuses Turkey of “supporting the revival of ISIS and its cells.” The attacks are ongoing, with no end in sight.

How Can the Revolution Survive?

Given these extreme pressures and complexities, Rojava’s existence up until this point seems nothing short of a miracle — testimony to the outstanding resilience and commitment of the people of Rojava, who willingly accept the consequences of their actions.

To make it in the long or even medium term, however, the Rojava revolution will need a worldwide solidarity movement.

When you talk with western leftists about Rojava, there are typically two opposite reactions: People either romanticize it as utopian society or reject it because of its contradictions. Yet we mustn’t defend Rojava because it’s a “perfect blueprint,” but rather because its people are actually trying to realize the political ideals we need if we want to stand a chance of surviving our civilizational crisis. Instead Rojava needs our critical solidarity.

According to activists of the Kurdish liberation movement, practical ways to help are through financial support for the Kurdish Red Crescent (that provides first aid for victims) and people-run projects to rebuild infrastructure; raising worldwide public awareness; showing solidarity (at the moment, by supporting the campaign for the freedom of Öcalan and a political solution to the Kurdish question and Rojava’s demands for a no-fly zone over northeast Syria and sanctions against Turkey); establishing diplomatic recognition and inclusion; and mobilizing resources and knowledge for raising alternative economic, ecological and social systems on the ground.

What’s at stake in northeast Syria is more than the fate of the Kurdish people or the fight against Daesh. What is at stake is a living model for humanity’s ability to imagine and construct alternatives to “capitalist modernity” before it’s too late. At a time when the failure of western mainstream democracy, ecology and feminism to do that has become painstakingly obvious, Rojava shows another possible way.

Traditionally, the international left dreamt of overthrowing the system as a whole in a global revolution — if not worldwide, then at least on a national level. But the accommodation of significant parts of the left to capitalism and its abandonment of independent democratic institution-building has rendered it unable to turn the massive collective outrage of recent years into political change. As a result of the left’s decline into insignificance in many countries, far right and openly fascist movements have become the global mouthpiece of rebellion. If we want to stop the global march towards fascism and climate disaster, we must find a way to revive politics as a force of collective liberation.

Alongside Rojava, kindred other movements in the geopolitical south like the Zapatistas in Chiapas (Mexico), Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement or India’s Tarun Bharat Sangh, although each different and specific their context, are highlighting a similar reorientation: Revolution no longer happens by trying to seize control of existing power structures but by reimagining power itself through restoring community, uplifting women’s leadership, building autonomy and honoring the whole web of life.

To be effective, solidarity entails joining in this work. We may not be able to overcome the existing system immediately; however, we can create more and more spaces outside the life-denying logic of capitalist modernity. Ensuring these spaces have appropriate contexts to flourish, and creating, supporting and amplifying decentralized autonomous communities is the critical work for our times.

Democratic confederalism could also provide a practical pathway towards a future without war and oppression for Israelis and Palestinians. For example, instead of a one-state or two-state solution, a lasting just peace could arise through a “no-state solution.”

Yet this light of possibility will remain only if the revolution in northeast Syria survives. Our future hinges on realizing that we’re bound up in each other’s liberation. Let’s stand with Rojava.

This article was originally published by Truthout