Newroz Ehmed: "The YPJ are a defense force for all women"

Newroz Ehmed from the SDF General Command said: 

“The YPJ are a defense force for all women. No woman should feel alone, we stand by her side.”


DÎLAN DÎLOK
QAMISHLO
Wednesday, 9 Mar 2022

Newroz Ehmed is a member of the General Command of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). In this ANF interview, she talked about the importance of the Women's Defense Units (YPJ) and the need for self-defense tools. At the same time, she took a look at developments in 2021.

How has the position of women in the military developed over the past year?

2021 was an important year for us in many ways. The fight against ISIS took place primarily with the participation and leadership of the YPJ. There was a joint operation with internal security forces against ISIS cells in Camp Hol, where thousands of family members of ISIS jihadists are located. Our forces from the YPJ were primarily involved in this operation because the majority of those affected were women and children. It was an important operation to counter the organization of ISIS. During the year there were attacks on our forces and the population of the region by the Turkish state and its mercenaries from the areas occupied by them. The YPJ have been on the front line to protect our people and the region and repel these attacks.

Throughout the year, the Turkish state carried out attacks on our territories. Along with these attacks, ISIS became active. To break these attacks, our commander, Sosin Bîrhat, and her friends fought at the forefront and fell as martyrs. In addition to the operations, this year was an important time for the further development of training in technology and tactics. In the last attacks, we saw it clearly: if you don't train and organize yourself well and if you don't master war, then it's hard to resist. For this reason, we have started training for restructuring as a military force and new combat tactics. At the same time, our social self-defense forces have launched a new education system, both to educate and raise awareness among the population and to build and strengthen their own systems. Organizing without society is difficult and cannot succeed, but together we can repel the attacks on our country and win. It was important that this work took place this year.

Restructuring

Military institutions, councils and organizations held meetings to assess both the past year and the new year. There were also closer meetings of the leadership. All of our meetings were conducted from the lowest level of management to the top. Topics such as organization, education and the technology needed to establish a new system were discussed. At the same time, the new system and the training of intelligence and special forces were discussed. Accordingly, we have developed a new system. As a result of our preparations, we repelled the attacks that took place this year. Our military branch participated in it with great morale and passion on the basis of the new knowledge acquired. In the recent attacks on the prison in Hesekê, our commandos and the intelligence and special forces of the SDF, YPG and YPJ were at the forefront. Later, our forces professionally participated in operations against ISIS sleeper cells.

"The New Way to Victory"

As YPJ we did our part in all tasks. In the person of Şehîd Awaz, the resistance of the women became clear once again. Of course, that also made a big impression on people. We followed the path of women like Arîn Mirkan, Barin and Avesta with great determination. The Islamic State wanted to restart its caliphate in Hesekê and implement a new plan against the whole world. It was no small or ordinary attack, and the resistance was no small either. We commemorate all our fallen friends in the person of Heval Awaz. Thanks to them, we were able to present a new victory to our people.

What is the role and importance of women in the Rojava revolution?

The resistance fighters in the Rojava revolution became the common symbol of all peoples living in northern and eastern Syria. Under this roof, people came together and became one. Over the past year, many women have joined the revolution. They became a role model for the whole society. Since women are involved in all levels of life, the prejudice against women has been broken. Women have gained their place in life through their greater participation and organization. For us as YPJ, this resistance and this organizing is a source of morale, which is at the same time a reason to reorganize ourselves even more.

Women are the first to be targeted in all wars. What is the reason for this and how do you think women can protect themselves?

It is not easy to oppose the patriarchal state system that has existed for centuries. That requires a lot of resistance and we have to do our job as best we can. Both ISIS and the occupying Turkish state want to break this resistance. In the person of self-sacrificing revolutionary women, the women who lead society have been targeted. ISIS and the Turkish state are pursuing major goals with this. They wanted to create women who were not present anywhere in life, apart from revolution and politics, but today women are at the forefront. The organized, socially leading woman is always the target of those in power. Sometimes they use rape and assault, sometimes airstrikes and other forms of assault. In many ways, attempts are being made to destroy the women who lead society and thereby destroy society. Last year this happened openly. Every time women stand up for their rights and equality, they are targeted. That's why it's important for women to get organized.

"Create awareness of unity and legitimate self-defense"

Xwebûn [Kurdish for "to be oneself"] is an important term. We have tried to understand this concept by focusing on and discussing why we took up arms in the YPJ. It's not about using weapons, it's about standing up for one's rights, one's identity, for everything that belongs to being human. We try to create this awareness. An attack on a woman is an attack on all women, so this needs to be looked at. With this in mind, women need to organize themselves. When unity, togetherness, is created, we all become stronger. There has to be a confrontation with that, because as the women get stronger, so do the attacks.

That is why there must always be legitimate self-defense forces. If women achieve this awareness, they can create their own self-defence in all areas of life and protect themselves on this basis in every respect. The ways and methods for this are evolving. Women should participate in all areas of life such as education, economy, justice etc. by organizing on this basis. It is important to engage in a sense of unity and self-defense. With the YPJ there is now a distinct female force, there is unity and collectivity, but that is not enough. A greater struggle and resistance is required. As a society, we need to identify with the YPJ.

Some countries have tried to classify the SDF, YPG and YPJ as terrorist organizations. How do you rate this approach?

Women who are themselves and protect themselves can also stand up for and protect society. The YPJ is in a war zone. It is important to strengthen the YPJ in every area of ​​life. As YPJ, we have not attacked any territory or state. We only exercised our right to self-defense. Our approach moves within this framework. We will protect our people and exercise our right to self-defense against any attack on our society or territory. They say we attacked Turkey or other forces, but we didn't attack anyone, we just used our right to self-defense.

So what are our acts of terrorism? Where have we committed them? We just defended our rights. Every day people are displaced, they become targets of attacks, every day women are murdered. Everyone may be silent about these actions, but we are there to stand up for women and for society. We haven't violated a single right.

We call on all people, all freedom and human rights defenders, those who defend and fight for women's freedom; we call on the international powers: Come and investigate what we have done. We are absolutely transparent.

Not only Kurdish women fight in the YPJ, but also women from the Arab and Assyrian populations and other ethnic identities of the region. What do the YPJ promise women?

Women’s demand for freedom, organization and self-defense corresponds to our demand. The YPJ are setting a good example here. This applies to all of Syria, but also to Yemen and Sudan. All women deal with the question of organizing and self-defense and try to find examples of it. The YPJ is a very living, dynamic example in this sense. Indeed, the fact that the experiences of the YPJ are being shared and adopted by other women is a bit what terrifies those in power. If the YPJ were just a region-bound force, no one would have made such an agenda. But the YPJ has become more and more a role model for North and East Syria, Syria, the Middle East, indeed for all of humanity.

"Defending Power of All Women"

The organizing of the YPJ really happened faster than we expected. They were built up quickly and became a very effective force. So there was a need for it. This wave, which started with Kurdish women, has also affected all other women. Various forces joined us and we became what we are today. Women from all over the world come and join the YPJ. The organized self-defense forces are leading to serious changes in our region. They change society. When society changes, the region changes. When the region changes, it has a global impact. But that also places a great deal of responsibility on us. We feel responsibility for all women in the world.

There are heavy attacks. We are able to improve the mechanism of self-defense despite being in an atmosphere of attacks. We know that we have the strength to answer the attacks because behind us stands an even greater force on which to lean, the army of the fallen. The power is the will of the mothers who witnessed the brutal slaughter of their children and had to bury their children with their own hands. The power is the presence of hundreds of daughters of the fallen, the legacy of women who have come from all over the world and joined us at every stage of this struggle. All of this is the source of our strength, our resistance.

On the occasion of World Working Women's Day, we remind all women that it is time for women's freedom. We call for sharing our pains and achievements and fighting together. We can defeat the mentality that kills women, kills love, that forces the colour black on women, and we are ready for it. No one is alone, we are by their side.

YPJ International: Rojava is a model for the entire Middle East

Comrade Dilan from YPJ International said that all components in Rojava participated in the revolution and the construction of a democratic society, and that the Rojava Revolution model could offer a solution for the entire Middle East.

MUSTAFA ÇOBAN
HESEKÊ
Monday, 20 Jun 2022, 09:23

Comrade Dilan from YPJ International said that YPJ International is the place for women who seek freedom and who want to work to understand, develop and defend the women's revolution.

Women who come to Rojava voluntarily from all over the world continue to play a role in the construction of a free life.

Comrade Dilan from YPJ International talked to ANF about the work and aims of the organisation.

What is YPJ International and what are its aims?

YPJ International is an internationalist organizational structure within the Women’s Defense Units of Rojava. It organizes and educates internationalist volunteers in line with the framework of Democratic Confederalism, enabling their active participation in the women’s revolution and building global alliances. Since the battle of Kobane in 2015, there has been a worldwide interest in the YPJ and more and more women have reached out to us, asking how they can join. It was then that we saw the need to organize an internationalist battalion within the YPJ, and since then YPJ International has become a place in which women receive ideological and military training, learn the Kurdish language and become ready to work in the different areas of work within the YPJ.

Why is it important to organize for self-defense as women and why do internationalists join the defense forces of Rojava?

Every living organism has its own system of defense, like a rose has thorns to protect its beauty. From the dawn of human life, self defense was a task naturally organized by society. With the institutionalization of patriarchy, the accumulation of capital and the emergence of the class system, the capacity for self defense was seized by the ruling class and men and women were stripped of their means of self defense. Armies were established, and rather than being used to protect society they are used as murderous war machines that exploit peoples around the world.

When we take up arms, we do so in opposition to patriarchal militarism, with the aim of defending women and our people, not the interests of capital or nation-states. The YPJ sees itself as part of a historical legacy of women defending their land against fascism and occupation or protecting revolutions like the Mujeres Libres in the Spanish Civil War, the female partisans fighting Nazism during the Second World War and the Vietnamese women defending their land against occupation.

The Rojava Revolution built up a grassroots democracy that organizes society through local communes and councils. Women are building autonomous women’s structures at all levels of society. The co-chair system guarantees women’s participation in any political body, education for women is organized extensively through academies, and women’s cooperatives give women the chance to gain economic independence. Jineoloji - the science of women – provides a scientific basis for the women’s revolution without reproducing positivist doctrines, women’s justice councils aim to create justice, and with the YPJ women created their own self-defense forces. Those achievements are made for the women across the entire world, and seek to benefit the development of true democracies.

Turkish fascism and Islamist groups like ISIS are attacking the liberated areas of North and East Syria. They try to occupy our liberated land and seek to implement their misogynist, oppressive system. Additionally, hegemonic powers try to misrepresent the Rojava Revolution and make it out to be a project of Kurdish separatism, presenting the war they force on us as an inter-ethnic conflict. But the Rojava Revolution is not a Kurdish revolution. It is based on Abdullah Öcalan’s paradigm of Democratic Nation which includes every religious, cultural or ethnic group within the region. It aims to create unity between the different peoples of the region. People from all of the ethnic communities of Rojava are involved in the revolution and the building up of a democratic society. Because the Rojava Revolution offers a political model for religious, cultural and ethnic cooperation, it can offer a solution for the whole Middle East. The hegemonic powers have turned the Middle East into a playground in which they turn different ethnic groups against each other, and the Rojava Revolution undermines this plan, so it is dangerous to them.

The volunteers of YPJ International understand the potential of this revolution and see it as their own, not as perspective restricted to Kurdish people. The three international revolutionaries Ivana Hoffman from Germany, Anna Campbell from England and Alina Sanchez from Argentina became martyrs within the ranks of the YPJ. Their commitment is proof to us that women who came to Rojava found what they were looking for: a concrete way of liberating themselves from 5000 years of women’s oppression. Women from around the world find freedom here and therefore are willing to defend it.

Based on the experiences you have had with internationalist, what do you think are the main attacks on women in capitalist modernity and what are your strategies to counter them?

Although our members come from different regions of the world we have a common enemy. Imperialism, colonialism, war and fascism are existential threats to women around the world. Capitalism oppresses women twice; they need to sell their labor-power for less money than men do and at the same time are forced to be unpaid workers responsible for reproductive labor in their homes. We know that it is those economic conditions that push women into dependence on men, which makes them more vulnerable to violence.

Capitalism is turning everything into a commodity. One of the largest industries in the world, the sex industry, uses women as commodities, making profit from their sexual exploitation. Reducing everything to simply its material value is denying intangible and ethical values. But we believe that ethical values are vital to keeping communities strong. We need to understand that this system has even degraded the meaning of love to the extent that “love” has become a legitimate excuse for the killing of women. This system is an attack on life itself and we are not willing to let this murderous machine keep going.

On an ideological level, we see liberalism as a major attack on women and their struggle. It tries to placate us by integrating women in the exploitative system. By using female bosses and leaders as supposed proof of women’s emancipation, it aims to make our demands for liberation seem unnecessary. The influence of liberalism on feminism is preventing radical struggle and change. Any choice made by a woman is presented as a “feminist” choice, and women are convinced that oppression is not oppression as long as they are free to choose it. We need to understand that this completely denies the material and historical conditions under which women make choices. It cuts women off from their history, pretending that just the individual and the moment is important. It breaks everything down to individual choices, distracting us from the real cause of our problems, which is the exploitative patriarchal system. We can see that this approach prevents any critical debate because individual autonomy is used as something that can never be questioned or challenged. We see individualism as something that prevents building up strong communities and have noticed that women are getting more and more isolated from each other. If women are separated from each other, they are easier to control. And what is even more dangerous is that it makes women less willing to stand up for each other.

In the discussion we had within YPJ International, we could see how these strategies are affecting the psychology of women. Not seeing the system as the source of their oppression makes women believe that it is their own fault if they face exploitation and violence. We can see that shame and guilt are common patterns in our biographies. This is why we see liberalism as an ideological attack on women. We see that all around the world women are waking up, not accepting patriarchy any longer. But we also see with great concern that liberalism is offering itself as a solution, preventing women from engaging in revolutionary politics. This is why we see an urgent need to offer education about the dangers of liberalism and spread a revolutionary narrative instead. A narrative that analyses the system of oppression and enables women to struggle for liberation.

YPJ International is a space in which women can educate themselves in a revolutionary context, free from the control and repression of nation-states and bureaucracy. Against the oppressive system’s strategy of isolation, we aim to build unity and love among women. We create education about the history of women’s oppression but also about the history of women’s freedom. We teach the Women’s Liberation Ideology, a concept rooted in the Kurdistan Women’s Movement, which offers core principles to guide how women can liberate themselves. We believe in the strength of education and know that the system is afraid of educated, revolutionary women. This is why we see the need to build up women who can inspire others and spread the revolution to the world.

What are the requirements for joining YPJ International and how can women contact you?

YPJ International is a place for women who are searching for freedom and are willing to give energy and effort to understanding, developing and defending the women’s revolution. We don’t expect anyone to have read a lot of theory but rather we ask people to be open to learning and living values like collective care, compassion and selflessness in daily life. Anyone who is open to educating and developing herself is welcome to join us. To be part of a revolution means to make the revolution take place inside yourself as well. In our daily life, we use the method of criticism and self criticism to analyze, learn and grow together.

But of course this process needs time and so patience is needed when coming to Rojava. Although the women in Rojava have made a lot of achievements, there is still a long way to go. People shouldn’t expect a perfect revolution in which all problems or contradictions are solved. In order to have time to learn the language, get to know the culture, receive military training and understand the philosophy of the revolution, volunteers should stay one year minimum. Previous military experience is not needed.

People can reach us via email (womensrevolution@protonmail.com) and find us on twitter @YPJ_volunteers. We want to emphasize that we are especially interested in strengthening our alliances with women in Latin America, Asia and Africa and we invite them to contact us. From the heart of the women’s revolution, we send greetings to all our sisters who are resisting the capitalist- patriarchal system and we give you our word that we will do everything to defend and spread the women’s revolution.

KURDISTAN AUTONOMOUS ZONE SYRIA
Women’s Protection Units (YPJ): On Societal Transformation and Revolutionary Progress

By Berivan Amuda, Hawzhin Azeez

March 5, 2024

Source: The Kurdish Center for Studies


The following is an exclusive KCS interview with Berivan Amuda, from the YPJ (Women’s Protection Units) Information and Documentation Office, which was conducted on December 8th, 2023.

The YPJ was established in 2012 and emerged from the bloody outcome of the Syrian Civil War. Since then, the YPJ has gained global renown as a women’s self-defense force, especially through their revolutionary struggle against ISIS during the siege of Kobanê. Can you define the conditions that contributed to the establishment of this revolutionary women’s movement?

Syria, like many other countries in the region, was engulfed by the Arab Spring. However, instead of the people’s outcry for a dignified life finding an answer, the oppressive systems of rule only increased the levels of violence, and a civil war broke out in Syria that has kept the country fragmented to this day. In addition to the Syrian regime, a number of international powers have intervened in Syria and stationed proxies and mercenaries in the region. None of these powers represent a solution for the people in the slightest, but rather increase misery and deepen the state of war.

The revolution in Rojava presents itself as a third alternative path, different from either the Syrian opposition or the state. However, it did not simply emerge out of nowhere: Kurds and many other groups, including Christians and Arabs, that do not belong to the elite circle of the Syrian regime, have historically been subjected to torture, assimilation, and oppression. The Syrian regime had implemented concrete Arabization plans for the predominantly Kurdish regions, such as the state-planned “Arab belt” of villages near the border with Turkey. The Kurdish language was banned in public, and children were punished with physical violence if they spoke Kurdish in the schoolyard. Thousands of civilians vanished into the torture prisons of the Syrian regime.

Against this oppression, a small part of the population of Rojava began to organize in secret, a development catalyzed by the arrival of Abdullah Öcalan to Syria in 1979. Fundamentally, organizing the people in this way became the basis for founding a system of self-administration, even if no one knew at this time that one day an opportunity like this would arise. By the start of the revolution, Abdullah Ocalan had developed a political paradigm and taught it to thousands, first in academies and after his abduction and imprisonment, by composing his prison writings. He effectively created and implemented a paradigm for women’s liberation, which had spread widely in the society of Rojava. This is certainly one aspect of the basis for the emergence of the YPJ.

On the other hand, the first women guerrillas were developed in Kurdistan’s mountains. With more and more women joining the guerrillas from Rojava and with the formation of the women’s army in 1993, women had already been developing a self-confident and influential fighting force since the mid-1990s. Their experience gave them the knowledge that they can overcome all difficulties and that no matter how few they are, if it is done the right way, they will succeed. Women in Rojava also saw the experiences in the mountains and benefited from the accumulated knowledge of the Kurdish women guerrillas.

Each woman first broke her own shackles, thus breaking the backwardness of society and dealt a blow to the mentality of the oppressive regime in Damascus and the tyranny of ISIS. At the beginning of the revolution, so many women joined self-defense units that two autonomous battalions first emerged, until the YPJ was officially founded in 2013. Of course, there were many classical or feudal reservations in society, which meant that some did not believe that women could effectively participate in their own self-defense.

But women played the biggest role in the war to defend Kobanê against ISIS because of their strong willpower and convictions. With this, the YPJ became a force to be reckoned with in the eyes of the world’s public, seen as heroines defending humanity. From the beginning, the YPJ had to resist both the Syrian regime and forces such as Jabhat al-Nusra, ISIS, and Turkey. What sets the Rojava Revolution apart from everything else in history, is that the usual attitude of “let’s solve this war first and then liberate women” or “let’s establish the system and then change society” simply never existed. It is a revolution that, from day one, has truly been based on a struggle centering women’s liberation and society’s change towards an ethical and political society. So this is why it was the most natural thing to form a women’s army as a core part of this transformation.

Women in Rojava have consistently been the target of various forms of patriarchal violence, including from states such as Turkey or the Syrian regime and organizations such as ISIS and fellow terrorist groups. How do you manage to resist such oppression and what are the challenges that you continue to face in this regard?

Fascist Turkey, the Syrian regime, and ISIS. As much as each of these forces may have used different policies against women, they are all grounded in the same patriarchal and state mentalities. Certainly, horror and violence in history have always taken on different dimensions and generally reached new dimensions in recent years, especially concerning the Turkish dictatorship. However, we can generally speak of a Third World War developing in recent years, the center of which is also here in Kurdistan and in north and east Syria. Accordingly, the women of the region have experienced a great deal of violence and suffering. This includes Turkey’s war of aggression, including the use of phosphorus chemical weapons in Serê Kaniyê, and the abduction and rape of women by Turkey and its aligned mercenaries in the Turkish-occupied areas. It includes the daily horror of ISIS torturing, enslaving, raping, and killing women. There is a disastrous level of violence women have faced and continue to face. What is crucial, however, is that they resist and that they found a different ideology, a solution, in the paradigm of Abdullah Öcalan.

For the revolution in north and east Syria, this is the paradigm of Democratic Confederalism, centered on women’s liberation and ecology. With this mentality, a change has been initiated in every cell of society. While it is about defense, it is also about building a new path. The state system and the reign of terror under ISIS had their mentality defeated. For sure, this change in mentality must become a collective organization. Otherwise, there cannot be real change at the base of society.

The establishment of women’s self-defense units, as well as the organization of society, play an important role in this resistance. The situation in north and east Syria has changed from the ground up. For sure, this is not a completed process, because what we analyze as patriarchal oppression slowly evolving in a five-thousand-year-old system cannot be removed from everyone’s mind in a day. The principal challenge is the change in this mentality itself. So this is an ongoing struggle, involving organizing all women according to their strength and possibility to contribute to the defense of their homeland and the development of the women’s revolution. For sure, it is often the most difficult issue to change our mentality as women ourselves, because only if we overcome our internalized patriarchal beliefs and struggle together in the right way can we achieve success, change our society, and resist.

The YPJ is a powerful symbol of women’s resistance, courage, and agency. Can you identify one key step that women in other societies can take towards gaining greater power and visibility within their societies?

For women, in order to make fundamental change, they first have to fundamentally question a modernity that sells, exploits, rapes, degrades, and disrespects women and turns them into commodities. If we understand this, we can understand that there is a need for women to organize together and take charge of major areas of their lives. This has to happen in an autonomous way, including in self-defense. Without autonomy, liberation cannot be reached because there is simply no space where women can question and overcome patriarchal influences. For sure, there is no one specific program that you can just place into any society. You rather need to understand the true necessities and realities of all women in this society and develop an approach according to this. If today we speak of the self-defense of women, this doesn’t necessarily only mean to develop a women’s army; it can take on different forms.

So if we were to propose a concrete step to take, it would be this: for women worldwide to develop their common confederal organizations, focusing on the central issue of self-defense in the broadest sense.




Between your courageous fight against ISIS and ongoing resistance against the oppressive policies of the Turkish regime, which has been the greater challenge?

The fight against ISIS cost thousands of martyrs and great sacrifices, but the military threat of Turkey is greater because it is backed by NATO. After all, ISIS was just a proxy force used by state powers, but the powers that supported ISIS, like Turkey, remain undeterred by the defeat of ISIS. It has been proven that the YPJ and YPG were able to defeat ISIS while largely being abandoned by the world. This also shows that you can achieve anything if you are determined to and have a strong ideological basis.

Technologically, Turkey is much more equipped than ISIS was. The continuous drone war and use of aircraft is, for sure, something that harms the people of north and east Syria a great deal and costs the lives of many civilians, members of self-defense forces, and politicians. But what actually makes a major difference is the political credibility that international powers give Turkey. In front of the world’s eyes, Turkey occupied Afrin and Serê Kaniyê through brutal wars and continued ethnic cleansing and assimilation politics towards the different population groups of the region, especially the Kurdish people.

Turkey attempts to occupy and annex major parts of northern Syria, mostly Rojava and parts of Southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq). The international support that Turkey receives for this war and for its attempt to destroy the alternative that the Rojava revolution represents is what makes Turkey more dangerous than the attacks of ISIS. So in this sense, it will always be more challenging to resist Turkey. But also, the fascistic Turkish state is in a state of crisis, which makes it possible to resist and defeat it. But this will continue to require great sacrifices.

There is a powerful quote by the American Black woman and scholar Audre Lorde who states, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” The YPJ is not solely a Kurdish women’s military organization. It is so much more than that in scope, aspirations, and objectives. What are the commonalities between women, say in Kobanê and those in Afghanistan, Latin America, Sweden, or Canada?

For sure, it was Audre Lorde’s aspiration to understand and struggle against women’s oppression while not forgetting that there are other issues to face, such as racism. Much of what she analyzed is also addressed in the writings of Abdullah Öcalan. He built his paradigm around the concept of the Democratic Nation, which allows different religious or ethnic groups to live according to their own culture and maintain autonomy, while at the same time creating common ground and the framework of an ethical and political societal life. In this framework, the YPJ is also a force that includes different societal groups, such as Yazidis, Christians, Arabs, Turkmen, and so on. Some build their own defense forces, like the Armenian Battalion or the Bethnahrain Women’s Protection Forces – an Assyrian all-women defense unit that is part of the SDF. Others took part in the YPJ, with all uniting to defend their homelands in north and east Syria.

Our approach to women’s liberation is so unique that we attempt to analyze the core of women’s enslavement by analyzing and teaching about the roots of women’s oppression that developed after the Neolithic Age. This also leads us to develop different perspectives than the ones of many feminists and critical thinkers, in the sense that we see the need to analyze even further the nature of the issue and its historical roots. If we do not do this, we can fall again into the trap of staying within the framework of liberalism or simply not succeed in developing solutions for society.

We are very aware, from the start of our struggle, that it is one for all women. Today, an average woman in the western world might see herself as privileged in some ways, but essentially, the means of patriarchal violence, whether it is war, domestic violence, exploitation as a commodity, or rape culture, target every woman in some way. It is also a reality that even a woman who may not face femicide herself will be consciously or unconsciously affected by other women facing such violence. We shouldn’t ever fall into the trap of seeing things from a solely individual point of view. The killing of women sends a clear message to all women in this sense: It spreads the message to avoid making your voice heard and to conform to a patriarchal and fascist system. The faces of ISIS attacking Kobanê or the Taliban in Afghanistan are only the most obvious and violent manifestations of the same mentality.

But women worldwide should also develop the same sense of responsibility that many of us have already. The ones who do not see themselves as oppressed or only want a bigger role in the system of patriarchy, monopolies, and exploitation might even be the ones who are the most enslaved by modernity, unable to dissociate from its framework. We are all in need of freedom and we are all in need of developing our organization for self-defense. We also need to make our voices heard as women, when forces like the Taliban or Turkey systematically target women.

As a women’s movement that emerged within the context of the Kurdish liberation movement in Rojava, the war against ISIS, and the ongoing invasions and terrorism imposed by Turkey, the challenges faced by your movement have been immense. How has the YPJ attempted to reform and evolve in response to these obstacles?

The history of the revolution is full of vanguards and pioneers. In the most difficult situations, there were always women in our struggle standing up and finding new steps to take. What plays a major factor in this is education. Whenever we faced major challenges, we asked ourselves, “What is the aspect of our own strategical approach that we didn’t grasp or discuss sufficiently?” and then we adapt and strengthen our educational programs and methods according to this; we self-criticize. Some methods that were used against ISIS cannot be used against Turkey because it is a very different force we are facing, so for sure we have made tactical changes.

It is also possible that other international powers will intervene and attack us. So we take pride in always learning from our experiences and preparing for any possible changes. Also, we always closely monitor the historical phase that we are passing through and challenge ourselves to become an adequate respondent to it. For self-defense against major state forces, this means professionalization and, most importantly, becoming even more one with society. Without the power of society, there is no possibility of defeating attackers like state forces. For this reason, our strategic basis today is the revolutionary people’s war. That means organizing every part of ethical and political society and of daily life according to the needs of legitimate self-defense.

What have been some of the key successes of the YPJ since its inception in 2013?

If we speak about the major successes of the YPJ, we must first speak about the change YPJ’s establishment brought for women in Rojava. Women became an autonomous force, from the first battalions to the first YPJ conference and its foundation on April 4, 2013. From the beginning, the YPJ decided to be a force for all women and our struggle had a major impact on society. It is the first and only successfully established women’s army in the region. It made major contributions not only to the freedom of Kurdish women, but also Arab, Turkmen and Christian women. It was the example and practical assistance of the YPJ that made it possible to establish forces like the Assyrian self-defense force. This shows women in the Middle East a clear model for a solution, which in itself is a major success. The YPJ contributed major steps to the education of women in a new, liberated mindset. Broad and colorful systems of academies, from military education to practical skills, but most importantly, ideological education, have been developed. Many of these take place in both Kurdish and Arabic. The YPJ has changed society from the ground up; this is a major success.

There are also many military successes that we could mention, most prominently: the YPJ was involved in the liberation of Şengal, home of the Yazidi people, in 2015, after the brutal genocide by ISIS in 2014. Even if Şengal is in Southern Kurdistan (north Iraq), the YPJ saw it as its moral responsibility to come to aid the Yazidis when the world abandoned them. The YPJ most prominently played its role in the opening of a safe corridor for the fleeing Yazidi population from ISIS, saving thousands of civilians from the same fate that ten thousand Yazidi suffered under the ISIS genocide. There were also several offensives in which the YPJ took on the pioneering role of the people’s defense.

The most prominent example of this is the liberation of the city center of Kobanê in 2016, completed on January 26th. For the first time, the eyes of the world were on the Rojava Revolution, while the YPJ defeated the much better-equipped ISIS attackers with sheer willpower. Following this, the liberation of Manbij from ISIS in 2016 was a major step, as it showed that the YPJ also stood up for a predominantly Arab region, gaining the trust of all the women of north and east Syria and showing what the Democratic Nation and women’s unity can truly mean.

Another, and possibly the most known example, is the liberation of Raqqa in October 2017, when the city was completely liberated from ISIS. The YPJ played the decisive vanguard role in this offensive. For sure, this was a major defeat for ISIS since they saw Raqqa as their political epicenter; the YPJ truly broke the backbone of ISIS. This is a success that changed the history of humanity.

As 2023 draws to a close, the international system is in crisis, and the global pandemic has destroyed social, economic, and political structures, causing increasing havoc. As a result, the situation and condition of women, colonized, stateless, and oppressed peoples globally are increasingly dire. What is the message of the YPJ to such communities as they face these bleak times?

We have already said that we are facing a situation that we can name the Third World War, with the Middle East as one major center. Certainly, everywhere in the world, crises or wars are showing up, and this is mainly proof of what we are already sure of: that there has to be an alternative modernity and that we cannot live with this status quo. Whether it is exploitation or war, oppression will only continue to intensify if we do not organize. To struggle does not merely mean to wait for opportunities or to only continue with limited approaches that do not solve the root of the issues. It is essential to develop approaches that follow new methods that strengthen democratic modernity.

We have to know that this isn’t an easy way and it cannot be solved by a single issue or a one-method struggle. If we speak of the environmental crisis, for example, we have to acknowledge that it is a sign that humanity in general has to understand that life cannot continue at the current pace of capitalist modernity, and the pandemic is a part of this. So we shouldn’t fall into the trap of searching for the solution to the problem in the same places and approaches that created it.

We have to analyze the greater truth of these problems, and we as the YPJ are convinced that Abdullah Öcalan offers an important perspective on this. We clearly see the pain and despair the world is going through; everywhere in the world there is the horrifying oppression of women, exploitation, and continuing genocides. We encourage every individual to see all of this as further evidence that democratic modernity—the liberation from this oppression—can and will be reached if we struggle. We very much hope that all the resisting forces of the world can continue to strengthen their bonds and see our common ground of struggle in order to face this situation with hope.




ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.DONATE

Related Posts“Woman, Life, Freedom”: Syrian Women Are Rising Up Against Patriarchy
Anna Rebrii -- April 03, 2023
North East Syria Is Still Dealing With the World’s Forgotten ISIS Problem
Nisreen Kermo -- September 16, 2023
The Kurdish Feminist Revolution
Rahila Gupta -- March 09, 2023
What Does Revolution Mean in the 21st Century?
Mark Beissinger -- August 11, 2023
‘War Made Easy’ – The Iraq War 20 Years Later
Norman Solomon -- March 19, 2023

SYRIAN KURDISTAN

YPJ publishes booklet to mark 10th anniversary of its foundation

The YPJ Information and Documentation Office published a booklet to mark the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Women's Defense Units.

ANF
NEWS DESK
Monday, 12 Jun 2023, 10:54

The YPJ Information and Documentation Office published a booklet to mark the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Women's Defense Units.

Following the uprising of the so-called Arab Spring, the people of Rojava (Western Kurdistan, Northern Syria) took over the administration from the hands of the Syrian Regime and established a confederal, democratic self-administration. The Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) is an all-female military self-defense force that was founded in 2013, with the aim of protecting the people and women of Rojava and their right to self-administration.

Since then, YPJ has participated in all military operations, fighting different Islamist groups such as Al-Nusra and ISIS. In 2014, when the city of Kobane was besieged and attacked by ISIS, the fighters of YPJ – alongside our all-gendered People’s Protection Units (YPG) – played an active role in liberating the city. During this time, YPJ fighters gained international attention for their courage and resistance, becoming a role model for women around the world fighting for freedom, self-determination and gender equality.



Following the Battle of Kobane, YPJ became a founding part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) military alliance that was founded in 2015, subsequently bringing together different groups fighting ISIS in North and East Syria. With the support of the International Coalition Against ISIS, the SDF led the fight on the ground against ISIS terrorism, liberating the women and people of areas such as Minbij, Raqqa, Deir az Zor and many more.

The YPJ soon became an ethnically diverse force, as women from Arab, Assyrian, Armenian and other origins joined our ranks. The civil self-administration of Rojava changed its name to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) to indicate the multi-ethnic character of the self-administration’s areas.

In 2018, when the so-called caliphate of ISIS was still in existence, the Turkish state started a brutal invasive war against our western canton of Afrin, using Islamist mercenaries as ground forces. Our fighters carried out a heroic resistance and hundreds of our fighters gave their lives to protect the people of Afrin. Nevertheless, the Turkish state occupied Afrin, creating a system based on torture, kidnapping, rape and murder. Assimilation politics and demographic change are continually used against the population, and human rights violations there are well-documented.

After the resistance of Afrin, our forces participated in the battle against the last territory of the so-called ISIS caliphate: the Battle of Baghoz. In March 2019, ISIS’ defeat was declared and thousands of their fighters and affiliates surrendered themselves to the SDF – among them, citizens from around the world that had come to Iraq and Syria to join the caliphate. The forces of YPG and YPJ paid for the defeat of ISIS with the lives of 11,000 martyrs. We paid this price knowing that we are not just protecting Syria and the Middle East, but the whole of humanity against the risks posed by ISIS’ ideology and organization.

In the same year of ISIS’ defeat, the Turkish state (together with its allied Islamist groups) launched another military operation against our territories, which led to the occupation of two of our cities: Serekaniye and Gire Spi. Thousands of civilians became refugees, and like in Afrin, many human rights are routinely violated. Furthermore, the Turkish State is using these occupied regions to give safe passage to ISIS members heading into the areas of the AANES.

REST IN POWER-RIP

YPJ announces the death of four fighters

Four fighters of the Women's Defence Units have died in a fatal accident during a mission in Hesekê.


ANF News
NEWS DESK
Friday, 28 Jul 2023, 15:45

The General Command of the Women's Defence Units (YPJ) announced the death of four fighters in the northern Syrian city of Heseke. According to the statement released on Friday, Hesina Mûsa Mihemmed (Avaşîn Hesekê), Hîba Abdulqadir Bekir (Hîba Hesekê), Bêrîvan Abdil Xelef (Bêrîvan Hesekê), Emîne Nebo Silêman (Dilar Kobanê) died in a fatal accident during a mission in Hesekê on Thursday.

Expressing its condolences to the relatives of the four women and the people of northern and eastern Syria, YPJ General Command said:

"With the revolution of North and East Syria, the brave women of our regions came in like a flood into the ranks of freedom, united around the democratic, ecological and women's liberation paradigm and organised under the umbrella of the YPJ. The fire of this revolution, which dispelled the darkness of the time, illuminated the societies’ path to freedom under the vanguard of female fighters. To this day, the YPJ is putting up determined resistance for liberation. This resistance that we are leading against the logic of male domination is growing with each passing day. No doubt, at the end of this dignified cause, it is inevitable that many of our precious women companions sacrifice their lives.

Avaşîn Hesekê, Hîba Hesekê, Bêrîvan Hesekê and Dilar Kobanê fought for the freedom of their people with the spirit of sacrifice. With dedication and courage, they defended the values of freedom and fulfilled the tasks of the revolution. Our ideal will be to continue the resistance until the fulfilment of their dreams."

YPJ provided the following information on the identity of the deceased female fighters:

Hesina Mûsa Mihemmed (Avaşîn Hesekê) was born in Hesekê in 1987. She grew up in a home characterised by Kurdish patriotism and joined the armed units of Rojava at an early age. She joined the self-protection units Yekinêyên Xweparastina Gel (YXG), a fighting unit that was founded in 2011 shortly after the emergence of the "Arab Spring" in Syria. When the YXG was restructured into the People's Defence Units (YPG) in 2012, Avaşîn Hesekê participated in the establishment of the YPJ. She was thus one of the first members of the YPJ and participated in all fronts of the war against ISIS, from Hesekê to Til Temir and Deir ez-Zor.

Hîba Abdulqadir Bekir (Hîba Hesekê) was born in Hesekê in 2003. She also belonged to a family connected to the Kurdish resistance. She joined the ranks of the struggle after an older brother of hers had joined the liberation struggle. Through her devotion to him and all the other martyrs, Comrade Hîba joined our ranks. She will always be remembered as a comrade who carried the passion of the revolution and the spirit of companionship deep in her heart.

Bêrîvan Abdil Xelef (Bêrîvan Hesekê) was born in 1995 and also came from Hesekê. Her home and parental environment were influenced by the Kurdish resistance, and her brother had been martyred in battle. This event shaped her and was decisive for her decision to become part of the YPJ.

Emîne Nebo Silêman (Dilar Kobanê) came from Kobanê. Her family is active supporters of the Kurdish liberation movement, and one of her sisters was martyred in the fight. Her loss was decisive for Dilar Kobanê's participation in the ranks of the YPJ.

‘Now I’ve a purpose’: why more Kurdish women are choosing to fight

All-female militias in Syria have again swelled in numbers in recent years with many women joining the call to arms despite the risks


Zeynab Serekaniye at her unit’s base in Tal Tamr. The comradeship with other women is what she likes most about her new life. Photograph: Delil Souleiman/The Guardian
Rights and freedom



by Elizabeth Flock

Rights and freedom is supported by

Mon 19 Jul 2021 06.00 BST


Zeynab Serekaniye, a Kurdish woman with a gap-toothed smile and a warm demeanor, never imagined she’d join a militia.

The 26-year-old grew up in Ras al-Ayn, a town in north-east Syria. The only girl in a family of five, she liked to fight and wear boys’ clothing. But when her brothers got to attend school and she did not, Serekaniye did not challenge the decision. She knew it was the reality for girls in the region. Ras al-Ayn, Arabic for “head of the spring”, was a green and placid place, so Serekaniye settled down to a life of farming vegetables with her mother.

That changed on 9 October 2019, days after former US president Donald Trump announced that US troops would pull out of north-east Syria, where they had allied with Kurdish-led forces for years. A newly empowered Turkey, which sees the stateless Kurds as an existential threat, and whose affiliated groups it has been at war with for decades, immediately launched an offensive on border towns held by Kurdish forces in north-east Syria, including Ras al-Ayn.

Smoke billows from the town of Ras al-Ayn, Syria, during the bombardment by Turkish forces in October 2019

Just after 4pm that day, Serekaniye says, the bombs began to fall, followed by the dull plink and thud of mortar fire. By evening, Serekaniye and her family had fled to the desert, where they watched their town go up in smoke. “We didn’t take anything with us,” she says. “We had a small car, so how can we take our stuff and leave the people?” As they fled, she saw dead bodies in the street. She soon learned that an uncle and cousin were among them. Their house would become rubble.

After Serekaniye’s family was forced to resettle farther south, she surprised her mother in late 2020 by saying she wanted to join the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ). The all-female, Kurdish-led militia was established in 2013 not long after their male counterparts, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), ostensibly to defend their territory against numerous groups, which would come to include the Islamic State (Isis). The YPG have also been linked to systematic human rights abuses including the use of child soliders, forced displacements and looting.
If these people come here, they will do the same to us. We will not accept that, so we will stand against themViyan Rojava

Serekaniye’s mother argued against her decision, because two of her brothers were already risking their lives in the YPG.

But Serekaniye was unmoved. “We’ve been pushed outside of our land, so now we should go and defend our land,” she says. “Before, I was not thinking like this. But now I have a purpose – and a target.”

Serekaniye is one of approximately 1,000 women across Syria to have enlisted in the militia in the past two years. Many joined in anger over Turkey’s incursions, but ended up staying.

“In discussions [growing up], it was always, ‘if something happens, a man will solve it, not a woman’,” says Serekaniye. “Now women can fight and protect her society . This, I like.”

YPJ fighters at a military parade on 27 March 2019, to celebrate the elimination of Islamic State’s last bastion in eastern Syria

According to the YPG, a surge in recruitment has also been aided by growing pushback against and awareness of entrenched gender inequality and violence over recent years. In 2019 the Kurds’ Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria passed a series of laws to protect women, including banning polygamy, child marriages, forced marriages and so-called “honour” killings, although many of these practices continue. About a third of Asayish officers in the Kurdish security services in the region are now women and 40% female representation is required in the autonomous government. A village of only women, where female residents can live safe from violence, was built, evacuated after nearby bombings, and resettled again

The Kurdish enclave of Afrin in January 2018, when Turkey and Free Syrian Army rebels it backed launched Operation Olive Branch

Yet evidence of the widespread violence that women continue to face is abundant at the local Mala Jin, or “women’s house”, which provide a refuge and also a form of local arbitration for women in need across Syria. Since 2014, 69 of these houses have opened, with staff helping any woman or man who come in with problems they’re facing including issues of domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape, and so-called “honour” crimes, often liaising with local courts and the female units of the Asayish intelligence agency to solve cases.

On a sun-scorched day in May, three distraught women arrive in quick succession at a Mala Jin centre in the north-eastern city of Qamishli. The first woman, who wears a heavy green abaya, tells staff that her husband has barely come home since she’s given birth. The second woman arrives with her husband in tow, demanding a divorce; her long ponytail and hands shake as she describes how he’d once beaten her until she had to get an abortion.

The third woman shuffles in pale-faced and in a loose dress, with rags wrapped around her hands. Her skin is raw pink and black from burns that cover much of her face and body. The woman describes to staff how her husband has beaten her for years and threatened to kill a member of her family if she left him. After he poured paraffin on her one day, she says, she fled his house; he then hired men to kill her brother. After her brother’s murder, she set herself on fire. “I got tired,” she says.

The Mala Jin staff, all women, tut in disapproval as she speaks. They carefully write down the details of her account, tell her they need to take photographs, and explain they plan to send the documents to the court to help secure his arrest. The woman nods then lies down on a couch in exhaustion.

Behia Murad, the director of the Qamishli Mala Jin, an older, kind-eyed woman in a pink hijab, said says the Mala Jin centres have handled thousands of cases since they started, and, though both men and women come in with complaints, “always the woman is the victim”.

A growing number of women visit the Mala Jin centres. Staff say that this doesn’t represent increased violence against women in the region, but that more women are demanding equality and justice.

A Syrian woman reads the Qur’an near the grave of her daughter, a former fighter in the Women’s Protection Forces, in the city of Qamishli

The YPJ is very aware of this shift and its potential as a recruitment tool. “Our aim is not to just have her hold her gun, but to be aware,” says Newroz Ahmed, general commander of the YPJ.

For Serekaniye it was not just that she got to fight, it was also the way of life the YPJ seemed to offer. Instead of working in the fields, or getting married and having children, women who join the YPJ talk about women’s rights while training to use a rocket-​propelled grenade. They are discouraged, though not banned, from using phones or dating and instead are told that comradeship with other women is now the focus of their day to day lives.

Commander Ahmed, soft-spoken but with an imposing stare, estimates the female militia’s current size is about 5,000. This is the same size the YPJ was at the height of its battle against Isis in 2014 (though the media have previously reported an inflated number). If the YPJ’s continued strength is any indication, she adds, the Kurdish-led experiment is still blooming.

The number remains high despite the fact that the YPJ has lost hundreds, if not more, of its members in battle and no longer accepts married women (the pressure to both fight and raise a family is too intense, Ahmed says). The YPJ also claim it no longer accepts women under 18 after intense pressure from the UN and human rights groups to stop the use of child soldiers; although many of the women I met had joined below that age, though years ago.

Driving through north-east Syria, it is no wonder that so many women continue to join, given the ubiquitous images of smiling female shahids, or martyrs. Fallen female fighters are commemorated on colourful billboards or with statues standing proudly at roundabouts. Sprawling cemeteries are filled with shahids, lush plants and roses growing from their graves.

The fight against Turkey is one reason to maintain the YPJ, says Ahmed, who spoke from a military base in al-Hasakah, the north-east governorate where US troops returned after Joe Biden was elected. She claims that gender equality is the other. “We continue to see a lot of breaches [of law] and violations against women” in the region, she says. “We still have the battle against the mentality, and this is even harder than the military one.”

Tal Tamr, the YPJ base where Serekaniye is stationed, is a historically Christian and somewhat sleepy town. Bedouins herd sheep through fields, children walk arm-in-arm through village lanes, and slow, gathering dust storms are a regular afternoon occurrence. Yet Kurdish, US and Russian interests are all present here. Sosin Birhat, Serekaniye’s commander, says that before 2019 the YPJ base in Tal Tamr was tiny; now, with more women joining, she describes it as a full regiment.

The base is a one-storey, tan-coloured stucco building once occupied by the Syrian regime. The women grow flowers and vegetables in the rugged land at the back. They do not have a signal for their phones or power to use a fan, even in the sweltering heat, so they pass the time on their days off, away from the frontline, having water fights, chain smoking and drinking sugary coffee and tea.




Daily life for Zeynab Serekaniye at Tal Tamr

Yet battle is always on their minds. Viyan Rojava, a more seasoned fighter than Serekaniye, talks of taking back Afrin. In March 2018, Turkey and the Free Syrian Army rebels it backed, launched Operation Olive Branch to capture the north-eastern district beloved for its fields of olive trees.


Women warriors: the extraordinary story of Khatoon Khider and her Daughters of the Sun

Since the Turkish occupation of Afrin, tens of thousands of people have been displaced – Rojava’s family among them – and more than 135 women remain missing, according to media reports and human rights groups. “If these people come here, they will do the same to us,” says Rojava, as other female fighters nod in agreement. “We will not accept that, so we will hold our weapons and stand against them.”

Serekaniye listens intently as Rojava speaks. In the five months since she joined the YPJ, Serekaniye has transformed. During military training in January, she broke a leg trying to scale a wall; now, she can easily handle her gun.

As Rojava speaks, the walkie-talkie sitting beside her crackles. The women at the base were being called to the frontline, not far from Ras al-Ayn. There is little active fighting these days, yet they maintain their positions in case of a surprise attack. Serekaniye dons her flak jacket, grabs her Kalashnikov and a belt of bullets. Then she gets into an SUV headed north, and speeds away.

Additional reporting by Kamiran Sadoun and Solin Mohamed Amin

In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org.


Topics

Rights and freedom
Syria
Women
Middle East and North Africa
features

 

Daughters of Kobani author on how Kurdish women fighters in Syria became ‘world’s best hope against Isis’

INTERVIEW

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon’s new book follows the incredible story of a group of women who stopped the advance of the extremists

The Daughters of Kobani follows the Women’s Protection units (YPJ) in their battle against Isis (Photo: Delil Souleiman/AFP via Getty Images)

By Taz Ali

July 12, 2021 7:00 am

An author has documented the extraordinary journey of a group of young Kurdish women who fought to protect their small Syrian town and ended up stopping the advance of Isis.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, a New York Times bestselling writer, followed the women of the northern Syrian town of Kobani which, in 2014, was under siege by Islamic State militants.

The Women’s Protection Units, also known as the YPJ, were part of the Kurdish forces that managed to reclaim the town in early 2015 and the jihadists were driven back further into Syria. Up to 70 per cent of Kobani was destroyed or damaged after months of street battles.

The story of the women is told in Lemmon’s book The Daughters of Kobani.

“They are not just fighting against Isis but also fighting for women’s equality,” Lemmon told i.

A man looks at the rubble of buildings destroyed in the 2015 clashes between Isis and Kurdish armed groups in Kobani, Syria (Photo: Halil Fidan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Kurds do not have a state of their own and the land they live on is spread over a swathe of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran (Kobani is on Syria’s northern border with Turkey.)

Across the region, the Kurds have long faced prejudice against their ethnic and linguistic identity.

The YPJ is made up of a mix of women who saw what devastation Isis caused to their community, and also those who had long been committed to standing up for Kurdish rights – including the right to celebrate their culture and use their language.

“All these things the Kurdish community have faced huge challenges in exercising,” said Lemmon, speaking from her home in Washington.

“One young person said, ‘We didn’t think this would be our lives, we never thought that this would be what our future would turn out to be.’

“At the beginning, there were young people who took up arms thinking that they would kick the regime [of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad] out. That’s sort of as far as it went, there was no thought of fighting Isis or anything like that. That was the thing that always struck me, this was a conflict that no one could’ve foreseen.”

One of the women Lemmon interviewed for her book was a fighter from Raqqa – a city in eastern Syria which was also captured by Islamic State. She had been forced by her brother to marry an Isis fighter at the age of 18.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (Photo: Amanda Edwards/Getty Images)

“She went through brutality that, even for somebody like me who has the privilege of seeing and hearing these stories, actually made me sick,” Lemmon said. “She was brave enough to try to escape multiple times, every time she gets sent back. She’s not allowed to go back to her mother’s house according to her brother.

“She’s brutalised by her husband and tries to break free of the marriage, she ends up being harmed in ways that are truly unimaginable.

“She manages to get back to home in Raqqa. I said to her, ‘How are you here? What makes you have the courage to keep getting up every morning?’ And she looks at me and was like, ‘Why should anybody have the right to do this to another person? Why do we just stand by?’”

Azeema standing in the Kobani countryside in January 2015 (Photo: Mustafa Alali)

Another memorable moment came when the author spent an evening with YPJ fighter Azeema, who received a call from her sister. The pair squabbled as Azeema was annoyed with the calls and demanded her sister stop ringing. “Everyone can relate to that moment, you don’t not answer to your family,” Lemmon joked.

“Couple of nights later we sat with her sister, who said, ‘She told me to stop calling, I told you we’re in the middle of a fight with Isis, why are you calling me, I’ll call you when this is over, you got to leave me alone right now – but at least I knew she was alive.’

Read More

Shamima Begum: How ‘Isis brides’ have been left marooned in Syria as the civil war drags on

“The humanity of knowing that’s somebody’s sister, that really stayed with me.”

Lemmon described the terrifying experience of visiting the front line during her trips to Syria between 2017 and 2020, and how many women fighters faced the daily threat of violence almost completely unfazed.

“Klara, one of the commanders, takes us to the front line and just the drive was truly chilling because it’s silent except for distant armed fire and mortar rounds. Klara was completely impervious to it, and that’s when it first struck me that for these women this was their daily commute to work.”

Fighters from the Women’s Protection units (YPJ) (Photo: Delil Souleiman/ AFP via Getty Images)

It was the US-led coalition fighting Isis that thrust the YPJ into the spotlight, Lemmon said. What started in 2013 as a protection unit to safeguard their local areas became something global. Fighting alongside their male colleagues in the YPG (Peoples’ Protection Units), the YPJ became the world’s best option to stop the Isis advance.  

“They weren’t just fighting Isis for themselves, it was for the rest of the world,” Lemmon said.

“When men do remarkable, groundbreaking things, we call them leaders, when women do the same we call them exceptions, and we make them superheroes. And they’re not, they’re just people rising to the moment. They’re not unlike so many other women.”

Daughters of Kobani: The Women Who Took on the Islamic State, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Swift Press, £16.99 (Hardback)