Whenever we asked activists in Rojava what the best form of solidarity would be, the most common answer we got was “Build a strong revolutionary movement in your own country.” That response caused us to reconsider the very concept of solidarity. In the history of the Western Left, solidarity has often amounted to a subject-object relationship, in which the “object” of solidarity is tied to the metropolises’ longings and needs for strong emancipatory movements. But this form of solidarity reproduces the colonial perspective on southern, traditionally nonindustrialized, and historically exploited countries. [...] This problem arose in most solidarity movements in the last decade. But solidarity, activists in Rojava say, means building solidarity movements together, movements that can learn from and support one another. [...] For leftists, solidarity with Rojava is not a question of benevolence but a necessity.
— Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women’s Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan by Michael Knapp, Anja Flach, and Ercan Ayboğa (2016)
Donate to Hevya Sor a Kurdistanê (Kurdish Red Crescent, equivalent of the Red Cross) here. Currently they cannot take donations from the UK, so if you are in the UK please see here for how to donate.
everything below the cut is free to read/download online. updated 28/5/26
link garden 🌾💧🌿
recommended reading = ✳︎
Communalist Library (most extensive list of texts, audio, videos, links; some are repeated here)
Öcalan
✳︎The Political Thought of Abdullah Öcalan
✳︎Reflections on the Antisemitic Content in Öcalan’s The Sociology of Freedom
Ocalan and Anti-Semitism by Dr. Thomas Jeffrey Miley
Review of Abdullah Ocalan’s Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization: Dr. Donald H. Matthews Dr. Thomas Jeffrey Miley, University of Cambridge
“How to live, what to do, where to start?” – Extract from Öcalan’s 4th manifesto
The Challenges of a Kurdish Ecofeminist Perspective: Maria Mies, Abdullah Öcalan, and the Praxis of Jineolojî
Democratic Modernity
✳︎The Theory of Democratic Modernity as a Guide for Building a New Internationalism
The Main Principles of Democratic Confederalism
✳︎In Defence of Öcalan’s Vision of ‘Democratic Society’
Democratic Modernity Paves the Way for Democratic Socialism
The understanding of fascism in Öcalan’s concept of democratic modernity
Autonomous organisation as a principle of women’s liberation
Killing and Transforming the Dominant Man
There Never Was A West by David: Or, Democracy Emerges From The Spaces In-Between by David Graeber
DAANES & the Rojava Revolution
✳︎The Rojava Revolution: A Decade On
DAANES' Social Contract, 2023 Edition
✳︎Beyond The Frontlines: The building of the democratic system in North and East Syria
Building an Anticapitalist Economy in Rojava
Beyond Rojava: North and East Syria’s Arab Regions
Explainer: The Religious Assembly and Academy for Democratic Islam
“This is the first time, after thousands of years, that our identity has been accepted and valued” – Eisha Sido, Yazidi Women’s Union of Afrin
The Anti-Terror Trial System in NES
Hidden Battlefields: Rehabilitating ISIS Affiliates and Building a Democratic Culture in Their Former Territories
After ISIS: Ensuring a future for Christians and other minorities in North and East Syria
DAANES & Syria
About the attacks on DAANES by the transitional government and the siege of Kobanê:
✳︎Rojava and Syria at war – a political assessment
Rojava’s reality and possible regional developments
Attacks, Escapes and Withdrawals: A timeline of events at al-Hol camp on January 20
Interview: “They were attacking and burning the camp offices” Jihan Hanna, al-Hol Camp manager
Anxiety and resolve in Rojava
Interview: “This does not mean building a new Syria, it means ethnic cleansing.” Mkrtich Varoujanm, Armenian Civilian
Groups affiliated with the transitional government loot people’s property in villages of Kobanê
Interview: “After all the martyrs, sacrifices, and coexistence, how could we suddenly switch sides and ally with parties whose mentality we do not believe in?” Sheikh Akram Mashoush
Stalemate in the SDF–Damascus prisoner exchange: Agreement not being implemented
Interview: “They may take our braids, but our dignity and our ideas cannot be eradicated” – Ruksen Mohamed, spokesperson of the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ)
Parties in Kobanê call for reversal of district administrator appointment
Other:
Explainer: Syria’s transitional constitution
Explainer: the SDF-Damascus agreement
✳︎After the Earthquake: Impacts of the Natural Disaster Within War-Torn AANES Territories
Syria’s Kurdish-led region decries lack of international support in COVID-19 fight
DAANES & Türkiye
Violence and torture against participants of the ‘Peoples’ Caravan – Caravan for the Defense of Humanity’ in Turkey
✳︎After Assad – Turkey and SNA crimes against civilians in NES
From Idlib to Damascus – HTS’ Evolution Into the Syrian Caretaker Government
Turkey’s October Campaign – Airstrikes Targeting NES’ Essential Infrastructure
Targeting of journalists and obstruction of information-gathering by Turkey and the SNA in northern Syria
✳︎Explainer: Afrin, 5 years under Turkish occupation
Dossier: Turkish provision of material support to al-Qaeda-linked groups in Idlib
The SNA Encyclopedia: A Guide to the Turkish Proxy Militias
Incessant War: Turkey’s Drone Campaign in NES, 2022
"Why did the PKK disband? Have they given up?"
Making Sense of the PKK’s Self-Dissolution
✳︎The Paradigmatic Roots of Öcalan’s Call for “Peace and Democratic Society”
Struggle with and without arms: The 15th of August and its meaning in the current phase
What does the dissolution of the PKK mean?
Evîndar Ararat: The PKK’s difference lies in its approach to women
Democratic integration as a new social model
What does “democratic integration” mean?
Democratic integration as the answer to the question: “How to live?”
Öcalan's concept: Democracy through communes, integration through negotiation
New Internationalism
✳︎Towards a New Internationalism by Dr Thomas Jeffrey Miley
Shengal’s liberation: heroism of resistance, challenges of Autonomous Administration
Reflections on the Palestinian and Kurdish Resistance
The roots of the conflict and the Sudanese vision of democracy
On bottom-up organization and internationalism in the Philippines
From Chiapas to Rojava – more than just coincidences
LEARNING HOUSE LIRE KUNUME: A Tool To Reclaim Our Papuans Identity
An alternative Uganda: Borrowing a leaf from the Rojava struggle for autonomy and freedom from State oppression and Imperialist Invasion
✳︎World War III Has Begun – There Is Another Way
✳︎Third World War in Abya Yala
Perspectives from Rojava - Young Revolutionaries talk about the Internationalist Struggle in the current phase
For An Internationalist Intifada
A Path Out Of Darkness: Internationalist Youth Perspective
if you want to talk about anything related to any of these topics, send me an ask!!
so, i noticed that in “sinners,” remmick is portrayed as playing a banjo when he performs. that piqued my interest because i know somebody, hannah mayree, who runs something called the “Black banjo reclamation project” which aims to educate people about the banjo’s african origins and history in Black music, accepts donations of banjos to be distributed for free to Black folks who are interested in playing, and offers shows and events oriented toward helping Black people reconnect to their roots through this instrument.
there’s a campout that starts tomorrow, june 4th, and an online study group that starts this weekend, june 6th, and some events and shows this summer that look really fun. there’s also a newsletter for any future events!
looks like i can’t put the link to the website, but it’s just the name of the project dot org
I have always loved a good banjo. It's crazy bc it's from Africa, but it always gets a bad rap as a Southern White Hick stereotype. Which, interestingly enough, is probably why they gave it to Remmick. A sort of sign that even in this, he's trying to use Our Music to get Inside to Us. But anyway, somebody shredding on a banjo is 🤌🏾🔥
I'd actually love to participate in something like that, because I gave up on this guitar 😭 I don't have the memory and focus anymore to teach myself music.
This seems like a great place to plug the full-length documentary about the all-Black old-time string band Carolina Chocolate Drops:
They formed at a Black Banjo Gathering in North Carolina in 2005 and have been a big influence in the revival of Black traditional/string band/old-time/folk music in general but also from the Piedmont region of the Carolinas.
I especially like this documentary because they talk about how you take a style of music that's been whitewashed/repressed and bring it back for a modern audience, while repairing its ties to and honoring the Black ancestors who played it first. The origins of the banjo are a huge part of that and a huge part of the documentary.
i think i make the fake strawberry post in every may or june, but i just want to spread the word. too many times i've seen people online say they thought wild strawberries tasted bland and gross, when what actually happened is they were tricked by the fake strawberry!! genuine wild strawberries are some of the most amazing concentrated little flavor bombs you can find in the wild.
i know things are hella grim in the nsfw/kink art circles especially in the last year --
but I'm hearing there's a NSFW-friendly ko-fi alternative built on atproto that's actively in the works, and being vetted by lawyers right now. as torrent-princess (OP) says, you should be able to swap out payment processors while keeping your account intact. this matters since even if stripe removes support, you'll still have a shop and all of your links intact. (ATproto is an infrastructure that bsky is built on, but is far bigger than bsky with far more opportunities.)
additionally, the Free Speech Coalition is working on a credit union specifically for adult work (including kink art) - here's the link so you can add your interest & support. Since this will be built by sex workers, there'll be far less risk of being debanked for spurious and puritanical reasons.
on a domain TLD level, there's an initiative here for a .furry domain built from the ground up by seasoned furries; it's unclear whether they'll support NSFW, but it's yet another promising turn of events for a group that's been similarly affected by censorship.
there are friends and allies out there helping to build a working parallel infrastructure. keep being vocal, keep supporting these initiatives when it's possible, and keep supporting your nsfw/kink artists. ♥
just saw someone comment under a videoclip of the sylvia rivera interview where she insists on the modern (circa 2001) pride movement being a capitalist smokescreen, a “straight gay” movement that worships the almighty dollar, that:
and this person is likely quite young but this really really really captures the limited imagination of capitalist neoliberal indoctrination around freedom and liberation. radical queerness treated as a paintjob over a prison as opposed to the bulldozer that tears the prison down. we have to dream for so much more and endure the pain of dreaming.
When a young child, not yet 5 years old, contracts smallpox after surviving the horrors of war, injustice, and hundreds of deadly nights, amidst the sounds of planes and tanks, this is not a passing or simple illness
Imagine your child contracting this disease?! I'm writing this because my brother Ahmed was diagnosed with it on July 30, 2024, and his cries and suffering broke my heart. We searched every pharmacy and couldn't find any medication to ease his pain.
And so a new chapter of suffering has begun, a suffering I don't want to become a habit. Some of the same pimples have started to reappear on my brother Ahmed's back, and I ask you to stand with us and donate. Instead of money coming in to buy food, we're now spending it on medicine and displacement expenses. Your donation, however small, is a candle in the darkness, especially after donations to our fundraising campaign completely stopped. Donate to us via PayPal or GFM
Vetted! shared by @/90-ghost (also here), #77 on @/gazavetters vetted list, shared by @/gaza-evacuation-funds, shared by @/el-shab-hussein!
I have been in regular contact with Mohammed for almost 2 years now. Please help him and his family!The money will reach him quicker if you can donate through Paypal, which is managed by my friend who regularly sends the donations to Mohammed.
Hello, among the hundreds of tragic stories, I am sharing my painful sto… Mohammed Khalil needs your support for Help Ahmed Khalil's family
Help support sanae harika by donating or sharing with your friends.
imo the term "walkable" in "walkable cities" should be understood to mean "wheelchair accessible" as well, not just literally "possible to walk in". the act of walking in a city doesn't automatically make it walkable
throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s, our generation was inundated with aave. it eclipsed lolcat as the "funny way to talk." ain't nobody got time fo dat turns into dat boi o shit waddup. this is blatantly not an "aracial" or "gen z" way to talk. it IS black english. not to mention the amount of black reaction images!!
WHY, specifically, is it black peoples' facial expressions that are seen as just so comical or exaggerated? analyze the history of this nation's comedy and tell me why you might be predisposed to thinking of black peoples' faces as just, "more emotive" or exaggeratedly funny than a white or nonblack person's
and throughout those years, 00s-10s, many black bloggers -- victims of the mass staff-led purge (under the cover of them being 'russian' while reichblr still exists) -- they DID tell us it was a problem, DID try to educate people who freak out at the insinuation of 'being racist,' DID argue, DID point out the duplicity and the appropriation and the gross equivalence of african american slang with unintelligence, goofiness, etc. and they were ignored, abused, cancelled, chased off, until being eventually mass deleted by our racist transmisogynistic staff.
we didn't do enough, and the generation after us gen z "kids" didn't stop the trend. using the '-ahh' suffix. rizz. no cap. ate. delulu. it's giving. it's serving. crash out. lock in. aura. tea. main character. bruh. slay. real. keep it 100.
all of the following images are or were popular reaction images! what do they all have in common?
it feels like the effort to categorize slang as AAVE and not 'gen z' or 'gen alpha' slang has really petered out. it feels like we stopped talking about digital blackface in an era where the administration is posting ai-generated videos of black women who speak and act like exaggerated stereotypes and it frustrates me because we all have a responsibility to understand our generation's role in normalizing this type of racist shit for kids today. this needs to be addressed!
The Oregon data center situation is a really good example of how anti-ai sentiment on this website has such a totality over the average users mind that they don't understand articles put in front of them. People on this website will refuse to understand actual situations that are happening because they want to be more mad at AI.
Amazon data centers constructed in eastern Oregon's farmland have worsened a water pollution problem that’s been linked to cancer and miscar
The article again for people who missed it but to summarize the issue
>a rapid boom of agriculture in an otherwise arid and less than optimally fertile region has resulted in a ton of water pollution from the fertilizers necessary to keep the agricultural industry there profitable
>the people in charge of cleaning the water struck a deal with the agricultural farms that they would provide polluted water for them to spray over their crops as a way to cut down on fertilizer costs
>this polluted water then re-enters the water table, and this is particularly drastic for winter spraying where there is no crops to absorb the extra nitrates
>the reservoir and water tables at this point are so intensely polluted that there isn't clean water left
>enter Amazon
>amazon uses water to cool off their data centers
>normally this would not be a problem. data centers do not "pollute" the water they intake
>however, since hot water tends to evaporate somewhat, this results in any pollutants already in the water to become more concentrated
>because the water table is already so polluted, Amazon can't source clean water and must use nitrate polluted water for their data centers
>this causes a discharge of more nitrate concentrated water which is putting additional stress on the waste water systems and requiring more spraying
>data centers are not causing the problems but are exacerbating it
>these data centers have been in the area for over a decade, because data centers are used for more than AI
>the presence in agriculture, the data centers, and the waste water solution were all orchestrated by about five to seven members of government all working together to make as much money as possible in a bunch of nakedly corrupt moves
>this includes the waste water treatment body blackmailing the state government to let them continue to do winter sprays or they'll dump their nitrate polluted water into the water system
>all the while this has resulted in a bunch of health complications such as cancers and miscarriages
>the people trying to expose this are being targeted both by government and by under the table actors
>the whole situation is fucked and the state government isn't moving to actualyl fix it
This is a very complicated situation. Here is what the average tumblr users knows about it
>AI data centers cause cancer
do you see? do you see why this pisses me off? do you see why I said that I think anti-AI sentiment is going in the wrong place? Stopping AI will not stop this situation or make it better.
I highly recommend watching this testimony from Aliya Rahman, the disabled woman who was dragged out of her car and kidnapped by ICE on her way to a doctor appointment in Minneapolis a few weeks ago.
Thank you members, for taking the time to be here today, and thank you staff for making this happen.
My name is Aliya Rahman, and I am a resident of South Minneapolis. I am a Bangladeshi American born in Northern Wisconsin. And I’m a disabled person with autism and a traumatic brain injury.
Not all autistic brains do this, but mine fixates on sounds, numbers, and patterns. And while what the world saw happen to me exactly three weeks ago today on video was a terrible violation it is still nothing compared to the horrific practices I saw inside the Whipple center.
So I am here today with a duty to the people who have not had the privilege of coming home, and I offer this data because these practices must end now.
On January 13th on the way to my 39th appointment at Hennepin County’s traumatic brain injury center, I encountered a traffic jam caused by ICE vehicles and no signs indicating how to get around it. I had not wanted to pull in to a blocked, chaotic intersection, but verbally agreed to do so and rolled down my window after an agent yelled, “Move! I will break your f-ing window!”
His first instruction.
Agents on all sides of my vehicle yelled conflicting threats and instructions that I could not process while watching for pedestrians.
Then, the glass of the passenger side window flew across my face.
I yelled, “I’m disabled!” at the hands grabbing at me and an agent said, “Too late.”
I felt immersed in a pattern, and I thought of Jenoah Donald, an autistic black man killed by the police during a traffic stop in 2021.
I remembered mister Silverio Villegas González, who was killed by ICE in his vehicle last year.
An agent pulled a large combat knife in front of my face, which I thought was for cutting me, and later learned was used to cut off my seat belt. Shooting pain went through my head, neck, and wrists when I hit the ground face first and people leaned on my back.
I felt the pattern, and I thought of mister George Floyd, who was killed four blocks away.
I was carried face down through the street by my cuffed arms and legs while yelling that I had a brain injury and was disabled. I now cannot lift my arms normally.
I was never asked for ID.
Never told I was under arrest.
Never read my rights.
And never charged with a crime.
Approaching the Whipple center, I saw black and brown bodies shackled together, chained together, being marched by yelling agents outdoors. I continued to hear the word “bodies”, because that is how agents referred to us:
“We’re bringing in a body.”
“They’re bringing in bodies 7, 8 at a time, where do I put ‘em?”
“We can’t use that room, there’s already a body in there.”
You have no reason to believe you will make it out alive if you’re already being called a body.
Agents repeatedly had to stop and ask how to do tasks. I received no medical screening, phone call, or access to a lawyer. I was denied a communication navigator when my speech began to slur. Agents laughed as I tried to immobilize my own neck. I asked for my cane and was told no, pulled up by my arms and prodded forward in leg irons by agents laughing and saying, “Walk! You can do it, walk.”
Agents did not know if the facility had a wheelchair.
When I was finally placed in one to be taken to interrogation an agent taunted, “You were driving, right? So your legs do work.”
I pleaded for emergency medical care for over an hour after my vision had become blurry, my heart rate went through the roof, and the pain in my neck and head became unbearable.
It was denied.
When I became unable to speak my cellmate pleaded for me.
The last sounds I remember before I blacked out on the cell floor were my cellmate banging on the door, pleading for a medic, and a voice outside saying, “We don’t wanna step on ICE’s toes.”
When I opened my eyes at Hennepin County’s emergency room, I learned I was brought there to be treated for assault.
The impacts of DHS detention on my physical, mental and financial well-being and safety have been very severe, but I do not deserve more humane treatment than anyone else, US citizen or not. And I am here today with a strong spirit and a duty to the many people who haven’t had the privilege to tell their stories or see their loved ones come home. I am extremely distressed by the pattern that violence from law enforcement has been happening to black and indigenous communities for centuries, and to DHS survivors for over 20 years.
We call ourselves a civilized nation, but we lack rules and accountability around what a person claiming to be law enforcement is permitted to do to another human being.
I am not afraid, and I’m not afraid to keep working on this problem even after ICE is gone. Thank you for your time.
People love natives in such a superficial way. People wanna stand with natives when we’re talking about the trees, and the land. People wanna stand with natives when we talk about philosophies of love and togetherness. But as soon as it’s time to talk about political side of being native. About dismantling a system built on the genocide of our people. About how we need a new system that isn’t built upon capital gain and benefitting white bodies. About putting up a fight. About how the colonial state we reside in is a disgusting imperial plague on this land. Suddenly y’all don’t wanna talk native.
"They spent hundreds of years trying to assimilate my ancestors, trying to create indians like me, who could blend in, but now they don’t want me either. They can’t make up their minds.
They want buckskin and face paint, drumming, songs in languages they can’t understand recorded for them but with English subtitles, of course. They want educated, well spoken, but not too smart. Christian, well behaved, never question. They want to learn the history of the people, but not the ones that are here now, waving signs in their faces, asking them for clean drinking water, asking them why their women are going missing, asking them why their land is being ruined.
They want fantastical stories of Indians that used to roam this land. They want my culture behind glass in a museum.
There's a recurring online tendency to aestheticize consensus itself. The imagined future village is full of emotionally compatible people who enjoy communal gardening, conflict resolution circles, acoustic folk music, mutual aid potlucks, and repairing bicycles together at sunset. Which is nice for the people who genuinely enjoy that lifestyle. But plenty of humans are solitary, prickly, obsessive, urban, nocturnal, sensory-seeking, technologically attached, contrarian, novelty-seeking, private, or just plain difficult. Those people do not evaporate after the revolution. They do not get Left Behind while you are Raptured into the Utopia. They become your neighbors.
Tryinging to understand the difference between "friend group" and "community" has genuinely helped me feel safer in my community. We don't need to agree, we don't need to enjoy each other's company, we just need to coexist
I'm going to be very blunt about something. I don't enjoy most peoples' company beyond casual interactions. I wish them all the happiness in the world, but I likely won't be a part of it and that doesn't bother me. I'm more interested in things/ideas than people. I don't care about most people in the warm fuzzy sentimental sense. I do not feel personal warmth towards strangers.
What I do like, and care about, is living in a society that is at least semi-functional. And liking/caring about that means recognizing that if everyone deliberately caused problems for other people, acted carelessly or as if other people don't exist, or allowed problems we have the power to solve or mitigate to exist as-is, nothing would work at all.
I do delivery work for a living and a lot of it (maybe a little over half, especially since I choose to work on weekdays a lot of the time) is grocery delivery. So I spend a lot of time both on the road and at grocery stores. I drive carefully even when I'm in a rush because if everyone drove like a jerk, no one would be able to get anywhere. I put my carts away because if everyone left them all over the parking lot, that'd be frustrating for other customers and employees alike. If I see something that looks off on the shelves, I tell a stocker, because if everyone just allowed potentially-contaminated food to stay on shelves, we'd have a lot more sick people (one time I noticed a puffy package of meat in someone else's cart and told her she might not want to buy it). And so on. These are all prosocial/pro-community behaviors even if they don't look like the Stardew Valley ideal.
jin, jîyan, azadî 🤍💛🩵 @standwithdaanes - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
