from the Rojava Information Center's Instagram: “RIC interviewed civilians taking up the call for general mobilization.”
For anyone seeing this who doesn't know the context: Syria is gearing up to do a genocide on, amongst other groups, the Kurdish people, from whom the Rojava Revolution was born in North East Syria. This revolution has been working to create a grassroots democratic alternative to capitalism and the nation-state which centers women, youth, ethnic minorities, & nature, in the form of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (DAANES).
The city of Kobanê is currently under siege, the supply of bread and fuel has been cut off, and they are running out of medicine. There are reports of massacres of civilians including children being done by groups aligned with the Syrian government. Several babies have died due to freezing temperatures because they've cut access to power. And this is just in the past week or so.
Here's an article that explains the political context behind these attacks, & this post has a ton of links on Rojava, DAANES, the ideology behind the revolution, etc. to educate yourself. If you have money for humanitarian aid, donate to the Kurdish Red Crescent here. February 1 is World Rojava Solidarity Day so if you can, respond to the Global Call for Solidarity and organize a protest in defense of Rojava.
At the very least, raise awareness as much as you can, however you can. Jin, Jîyan, Azadi 💛❤️💚
di Domenico Gallo e Gianni Tognoni - Il Tribunale permanente dei popoli lo ha documentato in modo inoppugnabile: la Turchia e il suo preside
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Il Collegio dell’accusa ha raccolto da diverse fonti, una messe di prove documentali e di testimonianze che raccontanoche dal 2018 in Rojava è in atto un sistematico e pervicace tentativo di sradicare il popolo curdo dalla propria terra, di distruggerne non solo la vita ma l’identità, la cultura, l’economia, costringendo migliaia di persone a fuggire. Con l’occupazione della città di Afrin è stata posta in essere una politica di ingegneria etnica con la sostituzione dei curdi, residenti nell’area, con popolazioni arabe sunnite e turcomanne, spesso a propria volta profughi a causa della guerra civile. Con la conseguenza che ad Afrin la popolazione curda è passata da oltre il 90% al 25% e il numero di sfollati dal Rojava è stimato in 300.000 persone.
Nel corso delle udienze sono state ascoltate testimonianze terribili (compresi documenti video) di attacchi indiscriminati su civili, come per esempio a Tel Rifaat nel dicembre 2019, in cui sono morti otto bambini che giocavano nel cortile di una scuola, oltre a numerosi altri feriti. Sono emerse prove evidenti della distruzione attraverso bombardamenti deliberati da parte della Turchia di risorse vitali, come le infrastrutture per l’elettricità, il gas, il petrolio, che hanno portato alla mancanza di combustibile e di acqua pulita con danni ambientali e alla salute dei civili nei villaggi, nei campi profughi, negli ospedali.
Particolarmente doloroso è stato il capitolo dei femminicidi. Il 12 ottobre del 2019 è stata assassinata da una banda di miliziani sostenuti dalla Turchia la dirigente politica Curda Hevrin Khalaf, 35 anni, segretaria generale e co-fondatrice del partito Siriano del futuro. In aula è stato proiettato un video girato dai suoi stessi assassini, in cui si odono le grida di scherno degli aguzzini che profanano il suo cadavere. Quindi sono state ascoltate le testimonianze coraggiose e drammatiche di alcune donne vittime degli stupri compiuti nelle prigioni di Afrin. Il ricorso ai femminicidi e allo stupro da parte dei militari turchi e delle milizie controllate dalla Turchia si profila come un tentativo deliberato di colpire attraverso i corpi delle donne uno degli assi portanti della rivoluzione del Rojava, e cioè la loro emancipazione e il ruolo politico centrale nell’attuazione del Confederalismo democratico.
Il bersaglio politico delle aggressioni della Turchia, effettuate direttamente attraverso i bombardamenti e indirettamente attraverso le milizie filoturche della SNA (Armata nazionale siriana), è l’Amministrazione Democratica Autonoma della Siria del Nord-Est (DAANES), un’esperienza di autogoverno democratico che realizza la convivenza pacifica di tutte le etnie presenti nel Nord est della Siria (curdi, yazidi, sunniti, sciiti), garantendo il pluralismo e promuovendo l’uguaglianza e il ruolo politico delle donne. Una autonomia che il popolo curdo ha conquistato a duro prezzo, nel corso della guerra civile, liberando la regione dall’ISIS attraverso una lotta portata avanti dalle milizie Ypg e Ypj (queste ultime composte da donne).
Il cambiamento del regime politico a Damasco non ha posto termine alle aggressioni della Turchia che nel mese di gennaio ha compiuto nuovi attacchi con droni provocando decine di morti. Il nuovo Governo siriano non ha formulato alcuna protesta per questa violazione della sua sovranità. Ciò rende molto incerto il futuro della regione in questa fase di transizione politica. Per questo è importante che la Comunità internazionale riconosca il valore dell’Amministrazione autonoma (DAANES) condizionando i rapporti con il nuovo Governo siriano al rispetto dell’autonomia di questa regione così come si è storicamente determinata.
What are some lessons you learned from your two years in Rojava and at Mala Jin* that may be useful for U.S.-based organizers?
One is that social change is slow. You just have to begin and then as you work, your process will and should evolve. Not everything has to be perfectly in place before you begin community work, it will and should evolve with the community.
And then you have to be ready for and remain strong against community backlash. Have boundaries for what you will tolerate and what you won’t, but at the same time, keep your eyes open to the differences between what a radical movement might envision and what the community wants and is ready for. You’re working for and with the community, not trying to be dogmatic and authoritarian.
You have to be willing to sit down with people you disagree with. What the Mala Jin does all day, every day is sit down with really patriarchal men, maybe women who have certain ideas they don’t agree with, and they just talk about it, listen to them, they talk to them. And over the years, this has made a really material difference in the way that society approaches these issues. In each individual conversation, you might not feel the needle moving. But in an aggregate of a conversation held over the years in different rooms with different people, things start to change.
There is a certain amount of dedication and sacrifice that it takes to show up every day. It’s not going to be sexy the whole time.
Having self-control, self-discipline and decentering yourself is really important when you’re doing restorative justice work for the community. At the Mala Jin, it was very difficult to hear people saying really harsh, difficult things about women all day. But it’s not about your personal feelings in that situation, it’s about the slow process of social change, and acknowledging where a community is, so it can eventually be somewhere else. People feeling heard in a room will maybe slowly change the needle, and that process will make a lasting impact on the community at large. It’s really not about you proving in each situation that you are the most radical person and the person with the perfect idea. It’s really not about you proving anything about yourself. When we’re doing this work, we’re doing it for and with the community, and that’s where your sense of self will come from. That’s where our sense of self should arise from, is from being a part of community and being of service while also honoring yourself and your boundaries.
— Clara Moore, activist and researcher, who spend two years living in Rojava and working for both the Mala Jin and the Rojava Information Center, interviewed by Truthout.
*the Mala Jin (“women’s houses”) are places throughout cities and towns in Rojava/DAANES which "allow people to solve disputes at the community level, instead of through courts or police, by offering reconciliation and mediation processes for domestic and family situations." Assyrian/Syriac women in DAANES also have women's houses, under the name Eşterot. Read more on Mala Jin here.
Farmers from Afrin (Efrîn) say their olive groves have been plundered by armed groups backed by the Turkish state. Berav resident Îbrahîm Me
Afrin’s olive oil, known worldwide as “liquid gold”, is now sold across Europe, the United States and the Middle East under the label “Made in Türkiye.” Yet the people of Afrin, the true owners of these groves, have been unable to access their land or benefit from even a drop of its produce since 2018. The orchards, systematically confiscated by the Turkish state and the armed mercenary groups operating under it, have been turned into one of Turkey’s major olive oil export sources.
Afrin is one of the best-known olive-producing regions in Northern and Eastern Syria, as well as across the rest of the country. The region is home to at least 18 million olive trees, some more than a century old, of which around 14 million are highly productive. Afrin olives are also the raw material for the world-renowned “Aleppo Soap,” a 2,000-year-old tradition. For generations, olive oil has been regarded by the people of the region as their own form of “liquid gold.” [...]
Everything changed after the Turkish state launched its occupation on 20 January 2018. More than 300,000 civilians were displaced, and their homes were handed over to families of armed groups brought from different parts of Syria and even from third countries. Of Afrin’s 300 olive-pressing facilities, 140 were looted and the rest fell under the control of these groups. As farmers lost any possibility of working safely, killings, kidnappings, ransom demands and systematic theft became widespread. Large numbers of olive trees were cut down, burned or seized by force.
Local sources and human rights organisations have documented the destruction of over 2.1 million olive trees since the occupation began, with much of the wood sold to Turkey.
Farmers can no longer enter their own land. Those who manage to reach their orchards are forced to pay fees ranging from 4 to 15 dollars per tree. Many villagers are compelled to harvest their own olives for armed groups who declare, “These trees belong to us now.” [...]
Farmers are forced into a struggle for survival between harvest seasons. Like every year, the arrival of the harvest period has triggered another round of organised looting. Many farmers face harassment aimed at forcing them to pay extortion fees. Those who resist are frequently threatened with violence, abduction, murder, confiscation of property or the destruction of their olive trees. [...]
Îbrahîm Menan from the village of Berav still recounts the forced displacement he experienced in March 2018 with the same pain: “That year the weather was bitterly cold and rainy. Half of the population walked for three days. The planes were bombing; they wouldn’t let us pass. Elderly people and children died from hunger and cold; we couldn’t even dig graves. We walked for three days without food or water. We escaped with only the clothes on our backs, we brought nothing else. [...] We have been displaced for seven or eight years now. They are plundering our property and taking everything to Turkey. Since the day I left my home, I have not received a single drop of olive oil. I don’t even know if my trees are still standing.”
"held by pro-Kurdish fighters" sure is one way to say "governed by the will of the people through direct democracy, until the violent assault by the Syrian and Turkish states which is now repressing that democratic system and the people's autonomy" but okay! sure let's present things this way. say these regions were "under Kurdish rule" when that isn't how it works but sure!!!!!!!
no need to even mention that there's an official name for the government! just "former Kurdish controlled areas." anything to avoid lending any legitimacy to democratic socialism, or acknowledging the cultural genocide and ethnic cleansings going on. i just need everyone to be aware of how bullshit this is.
Democratic confederalism is a revolutionary new model of governance with potential to bring about a radical, international shift in humanity—but it rarely gets the recognition and discussion it deserves. Let's change that.
Drawing from many sources, including Murray Bookchin's "communalism" which has been described as "drawing on the best of Marxism and anarchism," democratic confederalism breathes new life into democracy, socialism, politics, and society itself. Put to the test in North East Syria (DAANES) by the Rojava Revolution, who have fought dictatorship, extremism, terrorism, and occupation, it has been proven a robust and powerful tool in the hands of the people—ALL the people.
The Political Theory of Abdullah Öcalan: Kurdistan, Women's Revolution, and Democratic Confederalism is available to read online for free, in full, here.
