Rojava Dispatch Five: The YPG/YPJ; Militias That Grow Hope

Continuing the travel diary of "El Errante," an anarchist from the United States who is currently travelling in the Rojava region. This article originally appeared on the Anarchist News website.

YPG dimeşe, erd û ezman diheje (YPG marches, earth and heavens tremble) --YPG motto

"Wait….what….we’re lost?” Mohammed the translator nods and I turn to the driver. He shrugs. I had headed out in Qamishli to do an interview about the Hêza Parastina Cewherî (HPC, Self Defense Forces), the new citizen’s militia formations in Rojava. The driver--per every other taxi driver on earth--knew a short cut that would get us there on time, guaranteed.

Problem was he knew where we were, but couldn’t find the address of the HPC. So as we sat on a corner deciding what to do, I noticed several yellow YPG flags floating over an old fence. The driver pointed and shrugged, indicating maybe they know. Couldn’t hurt.

We all hop out of the taxi and approach the YPG outpost through a tangle of tank traps, concrete barriers and mud. The fighters at the gate are older than most I’ve met before, with graying beards, dark, tanned skin, and wrinkles. First thought, these guys look tough, real tough. We shake hands and when they find out I’m an American, one goes to tell the Commander. He returns with a tall well-built balding man, with clear grey eyes. We shake hands and he introduces himself. He is the Commander of the Qamishli Cizere Canton T.S. Cemal (Martyr Cemal) commando with approximately 400 fighters (4 Companies). He invites us in for coffee or tea, and to meet the fighters. What the hell. I’m late for my interview, it’s chilly--a coffee would be nice, I want to meet the fighters; and I like this man.

The Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (YPG, People’s Defense Units) and the Yekîneyên Parastina Jinê (YPJ, Women’s Defense Units) are the armed backbone of the Revolution. The YPG, formed in 2004 (YPJ in 2012), is no army. It is a militia, a people armed, in the best sense of the word.
Some facts…

YPG/J Organization (Unit Name and Size)

1) Team, 6 – 10 fighters.
2) Suite, 2 Teams, 12 – 20 fighters.
3) Block (Kurmanji—garug), 2 suites, 24 – 40 fighters.
4) Company, 2 Blocks, 48 – 80 fighters.
5) Estimated Total YPG/J Census, 50,000 fighters
6) There are no officers. When engaged in operations, the fighters choose (by vote or consensus) Team/Suite/Block/Company Leaders. When idle, there is no leadership structure at any level, save Regional Commands. Commanders are chosen (vote or consensus) for regions and Cantons (Kobane, Qamishli) and can only serve six months in any given commando. They are then replaced. There is no re-election.

The Commander and I talk as we set off to the barracks. He tells me the men are rested, ready to fight, though the area has been quiet for months. The commando deploys, on a revolving basis, 15 fighters per week to the front. He has only one new recruit, a boy of 16, who left Aleppo and crossed Daesh lines to join the YPG. Breakfast is over and the fighters are lounging near the barracks. They see the Commander and me moving towards them and a few start walking over, then more follow. I introduce myself through Mohammed, they seem surprised that an American would visit; one or two look down, boots shuffle in the mud. I move closer and start shaking hands, I look in their eyes, I mumble thank you in English. The fighters nod, they smile, they get it. One or two say in Kurmanji, “You are welcome.”

I ask if I can take some pictures, the Commander maneuvers the fighters onto the tarmac to a spot in front of a large YPG flag snapping in the wind. A few photos, and as we walk off for coffee several of the less shy militiamen grab my arm and ask for individual or group photos. I stand with the men, arms on each other’s shoulders, we smile at the camera. In that moment one word flashes into my mind like summer lightning; a Spanish word, from a different insurrection and a different time, Hermanos.

A table is brought out and several cups of steaming, brackish Turkish coffee are set. Mohammed, the taxi driver, the Commander and I sit and drink while the fighters stand and look on. I ask some questions. Most are from Cizere, many from the city of Qamishli. They tell me that their fight isn’t just for the Kurds, but for the whole world. And not just to defeat Daesh, but to win a Revolution. They want me to understand this. That it is important. I tell them I do understand. I tell them I believe it also.

The YPG/J have developed some unique protocols regarding training, deployment, and morale. Some more facts…

1) Training for a YPG/J fighter lasts 45 days.

2) After training, the fighter is asked where and what type of duty s/he would like to do. They can opt for front-line service, tactical reserves, Turkish border patrol, internal checkpoints, or logistics and communication. The choice of duty, where to serve, and how long to serve, is solely the individual fighter’s.

3) Leave in the YPG/J varies with commando and combat situation. When idle, single men, and most YPJ fighters (who are usually unmarried) go on leave 4 days a month. Married men serve one week, and week off. When engaged in battle, leave is still offered to the fighters, but is rarely taken. One Kobane Commander joked that the seige lasted only a month because the married fighters realized that the more Daesh they killed, the sooner they would see their wives and children.

4) Food, clothing and shelter are provided to all YPG fighters, they also receive compensation amounting to about $100/month—for odds and ends, cigarettes, candy, amusement, travel, what have you. This seems small by US standards, but in Rojava it can go a long way. I pay about one dollar for a pack of Gauloises Blondes, and a kilo (2.2 pounds) of candy will set you back $0.75.

The cups are drained, time to go. I rise and thank the Commander again. He thanks me, and walks off to his duties. I begin shaking hands with the militiamen, saying thank you to each one, holding eye contact. Now, I need them to understand. The fighters form a line as I move so I can spend a moment of time with each of them. As I pass down the row it feels like a chunk of steel has settled in my heart. The first older soldier we met has been by my side the entire time. He follows us to the taxi. I extend a hand and to show our mutual respect, we kiss each other on the right cheek, the left cheek and then the left shoulder.

Back in the car I start thinking about the HCP interview up ahead, and then my eye catches the yellow YPG flag, still dancing in the morning breeze. There is a popular song in Arabic which include the lyrics, “God save the YPG; they protect the people; Arab, Kurd and Christian are brothers, they protect the land and grow hope.” And I think to myself: yes. Protect this militia of individuals who fight with their whole heart, who are fearless, who are kind, who grow hope, and who I have known for a short time as brothers. May their desires, for peace, for freedom, to be with their families and friends, become reality.

I looked at the taxi driver motioning forward with my hand and said, “So?”

Rojava Dispatch Four: The Return; 18 Heroes Go Home For The Last Time

Continuing the travel-diary of "El Errante", an anarchist from the United States who is currently travelling in the Rojava region. This article originally appeared on the Anarchist News website. 

“The blood of martyrs never touches the ground.”
--Kurdish Proverb

So I had been kicking around Kobane for a day or two and had made some good contacts in the media center and also the YPG. One afternoon the translator and I had stopped by to see what the YPG were up to; it was quiet, mostly. Then a commander came walking through talking rapidly and pointing. I looked at the translator and he said that the YPG are helping to escort the bodies of 18 YPG/J fighters from Kobane Canton to Cizere Canton for final burial. There was some kind of ceremony that was supposed to happen too. So we saddled up the Hyundai minivan and followed the racing YPG cars to wherever it was they were going.

We landed at a building with an enclosed courtyard near Kobane’s sook. It looked like it must have been a sports club, likely volleyball as it had changing rooms and a volleyball court sized enclosed area (As soccer is to Brazilians, so volleyball is to the Kurds, an obsession, a crazed, fan-driven juggernaut). The building had been expropriated and given to the Institute for the Families of the Martyrs, a revolutionary institution to provide support for folks who lost people in the fighting, and to keep the memories of the martyrs alive. Not that the latter task needs much energy, the photos of martyrs are ubiquitous. They are hung in shop windows, on poles, on the walls of offices, in magazines, in Asayis and YPG outposts, in town squares, in schools; in fact, basically, everywhere. And these posters and what they represent resonate deeply with the Kurds. What is interesting in all this is the anonymous nature of the Martyrs, there aren’t just one or two, or even dozens, there are literally thousands. Sure, some stand out, like Arwin Mirkhan, a young PYJ fighter who with her team was leading the final assault on Mishtehnur hill above Kobane. They were separated from the main assault body and shot up piece meal by Daesh (terrorists) fighters. With all her comrades dead or gravely wounded she resolved not to be taken alive and sold into slavery or beheaded. In the chaos of the final seconds of her life Arwin Mirkhan doused herself with a Molotov cocktail and lit a match.

At the center a hundred people or so have gathered, women sit in one room and men in the other waiting for the arrival of the Cizere delegation to accept the bodies of the dead. It is quiet, my TEV-DEM contact, Mr. Shaif is there and he thanks me for attending. We wait, we talk, we drink tea. An old bus, with windows missing is eased into the courtyard, we wait some more. Finally the Cizere contingent arrives, older men and women, some TEV-DEM, some of the parents and family of the martyrs, some private folks. They are lead into an open room and the certificates for burial and death are passed ceremoniously to them. They accept. There are no tears.

The Kobane and Cizere contingent board the bus, I wheedle a seat for the translator and me. We drive to the Martyrs cemetery, some words are spoken by people representing Kobane thanking Cizere and the sacrifice that the fighters made for the freedom of Kobane. The Cizere contingent affirms their support and commitment to Kobane and the Revolution. The occasion is brief, solemn. More than one mother of a fallen fighter is in the audience, yet it is quiet. There are no tears.

We are now late and the old bus blasts like a rocket back through the dusty streets. The area around the Institute is alive with activity as cars carrying the flag draped coffins of the fallen pass by the gate and people look on from the surrounding streets. I dash around the corner to see what’s happening at the gate to the center. The women have come out of the institute compound and stand chanting on the streets, fingers raised in the V for victory salute. The individual cars carrying the heroes pass the saluting crowd, driven by YPG soldiers who return the V salute. The women chant in both Arabic and Kurmanji, occasionally making the zazi, the uniquely regional feminine ululation, which can be heard piercing the still heavy air.

I look on and without thinking I raise my hand in a V salute, but remain silent. There is no longer seeing or hearing this scene, only feeling it. My throat tightens and I find myself hating and loving in the same moment. Loving these young fighters who died for freedom, real freedom; and hating the fact of their deaths, too young, too brave, too many, and those who killed them—Daesh scum. If I could have killed every Daesh fighter in that moment, I would have. Every. Last. One. I reel in my emotions and look over to the gathered women on my right. Their faces are a blur of sadness, gratitude, and determination. I realize that this wasn’t about the Siege of Kobane, it was about the next, inevitable battle. It was about those who will die, as much as those who have. And there are no tears. Except my own.

War & revolution in the trenches of Rojava: The position of the revolutionary anarchists

The following article is an English translation of a position paper that was published by the Anarchist Popular Unity (UNIPA) group from Brazil in March, 2015. This translated version originally appeared on the UNIPA blog which can be viewed HERE. 

War & revolution in the trenches of Rojava: The postition of the revolutionary anarchists

The struggle for the freedom of Kurdistan did not start today. The Kurdish people has a struggle for self-determination that covers centuries of combat in the region of Mesopotamia. Among wars and uprisings, external domain or control and repression by the own oligarchies, the history of fight of this people, particularly the recent history, begins to create interests all over the world. After all, who are these men and women which today combat and resist to the advance of the Islamic State in the north of Syria? The international press and the governments do not have interest in divulging information

Today, the eyes of the world turn toward the heroic resistance and victories of the popular masses in Kobanê against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The recent clashes in this region which embraces the Turkey, Iraq and Syria is target of the imperialist intervention and control and of jihadist groups which dispute the geopolitical redesign of the North Africa and Middle East.

The armed resistance in Kobanê is inserted today in a complicated theater of political-military operations and which imposes on the agenda the theoretical, strategical and programmatic debate of the revolutionaries and anarchists. The warm solidarity around the world and the waving of the black flags once more in the trenches of Kobanê show us the importance of the international solidarity to the advance of the struggle and of a anarchist line which does not run away the tasks of the revolution.

However, more than just a simplistic defense (and even aesthetic) or an irresponsible and purist criticism (pacifist or sectarian), today is fundamental a position of the revolutionary anarchists in order to influence in the events, for defending and advancing in the conquests of the Kurdish people and of the working masses of the entire world. It is seeking to contribute with a revolutionary and anarchist analysis and with a militant goal that us from UNIPA release this communique.

The wars in Iraq, Syria and Turkey: the ground of the struggle

We must situate that the current clash in Kobanê is intimately related to the war in Iraq, to the Syrian civil war, as well as to the guerrilla warfare developed and directed by the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and others Kurdish organizations that are active in Syria and Iraq.

After the Twin Tower attacks in the USA in 2001, the government of George W. Bush, from USA, the one of Tony Blair, from England, invaded the Iraq in 2003 and destroyed the State ruled by the Baath Party (Arab Nationalist, Sunni majority – a branch of Islamism) of Saddam Hussein under the false justification of eliminating weapons of mass destruction. Seeking for a quick action which could serve the interests of imperialism, of control of the energy reserves, petroleum, and of political-military control of the region, supported by Israel and by the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, the Americans and the British destroyed the Iraqi State, one of the few secular and non-aligned with the USA, dividing it.

From then on, a civil war for control of the “new” Iraqi State and a resistance struggle against the imperialist troops had begun. A part of local ethnic-political groups, Kurds and Shiite, which were out of the power during the government of Saddam Hussein, supported the invasion. In its turn, the USA and the England sustained the formation of a puppet government composed by Kurds, Shiite and Sunni. However, the conflicts grown as far as the old groups that were out of power (mainly Sunni) started to avenge themselves. There was no possible alliance for the shared control of the neoliberal state proposed by the USA and accepted by the ruling classes of these ethnic and religious groups.

Thus, the policy of the NATO, of Israel and of the USA for the Iraq passes per the redesign and per the division of the entire Middle East. The dismantlement of Iraq grown the resistance to the occupation with groups bound to Al Qaeda. From Sunni origin, composed by jihadists from several parts of the world, this group created the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), with laws based in religious texts of Islam, forming a new Caliphate, also sponsored by the USA. The rebels from the Al Nusra Front (ramification of Al Qaeda in Syria) and from the ISIS are bound to the paramilitary forces trained and sponsored by the western military alliance for the civil war in Syria. Not by coincidence, they broke with Al Qaeda for concentrating in the formation of this state that comprehends the North-East Syria and almost all the regions of Sunni Arab majority of Iraq.

Therefore, let us make it very clear, the Islamic State is a cub of the North-American imperialism. For this reason, it is correct when the Turkish organisation Revolutionary Anarchist Action (DAF) affirms that: “Spineless states whose only expectation is income, would be founding ISIS yesterday, repenting it today and recognizing the Islamic State tomorrow. And people will always be fighting for their future and their freedom, just like in the past. ” That phrase defines much the imperialist acting in the region of Middle East in the last decades, supporting contradictory actors, “good” oligarchies against “bad” oligarchies, coup plotters against democratic governments, and modifying these definitions according to their political interests.

The foundation of the ISIS, the Caliphate, is bound to the agenda of the USA to chop the Iraq and the Syria into two more separated territories: a Shiite Arab republic and the Republic of Kurdistan (of bourgeois and pro-imperialist feature). This project counts with the support of the Israeli and of the dictatorships and absolute monarchies of Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Emirates.

The current Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), also known as Iraqi Kurdistan, attends to this geopolitical agenda and is supported by the USA and the State of Israel. The KRG is controlled, through elections, by three Kurdish right-wing parties and maintains a policy of support to the multinational companies that exploit this region with huge oil reserves. The political forces of the Kurdish bourgeoisie that currently controls the Iraqi Kurdistan collaborated in the combat to the the PKK and to the guerrilla warfare, reaching to entering in conflict during the beginning of the 1990s.

The current civil war in Syria, initiated in the first semester of 2011 under the form of large street demonstrations that in some months got the feature of armed conflict, gained regional and world contours with the intervention of the main imperialist powers (USA, France, Germany, England, Russia and China) and of semi-peripheral countries like Turkey. After a threat of direct intervention in the Syria by the United States president Barack Obama (Democratic Party), disapproved a priori for the own parliament, the Russian government articulated an agreement of delivery of Syrian chemical weapons with the UN. Thus, Putin reinforced the position of the axis Moscow-Beijing against the military intervention defended by the European leaders, headed by the “socialists” François Hollande and Angela Merkel, Obama and the Turkish government of Erdogan.

The Syrian opposition is divided between Salafist groups, Sunni jihadists (Brigades Liward al Tawhidi, Ahrar al Cham, Souqour al Cham) which formed the Islamic Council, the moderate Islamists (Brigades Al-Farouk), Kurdish groups and the Free Syrian Army (FSA, coalition more pro-Western) which formed the Syrian National Council. In the beginning of the year 2014 it was formed the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change which negotiates with the Western powers and with the Arab League.

Contrary to what many had said, the radicalisation of the class struggle in the North Africa and in the Middle East, through the popular uprisings, not only did not lead to “democratic revolutions” as served to worsen the living conditions, increasing the misery and the authoritarianism, leaving room for the acting of fundamentalist military groups and successive military coups and ethnic conflicts. Today there exist more than 300 thousands refugees of the civil war. Furthermore, according to data from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), more than 200 thousand of people already died since the beginning of the conflicts in 2011. The deaths increased year on year, and in 2014 reached to 76.012 dead people, with a high rate of death of children and civilians in general. One of the main reasons for the uprisings of the North Africa had failed is the conservative-religious domain in the direction of the oppositions (which reestablished new oligarchies in the dominion of the state power) and the absence of mass revolutionary organisations able to question the foundation of this power of exploitation and oppression over the people.

The disputes in course both in Iraq and in Syria were within a game of economical and political interests of the central countries and of regional powers (as Turkey and Iran). There are strong energetic disputes around the gas supply for Europe. Lastly, there are the political disputes for the control of the North Africa, Middle East and Central Asia.

With that, the instability in the region caused by the downfall of the dictatorial government of Bashar Al-Assad can bring troubles to Israel, due to the action of fundamentalist Islamic groups, and even to the Iran, that seeks to establish new relations with the world powers. But for China, Russia, USA and European Union arises the need of keeping the political and economical domain over the region. The working people of Syria was in the hands of the western powers, of the autocracy of the Syrian Baas Party and of Islamist (like the ISIS), military and national bourgeois sectors, with the support of collaborationist socialist movements which compose the opposition.

However, the control on the part of Kurdish revolutionary organisations of the territory at the north of Syria, so-called Rojava, and of the military fighters in Kobanê, announced the appearance on the scene of a new social subject in the geopolitical conflicts of the region, the armed popular masses.

The war in Kobanê against the jihadist invasion and the defense of the social revolution

The formation of the territory of Rojava and of its political ans strategical challenges is inexorably related to this regional and world context. The attacks over Kobanê did not begin three months ago. Taking advantage of the opportunity that was opened by the Syrian civil war, several political-military conflicts developed in the region, since July 2012, until the Kurdish popular self-defense militias, YPG – People’s Protection Units and YPJ – Women’s Protection Units (female fraction of YPG), freed the territory that is recognized as the Syrian part of Kurdistan and organized a new policy, ecomy and culture.

About the reasons of the beginning of the territorial conflict, the Minister of the Self-defense for the Kobanê Canton, Ismet Sêx Hesen, in a interview, affirms that:

“(…) the Battle of Kobanê has been going on for around a year and six months. Before it was mostly groups like the El-Nusra Front and Ahrar-i Sham and others that were attacking Kobanê. Kobanê has been surrounded for a year and a half. Kobanê has been deprived of its basic needs such as water, electricity and trade. The battle which today is entering its third month is part of this history. I do not look at the attacks upon the Kobanê Canton as a battle with ISIS. We look upon ISIS as the agent of an international partnership. This agent has such partners in many parts of the world. It has partners in Afghanistan, China, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Turkey and many other places. Many different states have a hand in this group. For example they received a lot of support from places such as the Baath regime and Turkey. It was from there that they got the courage to attack Kobanê.”

Therefore, according to the minister of the self-defense, the current combat against the Islamic State must be understood within an international context in which many groups and States are intervening and seeking to be benefited from the conflict.

An important datum of this conflict are the battles among the very Syrian non-jihadist opposition over the territorial control of the Syrian Kurdistan. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) aligned to the North-American imperialism, combated Rojava during three months, being defeated by the YPG in the end of 2013, leading to the armistice and to the recognition of the Kurdish territory by the FSA. Thus, apart from being attacked by the jihadists of the front Al-Nusra and of the Baath Party (of Assad), the Kurdish popular militias had to combat the so-called “democratic opposition” financed by the USA.

The Turkey of Erdogan, with its pro-western Islamist policy, has been a key piece in the political structuring of the region. Ally of the North-American imperialism, the Turkish government has developed for years a hunt against the Kurdish people and to the struggle of the PKK and to the Democratic Union Party (PYD – Kurdish Party currently in Syrian soil, and that directs the YPG-YPJ militias). The Turkey classifies, alongside the USA and the European Union, the organisation for the Kurdish freedom as terrorists.

The role performed by the Turkey in this conflict is extremely important. Rojava is a territory that today is being attacked on one side by the ISIS and in its rearguard has border with the Turkey. Before the beginnig of this conflict between the Kurdish militias and the Islamic State, the border Turkey-Syria was already an important means of passage of the arms dealers, equipment and personnel for the jihadists, all this with the support of the “moderate” Islamism of Erdogan. During the beginning of the Syrian civil war and with the large crowds of refugees that were moving for running away from the war, Erdogan tried the tactic of opening the frontiers for the ethnic pulverization and overpopulation of the region of the Syrian Kurdistan. Tactics that failed.

With the start of the attacks of the Islamic State against Kobanê (one of the cantons of Rojava), the policy of the Turkey was to close the frontiers for the support, forbidding the passage of people and equipment for the resistance in Kobanê. Meanwhile, the Turkish frontiers remain opened for the jihadist murders of ISIS. This policy was partly circumvented in the passage of hundreds of people between unionists, communists, anarchists and solidarity people in September 2014. Moreover, by direct pressures of the North-American president Barack Obama, the Turkish prime minister Erdogan had to assume some measures of the western coalition contrary to the ISIS, one of them having been to permit the passage of fighters of the KRG and of the FSA to support the resistance in Kobanê.

Since the beginning of the conflict in Kobanê, the coalition of the imperialist powers (International Coalition) that have undertaken to combat the advance of the ISIS, did not perform this role when it meant to support directly the arming of the Kurdish people organized in the YPG militias. The policy of the imperialist coalition of do not act by land, only through shellings and air strikes, was coward and derisive faced to the task of combating the advance of the heavily armed and equipped jihadist army.

Since the middle of October Obama covenanted with Erdogan, president of Turkey, for an “orientation change” which consisted in a more energic and heavy acting in support of the Kurdish fighters of Kobanê. In the day October 2oth, 2014, airplanes from the United States launched 28 containers containing armaments on a territory controlled by the Kurds, in despite of 2 ended up falling on territory controlled by the jihadists and one of them have been destroyed by the Kurdish militias.

On the day before, October 19th, it had been launched a communique by the General Command of the YPG, which affirmed the political-military agreement with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), ally of the USA. Following this orientation, the Turkey released the border for the passage of Peshmerga fighters (military forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government – KRG, of the Iraqi Kurdistan). Nevertheless, as it was expected, the border policy of Turkey in relation to the revolutionary left-wing, especially the PKK, remained unaltered.

Therefore, we must understand the war scenario in Kobanê. On one side of the front the allied forces of YPG combat, FSA and Peshmergas, on the other side the ISIS combats. However, within the allied forces of Kobane there exist interests in latent geopolitical conflict. Both the FSA and Peshmerga are regional and military representatives of the imperialist bourgeoisie. The alliance of these sector in the resistance of Kobanê is cynical and opportunistic, such as the support of the USA and Turkey. The Kurdish popular militias already militarily faced all the agents that today declare themselves allies against ISIS. And for the Turkey it is clear: the victory of the fundamentalist terrorism in preference to the victory of the “terrorists” of Rojava. For the USA the situation is not different. Yet, neither the ISIS performs the demands of the imperialism for the North Africa and Middle East, especially in what concerns to the hegemony and alliance to the State of Israel.

In this context, the support of the International Coalition and of the military deployments of the FSA and of the Peshmerga has a strategical importance for the imperialist bourgeoisie. The states intends to dispute the direction of the resistance and reinforce their positions in the territories of Kobanê for, in the short term, put an end to the political and economic conquests of the popular masses of Rojava. After all, in the Syrian territory released by the Kurds there also exist large oil reservoirs.

This discussion, about the war of national defense, was always present in the struggles of the proletariat. The workers have been faced with this situation in several moments, whether it be in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 (situation in which it emerged the worker and popular uprising that built the Paris Commune), passing by the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the fight against the invasion of more than ten foreign countries in the context of the World War I, or during the Spanish civil war in which the struggle against Fascism took on international contours which required a policy of national defense.

Faced with these episodes, it is worth to point out here the historical experience, the policy and the theory of the revolutionary anarchists: Mikhail Bakunin and the Alliance, the Makhnovshchina and the Dielo Trouda group, Jaime Balius and the Friends of Durruti. All these anarchists defended a course of political independence of the proletariat as a key piece for the triumph, not only of the revolution, but also of the anti-imperialist war, in other words, defended the inseparability of the two spheres (national international) of the social conflict. According to Bakunin in his Letters about the situation of the Franco-Prussian war:

“One must not count on the bourgeoisie (…) The bourgeois cannot see, cannot understand anything outside the State, ouside the regular means of State. The maximum of their ideal, of their imagination, of their abnegation, and of their heroism, is the revolutionary exaggeration of the power and action of the State, on behalf of the public salvation. But I have sufficiently demonstrated that the State in this hour and in the current circumstances – with the Bismarckians abroad and the Bonapartists inside –, far from being able to save France, cannot more than defeat it and kill it.

Faced with mortal danger from within and without, France can be saved only by a spontaneous, uncompromising, passionate, anarchic, and destructive uprising of the masses of the people all over France. Be sure: without it, there is no salvation for your country.” (Bakunin, p. 112-113)

The theoretic elaboration of Bakunin concerning to the consequences of the war of national defense in a period of decadence and counterrevolutionary turn of the bourgeois liberalism, whereupon the main interest of the bourgeoisie is the maintaining of the State and the permanence of the labour exploitation, is clear and fundamental. The defense of the country which is colonized or victim of imperialist invasion requires an autonomous action of the proletariat. This autonomous action, organized in armed popular resistance (whether it be in the form of militias or revolutionary army), for expressing truly its potentiality and social strength, must not be guided by the political ideals of the patriotism and of the State’s grandeur which animated the bourgeoisie in the past, but by the internationalist ideals and by the practical construction of the socialism and freedom. The anti-imperialist or antifascist war must become the socialist revolutionary war. Merely like that it is possible to defeat not only a particular Fascism/imperialism, but resolutely advance in the universal struggle for the proletariat’s emancipation.

From this Bakuninist theoretical consideration we may reach some conclusions for understanding the war in Kobanê. The military support coming from the imperialist powers, however great it was (but it wasn’t), does not have any relation to the interests of liberation of the Kurdish people or of the Middle East from the yoke of authoritarianism and of exploitation. And it will not be that support that will guarantee the Kurdish victory. What the USA, or any capitalist State, intends with the combat to the Islamic State is to handle the Syrian civil war to its interests and remodel the geopolitics of the North Africa and Middle East. Sure that it is also a dangerous for the imperialism arming the popular militias of Kobanê if it cannot control or neutralize this revolutionary force. That is the importance of the FSA and of the KRG as a mean of internal dispute in the interest of the bourgeoisie.

The Kurdish Liberation Struggle: federalism or statism?

“Not being attached to land, the bourgeoisie, as the capital from which it is today the real and alive incarnation, do not have nation. Its nation is wherever the capital brings to it larger profits. Its main concern, not to say the unique, is the profitable exploitation of the proletariat’s labour. From its viewpoint, when this exploitation advances undisturbed, everything is perfect, and, on the contrary, when it is interrupted, everything is terrible. Therefore, it cannot have another idea apart from setting in motion, by any possible means, even if this means is dishonorable, implies the decadence and submission of its very country. And, however, the bourgeoisie has the need of the political nation, of the State, for guaranteeing its exclusive interests in opposition to the legitimate and more and more threatening requirements of the proletariat.” - Mikhail Bakunin, Letters, p. 197.

Was we said at the beginning of this communique, the Kurds experimented a long process of struggle. Excluded from the negotiations and betrayed by the Lausanne Agreement of 1923, after having been promised a own State by the Allies of the World War I and with the sharing of the Ottoman Empire. The Kurds were divided since then in the states of Turkey,Iraq, Syria and Iran, being the biggest ethnic minority with no State, oppressed by several States. It is worth to note that other peoples also share with the Kurds the national and ethnic oppression of these States.

According to Abdullah Öcallan, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was founded in 1978 in Turkey, under the theoretical and political orientation of the Marxism-Leninism. The PKK is until today the main organisation in defense of the Kurds in the region. The defense, during the 1970s and 1980s, of the USSR and of the international communist line for the semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries was within the context of the Cold War and of global polarisation. The beginning of the armed struggle, through the guerrilla warfare, occurs in 1984 and has as strategic goal the defense of the national liberation, by means of the formation of an independent Kurdish State. After that, with the end of the USSR, the PKK approximates the international Maoism.

The formation of PKK occurred in a period of specific ethnic identification during the 70s, especially oriented by a new student movement with leftist ideas. This young movement was attacked since its beginning not only by the Turkish State but also by the Turkish aristocracies, which felt threatened by the new Kurdish ethnic identity of popular character that questioned the feudal “traditional” ethnic identity defended by this aristocracy.

During the war of 1991 in Iraq, there was an important modification in the national liberation struggle of the Kurds. The United States supported the formation of a Iraqi Kurdish government which would be governed by this bourgeois and pro-imperialist Kurdish aristocracy. This support of the USA since the 90s will result in what is nowadays the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) located in the north of Iraq. Was we already affirmed, the KRG is ruled by three parties of the Kurdish right-wing, through parliamentary elections, and maintains in its territory huge oil reservoirs which are explored by multinational companies. The Iraqi Kurdistan is reported in the western press as a “civilized, modern, democratic”. The antagonism to the PKK evident, reaching to take to direct conflicts between this political forces.

However, some years ago, an important change also occurs in the Kurdish liberation movement. With the arrest of the founder and leader of PKK, Abdullah Öcallan, moment in which he was sentenced to death by the Turkish State for the crime of treason (modified after for life imprisonment), this one begins to operate a process of self-criticism related to the general conceptions on which the Kurdish national liberation struggle was being developed. Is in this process that he develops his thesis of Democratic Confederalism.

The Democratic Confederalism is based on the self-government of the masses, through decentralized base organisms and that are unified from bottom up, forming the central organisms. The autonomy and the equality of rights among different peoples and ethnic-cultural collectives is complemented with the religious freedom and the gender equality. Above all, such equality of right and fact (with concrete organs and spaces for the exercise of the popular power) has been shown much more advanced and real in this corner of Middle East than in any constitutional charter, as beautiful as useless and deceiver, of the western and “liberal” countries.

This new political-strategical line of the PKK and of the Kurdish national liberation movement is, above all, a self-criticism of the statist and industrialist line of the international Marxism, in which the classical model of national liberation struggles converges to the formation of a strong and independent nation-state, aiming the industrial and economic development in capitalist terms, as a previous step to the socialism. Occurs that the historical fate of the “popular democracies” and of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions along the 20th century, although important schools for the international proletariat, developed towards the restoration of the working masses’ exploitation by new dominant classes and bureaucracies. The proletariat that actively participated, and even directed those revolutions in the 20th century, experimented enormous successes (Vietnam, China, Nicaragua, etc.) and, also because of this, historical defeats.

The defense of a politically federalist, culturally feminist and multi-ethnic revolution, must be necessarily complemented by an economic program of socialization of the means of production-distribution-consumption under the control of the working masses. This social revolution does not have step mechanically determined by the acting of the State/party, from the top down. Much less has to accomplish firstly an industrial and state-national step for thereafter becoming internationalist and socialist. There lies all the historical importance of the Rojava’s experience and the revolutionary potential of this struggle, in other words, the possibility of pointing out a north not for the formation of a Kurdish nation-state, but for overcoming the statist model of self-determination of peoples and thus bind to the international revolutionary struggle.

The “cease fire” with the State of Turkey, about two years from ago, and the defense of the strengthening of autonomous and released territories is result of this new line of the PKK. By all indications, due the happenings of Rojava, it does not mean an adoption of a pacifist or bourgeois-democratic line. This is so that the cease fire was recently broken by the government of Turkey at an attack to the bases of PKK in the day October 14, 2014. However, one must analyse the development of the events, the policies of alliance, etc. After all, neither the revolution in Rojava is exempt of contradictions and disputes.

It is important observing that this was not the first line rupture or revision of Marxism towards to the federalism in the context of anti-colonial struggles. In the late twentieth century, the Guevarist groups in Mexico also performed a revision of line, suiting up to the life conditions of the peoples with no State of the south of Mexico, and from this process was born the modern Zapatismo, with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (ELZN). Similarly to the Kurds, the indigenous peoples of the South Mexico, colonized and opressed by several States, generated a new practice of struggle and territorial liberation. Another enlightening example was the Paris Commune, in which the statist republicans abdicated to their policy in favour of a federalist policy, thus enabling the emergence of a new anti-statist model of revolution.

The debate and the fight of tendencies in the bosom of the “left” and of the international anarchism

Since the beginning of the war against ISIS in Kobanê, several organisations all over the world (communist, social-democrats and anarchists) have positioned themselves under different points of view. The omission was also a type of position, in general coward. A militant position, that is developed in internationalist solidarity, has a great importance, and that because upheavals and revolutions have causes and effects that extrapolate the geographical localities where they happen. We must understand that the struggle for the social revolution in Rojava is part of the long march of learning and advances of the working class, being an obligation of a revolutionary organisation to act unhesitatingly in its defense and for its victory.

The omission and/or negligence of the international left faced to the revolutionary war in Rojava concerns especially to the position pro-alliance of the Stalinists, Trotskyists ans social-democrats. They act like the international bourgeois press and the governments, pretend not to know the process and treat of isolating and disregarding the struggle of the Kurdish people. This occurs in part because of the simple fact that they are not in the “direction” or in any combat posts of the popular struggle in the region. Unable to take place in the struggle and dispute its direction (because of their reformist methods and traditions that do not apply to this reality) “accuse” the PKK of being Stalinist and fall into the purest idealism, turn their political-moral judgement more important than the analysis of the real process and its contradictions. However, this omission and undervaluation is only one cynical face of this reformist and bureaucratic left.

The international debate around the war in Kobanê presented at least two erroneous branches of interpretation. The first of them is the position of some parties and organisations that for some time has saluted the so-called “Syrian opposition” of the Syrian National Transitional Council (SNC) and of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and it is no coincidence that they began to pronounce themselves more decidedly in defense of the struggle in Kobanê after the unit of the YPG militias with the FSA. According to the PSTU (Brazilian section of the IWLfi): “(…) the political-military unity between the Kurdish combatants and the Arab Syrian rebels is not just progressive as, in our opinion a condition for the victory, both in the field of the struggle for overthrowing the dictatorship of Al Assad and advancing towards a independent State for the entire Kurdish nation.”. Such position is defended not only by the PSTU, but also by currents of PSOL and another Brazilian and European reformist parties. Presenting themselves under the banner of “progressive” reveals to be an appendage of the pro-imperialist bourgeois policy in the practices of the geopolitical dispute.

Futher more, the Trotskyist position reveals two elements at stake in the resistance of Kobanê: 1) the formation of a nation-state (and the pan-Kurdish speech), in other words, the unity of the entire Kurdish people under the centralised power of the State; 2) the submission to the North-American policy for the Middle East. It means the submission of the revolutionary process in Rojava through the alliance with the pro-imperialist Kurdish bourgeoisie, in the Iraqi Kurdistan. This is the old Marxist and reformist policy, and in this case it enters into perfect harmony with the imperialist interests for the region.

The Russian anarchist Bakunin, when he fought in France against the Prussian invasion in 1870-1871, had already positioned himself in relation to the policy of sectors of the “left” which supported the political direction of the republican bourgeoisie, all this on behalf of the national unity and strength. Bakunin talks about the republican radical left:

“And did the left contest? It did absolutely nothing. It stupidly acclaimed this ominous ministry that, in the most terrible moment that France could have passed, presented itself, not as a political ministry, but as a ministry of national defense. (…) The radical left believed or seemed to believe that one could organize the country defense without doing policy, that one could create a material potency without inspire it by any idea, without support it by any moral force. (…)

For patriotism or fear of paralysing the over-human efforts for the salvation of France of these dignified men, the radical left abstained from all recrimination and all criticism. Gambeta believed to be his duty to direct warm greetings and express his full confidence in the General Palikao. After all, should not they ‘maintain at any price the unity and prevent baneful divisions that would only benefit the Prussians’? Such were the excuse and the main argument of the left, that served from them for cloaking all its imbecilities, all its debilities, all its cowardice.” (Bakunin, Letters, p. 200)

The second erroneous form of political line for Kobanê was presented by anarcho-syndicalist groups in the text: “Rojava: an anarcho-syndicalist perspective”. After this text, some responses and replies were made, among them we highlight the text written by the organisation Revolutionary Anarchist Action (DAF), from Turkey, called: “A response to the article ‘Rojava: An anarcho-syndicalist perspective’”.

The anarcho-syndicalist text is based on partial information and on a sectarian conception in relation to the Kurdish liberation struggle. The accusations that the PKK is patriarchal, centralist, nationalist, among others, are based more on the history of this party and on falsifications than on the present and on the potentiality of the struggle waged in Rojava. They confound then an organisation with the diversified set of social groups in struggle, of the class. Aside from that, the sectarianism of the anarcho-syndicalists’ position, condemning the anarchist participation in the struggle for the self-determination of the peoples expresses a strategic, programmatic and theoretical deviation. The most contradictory is that many of these groups “supported” the Zapatismo when it was “fashion” in the 1990s, being that the same criticisms directed to the Kurdish resistance could be directed to the Zapatismo.

For the revolutionaries, it does not matter a priori if the party in the head of a struggle process is social-democrat, Maoist or nationalist, or even if it does not have an organic direction of the struggle. For the revolutionary anarchists, which defend the materialism and the dialectics as method of analysis, what matters is the concrete character of the struggle that the people is waging, if it is fair or unfair for the interests of the social revolution. An anarchist organisation must never abdicate its ideological, strategical and theoretical principles. This, contrary to the “purist” abstention, implies the participation and internal dispute within the mass movement, understanding the particularities of every trend and party, its history and its present. The anarchists participate in the struggles of the working masses for strengthening and guiding the positive features, and combating the bourgeois and bureaucratic deviations and misrepresentations, whether it be combating parties, military organisations or sectors of the very popular masses.

In the same manner that a struggle can be fair even though it is directed by a late sector, it is also correct to affirm that such direction (if it persists) will have direct implications for the victory or defeat of the struggle, and that, therefore, is task of the revolutionaries the dispute and re-organisation in order to the overcoming of this direction by the masses. As we already said in other documents, the role performed by the anarchist organization is of initiator-director, in other words, to become vanguard of the masses in struggle, it means acting as friend of the people, and above all do not move away from the masses, and nor run away from the contradictions.

The concept of active minority emerged historically for expressing such position. Considering that the political forces oriented by the principle of authority tends to be, at first, hegemonic and the directions in the organisations, the anarchists must act like an active minority within the movement, pointing out the mistakes and contradictions of these sectors. It is valid for many situations. In other words, to act with the class, its struggles, as minority autonomous organisation.

The purism and the sectarianism are a great trap. It leads an organisation or a individual to not comprehend the ground in which one fights, because it is indifferent for him and for his unique and closed “formulas”. There exists above all a reformist sectarianism and purism, typical for the western parliamentary lefts (but that also reaches the revisionist sector of anarchism), which ignoring and despising the conditions of the struggle in the periphery of capitalism, prefer the more convenient road of the “moral condemnation”. But we must note that the same anarcho-syndicalists do no self-criticism about the capitulation of the anarcho-sydicalism to the nationalist Popular Front, policy that remains in effect in Europe, with the accommodation of several organisations to the capitalism. The same happens in relation to the post-modern ideology, in which great part of the anarcho-syndicalism has capitulated to the Euro-centrism and racism of the bourgeois-imperial feminism.

For the revolutionary anarchists it is not just a matter of mere contemplation, one must comprehend the conditions of the class struggle in every reality (also comprehending what is universal in every particular reality) precisely for taking part in the struggle for the victory of the proletariat, independent of the difficulties to be faced.

Both the reformist way and the sectarian and purist way complement each other for defeating the Kurdish liberation even before it happens. One reinforces the bourgeois and pro-imperialist sector and the other reinforces the apathy, the indifference and the sectarianism of the revolutionary sectors, the only ones that can make the struggle in Rojava advance.

For the current conditions of the struggle in the Kurdistan or in any part of the world the anarchists must not abdicate their organisation, whether it be for the benefit of the direction of PKK or for the benefit of any nationalist or state-bourgeois perspective. Despite one struggles together to the Maoists, nationalists and other sectors which are supporting the revolution in Rojava against the reactionary invasion, it is fundamental to construct and strengthen the revolutionary anarchist organisation as a means of deepening the socialist and anti-statist process and combating the bureaucratic and collaborationist sectors.

The women’s liberation is in the rifle’s tip and beside the people

“The resistance in Kobanê is being directed by women that at the same time combat the ISIS, also destroy sexist values and favor a libertarian attitude for the women so that we can occupy a place in a new society” Commander Meryem Kobane

One of the factors that gave a huge repercussion to the Kurdish resistance in Kobanê was the active participation and the leader and fearless role of the women in all fronts. Although it has been divulged in the western mass media almost merely as a superficial and aesthetic factor (sometimes serving to the sexist imagination with the image of armed women), and although the accusations of patriarchalism on the part of sectarian sectors of anarchism, despite that, a wide female movement has been formed and id advancing in the Kurdistan.

The fact is that the armed women have a new level of dialogue at the construction of a new society. Thus it occurred in the Paris Commune of 1871, thus it occurred in the Spanish civil war of 1936, thus it occurred in other proletarian experiences in which the women had decisive participation. The women’s potential for struggle always suffered prejudice, even in the socialist and revolutionary ranks. However, the historical experience is a school for the people, and the requirements for the women’s rights was never far from the needs of the revolution. Therefore, although the central importance of the female action in Rojava, we cannot forget that women have always been present in the most diverse struggles, armed or not, around the world.

The YPJ, female fraction of the YPG militias, that today brings together more than 8.000 militia members, expresses a central issue in what regards to the women’s liberation: the struggle for the women’s liberation is not detached from the struggle for the emancipation of the entire working class. This issue is expressed in a very clear form in the case of Kobanê, but is does not cease to be present as an universal dilemma in the struggle of the women. In the case of the men and women of Kobanê win the war and the revolution against the oppression of capitalism and jihadism, the feminist conquests are guaranteed and deepened; in the contrary case the sexual slavery, the femicide, and other forms of brutal repression against the women will crown a without precedent setback. Therefore, the social revolution and the women’s liberation have a relation of potenciation: without the victory of the whole people, and with that the transformation of the social bases, the women’s liberation is impossible, without a feminist societal and organizational basis it is impossible to advance in the tasks of the revolution.

In the words of Agirî Yilmaz, a fighter of the YPG:

“In the mentality of ISIS women are deficient. They cannot fight. However when they hear the shouts and calls of the YPJ women they leave their positions and their weapons and they flee. They are afraid to fight against women. They tell themselves ‘let me die fighting a man, not a woman.’ This comes from their conception that women cannot do anything. But our conception is of women who organize themselves, manage themselves and are organized.”

The struggle of the Kurdish women, however, does not mean only a danger to the religious fundamentalism. The struggle of these women is a great danger to the liberal and bourgeois conception about the women’s role and the women’s liberation. The central issue for understanding this conflict is the power.

The policy of the “empowerment” in the capitalist society per the selective arrival of women to posts of power and repression (entrepreneurs, governors, police officers, security guards, etc.) is a counterrevolutionary policy. This “empowerment” of the woman is fake, as fake as the possibilities of equality through the social climbing of poor people, because it is circumscribed to an unequal societal structure. The speech of the bourgeois empowerment has as goal the systemic integration of the female bureaucracies and personalities and the stoppage of the revolutionary potential of the broad female masses.

The “empowerment” for the proletarian feminism means the strengthening of popular power’s organisms (labour unions, councils/soviets, student movement,people’s assemblies, etc) and at the same time the strengthening of the participation and direction of women in these organizations. The popular, democratic, federalist and socialist power is the only that is able to guarantee completely the political, economical and cultural rights for the working women. But this is a new power, that can only flourish and triumph (as Kobanê demonstrates) over the wreckage of the old fundamentalist or bourgeois power and over the stingy dreams of “empowerment” of the liberal-feminism.

For an Internationalist and Classist Trend

Are there contradictions in the revolutionary processes, in the Kurdish one and in the revolutionary process in general? Yes. The contradictions were pointed out in this text. But the solution is not in the support of the bourgeois state projects of independence, nor in the cold absence of international solidarity of a sectarian libertarian reformism. It is in the organization of the revolutionary anarchists for acting in the revolutionary processes and put their project into practice. That is why we call the construction of an Internationalist and Classist Trend (ICT), which can conjugate the tasks of the people’s organization and local resistance with the internationalist militant solidarity. The task in the current moment is to act in order to reorganize a revolutionary unionist alternative, pointing out new horizons of action and organization for the working class faced to the current international crisis and to the radicalization of the class struggle.

Liberdade ao Povo Curdo!

Morte ao Imperialismo e ao Estado Islâmico!

Vitória as milícias de autodefesa popular!

Pelo Socialismo e Autogoverno das massas!

Avante o Anarquismo Revolucionário!

Anarchist Popular Unity (UNIPA)

Brazil, March 2015

Rojava Dispatch Three: Members of Commune Sehid Kawa C Decide on New Boundaries

The continuing travel diary of 'El Errante', an anarchist from the United States who is currently traveling in the Rojava region. This article originally appeared on the Anarchist News website.

The two Hyundai minivans cruise caravan style through the backstreets of Kobane. In the first van are two representatives of the Kobane Canton’s TEV-DEM, the body charged with implementing Democratic Confederalism. In the trailing minivan I ride with the translator and driver. Tiny children play on either side of the street and seem ambivalent to the passing cars, if they can survive a month long siege by ISIS, a few stray cars are nothing.

I had met Ahmad Shaif at the Kobane Canton Center, a bullet-pocked building set on a hill in Kobane. In previous years it had been the government center for the Syrian state and was subsequently expropriated by the Kurds after the representatives of Assad’s regime exited the canton post-haste. Ahmad is one of several TEV-DEM administrators, and his office bare of paperwork, computers or any other item one would associate with a workspace in the West, is the place where Kobane residents come to for assistance in maintaining their communal councils. We had met and he had invited me to a council commune meeting he was helping to facilitate. I was in, definitely in.

Our vehicle stopped on a side street and an older man greeted us, hands shook all around, I was introduced and welcomed. We went through a rubbled courtyard and up a flight of steps. Shoes were kicked off, and we entered into a room fully carpeted with cushions spread sofa like around the walls. A window opened onto the room and several bullet holes impinged the glass, these projectiles had traced a neat line of holes into the concrete of the far wall. Above this damage, a picture of Ocalan was hung, draped on either side by YPG and YPJ flags. The room started to fill with men, most older and Kurdish, and one or two Arabs. Women slowly joined the group as well, the older women, their heads swathed in scarves, would take turns shaking hands around the room and then sit. Men and women sat apart, the empowerment of women not yet extending to the predefined Middle East cultural space.

Mr Shaif began saying that it was a pleasure to be welcomed by the council, and that he was happy with the number of people attending (18 total, 10 men, 7 women—and me). He then drew out a map and laid it on the carpet, pointing to a block in a tangle of lines and circles meant to represent the Sehid Kawa (Martyr Kawa) neighborhood of the city. He continued that with the recent influx of immigrants into the city they were expecting the commune to expand, and that if it grows larger than 100 families it may be too unwieldy to be responsive. Possible geographic divisions were discussed with the council; a few questions, a few answers, some leaning over the map and nodding. He finished by saying that the division of the commune, if any, was up to them. He wanted to present the issue and whatever they decided was fine. Just call with an answer.

I was introduced and got a chance to ask a few questions. I asked about what they do, on a regular basis, as a council and got a wild range of responses, from dealing with marital issues, helping get gas and rides to and from clinics, shopping, whatever was needed, whatever was urgent. Finally a man said that during the siege it was the council that had kept the commune fed and clothed, that helped with YPG intellingence gathering and that when the fighting became desperate commune members were issued Kalashnikovs and fought with the YPG to save their neighborhood. I asked if all were given weapons, including the women. He nodded and said everyone willing to fight, fought.
My curiosity got the better of me and I asked about the line of bullet holes in the wall. The man who had initially welcomed us stood and pointed out the window to a two story building some 200 feet away. Pointing, he indicated the line of sight between the buildings top floor and the damaged wall in his house. Then holding an invisible Kalashnikov he sighted the building and pretended to shoot back. Saying that he had returned fire and that the gunman had eventually left.

With my questions done they asked me what the Americans thought of Kobane. I said many supported their Revolution, many wanted to hear more, and those ignorant enough to have an opinion without information didn’t matter. There were some smiles and nods—especially the women, a few seemed surprised at my directness. Finally a young women of fifteen asked me what I thought. I closed my eyes for a moment and said,” What’s happening here may be part of the future, not just for the Kurds, but for everyone. I know I feel welcome here, and safe. And as small as that is, it’s a big change from much of my experience.”

Ahmad then rose and thanked the group, we all shook hands again—there were some touching of hands to the chest, and we left.

Back out on the street the children were busy playing, somewhere a dog barked and the drivers were cranking over the vans engines. I stopped Ahmad and asked about how the communes had formed, did TEV-DEM have responsibility for that task. He shook his head, “ Some formed spontaneously, some we helped get started, many have yet to become stable, with strong council members. It’s a process, and in Kobane the siege speeded up the formation of the communes, but the rebuilding and lack of resources has now slowed it. We can’t stop though, these communes are at the center of society.”

He nodded and left. I climbed into the van and set out for my hotel, some coffee and to think through this thing. This new thing.

(The name of the commune, Sehid Kawa C (Martyr Kawa C) is derived from the name of the neighborhood in Kobane—Sehid Kawa and C designates it as the third commune formed. Many of the city’s areas are being renamed for the YPJ/G fighters who were killed in those respective neighborhoods. Martyrs, their lives and deaths form a large part of Kurdish resistance consciousness and symbolism. More later…)

Rojava Dispatch Two: The Road To Kobane / The Skeletal City

Today we bring you the latest installment from the travel diary of 'El Errante', an anarchist from the United States who is currently travelling through the Rojava region. This article originally appeared on the Anarchist News website. 

The Road to Kobane/The Skeletal City

By El Errante

It is dark in Kobane, far darker than what you’d expect for a city of 150,000 souls. A few lights wink and crackle out of the encroaching dust and night, and the stillness is broken by the noise of grinding electrical generators and the sound of dumptrucks being filled with rubble and then driving off to one of the dumps outside the city center. It’s almost a year since the siege and there is still no electricity. I am sitting on a porch of the only real hotel in Kobane sipping (yet one more) sweetened tea in a glass. I’m glad I made it from Amuda to here, the road was long, the road was creepy, but now, the road is over.

My driver picked me up at 6am in the morning after a sleepless night at a YPG outpost in Amuda. As I walked out the door a YPG soldier threw me a warm pita. I folded it into quarters and put it into my shoulder bag—something to eat on the way. I left way too early to have breakfast. The guy who picked me up, Salah, was driving one of the ever-present white Hyundai (or Toyota) vans, I crawled in the front and we sped off. It takes four hours to get from Amuda to Kobane, assuming the road’s not closed for any reason.

The scenery was pretty much the same between Amuda and Serekaniye, more villages, hundreds of villages, and fields that were not fallow were filled with cotton and melon.

Between the border with the KRG and Serekaniye there’s very little to indicate that that the Kurdish Autonomous Region is at war with anyone. Once into Serekaniye that impression dissolves rapidly. Large buildings are studded with pockmarks from small arms fire, and here and there one shows signs of being hit by larger ordnance. In fact Serekaniye was one of the side battles fought prior to the Siege of Kobane in November of 2012. It lies directly on the road to Kobane, sits right on the Turkish border, and if it had been taken by al-Nusra (the Islamist terrorists de jour at that point) Kurdish supply lines to Kobane would have been severed. The YPG responded rapidly to the threat and fought viciously, eventually routing the jihadis. The area around Serekaniye is still somewhat contested though final mop up conducted during the spring seems to have ended any military threat of losing the city.

And on the road one can see just how serious the YPG/J and Asayis take the threat—multiple roadblocks and traps are set between Serekaniye and Kobane. The militias have no intention of paying twice for the city of Kobane. At one point we passed a mine that had blown out half the road and eventually were brought to a stop by heavy construction equipment. A rocket had hit the road in the night and it was closed definitely. My driver shrugged, and we set out across a dirt road to go around the obstruction. We had gone about five miles when we encountered an Arab militia checkpoint. Salah pulled up spoke a few words in Arabic and then asked quite clearly, ”YPG?”

To which the response was a headshake and the mumbled acronym in Arabic of some other militia. My driver winced, and we drove on. This is where my nerves started get the best of me and I had him stop and reassure me that it was okay. He shrugged and said, “Syria.” I then knew where we were. In some of the areas of Rojava small enclaves have declared for Syria, this includes the section of Qamishli next to the Turkish border, and evidently the tiny village we were driving through—as evidenced by a Syrian flag floating proudly from a telephone pole. A few more turns and we were back on the road headed to Kobane, passing an Asayis or YPG checkpoint every ten miles. Landmarks I had come to appreciate and look forward to for a variety of reasons.

On the last approach into Kobane from the east you are finally aware that, yes, you are in a war zone. A large ridge of earth has been erected effectively screening the city from approach and every here and there tank traps can be seen jutting out from the sand. Passing this earth wall the city rises up and shows its wounds. Large areas of the outer city have been turned into great dumps of concrete, twisted steel and burned out cars. Then a building catches your eye, it is only half standing and leans oddly against its neighbor; its floors in various states of anti-Euclidean geometry. By the time you come to the city center you encounter whole blocks razed, pounded to rubble, and here and there one sees a building untouched by even small arms fire surrounded by the hulking wrecks of its former neighbors. Luck counts. The streets are dusty, and an occasional water tanker passes in a vain attempt to keep the air breathable. This in combination with the backhoes digging out the wreckage one scoop at a time and the constant movement of heavy trucks as they take the detritus to the growing concrete and steel fields ensures that Kobane is almost always drowning in dust. In fact my first night I walked out at twilight and the city looked more like an impressionist painting by Monet than anything else. Buildings melded into each other in the dust, colors and shapes softened and were lost. A blurred x-ray of a city.

In spite of this people move to Kobane daily, in fact with the cheap real estate—you pay what you can afford—there something of a run on property. As an example an Arab man I spoke to bought a house, complete, for around 15,000 Syrian Pounds ($80 at today’s exchange rate). Not bad.

It’s late, I’m tired and have developed a serious negative attitude towards the Syrian squat toilet. Tomorrow it’s time to look into the issue of revolution, and speak to the residents of this city in the process of slow rebirth.

The Rojava Revolution and Internationalist Solidarity

The following text is an English translation of the introduction to a Rojava solidarity event that was held in Athens, Greece on 24.07.15 by the Anarchist Collective for Combative Proletarian Reconstruction (ASMPA). The text originally appeared on the ASMPA blog. 

Our political collective, ASMPA, took the initiative to organize this event for political briefing and revolutionary solidarity; because there are comrades who have made the decision to join in solidarity the revolutionary struggle that is unfolding now in Rojava. We’ve invited you here so as to directly support the internationalist struggle and to reinforce the future of resistance there, until the victory of the revolution.

Two threads of social liberation struggles meet in Rojava, two threads which begin decades ago. One thread begins in the Lacandon jungle of the Chiapas district in Mexico. In an attempt to reconstruct a guerrilla tradition that never really faded away in that continent, an initially small organization of revolutionaries from a left background had been preparing their onset for a decade, in the context of a directly dialectical relation with the oppressed social base. Through this dialogue, EZLN left statist politics and party centralization behind. By occupying and liberating ground for the benefit of all the oppressed, EZLN planted a seed for social autonomy, which is growing and evolving until today.
 In the years that followed, the struggle in Chiapas was a catalyst in the development of an internationalist, anti-capitalist movement which focused its efforts on the international mobilizations against the summit meetings of interstate directorates. The mass rallying of anti-systemic rage at these international mobilizations, beyond borders and familiar ground, spread once again in history the spirit of rebellion in the metropolises of global capitalism, peaking in Genoa in 2001 and reaching a turning point in Thessaloniki in 2003. However, in these events the revolt gained ground only circumstantially.

The wave of rebellion sparks once again in 2008 from Greece on the occasion of the assassination of Alexis Grigoropoulos. The character of this explosion is such that it becomes a transitional point towards the diffusion of insurrectionary movements around the globe, which now attempt to bring down regimes, to establish social territory, to put down the roots for revolutionary organization. But at the same time, capitalist powers and new regional authorities exploit the destabilization of regimes, which is a consequence of rebellions, in order to control them. In the mediterranean, in the arabic world, in latin america, but also in the euro-american north, the anti-capitalist movements create social territory ever more dynamically.

And so we arrive in Syria. The state assassination of some children, who dared to make a call to rebellion via the internet, although their call did not receive a direct response, caused the mass mobilization in certain regions of Syria. When the peaceful demonstrations were attacked by the army, an armed insurrection broke out. The weaknesses of the baathist regime, both internal and external, in conjunction with imperialist plans and interstate antagonisms, gave way to both liberationist social efforts as well as to the most inhumane cannibalism, theocracy which serves capital. It was in these circumstances where the armed resistance and the revolutionary project in Rojava unfolded.

The second thread begins there; it is the historical sequence of Kurdish resistance. The armed struggle of Kurdish people against the nationalism of the states that have occupied Kurdistan until today lasted for three decades. Turkey, Iraq and Iran have perpetrated the most extensive genocide since the Nazi holocaust, against the Kurdish communities. Within the Turkish region, Kurdish resistance has withstood the harshest state terrorism and the most widespread displacement by a powerful military regime.

The fall of the socialist block weakened left movements around the globe. However, the Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK) and its civil guards, neither turned to the rising nationalism, nor resigned from the resistance by abandoning their proletarian base in order to integrate into the onset of state and capital. On the contrary, the Kurdish resistance was radicalized further, it placed its trust on social emancipation and internationalism and so it grew stronger. Following the arrest of PKK’s leader, Abdulah Ocalan, who, let’s remind, was delivered to the American and Turkish secret services by the Greek state under PASOK, and despite the personality cult which was inherent in the Kurdish movement, the resistance not only was not disbanded, but on the contrary it developed its collective structure.

As far as the target is concerned, the struggle gave up the trap of a so called independent state entity, which today can only be established in complete dependence to imperialist plans and which fosters a new class of bosses, as is evident in the paradigm of north Iraq. The demand for national self determination gave way to the direct application of intertribal and interreligious social self direction against state borders. The Kurdish resistance abandoned statist politics, but did not give up its arms and so it made a deeper connection to social movements in Turkey and internationally. Let’s note here the inability of the nationalist Kurdish organizations of Iraq to check the advance of ISIS. While they have the support of powerful states they do not have a strong social base. ISIS was halted in Mosul with the intervention of the civil guards of PYD and PKK.

The revolutionary project in Rojava was born out of the age long Kurdish resistance. In the context of the disintegration of the Syrian state’s control, the organized revolutionaries of Kurdistan took the initiative to call the oppressed residents of Rojava to organize themselves in assemblies, self defense formations and horizontal structures for self management.  Organized revolutionaries strengthen the struggle towards self direction by opening up paths through their participation in social issues. PKK’s and PYD’s contribution to the social revolution in Rojava is a lesson in revolutionary dialectics.

It is illogical to expect that everyone must first acquire revolutionary conscience in order to revolt; such a stance reproduces the widespread isolation, it distances revolutionary ideas from their vital ground, which is the everyday class conflict, and it confuses insurrectionary and revolutionary action with the authoritarian logic. It is disastrous to wait for everyone to organize themselves without the existence of combative initiative, since liberated territory is necessary, in order for the exploited to be reformed into an autonomous social body. Those who place conscience before revolt and above the struggle, adopt a kind of bourgeois metaphysics, idealism, perhaps because they don’t sense the immediate necessity for a revolution.  By intervening in a militant way at every critical point of the class conflict and by liberating ground through the determination of resistance, we can liberate the potential for social emancipation.

The revolution in Rojava sprang up in the midst of a war between powers, in the furnace where societies are pillaged and destroyed. The internationalist revolutionary movement is taking roots whilst facing a dictatorship, imperialist control and theocratic terrorism. In the most brutal circumstances, beyond despair, the common necessity festers and arms itself. Capitalism will not be overcome neither with the maturing of the technological civilization, nor with meticulous planning, but out of the degradation that is caused by the accumulation of power and the inescapable antagonism.

Revolutions break out unpredictably through the vortex of interstate conflict. Paris commune 1871, Russia 1905 and 1917, Germany 1918, Balkans WII. They become the sequel of mass armed insurrection against dictatorship. Kornilov failed coup de etat in Russia, Kapp failed coup de etat in Germany 1920, Spain 1936.

And while in Europe, revolutionary movements where either wiped out or incorporated before the middle of the 20th century, having been attacked, disarmed or transformed, in the periphery of capitalism the resistance to colonial rule and to imperialism continued incessantly on revolutionary terms around the globe. To those who underestimate revolutionary processes in places where the productive forces have yet to mature, according to the dogma, we juxtapose the paradigm of militant liberationist struggles of the most oppressed within the global capitalist arena. Can the exploited of the capitalist metropolis breach their dependence on the privilege that comes with imperialist domination and can they fight against nationalism, without the effective resistance and the revolutionary paradigm of the third world proletariat? The armed movement in Western Europe and North America from the 1960s onwards had accorded particular significance to the anti-imperialist struggle and to solidarity to movements in the periphery. This was something more than an expression of humanitarian sensitivity and consistency with the theory of imperialism; it was a class strategy.

The social revolution in Rojava and the ongoing revolt in Turkey open up paths for the revolutionary struggle globally.

The social self direction as is being put into practice in Rojava, transforms all relations, be they social, political, economic, within communities, between communities, vis a vis authorities, but also in the global field of class and interstate antagonism. On the one hand this is a project towards direct communism, through the self organized reconstruction of the social base and not via a centralized party determination. As the local assemblies or communes, as they’ve been named in Rojava, assume political force, the objective basis is created for the abolition of exploitative relations, the review of needs, the restructuring of production, and the collective reorganization of work. Let’s note as an example, that Rojava is the only place on the planet where the supply of oil is under the collective management of the residents. Only the universal politicization of the class base through processes of militant self direction, can subvert class domination, by redefining the notion of society and of humanity.

On the other hand, the abundant social partnership, without discrimination on the basis of race, religion or national borders, which is practiced in the open structures of self direction and self defense in Rojava, takes away from authoritarian powers at every level every pretence for their conservation, external intervention and repression. Internationalism, the anti-statist perspective and antimilitarism interject into the global war of the ruling classes with quality and force where these are realized en mass by the social base. The revolution in Rojava is a source for the revolutionary creation of civilization as a whole.

The catalytic participation of women in the proletarian war and their all-out contribution into the revolutionary sociopolitical procedures, based on their autonomous organization and its defining might, radicalize the struggle and the collective development. In a place that is brutalized, pillaged and chained by theocracy, the combative resistance of women becomes the front line of the revolution. The fact that the repressed and exploited base universally joins the struggle through new forms of co-organization, delivers incomparable strength. Women’s revolution is the womb from which a new social life is born and it is unbeatable.

Let’s for a moment look at the problem of theocratic terrorism. Should we support in every possible way the resistance against the onslaught of Islamic militarism, it is not because of our fundamental polemic against religion. Nor is it because we wish to side with imperialist liberalism. On the contrary, in Rojava, religious faith is not persecuted, whilst in democratic Europe, Islamic culture is demonized and persecuted, within the framework of a strategy to inflame interreligious conflict, class oppression and intensity of military control and fascism.

Islamic militarism has been bred by the euro-american capitalist centre, mainly by the U.S., since the 60s in order to turn the proletarian rage of peripheral countries, to strike communist movements, to distort anti-imperialist resistance and to throw societies into the chains of totalitarianism. During the post soviet era, NATO’s never ending war campaigns inflamed Islamic militarism. The local state authorities, such as the former regimes of Saddam and Assad, marshaled the same tool. The disdain for human life and freedom, the rampant destruction and the glorification of authoritarianism, as are exemplified in Islamic militarism, shape the modern mirror of the antagonism of state and capital.

In Syria, western imperialists and the baathist regime alike have invested in Islamic militias, in order to control social insurrection and to manage their contradictions, by means of the strife of the most oppressed. The only reliable bulwark against widespread destruction, but also against imperialist intervention, is the revolutionary movement of Rojava, because it is based on popular self defense and autonomy from every authority, and is opposed to theocratic totalitarianism, not as a tactical position but on principle. However, the most fundamental criteria for the strategy of the revolution are the promotion and defense of liberationist social achievements. Those who claim that war should be waged against all powers simultaneously, are perhaps unable to comprehend from their standpoint, what the revolutionary project requires. It is imperative to choose the determinant conflict at each moment in time, so as not to be crushed inside the antagonisms amongst different powers. Today, in Syria, the victory of the social revolution against theocratic militarism is of great historical and global significance. And for this reason, revolutionary comrades have come from distant places to fight in Rojava.

The internationalists who fight in solidarity in Rojava have breached national borders; the state borders that are guarded by the masters’ armies as well as the internal borders before all. Turkish and Kurdish fighters live and die side by side. Proletarians from Europe and the Balkans left the racist retrenchments and the western privileges behind, opening up paths towards the global revolution.

We state openly that we are calling people to join the struggle where the battle is taking place.

Distanced support is insufficient, even hypocritical. Intellectual critique is hostile, anti-proletarian and counter-revolutionary. Quoting the Anarchist Popular Union from Brazil (UNIPA): “For the revolutionary anarchists who defend materialism and dialectics as a method of analysis, what is important is the precise character of the unfolding struggle, whether it is just or unjust from the viewpoint of the social revolution. An anarchist organization must never abdicate its ideological, strategic and theoretical principles. This, as opposed to a puritan detachment, suggests participation and internal dialogue within the mass movement, with an understanding of the particularities of every tendency and faction, their history and present.”

We wish to note at this point that the comrades who fight in Rojava counter in practice the crypto racist statements which suggest that migrants should stay in their own countries in order to struggle. It is every person’s responsibility, and it must be a conscious responsibility for every revolutionary, that she/he shares all her processions with the oppressed, and above all that he shares in the struggle where the most oppressed live. Internationalists in Rojava are truly fighting against the causes of displacement, smashing the conservatism of the capitalist metropolis.

We will not close this introduction on a happy note; In Kurdistan, in Turkey, in the ghettos of the U.S., in Mexico, in Egypt, in the Ukraine and around the globe, proletarians are being slaughtered and are fighting. We do not intend to publish a nice brochure with this here event; rather we wish to strengthen the class war.

Here in Greece, conditions are worse. Facing the most brutal pillaging and terrorism perpetrated by a collapsing regime, there is no organized and combative movement ready to resist. At the same time as the armed left movement in Turkey and in Kurdistan is moving beyond statist politics, here many anarchists and leftists have lined up behind its most despicable form, social democracy. At the same time as the flame of revolt is spreading around the globe, here some have “discovered” the end of insurrection. And the state is raging on unrestrained.

Either we shall attempt the revolution today when it is necessary, or we shall be buried at the pit of history. There, in Rojava is the trial. Here, in the desert of despair we must build all that the living revolutions teach us.

Rojava Dispatch One - Welcome To The Revolution

The following article was recently posted on the Anarchist News website and is written by an anarchist comrade from the United States who is currently travelling in the Rojava Region.

Greetings from the Revolution

by El Errante

The young Kurdish woman, a border worker, walks me down to the launch on the Tigris River, I look out over the water and shallow canyon that 10,000 years ago gave birth to animal domestication, agriculture, complex hierarchical societies, in a word--civilization. She hands me my passport, says good luck and I step into the launch. It slowly glides across the river, the two or three other men in the boat talk in Kurmanji and generally ignore the clueless American, rendered in their native tongue, merikik. As we draw to the far shore the difference between the border sites operated by the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Autonomous Kurdish Region is obvious, the former is huge with multiple buildings, paved roads and two restaurants, the latter is several card tables set on the pebbled beach of the Tigris. Two young members of the internal Rojava security force (Asayîş) search through suspect bags, they look at me, smile and return to their work. Oddly, at a border crossing, I feel, for the first time ever, welcome. There are a few large tents set on the beach to cover the overheated who are waiting to cross, and that’s it. I had been given a contact name and when I mentioned it to one of the Asayîş she waved me over to a man who arranged passage for me up the hill to the original Syrian border facility by car. There I met my contact and was served the ubiquitous sugared glass of tea. A beverage that by this time I had drunk enough of to not just stretch my bladder, but to break it. I sip the tea and he calls a translator to help with our discussion. I introduce myself and what I hope to accomplish in Rojava—some sense of the institutions that the Kurds have implemented since the stabilization of the battlefront; including the local assemblies, how they interact with the militias, the executive councils, and some of the new institutions-- schools, universities and infrastructure that the PYD and their allies have built. He abruptly asked what I needed, after which I just about dropped my tea, and then mumbled sheepishly,” A car? A translator?”

He nodded and indicated that the PYD could provide that. He did want to make clear several things, first the PKK and the PYD are two separate and non-contiguous entities. Next that what is happening in Rojava is a direct reflection of the ideas and philosophy of Abdullah Öcalan (pronounced in Kurmanji, Ojalan, you fucking heathens). I nodded, noting the twingy feeling in my gut of hero worship, then reminded myself that this hero is buried so deep in a Turkish prison that they probably won’t let him out after he dies.
I was given a car and driver and sent to Amuda, to make contact with folks at the cantonal PYD media center. The next three hours were spent driving across Rojava, a really unique mix of mountains, plains, agriculture, oil wells, villages and people. The Asayîş check points were entertaining, the soldiers would look at the driver, then at me and say,” Thank you,” or nod. My tattoos raised an occasional Kurdish eyebrow. The folks on the street were wide-eyed, and silently kind.

In Amuda I met with the media folks and they asked me what I wanted to do, I set out my ideas and goals (once again) and they decided to send me to Kobani first thing as the weather looks it will rain by the end of this week or the beginning of next. The roads are a mélange of asphalt, dirt, and in one or two places gaping pits left by ISIS car bombs. Therefore a good solid rain can really stop movement on the roads. Finally, the media people sent me to a house for journalists run by the YPG--communal living--but not a problem. At the house there was a smattering of journalists, some folks from the Netherlands helping to revamp a local hospital. There is a CNN crew here trying to make some kind of story out of Rojava, and since there is currently no huge amount of bloodshed here— it’s obviously not a great way to sell advertising. I have been listening to them prepare a video report for the past half hour in which---basically nothing happens—oh, and a YPJ militiawoman gets asked pointed, burning questions like,” Do you want kids, or to stay in the militia?” Devastating. I always wanted to listen to a CNN report being prepped. One off the bucket list.

So tomorrow it’s off to Kobani for several days. I am in one of the sketchiest places on earth, surrounded by friends--I am not afraid. More later…