The Rawesta Women’s Cooperative, established under the leadership of the Association for Solidarity with Families of Prisoners and Convicts (TUHAY-DER), continues its work. The cooperative brings together women whose relatives are in prison, enabling them to take part in collective production, with the income generated used to support prisoners’ families and prison[er]s. Aiming to expand production in the coming period and reach more families of prisoners, the cooperative also seeks to extend support to detainees from Rojava and Eastern Kurdistan (Rojhilat) whose relatives are not present here. Working under the motto, “We know the taste of labor, ecology, and solidarity,” the cooperative aims to spread this initiative to cities across the region.

The idea emerged during family visits

The cooperative was established based on collective labor and solidarity in response to the economic deprivation experienced by women with relatives in prison. Yeter Erel Tuma, co-chair of the association, spoke about how the idea for the cooperative emerged and the process of production. Tuma said the idea of forming a cooperative took shape during family visits, explaining that women who struggled to care for their imprisoned relatives, were unable to attend prison visits, and were grappling with deep poverty came together out of the need to produce collectively. She described the initiative as “a project developed on the basis of collective labor and solidarity.”

We wanted to build a model based on a communal structure

Tuma said poverty is one of the fundamental problems in this country [Turkey] and pointed to the reality that women in Kurdistan are being systematically impoverished as part of a special war policy. Tuma said: “It has become inevitable to build a structure through which women can break out of this poverty by organizing themselves, by organizing one another and their labor. We could have established this structure as a company or another type of economic enterprise. However, we are aware that cooperativization is one of the most important tools for local development. We wanted to build a model that expands solidarity and is based on a communal structure.”

Women both work and expand support

Tuma said that collective meal production is currently carried out within the cooperative, noting that food is prepared for weddings, condolence gatherings, restaurants, public kitchens, trainings, and congresses. She added that the income generated covers all the cooperative’s expenses. Tuma said, “We place a particular emphasis on solidarity. All the women who contribute their labor within the cooperative have relatives in prison. These women are directly connected to the association and are relatives of prisoners who are members of the association. By organizing here, women aim to become economically stronger. This stems from the need to be able to support their relatives in prison and to attend prison visits.”

A solidarity commune is being formed

Tuma said the cooperative has another important goal, noting that the income generated is first used to cover all expenses and operational costs. She said, “While the women working here try to support their relatives in prison, they are also forming a solidarity commune for prisoners from Rojava and Eastern Kurdistan whose families are not present here.”

We want to expand solidarity through our own strength

Aslı Çelebi, a relative of a prisoner who works in the cooperative, said that being part of this initiative, where both women and families stand on their own feet, has given her great hope. Çelebi said that they produce, earn, and share without being indebted to anyone, and that they act in solidarity. She continued: “We established this cooperative with the spirit and idea of the commune. Here, we are doing everything we can to expand both production and our collective efforts. With the work carried out here, we want to reach more families of prisoners. We want to stand on our own feet without being indebted to anyone. Today, we cannot reach all prisons, and we cannot provide support everywhere. Through this cooperative, we want to support the prisons or prisoners we cannot yet reach, and we aim to do this through our own strength. We will gradually expand the areas of production. By standing side by side with families, we want to grow this place together. Together with the families of prisoners, we want to both produce here and expand solidarity. Now, seven women are working here, but through the production we carry out, we aim to reach all women.”

On 19 July 2012, the Kurds found their own “Freedom Day” when the people of Kobane took control of their own destiny, repelling Assad’s Syrian forces and embarked on establishing their own self-government. On the following day, 20 July, the people in Afrin joined them in this endeavour, setting off a wave of successful resistance in the coming days and months across the region that emerged as Rojava. The heroic resistance of these embattled Kurdish men and women immediately inspired solidarity from onlookers around the world and peoples of all nations rallied to the defence of Kobane.

What has become known as the Rojava Revolution drew its direct inspiration from the leadership and writings of Abdullah Öcalan; it was a practical implementation of his core political ideas and unique contribution to the politics of Kurdistan and the broader Middle East region, with global implications and valuable lessons for the entire peoples of the world.”

Women were in the lead and continue to play a crucial role in the new model of society implemented. All the different nations and beliefs in Rojava and Northern Syria joined the 19 July Revolution with their own features and identities.

They started to work together to build a new democratic system on the road to democratization. In the developed democratic system, democratic solutions to issues related to women as the oppressed gender were elaborated, and a political and social system started to take shape as an alternative to the global capital and capitalist system.

The so-called Arab Spring began in Tunisia in 2010 and spread to other Arab and Northern African countries. It also reached Syria. As the popular movement took its first steps in Syria, the Baath regime responded with even stricter oppressive methods in place since 1963 to protect its power.

With the beginning of the Syrian Revolution on 15 March 2011, the peoples of Rojava and northern Syria called for freedom, democracy and equality, organising many demonstrations. Peoples living in northern Syria also demanded an end of the policy of denial imposed by the Baath regime.

Rojava and Northern Syrian women with their various features began to take the lead in the struggle that developed. The essence of the work carried out in the struggle in Northern Syria and Rojava was a struggle for democracy of the peoples, but it was women who added their particular flavour to this.

Öcalan’s ideas formed the basis of the organization

In Rojava and Northern Syria women had the lead of the demonstrations and there is no doubt that the ideological and practical perspective of the struggle was taken from the philosophy of the PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party) leader Abdullah Öcalan. They were against the regional and international conspiracy.

In Rojava and Northern Syria, women set up their own organization in 2005 and called it Yekitiya Star [later this name was changed to Kongra Star]. Yekitiya Star, the first step in the struggle for women’s liberation, gradually reached a new level of organization in political, military, social, diplomatic and cultural fields with the beginning of the revolution.

Although in the region it was above all Kurdish women who were involved in the freedom struggle and organization, soon other women from the whole region were incorporated and joined both the struggle and the organisation. In this way, the women’s organization that started as Yekitiya Star soon widened to include various ethnic and religious structures and went on to cover various fields such as political, military and social.

Women strengthened their solidarity in the Syrian revolution

Following the slogan of strengthening the solidarity of women in the Syrian revolution, Yekitiya Star founded the Syrian Women’s Initiative that carried out many different works.

The preparatory meeting of the Syrian Women’s Initiative under the leadership of Yekitiya Star was organized in the Cizire region with the slogan “Whatever their nation, belief and society, the women of Cizire are one”. The Syrian Women’s Initiative foundation conference was held in Qamishlo on 28 March and the first office was opened in the same Qamishlo on 17 November.

Training programs were organized for women in different parts of Rojava and Northern Syria. In the last period, trainings were held in the new liberated areas. In Afrin, Kobane and Cizire, Mala Jin (Women’s House) were opened. The understanding was that women should be able to solve their problems, to implement social justice principles, to provide social development against reactionary minds, to participate in all spheres of society for an ecological, democratic and free society.

On 21 January 2014, the Democratic Autonomous Administration and the Women’s Council were established. This enhanced the opportunities and projects for women to be carried out in the fields of administration, diplomacy and economy.

From Zehra Penaber to Raqqa: Liberation Operations

Kobane city has witnessed many historical and heroic epics. Women’s Defense Units (YPJ) in this city have resisted the patriarchal system in the name of all women and received support from women all over the world. After ISIS attacked Kobane on 15 September 2014, women got actively involved in defending the city against the mercenaries that threatened the world and imposed slavery on women. Women fighters took their place in the front lines throughout the resistance, and carried out many actions.

Arin Mirkan became a symbol of the fight with the action she carried out on 5 October 2014. Zehra Penaber, Hebun Derik and Evindar, are among the legendary commanders whose names will go down in history. They showed the whole world that women can defend themselves and defeat the ISIS mercenaries.

Avesta and Barin, symbols of Afrin resistance

Women have gained historical achievements against the invading Turkish army and its mercenary allies through the legendary resistance carried out in the Afrin mountains.

Like Arin Mirkan, Avesta Xabur has become a legendary symbol in the struggle for liberty of all women of the world thanks to her resistance in Afrin.

Barin Kobane is another woman whose name has been written in the history of women’s resistance. Barin Kobane, like Arin and Avesta, have opened the way to many more Barins, Arins, and Avestas who are ready to fight against ISIS and against fascism in the Resistance of the Age.

Living solidarity through art means socialising art not only through its content but also through the way it is produced and shared. This begins when the artist is no longer a distant individual but becomes part of collective life. One of the clearest examples of this is the cultural and artistic work in Rojava. What makes it powerful is its ability to reconstruct the sociological bond between the audience and the artist, breaking the fourth wall in the process. Art becomes freer when it belongs and when it draws closer to people.

Imagine a neighbourhood workshop today: creating a mural with children, building a stage in the countryside through collective effort, or playing music in the streets without seeking profit. All are practical forms of solidarity in art. In this approach, the sociological reality that art transforms into is no longer an aesthetic game of the elite but becomes the labour, voice, and imagination of the people.

In a system where art is commodified and sacrificed to competition, socialist art becomes the justice of collective creation and shared thinking. To live solidarity in art is to make art life itself. The real issue lies not in the absence of production, but in the disconnection of our art from life. This disconnection prevents the emergence of a strong aesthetic attitude and fails to foster an ethical stance. It stems from the growing dominance of individualism. This path only gains meaning when walked together.

Moreover, it is not enough for an artist to merely reflect this understanding by changing the subject of their work. Addressing social issues is not sufficient—the act of creation itself must become collective. In staging a play, it is not only the director but also the lighting technician, the set designer, and the audience who must have a voice. Any art that is not created through collective intellect and shared effort inevitably falls back into the grip of individual production.

Today, many young art collectives and aspiring artists are exploring new paths in line with this approach. By producing works independently of both power structures and market relations, they transform the audience from mere consumers into active participants. Communities converting empty shops into theatres in the outskirts of European cities, open-air cinemas in rural areas, or volunteers painting the walls of village schools. These are not just artistic activities, but the seeds of a new network of social relations. We are not bound to use the fixed forms of art that have been handed down to us.

The songs sung by Martyr Delila for her people and the newsreels of Dziga Vertov in Soviet cinema reflect the same tradition. Both responded sincerely to the questions of “what for” and “for whom” in art. Keeping this legacy alive today requires more than remembrance; it demands reconstruction. Art is not only a means of expression, it can become a comrade in the social struggle.

Collective art does not deliver pre-packaged messages to its audience; it invites them to think, question, and even create. This is why Bertolt Brecht transformed theatre into a space of action. Today, new forms of art must be developed where the audience steps onto the stage, and the boundaries become blurred. Our traditional dengbêj (Kurdish oral storytellers and bards) singers, who brought together communities and society, fulfilled this same function. In those times, art held a more democratic and socially rooted form and purpose.

The democratisation of art begins with remembering that it is a right for all. Therefore, solidarity in art is not only about the artist’s intention but also about the way society is organised. As long as cultural policies surrender artistic production to the sponsorship of major capital groups instead of supporting the creators themselves, art becomes commercialised. In such a system, if we sing, we run to stages; if we paint, we are confined to galleries, practicing an art that is closed within four walls, devoid of faces and of life.

In today’s realities, a solidarity-based art can survive only through alternative structures and networks of mutual support. Grants and funds are not what sustain the artist; it is the solidarity of the people that nourishes, strengthens, and gives soul to the work. What ultimately emerges from this process is a deeply social system. For those of us who create, our understanding of what is new and transformative must be rooted in connecting art with the people, including them in its process, and focusing on the artistic growth and collective creativity of society.

Organising music tours through communal effort, printing fanzines through mutual support, or creating free, open workshops, all of these represent this living spirit. These acts show that solidarity in art is not a nostalgic ideal from the past, but a vibrant and ongoing practice.

Living togetherness in art means embracing unlimited creativity, an enduring desire to produce together, and a sincere bond with the people. Social art stands where the aesthetic and the ethical converge. It is not limited to what is merely beautiful or what is simply right; it brings to the stage the living tension that is born from the clash between the two. Rather than fleeing from contradictions, social art moves forward by making them visible.

Art and artists can walk side by side, deepening each other through mutual support and shared purpose. In a world where art is increasingly individualised, collective creation remains both an act of resistance and a source of hope. As long as we continue seeking ways to understand one another rather than merely express ourselves, collective art will remain with us. And this search does not belong only to the stage or the canvas, it lives in the streets, in schools, in our institutions, and everywhere people gather.

Aleppo- Nûdem for Care and Support for People with Disabilities, an organization carrying out various activities to be in solidarity with people with disabilities and assist them overcome the difficulties in their lives, has started carrying out activities in Aleppo, northern Syria’s largest city. The organization aims to reach people with disabilities in all cities.

‘We have recorded 425 people with disabilities in two neighborhoods’

Meryem Şêx Qamber, Spokesperson of Nûdem and a person with a disability, told NuJINHA that the organization first started its activities in two neighborhoods of Aleppo. “We have already started carrying out our activities in Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods. We have recorded 425 people with disabilities in these two neighborhoods. We have already started determining their needs. We have provided both music and painting courses to them.”

‘The number of people with physical disabilities is on the rise’

The organization also supports the people with disabilities displaced from Shahba. “We work to determine their number. The number of people with physical disabilities is on the rise. As the organization, we also collect clothes and deliver them to displaced people with disabilities in the neighborhoods.’

‘Our aim is to support all people with disabilities across Aleppo’

Nûdem also aims to be in solidarity with women and children with disabilities. “Today, we carry out our activities for people with disabilities in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods,” said Meryem Şêx Qamber. “Our aim is to support all people with disabilities across Aleppo.”

Nûdem has supported more than 100 families in Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods.

The initiative, which aims to promote waste sorting and recycling, follows a successful trial phase conducted in late 2022. The pilot program involved distributing specialized garbage bins and educating households on sorting waste into categories: plastic, cardboard, metal, and organic.

Waste Sorting Progress

Amina al-Hassani, a project coordinator with the Hasakah municipality, described the significant advancements achieved through collaboration with residents. “We’ve seen remarkable improvements in waste sorting and transportation processes in the targeted neighborhoods, which now number more than ten,” she told North Press.

According to al-Hassani, households participating in the project now pre-sort their waste, streamlining its transfer to recycling facilities and landfills. Initially, waste was collected and transported to landfills without sorting.

However, through awareness campaigns—including brochures and household visits—the municipality succeeded in expanding the program and enhancing community engagement.

“The project aims to keep our city clean by ensuring timely collection and proper sorting of waste,” al-Hassani added. She highlighted the environmental benefits of producing organic fertilizer and recycling materials like plastic and cardboard at local facilities.

The Kurdish Red Crescent plays a vital role in the project, focusing on sorting medical waste from hospitals and homes. These materials are either incinerated or partially recycled to ensure safe disposal.

Fertilizer Production 

A key component of the Zero Waste project is producing organic fertilizer from sorted household and institutional waste.

Majd Muhammad, the environmental officer for the project, explained that the new phase began in October 2024, expanding to additional neighborhoods in Hasakah.

During the trial phase in early 2023, approximately 500 kilograms of organic fertilizer (compost) were produced in collaboration with an agricultural expert through UPP. Samples were tested in a public laboratory to confirm their safety, with results showing over 70% organic content.

The compost was subsequently distributed to local nurseries.

Muhammad stated, “The current phase, set to last 10 months, aims to produce 5 tons of organic fertilizer at the environmental nursery managed by the directorate.”

The project also involves sending plastic waste to recycling plants and repurposing cardboard to create new products.

Muhammad emphasized that organic fertilizer is a sustainable and cost-effective alternative to chemical fertilizers, reducing environmental pollution and supporting local agriculture.

The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) gangs entered Aleppo city yesterday afternoon. Tabqa Drivers Union sent 60 buses yesterday for those who wanted to leave the city. Today, the Drivers Union sent 50 buses to Raqqa to go to Aleppo. 19 buses carrying students set off from Aleppo.

Hesen El Xabûr, one of the officials of Raqqa Bus Station, said that they transported the people free of charge. Hesen El Xabûr emphasised that the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syira (AANES) has taken all measures for the safe return of the people.

Hesen El Xabûr stated that they will continue to send vehicles from Aleppo as long as needed and will provide a safe environment for everyone.

Mehmûd El Omer, Co-Chairman of Tabqa Drivers Union, underlined that they will continue to fulfil their humanitarian duties.

There is heavy traffic at the Elbû Asî Gate in Tabqa.

The Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria announced that 2,892 people have crossed into the autonomous regions so far, including 2,158 students.

This rebirth of native languages, carried out alongside a turn towards indigenous and feminist liberation philosophy in academia, played a crucial role for the self-sustenance of a revolution that started over a decade ago. While students at Rojava’s newly reconstituted and founded universities can freely study more subjects than before, they struggle to gain accreditation for their studies by the international community.

“Rojava University, the University of Kobanê, and Shark University are all results of our revolution,” says Zozan Sîma, a member of Jineolojî Academy¹ in North and East Syria (NES), and continues, “We call our revolution the woman’s revolution. That is why students of our universities should learn about the women’s revolution, its gains, its struggle against sexism, and its aim to create free coexistence through the equality of men and women in the democratized space of politics, and learn about all these norms.”

It is an ongoing revolution in an ongoing war with multiple warring parties and multiple interfering regional and international actors. The situation critically raises the question of how a society can invent a new educational system—even higher education institutes—during the ongoing revolution while navigating warfare and the permanent threats of occupation by Turkey, the Syrian regime, and their proxies? This is not a hypothetical question but a very real one that people in Rojava have been asking themselves for about a decade. The answer is not easy.

Aras Hiso, one of the teachers organizing the first Kurdish classes in the schools in Kobanê after July 2012, remembers how they were “teachers and students at the same time” with almost no practical experience. Qualified teachers working at the schools established by the Ba’ath regime belittled them, saying, “You can’t organize any educational task, you are not qualified, you are not teachers; you have neither people to direct schools nor people who can establish educational systems.”

Skeptics were eventually proven completely wrong, with the system now sustaining more than 4,700 schools, 900,000 pupils, and 60,000 staff.² There are also three universities, several higher education institutions, and academies now operating. However, the real challenge is not simply to build schools and universities, but to develop an entirely new educational system with a philosophy based on new sociological principles. Discourses based on concepts found in the Sociology of Freedom as well as jineology – the science for understanding life from a woman’s perspective – are crucial aspects of this new educational system.

A former colony inside a former colony

For institutional reasons, we have to view the whole Cizîr region of Syria as well as Kobanê and Efrîn—the three cantons that together constitute Rojava—as internal colonies of the Syrian state until the beginning of the Rojava Revolution. Hîva Mihemed Elî, the deputy of co-presidents of the Educational Committee of Kobanê Canton, describes the exclusion of Kurds from the whole public and formal spaces before the revolution: “There were no prospective for Kurds to have any real space in the institutional structures of the Ba’ath regime in Rojava.”

The Kurdish language was banned, the culture was not recognized, and most importantly, the Kurds were mostly seen as non-indigenous population elements. Several thousand Kurds were denied Syrian citizenship, inflicting far-reaching consequences for those affected, forcing primarily men from those areas to emigrate to other regions within Syria or neighboring Arabic countries to find work. The state determined their political, social, and economic lives so that they could provide resources most desired by Damascus: oil, wheat, olive oil, etc.

The fact that the Syrian state gained its independence after several decades of the French mandate regime, first in 1946, means Syria was, until then, a de-facto French colony. On the other hand, this means Syria as a whole has both its colonial past and its subsequent post-colonial history of integration into different blocks and alliances. During the Ba’ath reign, it was mainly the Soviet block. After 2000, Bashar Al-Assad started several economically liberal reforms to integrate the country into the Western world order. We may consider Rojava from this background as a former colony inside a former colony. These intersecting colonial relationships are crucial to understanding the region’s recent history.

Discourses on Decolonizing the Universities of Former Colonies

Let us look at the example of the African experiences of developing educational systems and universities under postcolonial conditions. With the exception of South Africa and its different paths of liberation and post-liberation processes, the idea of colonizing structure is actually a relatively new introduction to the discourses on decolonizing education, especially higher education in African “decolonization” discourses. In the late 1980s, Congolese philosopher and writer Valentin Yves Mudimbe introduced the the concept of a “colonizing structure” (1988: 2). He found this structure reproduced in and continuing to manipulate and “integrate” postcolonial African societies and states. In the case of the elites of the “postcolonial” era in many African countries, they were very successful within the colonizing structure. As a result, the elite willingly and actively attempted to establish the same educational models—also in higher education—needed for the extraction of resources and knowledge. The influence and power of these educational systems, their methods of producing knowledge, were terrifyingly effective: they are still the mainstream in all African countries with a colonial past.³

Prompted by Mudimbe’s criticism, several efforts are now underway to reorganize and decolonize African educational systems and universities, and this also includes the field of African Studies as such in the former colonial centers. These efforts primarily aim at decolonizing education and building an alternative educational system, that is, developing higher education with a fundamentally new philosophy.

We can thus understand why for Ferat Gernas, a member of the Coordinating Committee of Universities in North and East Syria, it is vitally important to recognize the role of universities in “capitalist modernity”⁴ as to be able to imagine and invent new universities: “We witness daily how, in capitalist modernity, actual physical and moral genocides are going on.”

Gernas points out how the system’s crises boil down to the crisis between capitalism (with human actors) and nature. He summarizes this thesis by saying, “The global hegemonic system and its pushing ideology, liberalism, are normalizing this annihilation of humans and nature.”

Annihilation is indeed perceived as a deed that should not be happening. As a consequence, Gernas develops his arguments as follows: “We see the need for an intellectual intervention, and we ask ourselves: why are intellectuals, universities, and as a whole the academia so helpless and desperate? Yes, I generalize, but I have to ask, are they willing to participate in that genocidal way of organizing society, which is absolutely dark and inhuman?”

The question seems to be a starting point for a systemic critique and is indeed followed by one: “We felt, and still feel, there is a need for a revolutionary intervention to initiate an intellectual and academic revolution, too, indeed a mental revolution, which can challenge the mentality of 5000 years of state-formed and forced mentality. If not, we will continue seeing all of this darkness around us as normal. No doubt it is all but normal,” Gernas concludes.

The Myth of Independent Academia

In the colonial context, the fact that research and academic work are not independent and, to the contrary, serve as tools of the colonizers, is today partially known. But identifying research “as a significant site of struggle between the interests and ways of knowing of the West and the interests and ways of resisting of the Other” opened the way for liberating research and academia from the colonizing structure. (Smith 1999: 2)

The leader and theorist of the Kurdish liberation movement Abdullah Ocalan conceptualized this critique, through the term scientism, which he has called the new religion of hegemonic power structures.⁵ His critiques of science focus on the purpose of science, and he convincingly compares the social role of the knowledges produced by various religions and knowledges produced by modern scientific structures.

According to Ocalan, both knowledge production systems produce and spread knowledge for power structures to enforce their dominance over the masses. Their difference is simply a matter of method: different technologies are applied to enact violence and power over people, while distinct knowledges are produced to justify these applications. (Ocalan 2020) We may also refer to Ocalan’s earlier reflection on state and power, where he argues that the reproduction of slave-holding social organizations, required—at least partially—convincing the slaves to be satisfied of their social role within their respective society. (Ocalan 2007) Accordingly, ideological or technological knowledges produced by religions or science are not as different as they seems if they are used to build power structures, serving merely their perpetuation instead of solving societal problems. The critiques of science and more generally Western knowledge-producing systems in the Kurdish Liberation Movement  are largely based on these reflections by Ocalan.

With the July 2012 Rojava Revolution, society in Rojava and the neighboring Arab majority lands started to develop a school system. It was primarily interested in schooling children in a more democratic way. The Kurdish Liberation Movement’s proposal to home-school Kurdish pupils has been practiced since 2008, despite the Ba’ath regime.

The Administration is well aware of criticism against the school system and curricula and the dissatisfaction of parts of the population with the lack of recognition, personnel (even though regime schools have the same lack of qualified personnel), laboratories, and educational equipment (for more, see Al Ahmad 2023). But it doesn’t give up the idea of a constitutive democratic educational system, enabling each entity to organize education and curricula autonomously, something indeed entirely new in that region and anchored in the “Social Contract” of the DAANES.

It may seem a small step, but such a small deed as offering public spaces for native languages has huge consequences for challenging power structures and ideologies too. This may partially explain why Kurds were politically and socially much more prepared for the “Spring of the Peoples” than many of Syria’s other communities.⁶ In Syria, the Revolution became militarized and turned into a bloody civil war, with several international and regional actors interfering. Eventually, the war between the regime, myriad Syrian opposition groups, and other Islamic factions evolved into a proxy war. The experience of organizing Kurdish schools and regular neighborhood meetings that were to be turned into neighborhood councils gave the areas with a Kurdish majority the opportunity to organize society autonomously. This also meant putting locals in charge of their own self-defense.

Critics of the new educational initiatives, including the Turkish-backed Kurdish National Council, which is frequently in dispute with the Autonomous Administration, have raised the issue of non-recognition.

According to Hîva Mihemed Elî, the deputy head of the Educational Committee in Kobanê, “this vocal critique on the DAANES’s schools by the opposition patronized by Turkey is an exaggeration of the non-recognition of degrees. The degrees of our schools are not nationally and, consequently, internationally recognized. Yet, people trust in the ability of our school system. However, the fact that the degrees are not recognized remains the main problem. That is why a social class looks down on the autonomous Administration’s institutions and its teachers.”

“A close look would make it visible that the undermost social class sends its children to the schools and institutions of autonomous Administration. That is why those with more financial resources, who are rich, are sending their children to cities like Damascus and Aleppo for their studies or enrolling them in the regime schools in Qamişlo and Hesekê,” she continued. This social segregation is critical in that it may aggravate the social cliff between classes, something the revolution acts against.

Aras Hiso, a member of the Educational Committee in Kobanê and staff at the University of Kobanê, confirms that the education system’s critiques are partly justified. However, he differentiates between two arguments for those officials enrolling their children in the regime’s institutions: “There are officials of the Autonomous Administration who send their children to regime schools and universities. One of the arguments is generally accepted and causes no dissatisfaction. It states that the subjects their children study are not offered in the higher educational institutions of DAANES; people show understanding for them. However, there is strong dissatisfaction and legitimate criticism for those who send their children to the regime’s school because of a lack of national recognition. But I have to add, with our graduates showing their qualification in the practical field, this tendency weakens among all social classes.”

Hîva Mihemed Elî was schooled before the Rojava Revolution. Given her background, she is able able to compare the educational systems of the Ba’ath regime and the Autonomous Administration: “The main difference between the educational approach of Ba’ath regime’s schools and those of DAANES is that, at the regime schools, information should be memorized without sharing information about how, why, and where to use this information. In the schools of the Autonomous Administration, there is a clear effort to mediate the meaning and use of any given information. Another important difference is the assessment process for pupils. In the regime’s educational institutions, assessment takes place through exams, and failing exams means being eliminated from the respective educational institution. On the other hand, in the institutions of DAANES, a pupils’ participation in the classroom, their general understanding and ability to discuss, their attitude versus others in the classroom, and the way of and reasons for knowing are as important as assessment through exams.”

She has experienced that there are pupils who “indeed love to understand subject matters as they are taught at our schools” because, for them, it is “an entirely new experience” to be given the opportunity to understand a subject. However, the lack of formal recognition and criticism of some parts of society may force them to leave the school: “When they are told several times that their degrees are not recognized, they sometimes decide to study elsewhere.”

The Language Revolution

Aras Hiso, a member of the Educational Committee in Kobanê and staff of the University of Kobanê, remembers how the first Kurdish classes after the revolution in Kobanê were held in the Martyr Osman School in the neighborhood of Gumruk. “At that time, the regime’s curricula continued to be applied at the schools. There were no teaching staff able to take on the task,” he said.

The cooperation between the Institution for Kurdish Language (SZK) and the Confederation of Kurdish Students organized Kurdish language classes for two hours a week in all schools.

Hiso remembers, “Sometimes teachers at those schools, some of them also Kurds, tried to hinder those language classes, but we eventually succeeded in entering all of the schools in Kobanê.” He also emphasizes that he was one of the first teachers in Kobanê. In a group of 14 teachers, he was one of the youngest. The same group also prepared Kurdish language teachers with support from teachers from the Refugee camp in Mexmûr (Makhmour) in Iraqi Kurdistan.

He recalls the first meeting to develop curricula for the schools as follows: “In 2015, in Efrin, a campaign to change the whole curricula was started. The same year, they succeeded in preparing their own curricula for the 1st to 3rd classes of elementary school. After the liberation of Kobanê in May 2015, there was a first meeting of the Committee for Social Education (KPC) in cooperation with the SZK, and we decided to develop a more democratic curriculum in Kurdish for the first six classes. That is why we established higher education institutes to educate teaching staff for our schools. It was decided that a curriculum for all schools, including high schools, should be ready the following year. The new curricula were ready after printing all books for all classes and subject matters. Classes such as Jineolojî were introduced at the high school level after 2018.”

Meanwhile, the Manbij City Council, in a rare move, decided to continue with the regime’s curriculum while adding courses from the Autonomous Administration’s curriculum. There is still an ongoing negotiation between different views within the City Council to accept the curriculum developed by the Autonomous Administration. However, Aras Hiso feels that the “language revolution” has succeeded: “Anyway, now, having master’s programs at our universities and preparing for doctoral programs makes me feel successful in the language revolution.”

It is not Our Fate

The future of Rojava’s revolutionary project will largely depend on how its higher education is structured. Rojava’s education system is being built under two postcolonial conditions: one being the beginning of the Syrian state after its independence in 1946, the other starting with the Rojava Revolution on 19th July 2012.

This is why Ferat Gernas, a member of the coordinating body of universities in NES, explains that “we, the actors of democratic modernity, those who place themselves within the philosophy of the Democratic Nation, are convinced that there is a need for an intellectual intervention into this existing hegemonic regime of truth.” Consequently, he states that “one of the main reason for us to establish universities is exactly this. If not, we fear this dark regime of truth will continue its hegemonic status. Mainstream and mainly positivist science may continue to try convincing us that this dark regime of truth is our fate, but we never fell into this trap and never believed that this darkness is our fate.”

One of the Autonomous Administration’s declared aims is to organize higher education based on a critique of the existing social sciences. Ferat Gernas describes the existing social sciences as a tool to “destroy social, ethical, and historical norms.” His view concurs with the broader idea that capitalist modernity and its ideology of liberalism (also neoliberalism) are anti-society, on a level that they actively destroy the very society they depend on (Ocalan 2020).

“By a new sociology, we mean that the social sciences should be based on strong historical and social sources, in a way that sociology can be reinterpreted and reconstituted,” stresses Gernas, highlighting the importance of “a new view” on history and anthropology, and a “new philosophy.” Successful implementation of this aim would accordingly bring about an amendment of social sciences and relations within society and the democratization of the social base itself.

That is why students of all faculties and higher educational institutions go through classes of jineolojî, democratic nation, history, and democratic confederalism. Gernas likens capitalist modernity to a “black hole creating a big and terrifying vacuum drawing and swallowing all social norms of the society.” Universities in DAANES are actively working to defend their students “against the huge impact of this vacuum” on them.

The successful implementation of a new social science is seen as a key for alternative universities, where students will be spared from the impacts of capitalist modernity. According to Gernas, these alternative universities not only condemn the idea of “industrialism in the service of political power and state, but we want to hinder its practical implementation.”

“When we produce knowledge, it is directly related to society itself, and we aim to find solutions to its problems. We don’t produce knowledge for power, market, and material gain,” he said.

While it is difficult to estimate how successful these efforts are, a few examples show there is plenty of room for hope. Ferat Gernas mentions that, in Syria, those studying medicine tend to rapidly open a medical office for financial gains, whereby their medicine students’ first choice is to work in health centers called Kilînîkên Gel (People’s Clinics), which provide free healthcare for everyone.

Until Rojava University opened its Petrochemical Faculty in Rimêlan, no women were allowed to enter spaces reserved for the oil industry and petrochemical studies in the city. With women studying petrochemistry, not only those spaces but also the politics of developing the petrochemical industry became “more human,” as Ferat Gernas put it.

“When women entered oil fields as engineers, their ecological sensitivity and their readiness to more actively preserve nature rapidly changed the politics and ways of oil production,” said Gernas. Oil is certainly not ecological in itself, but Rojava and DAANES rely on it as a source of energy and finances. According to Gernas, the fact that women are entering this field is already a significant change.

The biggest challenge in this continuing construction of an alternative university is still the same problem that the founding actors call the “big and terrifying vacuum” of capitalist modernity. As Ferat Gernas expresses it, “This vacuum draws many students to itself.” By contrast, the only imperative of alternative education is meeting the actual needs of society.

“We decided to develop a study program when we saw there is a real need of the local communities, of the institutions of Democratic Autonomous Administration or our educational system,” says Şervan Mislim, the co-president of the University of Kobanê. As an example, he evokes how they developed the master program for Kurdish Studies in their university: “At our university, we developed a master program for Kurdish Studies because there was a real need in our schools and communities in Kobanê to develop such a program.”

They first identified a need and proceeded to find the necessary spaces and capacities for fulfilling it. One need arose for schooling in the mother tongue: “Most of our students are schooled in Kurdish, but at the university level, we have not been able to secure all teaching in Kurdish until now, which is a real obstacle for some of our students,” says Mislim.

The universities were able to “successfully” mediate between their graduated students and the DAANES institutions, which, according to Mislim, “renders those institutions more capable of dealing with the tasks and services they are supposed to produce for the communities.” As a result, people consider this “as a gain of the whole society and the revolution.” At the same time, the graduate students’ participation in organizing social and political spaces raises people’s trust in “our universities and educational system as a whole,” states Mislim subsequently.

Şervan Mislim deals with the practical issues that emerge in organizing teaching and researching, much more than with theoretical considerations. That is why, according to him, “a lot of deficiencies” relate to the immaturity of the universities and the lack of personnel and several material resources. However, he states, “In our young history of about seven years at the University of Kobanê, we had successes and failures; we actively try to improve and develop according to the needs of communities and our students.”

In line with this practical approach, he calls for solidarity, saying, “We think there is a need to act in solidarity with our university, especially in developing teaching material and obtaining material needed for different laboratories in 12 different departments in our university. For academics, it is an act of solidarity to share their expertise with our students and staff.”

Hîva Mihemed Elî, a deputy of the co-presidency of the Educational Committee in Kobanê, indicates that the graduates have high employment rates.

“Those who finish the Autonomous Administration’s high schools mostly study at our universities. And every graduate student from our universities has been employed. There is no graduate student who hasn’t been employed. Actually, the students who graduated from the regime’s universities are also employed in the institutions of the Autonomous Administration. As an example, I can mention the staff of the University of Kobanê, especially in different fields of engineering, who graduated in 2022 and 2023 and have been employed by the university.”

Interpreting and Understanding Life and Society from a Woman’s Perspective

Jineolojî is an integral part of the alternative universities in Rojava. Zozan Sîma, a member of Jineolojî Academy, points to how women’s oppression – as well as their resistance and knowledge – are rendered invisible. This was the main reason for establishing Jineolojî Academy, which coordinates jineolojî classes at the university level.

“Jineolojî Academy was necessary because we couldn’t see either the way how we as people and as women are subjugated or our struggle against this subjugation within the existent science practices. Our identity as women and our issues were invisible within mainstream ways of knowing,” says Sîma. “On the other hand, the struggle of Kurdish people in the quest for freedom and its experience of more than 40 years has its own history and experience. Indeed, with the establishment of this academy, we could discuss the Kurdish movement’s ways of seeing things, its interpretations, its solutions for different problems and questions.”

The concept of a woman as the first colony played a role in establishing jineolojî as an independent discipline within the academia in NES. According to Sîma, conflicting descriptions and interpretations of women’s identity, and also still very present oppression of Kurdish culture and people, keep the traces of oppression and resistance against it very alive. She continued. “If we try to know ourselves, to understand the oppression against us as Kurds, we conclude that women as the first colony is a truth. It is a statement by Leader Apo [Abdullah Öcalan],” said Sîma about the concept of women as the first colony.

“When the movement analyzed our society as a whole, it discovered some truths about the situation of women as well. We see that it is not an eternal colonization; the identity of women was not invariably and forever an oppressed one. There are several different theories on the identity of women. Some of them consider women as an entirely oppressed identity, while others consider this situation as a natural state of being. But we will also show our differences in this respect. For us, women’s identity is neither an essentially sexual one, a naturally oppressed identity, nor an eternally oppressed identity. As I mentioned, being a woman is not an eternally oppressed identity, but ‘housewification’ has become the main method to subjugate any identity. When we speak of the first colony, our interpretation is based on this, and our interpretation continues to conclude that the first colony and the last colony are closely related, which implies that social liberation is connected to the ending of this last colony. The hegemonic global system, which is strongly patriarchal, is based on the colonization of women. Our conceptualization of women as the first colonized nation is based on such a reflection,” Sîma said, paraphrasing again Abdullah Öcalan.

According to Sîma, academies seem to be best fitted spaces to develop the expression of “our own ways of knowing, which have been rendered invisible in mainstream science and its different practices.” She says this is why “there is a need to build our revolution through a knowledge which is freed from occupation and colonization and make sure that this knowledge is produced outside of positivist sciences.” According to her, the way to ensure this is to “produce from our experience knowledge and share it with the broader society, that is why we see academies as a well-fitted format to produce this knowledge.”

Zozan Sîma thinks they can “erase all hierarchies and dogmas structurally fixed within the mainstream sciences” within the academy framework. This, in turn, will further enable them to “develop the curricula of Jineolojî independently, collect different knowledges, and register different ways of knowing.” She argues that the Kurdish movement’s experiences led it to decide on its method for the revolution, and their own experiences of education within the movement had led them “to establish these academies for Jineolojî.”

Sîma confirms the description of Jineolojî as the science of women, saying, “[it] is not a wrong description, but meanings we give to being women are multiple.” She states that constructing women’s knowledge is at the core of jineolojî and pursues her argument further, saying, “important thing hereby is, we don’t consider the identity of women as a biological one.”

For the system to reproduce existing social relations, sexism’s influence in society is considered a decisive one. In the field of sciences, Jineolojî sees the same “overwhelming impact of sexism.” According to Sîma, this is why jineolojî “plays a key role” in the struggle against the influence of sexism in “our higher education” but also in academia in general.

“This is an unimaginable political gain for the women’s movement,” says Sîma. “Our revolution made a dream come true: Educating our children against sexism and its influences.”

Knowing is “Xwebûn”

The new building of the University of Kobanê has a quote on its entrance: “zanîn xwebûn e, xwebûn hebûn e,” meaning “knowing is being oneself, being oneself is existing.” The relation conceived between knowledge and xwebûn—being oneself—is crucial for universities in the NES. The universities engage in processes of self-analysis to ensure that their foundationally anti-colonial perspectives are reproduced continuously. A research project called Project Xwebûn is part of this societal engagement and has been going for eight years at universities in the NES. A member of the research team working on the project, Leyla Ebdo, points out the importance of redefining the very concept of knowledge and producing and democratizing knowledge, especially as it concerns the “political subjectification” of individuals and the continuous application of alternatives.

“These processes and their socio-political effects, how they affect individuals, have hardly been investigated. That is why the Xwebûn Project is vital for understanding development and assessing our universities’ role in social change. To see what was implemented successfully, to redefine, democratize, and decolonize knowledge and the ways of knowing,” says Ebdo.

This self-analysis project calls for the participation of students and teaching staff to secure the decolonization of research processes. It is done through a method of dialogical meetings that is geared toward avoiding euro-centric influences. According to Ebdo, “not only the philosophy of the research […], but also the methods to conduct the project will be decided upon in an internal dialog between the teaching staff and students.”

Ebdo finds it important to secure expertise and, at the same time, “academic solidarity.”

“We want to have an external dialogue with academics with expertise,” she says. “We see it as an act of solidarity.”

Footnotes

1. Jineolojî is the science of woman and life, proposed by Ocalan. ︎
2. Şahîn Oso, a member of the Educational Committee of DAANES from Kobanê, gave these numbers during an earlier interview with the author. ︎
3. Japan is often mentioned as the only country outside the Western sphere that was able to industrialize successfully because it had never been colonized. ︎
4. As conceptualized by Abdullah Ocalan, capitalist modernity is the ideological, cultural, and social project that dominates and colonizes contemporary human imagination. In the same discourse, liberalism as a European ideology is a pillar of capitalist modernity, seemingly tolerating different views but monopolizing the claim to truth and judgment over good and evil. Ocalan sees it as the worst anti-society ideology. He proposes to strengthen democratic modernity to encounter capitalist modernity (2020). ︎
5. Scientism is the view that science and scientific methods are the only way to render the truth about the world and reality. The way Ocalan criticizes scientism can be read from this sentence: “The nation-state’s second most important eclectic ideology is positivist scientism [The first one being liberalism]. It is the ideological source closest to nationalism. They foster one another. Its founder, Auguste Comte, explicitly wanted to construct positivism as a secular, universal religion.” (Ocalan 2020) ︎
6. Actors of the Rojava Revolution refer to the struggle for regime change in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East in 2011 and 2012 not as the “Arab Spring” but as the “Spring of the Peoples,” highlighting that in many of those countries, the concerned population was all but homogenous. ︎

Sources

Al Ahmad, Samer. 2023. Education under strain in Al-Hasakeh Governorate: Disjointed Curricula and Political Antagonism Impact Civilians. Berlin: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Alfaisal, Haifa Saud. 2011. “Indigenous Epistemology and the Decolonisation of Postcolonialism” in Studies in Social & Political Thought, Volume 19 Summer 2011.

Mudimbe, Valentin-Yves. 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Ndofirepi, Amasa P. The African University in the Neoliberal Era: In Pursuit of Socially Just Knowledge in the 21st Century. In: Decolonizing African University Knowledge,

Volume 2: Challenging the Neoliberal Mantra (edited by Ndofirepi et al.) New York and London: Routledge. Pp 32-50.

Ocalan, Abdullah. 2007. Prison Writings: The Roots of Civilisation. London: Pluto Press. 2020. Sociology of Freedom: Manifesto of the Democratic Civilization 3. Oakland: PM Press.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples

Even though the necessary outcry by environmental and climate movements to stop the ecological catastrophe that unfolds in the Middle East is missing, slowly the silence is breaking. In this context, Fridays For Future made a step to uncover the Turkish politics with a video they shared on their social platform .

Since the video offers a quite good sum up of the wide impact the war on nature and water has for the region of the Middle East, we find it worth sharing:

“While we struggle to limit the climate crisis and ecological disaster, the Turkish state is actively destroying nature and ecosystems in one of the most fertile regions of the planet,” Friday for Future said. They also accused Turkish policies of disrupting indigenous communities, making it increasingly difficult for them to live in harmony with their environment.

The Fertile Crescent, which covers parts of present-day Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, is known for its rich biodiversity and agricultural potential. Historically, the region was a cradle of early civilization and is considered crucial to global ecological health.

The Fridays For Future network showed their solidarity with the struggle for ecological change before with messages for the Fridays For Future Group in Qamişlo, North-East Syria.

These are important initiatives to create awareness on the devastating attacks on nature and the effects they will have on the region. Still it is relevant to strengthen the protest against Turkeys Ecocide to be able to make the needed steps to stop it.

A crowdfunding is underway to rebuild the Amude Cinema in Rojava. The old cinema was destroyed in a fire in 1960. The project is promoted by the Rojava Film Commune, a collective of filmmakers who have been working since 2015 to promote the visual arts in the autonomous region of Rojava/North-East Syria. In Italy, the campaign for the reconstruction of cinema is promoted by Ya Basta Bologna in collaboration with Un Ponte per, ARCI and UIKI Onlus.

The city of Amude has a population of just over 56,000 inhabitants, mostly Kurds, a large Arab minority and a significant presence of Assyrian citizens. The Amude cinema was the only one in the region, destroyed in a terrible fire in 1960.

The city of Amude and the tragic history of the old cinema

The cinema fire in Amude is a tragedy deeply rooted in the memory of Kurdish society. It was 13 November 1960, when hundreds of students were led to the only cinema in the city of Amude, the Şehrazad, for the screening of the Egyptian film “The Midnight Ghost”. The Ba’athist regime had ordered a “week of solidarity” with the struggle for Algeria’s independence from France and collected donations for the “Algerian brothers”.

Therefore, in Amude, all students had to attend the screening of the film, paying the relevant entrance fee. The film had already been screened several times without concerns about overcrowding. The cinema had a maximum capacity of 200 seats, but that day well over 400 children sat in the auditorium. The authorities had been warned of the dangers due to the cinema’s poor safety, but they decided to continue. During that screening, the room was invaded by a fire whose flames quickly spread up to the wooden truss of the ceiling, covered in straw and mud. In the escape through narrow doors inadequate for evacuation, 282 children between the ages of eight and fourteen died.

The new Amude cinema

Reconstructing the cinema Amude means contributing to the construction of a collective memory of the peoples and cultures living in the city and more generally in Northern and Eastern Syria, as well as keeping alive the memory of the many children whose lives were interrupted on 13 November 1960.

The new cinema will be designed and conceived as a safe, welcoming and multipurpose place of art, culture and aggregation.

Thanks to the experience and not only professional ties that many of us have intertwined for years with the Kurdish community and with the Rojava Film Commune, expressed in 2022 through a traveling film festival of which three stages took place in the city of Mantua, last year, a project was born for the reconstruction of the historic cinema Amude, supported by the “New Amude Cinema” Committee.

Guided by the principles of environmental sustainability, the volunteer architects involved in drafting the project will take care of the concept and follow the construction of the structure, guaranteeing safety, comfort and full accessibility for people with disabilities.

Capacity, flooring, energy-saving lighting, and a multiporpuse stage will be designed in detail for a space capable of hosting presentations, conferences and theatrical activities.

Not only events, but also a daily workshop and artistic residency activity, with rehearsal rooms and equipment, open to girls and adults.

The project, funded by Germany’s State Office for Development (LEZ) and implemented in collaboration with a town twinning partnership between Berlin’s Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and North and East Syria’s Dêrik, aims to enhance access to clean water for approximately 5,000 residents.

Construction began in early June and the well is equipped with a photovoltaic system to power its water pump, demonstrating a commitment to renewable energy solutions. An engineer from the local water authority oversaw the project with support from Make Rojava Green Again (MRGA), a group which coordinated activities and ensured community engagement.

Initial delays were caused by heavy rainfall and logistical challenges in transferring funds to the region, exacerbated by limited access to financial services. However, with steadfast support from LEZ and proactive efforts by local partners, these obstacles were overcome, enabling the project’s successful completion.

The construction of the solar-powered water well in Dêrik contrasts sharply with ongoing challenges faced by the Kurdish-led autonomous region in Syria. According to documentation from the Rojava Information Centre (RIC), Turkey has systematically targeted electricity infrastructure through regular airstrikes. These attacks, coupled with existing embargoes, severely disrupt maintenance efforts and pose long-term obstacles to infrastructure development.

Such challenges highlight the importance of initiatives promoting self-sufficiency and renewable energy sources in Kurdish-led areas. Projects supported by international solidarity groups not only address immediate needs but also underscore resilience and sustainability in the face of adversity.

While the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria is working on alternative and sustainable ways of energy management for years already, after the airstrikes carried out by Turkey in the winter of 2023/24 and the consequent destruction of power stations and basic infrastructure, the strive for new sustainable ways got even more intense. These are being put in practice by different institutions and organizations involved in the revolution collectively. Also as Make Rojava Green Again we want to contribute to this common effort, and together with the Citypartnership Berlin-Kreuzberg & Dêrik and the municipality of Dêrik we are working on construction of solar panels to operate a well for drinking water.

While there is a need for energy in different sections of society, water supply is one of the basic needs, especially during the hot summers.

Compared to other cities and regions of North-East Syria, the water resources are quite good in Dêrik, which is due to its location close to the mountains of Northern and Southern Kurdistan. While the whole region is affected by the anti-water politics of Turkey, that systematically dries out the rivers that flow from North-Kurdistan to Rojava, the region around Dêrik, in the South of the mountain Cûdî, is quite resilient.

What is it important to know, is that since the war against ISIS, the occupation of Efrîn and Serekanî and the ongoing political and military unrest in other parts of Syria, a lot of people fled to the city of Dêrik, being very remote from the effected areas. This led to the growth of the city and the increase of its population. This also has effected the water supply of the city in general. The growth of the city reaches also quarters which are relatively high, here the natural water pressure is not enough to fill the water tanks of the houses and electrical pumps are needed to pump the water.

This is usually done with diesel generators. Obviously, these are en masse harmful for the environment as well as for the health people living in their surrounding. But more than this, the Diesel to operate these generators has become increasingly expensive since the last airstrikes carried out by the Turkish state on the civil infrastructure such as oil refineries. One solution for these problems are wells that are operated by solar panels.

The municipality of Dêrik already built such solar-powered wells in one of the central quarters of the town and in this sense Dêrik became also an example for the region. Inspired by this, the Citypartnership Berlin-Kreuzberg & Dêrik started a new project to build a Solarwell in one of the fastest growing city quarters of Dêrik. The Water institution of the Municipality and Make Rojava Green Again are coordinating the project on site and are responsible for regular communication between all the subjects involved, maintain contact with the communes and ensure that the population is regularly informed.

By now, the end of June, the foundation as well as the scaffolding for the solar panels have been already constructed.

The implementation of solar energy faces difficulties especially because of high import taxes, which are consciously imposed by the authorities that control the borders of the region, mainly the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDP), which claims to be a Kurdish party but approaches the progress made in Rojava, by the Kurds and the other populations of the region, with hostility. To push forward sustainable energy resources in spite of these hardships, projects like this alongside with the campaign Solardarity are very important attempts.

Editors’ Note [from Strange Matters]: We are extremely proud to announce this essay as the first in a long series by our Middle East correspondent Arthur Pye, to be published over the course of the next year or so, about his journey to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), better known across the world as Rojava. This libertarian socialist experiment, established in the middle of one of the world’s most brutal and politically complex war zones, has tried to build a new social order rooted in feminism, ecology, direct democracy, and cooperative self-management of industry. It has survived confrontations against two separate forms of fascism and the evolving schemes and counter-schemes of the imperialist great powers that dominate the region. AANES provides a home for refugees and an island of stability in a country torn to pieces by the civil war that followed President Bashar al-Assad’s suppression of the 2011 Arab Spring revolution in Syria. But the revolution is not without its problems and limitations, which Pye will explore in a series of essays exploring the war front, the deliberative councils, the feminist spaces, the military, the factions, and the economy of this nascent society beyond the state where millions of people have lived under a form of revolutionary self-government for over ten years. We expect the series to consist of around ten parts and to be published over the course of the coming months. In the meantime, readers interested in learning more about the Rojava Revolution from the point of view of its participants might want to check out Azize Aslan’s Anticapitalist Economy in Rojava: The Contradictions of Revolution in the Kurdish Struggles (2023), which one of our editors partially translated.

~

“So…” she began, “what do you think of the revolution?” I quickly opted for another sip of çay.¹ How could I begin to answer such a question? And coming from Newroz Ahmed of all people – the general commander of the Women’s Defense Units (YPJ). In a matter of hours, if all went as planned, I would be crossing the Tigris River from Syria back into Iraq, making my way home to the United States. After a year in Rojava, what did I have to say for myself? 

Heval² Newroz exemplified the kind of confidence typical of so many revolutionaries I met in Rojava. And why shouldn’t she? After all, she is something of a legend: a Kurdish woman who grew up in Syria under the double-oppression of the Assad dictatorship and a brutally patriarchal society; who went on to help found a revolutionary women’s army and lead it to victory in the war against ISIS; who now served as that army’s highest commander; both a symbol and spokesperson of Rojava’s democratic revolution. But no, that’s not the kind of confidence I’m talking about. Nor would she ever tolerate such self-aggrandizement. Hers is the simple confidence of someone who knows in her bones that freedom is possible, and has whole-heartedly dedicated her life to its realization. 

Like any real revolution, it was a mess of contradictions. Many starry-eyed western radicals have traveled to Rojava only to become disillusioned by this realization. Some arrive desperate to see the society of their dreams; a place where oppression has been eliminated and all people are flourishing equally in their newfound liberation. What they find is a society neck-deep in problems, where many of the revolution’s aspirations stand in sharp contrast to the harsh realities of life in Syria. 

I encountered this quality most often in women, and it struck me from the moment I arrived. Such people moved through the world with a subtle smirk on their face, like they knew a secret that couldn’t be explained, only experienced. The movement even has a name for it: “revolutionary personality.” There are, of course, those who fake it. But when the real thing walks into the room, there’s no denying its presence. It was both inspiring and strangely unsettling.

I drank my tea slowly, desperate for something intelligent to say as a year’s worth of memories flashed through my mind. Was it really time to leave already? I thought back to the moment I first arrived. When my new friends greeted me with a simple “welcome to Rojava,” I felt an electrifying sense of possibility. My journal entry for the day simply reads: “I have arrived.” I meant it in every sense of the word. 

Over the following months I would travel to villages and refugee camps across the region: to neighborhood communes, worker cooperatives, community centers, and autonomous women’s structures, as well as military positions on the frontlines with the fascist Turkish army and its Islamist proxies. I would spend time with committed revolutionaries (seasoned fighters, community organizers, movement leaders), as well everyday people from all walks of life. By any practical measure it was a year rich in experiences. But Rojava had a way of leaving you with more questions than answers. It was a place where no assumption went unchallenged and the more you learned, the less you seemed to know. Now, as the sun began to set on my last day in Rojava, I knew I had barely scratched the surface. 

Finding Rojava

The decision to travel to Syria was hardly a quick one, but the seed was planted from the moment I first heard about the revolution. 

I’ll never forget the day in late 2014, riding in a car full of activists on our way to support striking oil refinery workers. By joining their picket line, we hoped to build solidarity between environmentalists and the labor movement. We had a shared enemy in the oil company, which treated its workers like it treated the planet – as an expendable resource to be exploited for profit. Why not unite forces against the whole capitalist system and build something new in its place? It seemed so simple, yet so far from reach. Whether we admitted it or not, our revolutionary ideals often felt far removed from the daily reality of our organizing. A protest here. Some civil disobedience there. Another world may have been possible, but how could we actually get there? As we debated strategy on the long drive north, someone butted in: “Have you guys heard about what’s happening in Syria right now?! It’s like the fucking Spanish Revolution all over again! The Kurdish people fighting ISIS are building a stateless feminist society based on local assemblies! They’re reading Bookchin,³ but they’re actually doing it!” 

I remember feeling skeptical. “Really?”, I thought to myself. It all sounded too good to be true. Looking into it further, my computer screen flooded with images of Kurdish revolutionaries, many of them women, courageously riding into battle with their bright floral scarves and AK-47s. It all had a sprinkling of propaganda in it, to be sure. The images had been consciously cultivated by a movement desperate for international support. But there was an underlying truth that shone through, even for a skeptical onlooker like myself. Something transformational was happening.

It wasn’t their apparent readiness to face death that struck me the most, but how full of life they seemed. They looked like they knew what they were fighting for. They may have been thrust into combat by necessity, but they weren’t fighting to defend what existed before. They were fighting for the chance to build something new. 

It didn’t take me long to realize that amid the seemingly senseless chaos of the Syrian Civil War, the most important social revolution of the twenty-first century was taking place. As the country descended into sectarian violence, Kurdish revolutionaries had stepped into a power vacuum left by the government’s retreat, building a radical new grassroots democracy in its place. Guided by a revolutionary political program known as democratic confederalism, the movement began organizing local communities not only to defend themselves, but to govern themselves. 

By the middle of 2012, a sizable region comprising the Kurdish-majority north had officially declared itself autonomous, establishing a new society explicitly committed to direct democracy, women’s liberation, multiculturalism, socialism, and ecology. In newly liberated cities and villages, the movement started building thousands of direct-democratic neighborhood communes, local councils, and workers’ cooperatives, federating them together from the local to the regional level. In accordance with Rojava’s new social contract, women were asserting a level of institutionalized political power and participation unprecedented even in the West. At every level of governance, women were guaranteed at least 40% representation⁴ and all positions of leadership were held jointly by two co-chairs – one woman and one man. In addition to this, women everywhere formed their own autonomous organizations to protect each other, educate each other, and assert their rights. This included, most famously, the YPJ (Women’s Protection Units), an all-women’s army which fought alongside the mixed-gender YPG (People’s Protection Units). 

Needless to say, this movement was not without its enemies. ISIS set its sights on Rojava early on, rightly seeing it as a direct threat to its Islamo-fascist aspirations. When it threatened genocide against Kurds and Yezidis,⁵ the YPG/YPJ led an historical resistance, turning its forces around at Kobane and Sinjar. In cooperation with a US-led international coalition, they went on to lead the ground war that culminated in the Islamic State’s territorial defeat, losing roughly 12,000 fighters in the process.  

In addition to ISIS, Rojava also faced constant aggression from the Turkish state, continuing to this day. Seeing Kurdish autonomy as a threat to its ethno-nationalist project, Turkey launched a series of invasions resulting in the ongoing occupations of Afrin, Serekaniyê, and Girê Spî,⁶ as well as a relentless stream of human rights abuses that continue to this day. As I write these words, Turkey is threatening yet another such invasion, as it bombs the region’s civilian infrastructure including power plants, food and water facilities, and even hospitals.⁷

Origins of the Revolution

However libertarian in spirit, the Rojava revolution was hardly a spontaneous affair. Their new revolutionary political system was the culmination of a decades-long struggle waged by the Kurdish freedom movement. Its origins date back to the 1970s, with the founding of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey. This moment was preceded by a long history of oppression and resistance since European powers first imposed borders in the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The process resulted in the creation of the countries now known as Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. These new nation-states were all formed around dominant nationalist identities which, by definition, excluded the Kurdish people. With no state of their own, Kurds living in these countries faced violent and systematic marginalization, often prohibited from speaking their language or even acknowledging their own existence as a people. In this context, the PKK was founded on the assertion that the Kurds were a colonized people in need of national liberation. Originally a Marxist-Leninist movement in the classic sense, they launched an armed insurgency against the Turkish government in the mid 1980s with the goal of creating an independent Kurdish state. 

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the movement began a period of profound ideological transformation, which accelerated dramatically following the capture of the PKK’s founding leader, Abdullah Öcalan, in 1999. After a period of intense study and self-critical reflection, Öcalan authored a series of books from prison charting a new course for the movement, which became known as democratic confederalism. In a dramatic turn, he presented a sweeping critique of the nation-state as an inherently oppressive monopoly of power which “domesticates society in the name of capitalism.”⁸ He advocated instead for a “non-state democratic nation” where “society governs itself” and “all societal groups and cultural identities can express themselves.”⁹ Influenced in no small part by the work of American political philosopher Murray Bookchin, he now urged the people of civil society to organize themselves into grassroots local institutions which could be woven together into a broader regional autonomy. If Kurds wanted to truly liberate their homeland, they would have to democratize Kurdistan from the ground up – village by village, block by block. 

Central to this new paradigm was the idea that patriarchy, as “the oldest form of slavery,” was the foundation on which all other forms of oppression had been built. Through this lens, capitalism and the nation-state could be understood as “the dominant male in its most institutionalized form.” “Without gender equality,” Öcalan wrote, “no demand for freedom and equality can be meaningful.” The only solution was “a radical woman’s revolution” that would take place not only in society at large, but as “a revolution within the revolution.”¹⁰

As fate would have it, the Syrian conflict presented the movement’s first opportunity to put these principles into practice on a large scale. The results were dramatic. In a country where Kurds and other non-Arab minorities had been systematically stripped of their rights, Kurdish children now attended school in their mother tongue, and all communities celebrated their cultures openly. In a society where women had been forced into marriage, confined to their homes, and frequently subjected to sexual violence, they could now participate directly in every institution of society, whether attending school, organizing their neighbors, or taking up arms to defend the revolution. In place of the all-powerful and centralized Syrian state, local communities were now free to govern themselves democratically through the federated communes and councils of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES),or the Self-Administration for short, which now constitutes a third of Syrian territory and is home to nearly 5 million people.¹¹

It could hardly be denied. A major social transformation was taking place; a revolution no less significant than the “great revolutions” of the twentieth century. Rojava was indeed the Spain of our time, and somehow, I knew I had to go. 

With My Own Eyes

Sitting there with Heval Newroz, my mind shuffled furiously through the memories: the meetings and marches, the celebrations and funerals, the singing and dancing; the communal meals, the measureless miles of roads and checkpoints, the countless Kalashnikovs, the golden fields of wheat, the oil derricks, the flags, the graffiti, the infinite variations of yellow, red, and green, the piles of gray rubble that used to be buildings, the underground tunnels, the distant (and not-so-distant) sound of artillery and machine-gun fire, the buzz of drones overhead, the heat, the cold, the boredom, the frustration, the joy, the excitement, the omnipresent smell of tea and cigarettes, and the thousands of conversations that accompanied it. 

I thought back to the first council meeting I attended in Shehba Canton. Thirty people had gathered, men and women, young and old, all representing the various committees of the village – from Health and Education to Logistics and Community Defense. My journal entry from that day reads as follows: 

Today, I finally saw it. It works! The community was truly governing itself. The council meeting today, in all its tedious and mundane glory, was the highlight of my time here. People were coming together, taking responsibility for their community, sharing, discussing, criticizing, debating, deciding…As I listened to their reports and proposals, something many people would probably find boring, I felt goosebumps. If I never see another structure in Rojava, after today I can at least say with confidence that democratic confederalism can work, because I saw it with my own eyes.

If there was one impression in my cluttered mind that still shone through with clarity, it was this. People can govern themselves. I had seen it up-close, and I could never unsee it. 

In his foreword to the book Revolution in Rojava, the late David Graeber lamented that “many ostensible revolutionaries nowadays seem to have secretly abandoned the idea that a revolution is actually possible.” He tauntingly dubbed this group “the Loser Left.”

For many of these leftists the problem is not so much the fear of losing, but rather of winning: of the messiness and responsibility that comes with achieving any degree of power. To protect their own sense of purity, some would rather carve out a comfortable niche for themselves as a permanent fixture of opposition, than to dirty their hands with the possibility of victory. 

For others, though, the world simply feels hopeless. Ours is an age of crisis and cynicism. The problems we face, from ecological collapse to rising fascism, feel almost inescapable. Confronted with this reality, many leftists have limited their efforts to one or another form of “pragmatic” reformism, symbolic “activism,” or cathartic acts of “resistance.” Rebellion, maybe. But revolution? Not a chance. 

Above all else, Rojava’s greatest significance may be as a counterpoint to this cynicism – as living proof that revolution is indeed still possible in the twenty-first century. Its continued existence serves as a reminder that every crisis represents not only threats, but opportunities. This lesson could hardly be more relevant today, as we find ourselves in a time of unprecedented crisis and instability. As the prevailing world system weakens, cracks are opening up where the left – not to mention the right – can push for radical alternatives. Rojava serves as an example of how a well-organized revolutionary movement can insert itself into these cracks at the right moment and open a door to new, emancipatory possibilities. But in order to do that, we have to believe in the possibility of an alternative in the first place. 

The Kurdish freedom movement has a saying: “Hope is more precious than victory.” For them, hope is the very ground on which a revolutionary movement is built; something to be kept alive at all cost. If we define hope as the simple belief in another possible future, we have no choice but to see it as indispensable. We can recover from defeat, but not from hopelessness.

In a time when capitalism threatens to drag humanity off a cliff and fascists the world over are vying for power, hope is not only a choice – it is a responsibility of any principled leftist. Cynicism is a luxury we simply can no longer afford. 

I once asked a foreign YPG volunteer why he had come to Syria to fight: “Rojava created hope,” he told me. “Today a lot of people are hopeless. Even revolutionaries. They say ‘we’ll fight but there’s not actually any hope of making real changes.’ Rojava showed that it’s still possible.”

As I faced the reality of returning home, I felt especially grateful for this lesson. If nothing else, Rojava had left me with a newfound sense of revolutionary possibility that could no longer be shaken.  

But What About the Problems?

I struggled to convey all this to Heval Newroz – the hope, the possibility, the gratitude. As we sat together on the floor, sharing tea and conversation, it felt like a small answer to her gigantic question. She smiled generously, but seemingly unsatisfied. “That’s great,” she said, “but what about the problems? What are your criticisms?” 

I was reminded of my own cynicism. She wasn’t testing my loyalty. Nor did she see our meeting as a formal courtesy before my departure. She saw it as an opportunity for us both to learn something. To do so would require more than praise and gratitude, however genuine. It would require honesty, not only about the revolution’s strengths, but about its many shortcomings. 

Contrary to the picture painted by some of the revolution’s most loyal enthusiasts, the Rojava I came to know was far from a utopia. Like any real revolution, it was a mess of contradictions. Many starry-eyed western radicals have traveled to Rojava only to become disillusioned by this realization. Some arrive desperate to see the society of their dreams; a place where oppression has been eliminated and all people are flourishing equally in their newfound liberation. What they find is a society neck-deep in problems, where many of the revolution’s aspirations stand in sharp contrast to the harsh realities of life in Syria. 

Upon encountering this reality up close, most internationalists quickly lose any romantic notions of utopia that may have accompanied them across the river. For some, their idealized expectations reveal themselves as hopelessness in a hidden form; a fetishization of the unattainable. From there one has to make a choice: either reject the revolution for its failure to live up to your own expectations, or open yourself to a more expansive understanding of what a revolution is in the first place – a dynamic process where contradictions between transformation and survival, structure and consciousness, leadership¹² and masses, all live in a state of constant tension and delicate balance.  

If one could wrestle with these contradictions, Rojava presented invaluable opportunities for learning. It was a living laboratory of revolution where new institutions were being built and experimented with; where critical lessons were being learned in real time as the movement faced the kinds of challenges any real-life revolution must ultimately confront. 

Revolution at the Speed of Consciousness 

One of the most striking problems I encountered was the uneven development of public consciousness and participation. One often flowed from the other. Forming structures of local self-governance was one thing. But getting people to see themselves as responsible for their own community, and for the revolution, proved another thing altogether. In most communities, the speed of structural change had far outpaced changes in public consciousness. 

This presents a unique challenge for any movement attempting to transcend the state. In a statist revolution the question of structure is primary. The will of the people matters only insofar as it affects the power of the state. But if the goal itself is for power and initiative to flow from the bottom upward, then as a rule the revolution can only proceed at the speed of popular consciousness. For a community to truly govern itself, a critical mass of its people need to want to govern themselves in the first place, and they need to share some fundamental assumptions about what that means and why it is important. True democracy cannot be given – it can only be practiced. It has meaning and substance only insofar as it flows from the people themselves. Nowhere is this truism better demonstrated than in Rojava.  

“Armed struggle is the easy part,” a community organizer named Baran once told me. “To pick up a gun and go to the front is simple. What’s difficult is to organize society, to build a new system.” Many movement veterans were eager to point out that the conditions for a successful revolution were largely absent in 2012. The advent of civil war had made revolution possible, necessary even, but the stage was nonetheless set for serious challenges. “The revolution was rushed, and this led to many shortcomings,” Baran confessed. “We were starting at zero. The people were generally not ready for it.” 

The liberation of territory had opened up new physical and political space for society to “govern itself,” as Öcalan had envisioned. But success in realizing this possibility would require convincing the region’s diverse communities to adopt the values and ideas of democratic confederalism as their own – no small task. Unsurprisingly, the communes generally took hold the strongest in Kurdish communities where the movement had been organizing for decades. Outside these areas, especially in Arab-majority regions, many communes struggled to foster and maintain participation. Some existed in name but not in substance. 

Religious and ethnic divides, violent and patriarchal tribal structures, conservative social values, and sectarian political allegiances all presented serious obstacles to democratic confederalism. On top of this, the conditions of endless war and economic embargo created a climate of fear, mistrust, and material insecurity contributing to a slow attrition of public engagement. In Baran’s words: “The enemy has colonized the mind of the colonized. Sectarian violence has been normalized. Many people still reject education and they’re afraid to participate.” 

Revolutionaries often expressed this sentiment. Beyond the revolution’s loyal supporters was a general public too often stuck in internalized patterns of passivity, patriarchy, and prejudice – all manifestations of what the movement refers to as a “state mentality,”¹³ that is, one that both accepts and perpetuates domination. Hence the movement’s emphasis on the importance of popular education, best exemplified in the mantra “Perwerde, perwerde, perwerde!” (“Education, education, education!”), repeated daily by people leading political education workshops throughout society. “We have to bring them together as human beings. We have to organize them,” Baran insisted. “It’s very difficult, but we have no choice.”

As I shared my thoughts on these issues with Heval Newroz, I caught myself reassuring her that I knew these were not simple problems with simple solutions; that of course the movement had inherited an almost impossible situation. 

She paused for a moment. “Is that it? Nothing else? No other criticisms?” She was challenging me to dig deeper. In Kurdish revolutionary culture, couching your criticism in a compliment or an excuse is seen as a sign of dishonesty and liberalism. It should instead be treated as a gift, as something essential. “Be direct,” her tone seemed to suggest. 

So I brought up the economy, and how concerned I was that so many people were still struggling to meet their basic needs. Gains had certainly been made in the overall standard of living (relative to other parts of Syria), but the Self-Administration’s limited price controls, subsidies, and labor unions had proven insufficient in addressing material inequality. While the movement was making a concerted effort to build a “social economy” through the creation of worker cooperatives, after ten years of revolution these new anticapitalist enterprises still represented only a marginal part of the overall economy. Despite redistribution of property previously owned by the regime, much of the economy remained in the control of wealthy local landlords and employers. 

Rojava’s economic strategy seemed less about transforming the existing economy and more about introducing new cooperative forms alongside the old. In this sense the “social economy” was contending with the capitalist economy more in terms of moral legitimacy than in terms of real power. If new breakthroughs could not be made, I worried that these shortcomings, along with the continued prioritization of the war economy, could contribute to a slow backsliding away from socialism and erode support for the revolution among the general population.

I also raised concerns about public engagement. In many places people were hardly participating in their communes, and the higher councils of the administration ended up functioning (however reluctantly) as a de facto state, even if out of necessity. In this context, the Asayish (internal security forces) in a particular community could be accountable to the people only at those administrative levels where the councils were actually functioning, making them a de facto police force which reproduced aspects of state power. Democratic confederalism required initiative to flow from the bottom upwards. If the movement failed to foster more public engagement from the base, these problems could eventually pose a serious threat to the integrity of the revolution.

Ultimately these problems were not separate, but compounding. The lack of participation was only made worse by the economic insecurity most families continued to face. For direct-democracy to truly take hold in society, people would need to experience the revolution not only as an opportunity for political engagement, but as a vehicle for materially improving the conditions of their own lives. As long as people struggled to meet their basic needs, only the movement’s most loyal converts could be counted on to actively and consistently participate.  

She smiled in mournful agreement. “I share these concerns as well,” she said. “We have a long way to go to accomplish our goals. But we’re talking about a [state] system that has existed for five thousand years. The revolution has existed for only ten. We have many shortcomings, but until our people can become more conscious and self-organized these problems will not be solved. The most important war we are fighting is the war against ourselves, against our own mentalities, against centuries of oppression. People have to come to see that they are the autonomous administration. It’s going to take a long time.”

Find Your Own Way

Rojava has much to teach us, if we only open ourselves to its complexity. I went there in search of a real-life libertarian socialist revolution. What I found was different from what I read about in books; it was messier and more human than I ever imagined. Like the people who gave it reality, it was flawed, but it was also alive. 

The experience challenged me to question my own assumptions about what a revolution actually entails. How do we define a free society? What are the characteristics of an effective revolutionary movement? What is it that unites people and spurs them into action? What are the challenges every successful revolution must face? What are the inherent limitations in a given set of conditions? How do you respond to a power vacuum without becoming a state? How do you democratize a society where oppressive social values are dominant? How do you make necessary compromises while maintaining your integrity? How do you address internal power dynamics like gender, while maintaining the broader unity of your movement? How do you balance the sometimes competing needs of transformation and survival? 

Most of these questions were left unanswered. But more often than not, asking the right questions was more fruitful than finding the “correct” answers. Perhaps therein lies the lesson. After all, the revolution would never have been possible if the Kurdish freedom movement had not been willing to question their previous assumptions in the first place. If movements in the West want to learn from their example, we can start by asking ourselves the same kinds of questions. 

With this series, I hope to make my own small contribution to this task. Over the course of a year, I traveled from one end of Syria to the other, talking with people who work every day to make Rojava’s revolution a reality. By sharing our conversations, along with my own observations, I hope to bring to life both the revolution’s accomplishments and its shortcomings, while searching for the kinds of lessons and unanswered questions that can challenge would-be revolutionaries in the West to improve their own theory and practice.  

As my conversation with Heval Newroz began to wind down, she asked me what I planned to do when I got home. “Many want to come to Rojava but cannot, so you have a duty to share your experience,” she said. “What is important to us is that when internationalists return to their homes that they continue the struggle in their own way, that they see this as their responsibility.”

I told her I wanted to help people in the West better understand the revolution, so that we could take lessons from it to strengthen our own movements. “Not everyone is up to such a task,” she said, “but it is a very important one.” I took it more as a challenge than as encouragement. “Take what you learned as an example. But you can’t just copy what we do here and try it in your own country. It won’t work. You have your own society, with your own history and culture. You have to find your own way.”

Arthur Pye is a writer and organizer based in the Pacific Northwest, as well as a member of the Emergency Committee for Rojava.

Due to the war conditions that the region has gone through for more than a decade, besides using all kinds of weapons that destructed the oil and gas facility causing the leakage of toxic substances and gases into the environment as well as other economic-industrial, socio-political, psycho-social factors, etc., in addition to the biological causes, all that led to increasing the rate of diseases, including serious diseases, like cancer which is danger to the whole society.

A frightening increase in cancer rates has been tracked recently in northern and eastern Syria/NES. However, the patients are facing a lot of difficulties like the siege on the region, the poor financial situation of travel costs, treatment and others. After conducting a study on cancer, the Kurdish Red Crescent Organisation/KRC/ decided to establish a hospital for tumours, burns and thalassemia in the city of Qamishlo although the capabilities are limited. The hospital was opened at the end of last year and the work started with giving some doses to patients and providing the medicines supervising by a medical team, specialised doctors, capable nurses and Lab team to conduct the necessary analyses. But the hospital still needs equipment to enable it providing medical service to the cancer, burns and thalassaemia patients well to cover the needs of the patients and provide early detection through periodic examination.

There is also an urgent need for Volunteer Doctors to join us and help, whether in treatment or giving training within the specialities (general surgery – vascular surgery – cosmetic and burns – tumours – thalassemia).

We appeal to all health international and humanitarian organisations and social figures to provide us with all the necessary needs like medical devices, medicines and other medical materials.

We also appeal good doctors for help by coming to the area and contributing to the treatment of patients and also training our medical staff in order to expand and develop the services, so they can meet the needs of the patients in the hospital.

Hoping that you do your humanitarian and moral duty towards the peoples of NES,

Kurdish Red Crescent, KRC – Heyva Sor A Kurd NGO
Headquarters: Kornish district – 12 Eben Hesham street, Al-Qamishli, Syria
Tell: +963 52 430 700 – email: info@hskurd.org – website: www.hskurd.org

RIC spoke to Berivan Hussain and Ciwan Hassan, the co-chairs of the people’s municipality of Derik, regarding the partnership.

What is your work?

Berivan: For two years I have been working in the municipality. In the municipality we are very connected to society: we provide services and help people to meet their everyday needs. There are different departments in the municipality, such as finance, cleaning or services. There is also a water department, whose work it is to check the wells of the city and secure water for the people.

Recently, we established new committees: the relations committee is now tasked to meet with people and find solutions for their problems. We established this committee after we realized that there was a gap in our work. The services department is in communication with the different services departments of the communes and – according to the resources – provides help where needed.

In general, we put a lot of emphasis on working with people: the existence of the municipality is connected to the existence of the people living here. The better we work together, the more can be achieved.

Can you talk about the agreement of cooperation between Berlin Friedrichshain- Kreuzberg and Derik? How did the city partnership come about and what is its purpose?

Berivan: When we first established the system of municipalities in 2014, there were attempts to create friendships with foreign municipalities. We sent out several letters.

In 2018, we reached an agreement with the city partnership association in Berlin Friedrichshain- Kreuzberg. Together, we have worked on the partnership. A committee from here, including the previous co-chairs of the municipality, visited them in Berlin. (Editor’s note: this delegation attended the official recognition of the partnership at Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg town hall in 2019) To prepare the city partnership a delegation from there visited us here: they visited our city, our regions, and saw the current situation of the region. We observed that the understanding of the people of Berlin regarding us have changed after this agreement. As a region, we face a constant misrepresentation in the media. But through these efforts and the files we sent to them, people’s understandings have changed.

Are there joint projects between the two of you?

Berivan: Some joint projects have been done. For example, in the beginning, communes were wanting to develop tree planting. Beans were distributed to communes. Some gardening things were done. We also started working on the Korneesh project together, which is a road from the hospital to the Azadi Square. So far, the project’s structure has been completed, including a plan to plant trees along the road.

Besides these projects, we joined forces to repair buildings that were damaged during the earthquake [6th of February, 2023]. A year ago, the earthquake damaged several locations. In our region for example, the sanitation was damaged and there were several damages in Qamishlo. Therefore, €10,000 was donated, in order to fix the sanitation system. This project helped the local people. It had a very big effect, especially considering that diseases can spread fast through bad sanitation systems, directly affecting the quality of life. Through donations from our city partnership we managed to fix the sanitation system. In November 2022, Turkish aerial attacks took place. Our city partners helped us out by collecting donations in order to fix the generators that operate the water wells. Through these donations a huge burden was taken off our shoulders, as the resources in our region – in NES generally and in Derik particularly – are limited. Through the €4,000 that was donated we managed to fix some of our generators.

Depending on the situation, we try to hold a meeting every few months together. According to both of our capacities we discuss which projects to work on together. In the last meeting another donation of €7,000 was announced. €6,000 was spent on buying two water pumps. While we received this money, Turkiye escalated its war on NES again [in October 2023]. (Editor’s note: the remaining €1000 was spent on renewing the town twinning signs at the entrances to Derik).

Currently, we are planning another project to slowly build up our solar energy capacities. We are hoping to start this project in May; approval from the German parliament (Editor’s note: after further research, the authorization comes from the German State Agency for Development Cooperation of Berlin (LEZ), not the parliament) and the Berlin Friedrichshain- Kreuzberg municipality are pending. The discussions and studies have been completed for this project. For some time now, the people of Derik have struggled to secure their water. The city center is lower than the outskirts of the city, thus the operating wells cannot reach all neighbourhoods. A year ago, a well was dug and is currently operated by generators. The generators are very bad for the environment, therefore the solar energy will be used to serve the people. The project was planned and prepared by engineers and experts. Besides these projects, we send regular updates on the local situation over. As you can see, we have done some great work and we are hoping to expand these efforts in the future: build up more city partnerships, for example between Qamishlo and Berlin. Furthermore, we want to develop more projects in the community sector. Examples could be to build up partnerships between sport teams or unions. For us, it is important to focus on connecting the people of both places, rather than solely the administrations.

What efforts are being made to share things about your system here to people in Berlin? 

Berivan: Some efforts are being made: we are hoping to send a local delegation to Berlin for example. Just like our partners from Berlin Friedrichshain- Kreuzberg visited us in Derik, we would like to visit them, explain our systems. During the visit from Berlin, people were surprised and impressed with our governance system. We built this system despite the constant attacks, like the destruction of civilian infrastructure. These attacks can be considered war crimes, as they go against international agreements not to attack civilian structures. Despite these attacks, the people here resist and they believe in our institutions. Many people are surprised at the people’s will to defend their home and rebuild their cities after every attack, but the people here have a very strong connection to their land.

What difficulties do you face?

Berivan: Besides financial difficulties, the regular attacks make daily work very hard. For example, we plan a project and all of a sudden, attacks start and our focus is forced to shift.

We also face financial problems: our budget is not enough to realize all projects. This shortage is partly influenced by the ongoing war. Moreover, many experts and more generally people who could bring great ideas and opinions, lack the enthusiasm to join our work. That said, we try our best to serve our people.

We are very grateful for the city partnership with Berlin Friedrichshain- Kreuzberg. We see their enthusiasm for this work, which in turn motivates us to do our work the best to our abilities. This is how we work in this region, and we are hoping to be an example for the whole world.

What is the importance of the partnership to you?

Ciwan: I have been the co-chair of the municipality for almost one year. The partnership with Berlin Friedrichshain- Kreuzberg is very important for us, as people from Derik. As people from NES, these partnerships and relationships give us a lot of morale and hope. Despite the war, which continuously destroys the facilities and services that people here need to survive, such agreements give us a lot of strength and fuel our resistance.

Regarding our city partnership work – we have not yet established a high-level cooperation, but we are coordinating and meetings are being held regularly. And they follow our local situation closely, we keep them informed about our projects and we discuss our upcoming projects together. We are very grateful for the projects they helped us to achieve, we really see their constant energy to help and support. And through their donations we could realize projects that helped the local people immensely, such as the sanitation project and the new water pumps.

As their support continues, our strength and morale increases.

What does your communication in times of attack look like?

Ciwan: We have an online chat, so that we can reach each other faster. Whenever something major happens, our partners get in touch with us. For us, this is important, as it shows their concern and connection to us. We see that they believe in what we are building up and that we are on their mind. All of this contributes to us evaluating our partnership as successful.

In regards to our system, I would like to share that we go to great lengths to implement our system under these difficult circumstances. With our limited resources, we have been able to form a community with diverse backgrounds and languages. The municipality takes a major role in our system, the system of democratic nations, and of the DAANES. With this system we try to serve society as best as possible.

Of course we face difficulties, mainly in the security aspect, but also due to low resources. Yet, we try our best. The quality of our work has been evaluated positively by our community. Our work is not an easy one, here in the municipality. The people who work here know this well; we carry a lot of responsibility. Despite the low resources, our determination and will to realize our projects makes a real difference. This is the main reason why I am participating in this work.

Some people are dissatisfied with our low resources, and it is our duty to explain to them the situation, which difficulties we face and what we can do. Similar to a war where people are resisting, it is important that we also resist. It is our work to meet the people’s needs, such as electricity and water – providing people’s everyday needs. Long-term projects are more difficult to implement so far, our main work is to meet people’s every-day needs.

This partnership gives strength not just to us in Derik, but to everyone in NES. We are very happy with the outcomes that have been achieved so far, and with the genuine friendship we are building up. We are open to forming more relationships like this. And so would other cities – for example in Qamishlo and Kobane there are attempts to build up similar partnerships. I am convinced that through these relationships with people’s municipalities, we take a step towards the freedom we are seeking and that this freedom will be fought for by the people, for the people.

Will there be any changes to your organizational system of the municipality with the new social contract? 

Ciwan: The new social contract will empower the councils and institutions. Our philosophy, the basis of the Autonomous Administration, is advanced and open and we consider it as a possible solution to the many problems in this world. Yet, on the practical level, we need to evaluate how much we can achieve, how much has been achieved and how many attempts we have had.

A lot of work has gone into the rewriting of the social contract. It was passed through all the blocks of the community, from the communes to all institutions. The opinions of all groups of society and all institutions were taken into account. On this basis, the contract is for the people, and through it, great steps will and have been taken. Its implementation will remove several difficulties for our work as well. We hope that through its implementation, we will not only change our way of working but the mentality of the people.

I would like to add one last thing. We are immensely appreciative for any support for NES and the Autonomous Administration. I want to finish by saying that we will fight for the formal recognition of the Autonomous Administration.

More Information can be found here.

The center Shehmaran, which is named after the king of snakes known for wisdom, health and bringing happiness from Kurdish mythology, was founded with the help of the organizations Strade, Casa degli Angeli di Daniele, the Free Women‘s Foundation in Syria WJAS, Kurdistan Hilfe e.V.

In this center, four women work on a voluntary basis to care for the population in the difficult circumstances of flight and for the refugees in the various camps, as well as the entire population. A nurse, a midwife and two specialists in naturopathy and physiotherapy currently work in the health center, which was founded specifically for women and children, but treats everyone who needs assistance.

While working among the trees we also have the chance to slow down our rhythm, and reconnect with the life around us. There is so much life that we (usually) don’t see. Beautiful butterflies, ants, worms and ladybugs, were walking here and there like in a small village, everyone working together. As Reber Apo said, observing life in its smallest form, we can understand the universe.
After many hours of work we cooked on the fire and drank çay together. Serhat told us about how his time was in the YPG, the resistance of Afrin, and how the life in the camp is now, where he lives with his family. They are together with many other families from Serekaniye.

While looking at the garden, and the fields around us, we cannot not think about what the Turkish State and it’s Islamist gangs are doing in Afrin and in all the occupied territories. Just a few days ago, another video showing bulldozers uprooting hundreds of olive trees in Afrin was shared. Up until now, more than one million trees have been cut or burned in the region. This ecological destruction is part of the larger war that Turkey is carrying out against the people of north and north-east Syria, on the economical, psychological, cultural, sanitary and military level. The cutting of the rivers’ flow or of it’s pollution, the bombing of infrastructure and the use of chemical weapons are all aspects of this war, along with the killing of civilians and targeting of people working within the Autonomous Administration, especially women.

But looking at this garden, at the fields and villages around, listening to the words of this friend, what most comes to our mind is the reason why, even among all these obstacles and difficulties, the Kurdish people and the people of north east Syria continue to resist: for a free and democratic life.

A life that is not something abstract or so far from the reality of the everyday, it’s in the way we, together, decide to live, to organize ourselves and our society.

What we learn from nature and from people living in harmony with it is that the land has not such division like the ones that state borders create.

As internationalists, the love for our land is also what moves us to struggle together with others, for the freedom of their land.

What the people of North-East Syria are trying to build up, under the name of Democratic Nation, is a space for freedom and democracy.

What we have learned from the people of this land is also the value of self defense, its deep meaning. Defending nature is self-defense, defending the land, the possibilities of life, the values, ones own culture and identity is self-defense.

Now it’s getting dark, for now the pruning work is finished, we are really satisfied and happy of the time spent with Serhat, and we are sure that next year our trees will grow even stronger.

The homes of al-Shahba district were severely damaged as a result of the earthquakes that struck areas in Bakur Kurdistan and areas of northern Syria during February of this year.

To remedy the matter, the local administration authority in Afrin and al-Shahba canton formed a committee to uncover the extent of the damage, and provided tents to families whose homes had become uninhabitable, in addition to demolishing homes that pose a threat to the lives of the people.

The Autonomous Administration of Afrin and al-Shahba canton then submitted the file for a project to build housing units for the Kurdish Red Crescent, to approve the construction of 130 housing units from donations from the people of Sulaymaniyah Governorate in Southern Kurdistan, as part of the “We Keep You Comfortable” campaign.

Work on preparing 50 units began since the beginning of last August, in the town of Babnis. Each unit is equipped with two rooms and utilities (kitchen and bathroom), and according to the civil engineer supervising the project, Shorshavan Ali, 50 units will also be built in the village of Tel-Qurah and 30 in the village of Tal Susin.

Shorshavan pointed out the difficulties they face, “When the budget for building this project was set, the prices were completely different from the current situation, due to the high exchange rate of the dollar against the Syrian pound.”

It was expected that the 5 units would be completed within 6 months from the start of work, but the continuing attacks of the Turkish occupation army and its mercenaries, as well as the siege imposed on the district by the Damascus government, prevented this, according to Shorshavan Ali.

In conjunction with the construction of housing units in the town of Babnis, work is currently underway to prepare the ground for building the units in the village of Tal Qarah.

The “We Keep You” campaign was launched in February of this year in the city of Sulaymaniyah, as a community initiative by the people of the city and its countryside, to support the people of NE Syria, against the backdrop of the earthquakes that affected several regions in NE Syria.

During the earthquake in Kurdistan (Bakur and Rojava), Turkey and Syria, at least 51,000 people lost their lives, many more were wounded and lost their homes and beloved. With this article, with warm greetings from the Andrea Wolf Institute, we want to share our tenderness and strength to all the people affected by the earthquake. Our hearts and minds are with all of them.

When we follow the mainstream news, we see that the earthquake is projected as a “natural tragedy”. They transmit the idea that nature is an external and dangerous entity. An entity that is against us and therefore one which we need to be protected from. If we rise our eyes and expand our gaze, we will realize that the earthquake is not about cold numbers and individual stories detached from political and social reality. We would see that the people most affected by it are those who live in big cities; especially in impoverished neighborhoods, accumulated in high and unstable buildings, lacking resources and infrastructure. We would realize that many of them have been previously evicted, forced to leave their land and losing the possibility to live there.

After the earthquake. the states are pretending to solve the problems that they created in the first place. To understand this, the states need to be considered as part of the current dominant system, Capitalist Modernity. In this system, as defined by Abdullah Öcalan, the capitalist market system has become the dominant system in our societies. This system has spread worldwide and into almost all areas of life, measuring everything by its economical rather than by its ethical values. The companies and states – from Turkey, Syria, other states in the region, until Europe and the USA – are using the earthquake to strengthen their power and make profit. The earthquake has dismantled this problem of money-oriented projects and policies. During years, the corruption in the construction industry has led to fast construction and unstable buildings. This corruption is not an abnormal, but an integrated part of the system where money becomes more important than lives. A reality that becomes explicit with the collapse of those buildings. Another example are the new companies of cement that have been created to re-build the cities. Capital is always flowing to where it can extract the biggest profit.

With a face of humanitarian aid the states try to hide their bloody policies. Under these masks they rearrange the region according to their own interests. The Turkish state intensified the establishment of settlements in its occupied areas in Rojava, the northern part of current Syria. A clear and perverse example is the Turkish – Qatar agreement to create the so-called “City of Dignity” in Janders district. Under the excuse of rebuilding destroyed areas, they use the earthquake as an opportunity to continue expanding their occupation. They are uprooting the indigenous Kurdish and Alevis populations and let displaced people from other areas settle there. Furthermore, they are preventing help for people on the ground; pushing division and fragmentation by creating distrust and accusations of thieves; beating those who try to help and those who are crossing the borders; blocking every help coming from society; preventing the support from the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). These are just few examples of how the racist and fascist policies and practices manifest.¹

Once more, women and children are the ones who are suffering most from the devastating consequences of the earthquake. Acknowledging that many children have lost their parents is heartbreaking. It is even worse when we get to know the intervention of the state. In many occasions the Turkish state allied with fundamental Islamic organizations to take the custody of the children. Following their interests they send them to orphanages where they will be raised under their control. An example are the Ismael Aga organization’s residences that has been publicly denounced to insult and abuse the children. Apart from the inhuman conditions, the indoctrination of Islamic fundamentalist mindset is also highly concerning. The lack of values and caring is also seen in neglecting the women and their necessities. In the news we can see very few women taking decisions or responsibilities. But when we step on the ground, women are more than present. From the woman baking bread, women organizing the donations to the woman that has opened her house to give shelter to those in need.

These images of people supporting – especially women – show that not everything has been lies and destruction. Among the dramatic situation, gestures of empathy, care and love have been present. Mutual support has expanded: from the families, the neighborhoods, friends in the region to all around the world. People self-organizing have proved once more the strength that we, the people, have. This proves the necessity to recover the trust in our capacities; the ability to reflect, overcome and solve problems together; the awareness of our interconnections; the relations and actions that put them into practice; the questioning of our real necessities and aims connected to life.

How do we want to live? What to we want to rebuild? Do we want to live a life according to nature around us and remember that we are a part of it? Or do we want to live a life against nature forcing damage and alienation? How were our ancestors living in balance with their surrounding? What are current examples? Why are so many people pushed to live in big cities? Are big cities a solution? How can cities be in harmony with nature? How can we organize in a real democratic way?

Instead of looking just at the moment, we need a long, historical and wide perspective to answer these questions. Namely, to go back thousands of years and look at the emergence of the state and its mentality. This allows us, on one hand, to not see it as a peculiar problem of some single men in position of power. On the other hand, it becomes clearer that talking about a “natural catastrophe” killing people hides the cruelty of the state and its mentality. When we dig deeper we find that the roots of the problem lies in the distinction between human and nature. A separation that lead to the establishment of power and a ruling class.

One of the oldest examples can be seen in the Gilgamesh epic written in the 2^nd millennium BCE. Around that time Gilgamesh was probably the ruler of Uruk, one of the first cities in the Middle East. In the epic, Gilgamesh is described as a hero, who has performed many heroic deeds. He is described as an impetuous man. The citizens are forced to build the wall around the city and to realize other exhausting works. Concerning the women, Gilgamesh takes the “lord right” to rape brides on their wedding night. The inhabitants of Uruk finally call upon the Mother of all Goddesses to create a rival for Gilgamesh. When she hears the aim of the people, she creates Enkidu. This character lives freely in the forest among the animals, plants and all living beings. Enkidu is tamed by a prostitute woman, Shamat. They spend six days and seven nights and at the end Enkidu becomes a different man. She teaches him how to be “civil” and the ways of “civilization”. After this, the wild animals are afraid of him. From that moment onward, he will not live as part of nature anymore. Later on, Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight against each other. At the end, Enkidu acknowledges Gilgamesh’s superior strength and they become friends. Gilgamesh wants to continue having more fame and reputation. That’s why he proposes to his new friend to go and kill Chumbaba, the giant of the cedar forest. They end up killing the giant and many other gods of the forest. The goddess Ishtar wants to stop them but she does not succeed. At the end, Enkidu dies. In his last breathes he curses the woman that triggered the path of destruction. He is convinced that he should rather be grateful for everything. Gilgamesh, on his side, gets more afraid of his own death and continues his search for immortality. This epic is more than just a story, as mythologies are more than just stories. As much as today we use science to explain the world, in the time around 2,000 BCE, people used to give sense of the world through mythologies. In the figure of Enkidu we see how nature, and people living as part of nature, were either assimilated, in the ruling system, or destroyed. Gilgamesh on the other side, represents the “superior”, the “master”, the mentality of domination that does not only dis-attach from nature but also places itself above it. The Mother Goddess is also an other important character. During all the story she tries to defend and protect the nature and its creatures without a big success. All the attacks that she suffer represent the dis-valuation of nurture and care.

The story was written while the first cities, organized in an hierarchical way, appeared in the Middle East. The harmony of nature had been preserved through an animists belief. The consideration of our surroundings as sacred and alive entities, with soul, were in balance with life. As time passed, the cities started to arise. They were not determined to lead to power, but still little by little they favoured a life disconnected from nature. In the cities, the sacred started to be enclosed and limited to an elite in its temples. Nature turned into an entity separated from humans. The land, animals, plants and resources, became objects to conquer and posses. This was the base of the destruction of nature.

In this story we can find keys to understand the problem of the earthquake and beyond. It helps not only to understand the problem but also to look for solutions. Although money and material help is still needed, it is not enough. Neither is it enough to change our approach to nature in a superficial way. When we go deeper, we face and acknowledge the profound wounds that this earthquake has opened. There are grief processes lying in front of us. There is rage and sadness in all of us: the dead, the lack of support, the precarious living conditions, the hypocrisy and manipulation…

We also acknowledge and remark that the tragedy hasn’t been provoked by chance. And neither will this situation change by chance. That there is help to alleviate the earthquake damage is good. And it’s important that it is coming from all around the world. It reflects the international solidarity and humanity. But the question is – who and what are we going to support? Where are the help and the donations arriving? And as soon as the news are not focusing on the earthquake, what will we care about? If we do not pose these questions, we will perpetuate what is already happening. A large part of the donations are manipulated. The Turkish and Syrian state have continuously retained and appropriated the popular support. They have used a large variety of dirty mechanisms. One of them is the exchange of the popular organizations’ names on the trucks transporting aid goods with the names of radical Islamic groups. It is neither an insignificant nor a naive act. They attempt to give the image that self-organisation does not exist. There they strengthen the belief in the state and Islamic fundamentalism as if they were the ones protecting and helping.

That’s why we are willing to know and understand below the surface. To dismantle the state and the dominant mentality that suppress people and their lands.

Despite the continuous attempts, the states cannot erase popular self-organisation. We have seen – once more – that self-determination of the people works better than the existing state. That if we are willing and determined, we can create realities of our own beyond the states. This by itself is a big aim. The question is: who do we address for help and whom are we helping? We do not ask for a state to help, we are asking for the people to self-organise.

To step forward, we call for a deep reflection on how we live our lives. While remembering us as part of nature, together we can find real and practical solutions.

There will always be earthquakes, but we can make sure that in the future the damage will be less tragic. For this, it is not about building more and more high concrete buildings. Contrary, it is about building a life where we are connected with our surroundings and beyond. We don’t know the exact form of this path. But in history and the present, there are concrete examples that represent the horizon to walk through.

Indeed, we are writing this text from Jinwar, the women’s village in the AANES. A village, that is part of the women’s revolution. It was built up from below following the traditional way of building houses and being aware of the materials used. All the houses are facing each other in a circle, materializing the communal life. Next to the houses, there is a bakery, a vegetable garden, trees and medical plants. There is also ShifaJin, the healing center of women and children, which guarantees that the villagers can care about their own wellbeing. Jinwar is one example of building a self-sustainable life. It rises in a specific place, a specific moment and is embedded in a revolutionary process.

The earthquake calls for the emergency to find answers for the question all around the world: How and what do we want to build to walk through a communal and free life. To answer this question and revert the current situation, those silenced and undermined have to take the lead. The oppressed, especially women, who reserve, defend, and create values of freedom and community need to organize and combat the current destruction and dominance. Looking into the past, and looking to the future, we want to remind to collective courage to take the lead in our own hands.

1For further detail and development we reference to the statement from the Internationalist Commune of Rojava on the earthquake in Kurdistan, Syria and Turkey.

It’s hard to describe the tour in words or moments, it wasn’t an exact moment that brings back memories or feelings, but overall the tour of Rojava built many feelings, questions and contradictions for me. It is impossible to pass through places like Raqqa, Minbic or Kobane without confronting the reality of war, among the destroyed buildings but at the same time, the rebuilding of the cities that is still in progress. The destruction caused is still visible, but besides the fact of the destruction, what influenced me during the days of our tour to get to know Rojava, was how much the energy of this youth overflowed. This is what enchanted me the most.

In practically all the cities we passed through, we had contacts either with youth academies, or with their sports centers, meeting places, etc. It was very motivating to see that in cities like Minbic, a lot of work between the Arabic and the Kurdish youth has been developed in a fast and strong way. The youth has developed an ideological base and has a lot of energy to fight. This let us feel really connected and therefore let us feel to be part of that youth.

Talking to Arab youth about how they also feel represented by Serokati’s thoughts, that his philosophy is not just for Kurdish people, but that his ideas of liberation, if they apply to everyone, are not something that should be limited to a single specific group. The youth also shared that Reber Apo’s thoughts were not something widely shared within the society in which they lived. However, after the liberation, the ideas began to reach more people and they also wanted to organize themselves with the ideals of freedom.

This climate personally brought me a lot of power, listening to all the stories they witnessed during the liberation struggles, like a comrade who shared his story that he was seriously injured during combat, being carried by comrades with his body fully exposed and considered dead. Placed in a coffin and awaiting his transfer from the front line, but through all the strength that this youth possesses, he regained consciousness and rose from the coffin. Hearing this story and knowing that we are also part of this resistance, with this strength and with all this legacy, it was a unique feeling of being part of something that is a true reality. We stayed with them for approximately two days, but after that we didn’t want to leave – to be honest, in every city I hoped the friends forget me there and I could stay there with the youth.

Every Family is Your Family

The energy and reception throughout the tour united us in all the places we went. It was no different within the families we were visiting throughout the tour. With families of Sehids [martyrs, people who dedicated their life to struggle], that we met, spent time with we were able to exchange experiences. What surprised me the most was to see the support that the families gave to the decision of their daughters and sons to join the fight, I didn’t hear any doubt in any family, quite the contrary, I always heard a lot of support for that decision. This feeling within the families was very powerful, and because we were also involved in this same struggle, these families demonstrated at all times how welcome we were with them.

The families gave us a very clear picture of one of the main problems facing the Rojava Revolution, which is the difficulty in getting information about the Turkish State’s attacks to other parts of the world, such as the large number of drone attacks, use of chemical weapons, but also information on how society faces these difficulties and at the same time continues to build a democratic life. One of the mothers gave us a very clear perspective, as internationalists our job must be to get this information out as far as possible. In this way, revolutionaries, other societies, can also become aware of what is really happening in Rojava, in order to create ties that can build a greater democratic force. But also that as internationalists we must also take responsibility for what happens here, not just us who went on the tour, but everyone who seeks a free and democratic life. It is also our duty to keep this revolution alive.

Culture – The First Target of Fascism & Colonization

Going through all these feelings and experiences and at the same time visiting places like Ja’bar Castle and having a panoramic view of the vast Euphrates was very important to create this feeling of the place, soil and history where the revolution is taking its place. As an internationalist coming from Brazil, a colonized country where all history that predates colonization has been destroyed or altered, by the years of Portuguese colonization, which imposed its culture and religion wherever it went, causing damage to thousands of years of culture of the indigenous people. Seeing that the Islamic State where it passed also tried to cause the destruction of the history and culture of the place, as well as the city of Palmyra, where Daesh [ISIS] destroyed practically all the cultural heritage of the city. Daesh was also present inside Ja’bar Castle in 2014, and it was possible to observe in the statues of women that all their heads were destroyed, while the body remained practically intact. It is impossible not to feel a lot of emotion seeing so much history in places that the Islamic State has also tried to destroy, but has not been able to bring about total destruction. Places such as the castle are still alive and being the basis for the Revolution.

The True Revolutionary Spirit

To be honest, I didn’t expect that this Rojava tour would have so many impacts on me, on my personality, but after visiting places like Kobane, it’s impossible to say that the revolutionary spirit inside me hasn’t grown even more. In each house, family or institution it was possible to feel a strong revolutionary spirit that I will carry within me for the rest of my life. After going back and putting my thoughts in place a little, I can only firmly think that Rojava is the place for all the revolutionaries in the world, all those who feel that the world needs to change but are without a clear perspective should come to Rojava. The hope and strength that each of these places gave me is something I want to make everyone feel.

Internationalist Commune of Rojava,
03.09.2023 Post navigation

Let’s reflect on the great achievements of the Rojava revolution in north and east Syria in the face of great adversity: the unification of communities deliberately divided on the basis of religion and ethnicity by dictatorial states and the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist movements alike; the liberation and empowerment of women in the face of the reactionary rollbacks imposed by the later; the embryonic attempts to reorganise the economy on a cooperative and ecologically sustainable basis; and the establishment of inclusive grassroots democracy based on the democratic confederalist ideas developed by long-imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan.

As the Kurdish revolutionaries readily admit, their struggle to refashion society is not an easy process but one that involves both experimentation and perseverance. There are steps forward and steps back but only to try and move forward once again.

“The revolution is made through human beings, but individuals must forge their revolutionary spirit day by day,” as Che also said.

Revolutions by their nature involve both radical transformations of social and economic structures, but also, inevitably, the transformation of individual consciousness, behaviour and habits.

“The people are the way they are because they are in the midst of a revolution,” Che once explained to international volunteer work brigades many decades ago.

Through their actions, people are forging different social relations and a different understanding of themselves and the world — thus becoming different individuals, creating a different “human nature” in the course of revolutionary struggle.

And so it is today in the Rojava revolution and therefore anyone around the world who understands that we need to radically change the way we live, and the grossly inequitable and exploitative way society is now predominantly organised if humanity is to survive with peace and dignity into even the next generation, has a real interest in learning from the revolutionary school that is that precious revolution.

But even to do that requires a struggle to break the barriers to the information flow about the Rojava revolution to the rest of the world.

North and east Syria is largely isolated from the rest of the world by economic embargoes and the closure of borders by hostile neighbouring states. Therefore, one of the first challenges for international solidarity is to break through these barriers.

If we break though this isolation there is so much we can learn from the revolution.

The people of the world can learn from the experiences of the 60 or so autonomous women’s cooperatives are now operating in NES. About half of the agricultural land is now farmed by women’s cooperatives, according to this report by Bêrîtan Sarya.

Half these cooperatives are agricultural. The women in these cooperatives are cultivating the land, building irrigation systems, etc. The other women’s cooperatives produce canned goods, run bakeries, raise livestock or work in the service sector.

Dicle Amed, a member of the coordination of the Women’s Economy Committee of Kongra Star, explained in that article:

“As a women’s movement, we are struggling to democratise the system in general, the relations between men and women in the system and in society. It is about bringing the relations between the sexes back to the basis of freedom and equality. However, and more importantly, we have the ideological approach of building an independent women’s system. Just as Kongra Star as a system organises itself autonomously and independently, all sectors should also be structured autonomously. This is what is really relevant to us as a women’s Economy Committee. Our ideological and organisational orientation aims at securing ourselves without relying too much on the general system, thus organising ourselves and guaranteeing our freedom in this way. We are trying to bring out women’s skills, to employ women, and to make them once again a productive force independent of the outside.”

This effort is radically transformative as it takes place against the backdrop of the Assad regime’s exclusion of women from the economic sector.

It took years to make an impact among women, Dicle explained:

“A job that should be done in one year can sometimes take three or four years. Both teaching and learning are organised by women, and the structure of this process is completely autonomous. One has to start from a structure in Rojava in which women were completely enclosed in their homes and used as labourers for domestic work. In this sense, the integration of women into economic life is a revolution. It is a real but invisible revolution. Before the revolution, women were not involved in economic life; at most, only a certain number of women worked in agriculture at low wages. With the revolution, tens of thousands of women began to work in economic life both in the public sector, in the service sector, in agriculture, and in the industrial sector.”

This is just one example of the rich experiences the world can learn from the Rojava revolution. We could also learn from the pioneering efforts of the “Green Braids” movement, Kesiyên Kesk, which is trying to re-green north and east Syria.

“Regional policies have damaged our environment and our ecological system,” explained Ziwar Shewo, a spokesperson and co-founder of this movement of young volunteers that was formed in October 2020. “At least five rivers in Rojava now run dry. The regime never bothered about ecology. It wanted to turn the region into a supply of wheat with no consideration for the inhabitants.”

“Twenty five years ago, there were rivers, a greater variety of plants. Now the Autonomous Administration is in charge, we have the opportunity of repairing our environment,” he explained in this must-read article in Cooperation In Mesopotamia.

“We must accept the fact it is in poor condition and that we must change this state of affairs. There are only 1.5% of green spaces in Rojava, while international recommendations are for 10% to 12%.

“The lack of a green cover means we suffer from the heat, the pollution and illnesses, that and much more. In Syria, 80% of the cancer patients come from the north and northeast. After we heard that, we decided we had to do something as members of the civilian society.

Since the Autonomous Administration and local authorities couldn’t handle it because of lack of funds, we decided to take on the project. We want all of our society to join in, by spreading the culture of tree plantings, something people don’t care about at the moment.”

This movement has mobilised young women and men to collect donated seeds and do tree planting and the results are already noticeable.

It has now spread beyond Qamishlo, where it was founded, to Heseke and Darbasiyeh. Other similar projects also exist in north and east Syria, notably the one at the Internationalist Commune, Make Rojava Green Again.

Another area we can learn from is the development of grassroots democracy at the local level. This is an area I am particularly interested in because far away here in Australia I am part of a movement that is fighting for community empowerment at the municipal level in the face of relentless efforts by the capitalist state to destroy local democracy and replace it with giant, corporatised local government institutions that serve the greedy interests of big corporations.

In a 29 March, 2022 article in ANF News, Bêrîvan Omer, the deputy co-chair of the ecological and municipal Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), described some of the progress and challenges of overcoming centralised state structures by building a system of ecological and communal autonomous local administration.

“Local self-government is a grassroots democratic model for representing all identities according to their needs,” she explained, however the transformation from a life characterised by dictatorship to an organisation characterised by participation and self-determination was a rocky process.

The ecological local self-government has 11,000 members and deals with the services in 142 local governments in AANES.

The scheme of the system was clear, but there were question marks about how it should be implemented, she explained.

“We struggled because people expected answers from us about how they should participate in this administration, how they would be represented and how they could communicate with us. It is slowly trying to achieve this system and establish it as a culture.”

The system of local administration has developed since 2012, but she admitted they still have a long way to go.

“We are still struggling to even meet our daily needs. It was not as easy to implement our system as we wished. One of the simplest examples is this: a tree is planted, a few days later it is uprooted or damaged. We have not yet created sufficient awareness and sufficient education among the population. Of course, compared to the past, the mechanisms of population education and protection have improved, but this is not enough.”

Such frankness is to be applauded, after all one of the biggest challenges in any revolution is the rebuilding of new systems of popular, grassroots democracy. History has taught us that if revolutions fail to do this they can be rolled back and defeated.

These are just some of the exciting developments and experiments in the Rojava revolution that the world can learn from. But it should be enough to convince those who not only tremble with indignation at oppression but also dream of the new world we need to build together, to commit to building solidarity with this revolution.

Peter Boyle is a well known journalist and political activist living in Sydney, Australia. He is also a correspondent of the Green Left Journal.

And there is another crisis hitting Kurdish communities in NES; Turkey has been restricting the flow of water into an area already hit hard by climate change. As a result, in a place that relies heavily on agriculture, crops are failing, farmers are falling into debt and people are being forced to leave because of recurring drought.

But there is a ray of hope, particularly from the women of the area. A project called Water for Rojava, organised by the UK-based Solidarity Economy Association, crowd-funded £105,000 (US$127,000) in mid-2022 to assist women’s farming cooperatives re-irrigate lands suffering from drought. “We want to secure a good life for the women who will live in the village. There are 13 women running this project. Now we are digging and looking for water,” writes a spokeswoman from the Women’s Economic Committee in Derik, north-east Rojava, about a farming co-operative being assisted by the Committee.

With support from Water for Rojava, the Women’s Economic Committee has irrigated 75 hectares on a 450-hectare former state-run farm near Derik (estimated population 40,000) and 50 hectares near al-Hasakah (with a metropolitan population of over 600,000). “With water these communities can flourish again,” explains Sami Miran (we are using a pseudonym to protect his identity), who visited NES in October 2022 as part of delegation from Water for Rojava.

“Democracy without the state”

Kurdish-majority areas in northern Syria declared autonomy in 2012, during the second year of the ongoing Syrian war, in what is known as the ‘Rojava Revolution’. Building on principles from the Kurdish liberation struggle, the inhabitants of NES organise through democratic confederalism, “a social, political, and economic model of self-administration of different peoples, pioneered by women and the youth,” Kurdish academic and activist Dilar Dirik explained in ROAR magazine in 2016. “It is democracy without the state.”

In Rojava – which has an estimated population of four to five million people – political decisions are devolved to gender-balanced local councils, instead of power deferred to the nation state.

Women’s liberation and ethnic cohesion are key in Rojava. It officially changed its name from Rojava (meaning ‘West’ in Kurdish) to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria in September 2018, to reflect the mosaic of ethnicities and religions that live in the area. Women are central to the revolution; in addition to gender parity on all levels of decision-making, there is a strong commitment to ending violence and oppression against women.

Before the 2012 revolution, the Syrian government controlled massive state-run farms, part of which is what the co-operative near Derik use. “Standing there, all you see is the land stretching to the horizon,” recalls Miran, who visited the 450-hectare farm.

The Women’s Economic Committee, one of the regional-wide organising committees in NES, supports women’s co-operatives to rejuvenate these lands. “Women do everything from digging wells and pumping the water, to building climate resilient infrastructure, such as shade in warehouses or planting climate resilient crops. Then, women transport the crops [including wheat, fruit, vegetables and lentils] to market and sell it. As they work in co-operatives, there is no boss or underling. Profits are shared,” Miran says.

Man-made drought and water wars

“Drought is being caused by Turkey, the climate crisis and the local water policies [of the Syrian state before 2012],” explains Ercan Ayboga, co-author of Revolution in Rojava and an activist within the Mesopotamian Ecology Movement.

Ayboga says that Syria under the Ba’ath Party regime (which has been led by the al-Assad family since 1971) followed a policy of industrial farming that included full-scale deforestation and digging tens of thousands of wells. However, he suggests, it is possible to reverse this situation: “With vegetation, especially forests, water remains in the nature. It does not run off.”

Miran, who grew up in the area, reflects on what life used to be like in the ‘breadbasket of the Levant’: “This rich soil once grew olives, wheat, lentils, peas, cotton, beans and chickpeas – basically anything you sowed. It fed not only Syria, but Jordan, Turkey and further afield.”

Turkey stands accused of weaponising water against the Kurds by restricting its flow into NES. The Turkish state denies this, despite evidence such as Turkey’s dam building programme flooding and destroying Kurdish cities in Turkey, for example Hasankeyf in 2020.

“Turkey using water as a weapon is unique. I do not know of another state cutting water in such a systemic way for such long periods,” says Ayboga.

The Euphrates, a river of great regional and historical importance, begins in Turkey before flowing through Syria and Iraq, and is an essential life source for both downstream states. In 1987, Turkey committed to ensure that 500 cubic metres of water per second would flow into Syria. This is approximately half of what flowed prior to the 1960s, when Turkey started building extensive dams, irrigation and hydro-electric power.

Ayboga says that between 1987 and 2012 Turkey failed to keep this agreement only once, with the filling of its Atatürk Dam in the early 1990s. However, “since 2012, Turkey has only released 200-250 cubic metres per second, especially in the spring and summer, depriving [northern Syria of] water for irrigation.”

Since 2016, Turkey and Turkish-backed militias have occupied and attacked northern Syria, including occupying the canton of Afrin, displacing over 300,000 people. The Turkish-backed groups have since faced allegations of ethnic cleansing and war crimes. These attacks are part of a longer history of oppression against the Kurds that go back to the formation of the Turkish state in 1923. Turkey defines the Kurdish liberation struggle inside of Turkey as “terrorism” and it uses the same argument to attack NES .

Health concerns

In January 2023, Euphrates flow averaged 125 cubic metres per second, according to Hammoud al-Hammadi, an administrator at the Tishrin Dam in NES, the second biggest dam in Syria, speaking to the North Press Agency.

As a result of water deprivation, hydro-electric power generation – NES’s primary source of electricity – is grinding to a halt. According to Miran, people in the area now rely on fuel-powered generators, which cause pollution and respiratory illness. “If the Euphrates flowed [efficiently] that problem would disappear overnight.”

In fact, water scarcity is causing a number of health dangers. On 10 September 2022, a cholera epidemic was declared in Syria, impacting both NES and other parts of Syria. After over a decade of war, infrastructural damage is a major problem. One of UNICEF’s primary concerns is the Alouk pumping station, now in Turkish-occupied territory. They estimate that nearly one million people in NES rely on this source for potable water. During all of 2022, UNICEF reported that for 128 days, this station failed to pump any water at all, while it only partially worked on 54 days. To prevent further cholera epidemics, UNICEF proposes a “UN-led monitoring mechanism [at Alouk] to ensure uninterrupted services, and to provide maintenance support as required, which is currently under discussion.”

The Water for Rojava delegation visited Al-Hasakah city, a hotspot for the cholera epidemic, and one of the places where women are digging wells. “Cholera levels were dropping as they treated water from tankers with chloride,” Miran explains.

“The city needs the Alouk water station, but it often pumps no water. This is the situation since October 2019, when it became controlled by the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army. Instead, locals were drawing water from the Xabûr River. This was full of sewage from Turkey.”

Ground-up and geopolitical solutions

Another way that NES is attempting to resolve the water crisis is by reversing the legacy of Syrian government policies that focused on mono-cash-crops, especially wheat and cotton for export. “There are discussions across NES also about reducing [water] usage. The Economic Committees are also encouraging [fruit] tree planting for your own needs. Organisers are planting small forests around cities,” Miran says.

Ayboga thinks Turkey will not change course unless President Recep Erdoğan loses the planned May 2023 elections: “Their current strategy is to destroy infrastructure and reduce people’s access to water and food so that people get fed up, change allegiances or leave; they think that the fewer people who live [in NES] the better.”

Turkey has defended the legitimacy of its massive dam building, irrigation and other water projects as ways to bring economic development. Yet the Turkish government also denies a litany of abuses against Kurds and its evermore hardline authoritarian policies. These include killing Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iraq, the banning of opposition parties, attacks on women’s rights, and a clampdown against critical media.

Ayboga suggests the US and its European allies can pressure Turkey to stop withholding water: “We know the US allowed Turkey to attack [border towns] Serê Kaniyê and Tell Abyad in 2019. Yet in the last months, reports suggest that the US pressured Turkey to halt its latest invasion [deeper into northern Syria]. The US and EU want a balance of forces [in the Syrian War]. They do not want Turkey to destroy this project [NES], but they do not want it to become too strong – politically, militarily or economically – either.”

In Semsûr, where February 6 earthquakes caused destruction, people have been in solidarity with each other since the first day of the earthquakes. They have been trying to heal their wounds with the support of volunteers. They have established neighborhood commissions to support each other and grow their solidarity in order not to face more suffering.

The aim of the neighborhood commission is to build a communal life in the city. The commissions also carry out activities for women and the people of neighborhoods are decision makers.

After the earthquakes caused destruction in the city, the earthquake survivors received no help and support from the state for three days. They pulled dead bodies from the rubble with their own means. They spent three days in their own cars due to the lack of tents. Only volunteers sent them food and water. Although weeks have passed since the earthquakes, they still face serious problems, such as housing problems. The earthquake survivors, who spent a month with the solidarity and help of the volunteers, have established neighborhood commissions to grow solidarity in order not to face more suffering. People coming together under the umbrella of these commissions discuss to find solutions to their problems.

‘We decided to act together’

An earthquake survivor, Eşxan Şiyar told us they had decided to establish neighborhood commissions in order not to face more suffering due to the lack of help by the state. She also said that Semsûr was one of the cities badly affected by the earthquakes. “No one can change the reality of this destruction,” she said, “We saw how people united after the disaster. They pulled dead bodies from the rubble by helping and being in solidarity with each other.  We can easily say that the state has not been here since the first day of the earthquakes. People began to unite when they saw no state would not help them. The people, who were left alone in the disaster, came together and established their neighborhood commissions to build a communal life.”

 ‘They have a meeting twice a week to discuss’

Indicating that they decided to establish the commissions in order to find solutions for the problems faced by them, Eşxan Şiyar said, “We have a meeting twice a week to discuss and find solutions for the problems faced by us. We discuss suggestions and criticisms. We have set up a tent for women. Women are in solidarity with each other in this tent. We screen films and hold painting courses in the tent. Women come together in the tent to find solutions to their problems by discussing them.”

‘The main reason for establishing neighborhood commissions is to unite people’

‘The main reason for establishing neighborhood commissions is to unite people,” Eşxan Şiyar said, “Since the first day, we have received no help or support from the state so we decided to establish neighborhood commissions to help and support each other. We will heal our own wounds together.”

Sadly the video below does not contain English subtitles.

The Maras-centered earthquakes destroyed more than a hundred buildings in Syria and Rojava. 3,581 people lost their lives and 5,348 were injured. Thousands are still under the rubble in the Turkish-occupied areas as the death toll is not disclosed.

The 7.8 and 7.7 magnitude quakes, centred in the Pazarcik and Elbistan districts of North Kurdistan’s Maras province, were strongly felt in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq as well. The earthquakes caused great destruction in the Syrian provinces of Idlib, Aleppo, Hama, Latakia and Tartus, as well as in the cities of Shehba, Kobanê, Manbij and Raqqa controlled by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, and in occupied Afrin.

The latest situation in Syria and North and East Syria is as follows:

OCCUPIED REGIONS

The cities of Afrin and Idlib, occupied by the Turkish state, are among the places devastated by the earthquakes. While hundreds of buildings were destroyed, the death toll and the scale of the destruction in these regions are not disclosed. According to information obtained from the Afrin Human Rights Organization, there is a humanitarian disaster in Afrin, where hundreds of people were trapped under the rubble.

Afrin: Turkish-occupied Afrin is the most affected city by the earthquake which inflicted serious damage to the city centre and the districts of Jindires and Mabata. The number of casualties in the city is not revealed. 257 buildings were destroyed completely in Jindires district, which is 20 kilometres away from the city centre. Reports say that at least 756 people lost their lives under these buildings and thousands of people are still under the rubble. 70 percent of the Kaxırê village in the southwest of Mabata was also destroyed. It is reported that hundreds of people are still under the rubble as no reliable information can be obtained from the village.

Idlib: The regions of Atarib, Sarmada, Harim, Bisnia, Salqim, Azmarin and Keferhom in the city of Idlib, which remains under the occupation of Turkey-backed Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), were also damaged by the earthquakes. It is reported that 718 buildings were destroyed in the city where 195 towns and villages were affected by the earthquakes. The Al-Tilol village was flooded as the Asian Dam on the Turkey-Syria border was partially damaged. The number of deaths and injuries remains unknown, like other occupied territories.

REGIONS HELD BY DAMASCUS GOVERNMENT

The provinces of Aleppo, Hama, Latakia and Tartus held by the Damascus government were significantly damaged. The Ministry of Health reported that 1,408 people lost their lives and 2,341 were injured in the areas under their control due to the earthquakes.

Aleppo: Theneighbourhoods of Al Shaar, Musharaqa, Paradise, Salahaddin, Al Kelasa and Aziziye in the east of Aleppo were devastated by the earthquakes. Damascus government officials reported that about 4,000 people lost their lives and around 7,000 people were injured or unaccounted for.

Latakia: The town of Jabla and the neighbourhood of Ramla Janubi are the most affected areas. 102 buildings in central and rural Latakia were destroyed. While 506 people lost their lives, 792 others were injured.

Hama: The Erbain region in the north of the city is the most affected area. 47 people lost their lives, and 75 others were injured in Hama.

AUTONOMOUS ADMINISTRATION OF NORTH AND EAST SYRIA

The Health Committee of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) announced that 6 people lost their lives and 57 people were injured in the areas under their control. In the Sheikh Maqsoud (Şêx Meqsud) and Ashrafiyah (Eşrefiye) neighbourhoods of Aleppo, 6 people lost their lives and 47 people were injured. 5 people were injured in Shehba, 3 in Kobanê and 2 in Manbij.

6 people lost their lives in Babinis and Til Qerah villages of Shehba Canton and in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah neighbourhoods where Kurds predominantly live.

2,000-YEAR-OLD CASTLE DAMAGED

The Najim Castle, located on the Euphrates River and 115 kilometres from Aleppo, was also affected by the earthquake in North and East Syria. A part of the eastern wall of the castle, which dates back to 68 AD, was demolished.

BAB AL-HAWA BORDER CROSSING AFFECTED

The Bab Al-Hawa Border Gate between Turkey and Syria under Turkish occupation in the city of Idlib was also affected by the earthquake. The roads leading to the border crossing were damaged. Aid to earthquake victims in Syria is delivered through the Bab Al-Hawa Border Gate.

625 SCHOOLS DAMAGED

Many schools run by the AANES and the Damascus government were also damaged by the earthquakes. According to the data collected by the North and East Syrian Education Committee, 15 schools in Ayn Issa, Kobanê and Sirin in the Euphrates Region were damaged, and education has been suspended for 7 days. 138 schools were damaged, and 6 schools were closed in Manbij. 9 schools were damaged in Deir ez-Zor. In Raqqa, 115 schools were damaged, and 36 of them were closed. 41 schools were damaged in Tabqa, but schools will continue education once engineers finish the repair work. In Shehba Region, 15 schools were damaged, and 5 schools became unusable. In the Cizre Region, 39 schools were damaged.

According to official data released by the Damascus government, 248 schools were damaged in the areas under their control.

MUNICIPALITY STEPS INTO ACTION

The Local Administrations and Environmental Management Committee of North and East Syria provided the following information to ANF:

Afrin-Shehba Region: Shehba People’s Municipality cooperated with the assembly and commune organizations in the region to help earthquake victims. Construction materials such as cement, soil and gravel were provided for the local people for the repair of the damaged structures.

Euphrates Region: A joint committee was established in cooperation with the Euphrates Region Chamber of Engineers. People in the Euphrates region applied to the municipality for the repair of 68 buildings. Municipal teams checked 88 buildings and reported that 15 buildings, including petrol stations and schools, were damaged. The wreckage of 31 damaged structures was removed.

Tabqa: The Emergency Teams and firefighters affiliated with the Tabqa Local Administration Committee assessed the extent of the damage caused by the earthquakes. An emergency committee was established under the Local Administration Committee. Moreover, a committee was formed to identify and examine the damaged buildings and to take the necessary measures. A damaged earth-sheltered house was demolished, and 7 houses were repaired. Two buildings in the city centre were evacuated as a precaution.

Part Two

There were no serious regulations and countermeasures for earthquakes in North-East Syria as in the whole of Syria, since earthquakes and natural disasters have almost never been experienced.

What are the laws concerning earthquake countermeasures of the Autonomous Administration and the Damascus government? How do they deal with zoning plans, illegal structures and countermeasures?

During the period when Rojava was under the control of the Damascus government, almost nothing was done about earthquakes in the region. After its establishment, the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) focused more on development plans, the fight against illegal structures, and the construction of stronger structures. Before the earthquake, no serious activity was carried out to deal with earthquakes in North-East Syria. Geological and civil engineers conducted investigations in the region and the type of structures to be built according to the regions were determined. After the recent earthquakes in the region, the Autonomous Administration institutions have introduced many countermeasures for future earthquakes. Discussions are currently being held to inspect the existing zoning plans in detail, to identify illegal structures and to take the necessary precautions.

Şîlan Ehmed, a member of the North-East Syrian Local Administrations and Environment Committee, answered ANF’s questions about their aid efforts for the last 8 days and countermeasures against new disasters and illegal structures.

Sadly the videos in this post do not contain English subtitles.

400 DAMAGED BUILDINGS IDENTIFIED

Ehmed said: “Six of our citizens lost their lives in the Autonomous Administration region in North-East Syria. 57 citizens were injured. In the city of Aleppo, 216 buildings were damaged and 813 families living in them were affected. 52 buildings were damaged in Kobanê and necessary work is being carried out concerning these buildings. In the city of Manbij, 125 buildings were damaged. Damaged and cracked buildings in our region have been evacuated and residents have been provided shelter. Assessment of damaged structures is done by the Chamber of Engineers and municipal teams under the umbrella of the Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM). After the assessments, the structures that need to be demolished are pulled down by taking the necessary precautions. Repair and strengthening of columns are carried out for partially damaged buildings. After a one-week assessment, we saw that around 400 more buildings need to be demolished or repaired. Our teams in Aleppo, Manbij and Kobanê are working without interruption for 24 hours.”

BUILDING CONTROL WAS DISCUSSED ONE MONTH BEFORE EARTHQUAKES

Recalling that a workshop was held for the construction of stronger structures before the earthquake, Ehmed said: “A month before the earthquake, a workshop was held with the participation of all engineers in North-East Syria. There were participants from many countries, such as France and Italy. The issues that concern construction of safer buildings were discussed in detail.”

ZONING PLANS AND ILLEGAL BUILDINGS

Ehmed also gave information about the zoning plans and their work against illegal structures in the region. She said: “In line with the research carried out in the region before the earthquake, a law was introduced concerning the maximum number of floors to be allowed according to the regions. In some places, three-storey buildings can be built, in others four-storey buildings. In some places, tall buildings should not be allowed at all. We have projects and criminal sanctions over this issue. Buildings built without paying attention to the necessary rules and the municipal laws are the biggest problem in the region. Last year, fines were imposed against more than 4,000 buildings in the Cizîre Region alone. 99 unsafe structures were demolished. The situation is almost the same in Manbij, Kobanê and other regions. We do not opt for demolition, but we are working for safer and stronger buildings. Our Kobanê Municipality has now started to demolish all the storeys that were built illegally. Some special machines are needed to prevent demolition and strengthen the columns. Millions of dollars should be funded for earthquake-related studies. Due to our limited resources, we allow the construction of buildings with fewer storeys. New disasters will emerge if the necessary measures are not taken.”

STRONGER MEASURES

“Previously, the Damascus government did not introduce any law for earthquakes. There is no strong draft law against earthquakes and natural disasters in North-East Syria. There is a law that mostly concerns the construction of buildings and zoning plans. We have failed to be effective in this regard, therefore we self-criticize. But we organize our work to prevent further disasters.”

Part Three

The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) responded to the earthquake in a very short time and is now helping other parts of the country despite limited means.

The Autonomous Administration rushed to the aid of the earthquake victims in the cities of North and East Syria the fastest way possible thanks to strong solidarity. This successful solidarity was made possible through the communes and assemblies, which are the backbone of the autonomous system based on self-government. Heyva Sor a Kurd (Kurdish Red Crescent), which was established in Rojava in 2012, is one of the organizations working successfully in solidarity with the earthquake victims. After the earthquake victims in North and East Syria were taken care of, the people living in the region and their self-government expressed that they were ready to help other parts of Syria as well. In a short time, hundreds of aid trucks and fuel tankers containing basic needs, food and medical equipment were delivered to other parts of Syria.

SDF AND AUTONOMOUS ADMINISTRATION WENT INTO ACTION

In a statement on February 6, when the earthquake occurred, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said: “We share the painful suffering of our people in all Syrian territories caused by the devastating earthquake that struck the region, and we ask Allah Almighty to console the victims with His infinite mercy, grant speedy recovery for the injured and protect our people from any harm. Our forces stand ready to provide immediate assistance to overcome the earthquake aftermath in all Syrian territories, including providing relief support and sending rescue teams to the disaster-stricken areas. Our forces also offer their condolences to the people in the cities of Maraş and Antep and all areas in northern Kurdistan that were stricken by the earthquake, and we express our solidarity with them at this difficult time.”

ALL BORDER CROSSINGS OPENED

The Autonomous Administration Executive Council Co-Presidency made a statement after its meeting on February 8 and said: “All the border crossings in the Autonomous Administration regions will remain open to enable the delivery of humanitarian aid from outside to all regions affected by the earthquake in Syria.”

AID CAMPAIGNS

On February 9, the Autonomous Administration of the Cizre Region and on February 12, the Autonomous Administration of the Euphrates Region launched aid campaigns to help the earthquake victims in North Kurdistan and North-East Syria. The aid organized by the people and organizations in all cities of North and East Syria was delivered to the border crossings in Umm al-Julud (between Manbij and Jarablus), Al-Tayha (between Manbij and Aleppo) and Awn Al-Dadat (between Manbij and Jarablus).

AID FOR OCCUPIED REGIONS

An aid campaign organized by the AANES regions was introduced not only for the regions of the Damascus government, but also for the earthquake victims in the regions occupied by the Turkish state and allied mercenary groups. The first aid convoy entered the occupied regions in the north and east of Syria on February 13 via Doctors Without Borders through the border crossings between Manbij and Jarablus. After the first aid convoy consisting of 53 trucks and vehicles, a second convoy consisting of 66 trucks containing food and medical supplies departed.

Sozdar Ehmed from Heyva Sor a Kurd in North and East Syria answered ANF’s questions regarding their institutional solidarity.

COLLECTIVE WORK

Ehmed said: “The earthquake in our region created fear among people. The public had high expectations from Heyva Sor a Kurd following the earthquake. An extraordinary meeting was held with the participation of the Autonomous Administration, the People’s Municipality, the Internal Security Forces, the Self-Defense Forces and the Health Committee. A collective work was carried out in solidarity. After this meeting, we decided to set up tents for the survivors who were staying in their cars.”

“We started a humanitarian aid for our people from Dêrîk to Manbij. Following the earthquake, citizens began to take shelter in their cars. Those who did not have vehicles remained on the streets. In a short time, we set up tents for the people in all cities from Dêrîk to Manbij. Blankets were distributed to the citizens. We dispatched emergency teams to 10 cities according to their populations. A medical team was tasked to transport the seriously ill patients to hospitals.”

AID FOR SHEHBA AND ALEPPO

Ehmed stated that they could send aid to Shehba and Aleppo on February 7 due to the embargo policy of the Damascus government. When they wanted to go to the region themselves, the obstacles stopped them. “We delivered many tents and blankets to Shehba and Aleppo within 24 hours. Aid activities for these regions were carried out jointly with non-governmental organizations. We also donated a small amount of money. As Heyva Sor a Kurd, we mobilized all our means available. With our team, we decided to move to Shehba and Aleppo to provide food, tents, blankets, medical supplies and fuel. We have been waiting at the border gates for 6 days, but the Damascus government does not allow us to cross into the region. We have constantly stated that our health teams are ready to meet the needs of the Syrian peoples. Despite our calls to all concerned institutions and organizations, the gates have not been opened. We expressed our readiness to deliver aid from Afrin to Damascus, but the Damascus government does not open the gates. We are now waiting at the al-Tayha gate between Manbij and Aleppo. We will not take a step back; our steps will always be forward-looking.”

6-MONTH PROJECT FOR EARTHQUAKE-HIT AREAS

Remarking that a six-month project for the earthquake-hit areas has been introduced, Ehmed said: “A team of doctors from Heyva Sor a Kurdistan will come to the region on the 20th of this month. A three-month project has been introduced for the Euphrates Region, a 15-day project for the Cizre Region, and a six-month project for Aleppo and Shehba. The priority of the projects is to provide nutritional requirements, heating and basic necessities. The second stage concerns the restoration of the damaged areas. We have also asked for help from international institutions and organizations for these urgent needs, yet their aid is limited.”

Part Four

Although the international embargo against Syria has been lifted, the Damascus government maintains the embargo against Shehba and Aleppo.

Bedran Çiya Kurd, Co-Chair of the Foreign Relations Department of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), spoke to ANF about the mobilization declared by the Autonomous Administration following the earthquake and the ongoing embargo against the region.

Bedran Çiya Kurd said that Rojava still has not received any help and added that the Autonomous Administration is ready to help the earthquake victims.

‘AID OVERSHADOWED BY POLITICAL MOTIVES’

Bedran Çiya Kurd remarked that the earthquake disaster caused great pain and humanitarian situations in Turkey, Syria and North and East Syria. “This pain continues. It also has economic and political implications. Political motives overshadow the humanitarian aid delivery to the regions controlled by the regime, the occupied regions, Şêxmeqsud (Sheikh Maqsoud) and Eşrefiye (Ashrafiyah) neighbourhoods of Aleppo and even North Kurdistan.

AID CAMPAIGNS OF THE AUTONOMOUS ADMINISTRATION BLOCKED

“There are serious obstacles to our aid campaigns. If political motives become decisive to deal with the humanitarian situation, the suffering of the earthquake survivors will deepen. These wounds will not heal easily. It would lead to very bad results. Thousands of people could have been saved if the intervention had been made on time. Because of the regime’s policy, thousands of people could not be rescued and died under the rubble.

The Autonomous Administration stated that it was ready to help any place or anyone who was harmed, regardless of their identity. It has delivered aid to the earthquake-hit areas. Neither the Syrian regime nor the Turkey-backed armed groups adopted a helpful attitude towards us to deliver aid. Nor do they allow the aid organized by us to reach the earthquake victims. This is not right, and it constitutes a crime against humanity. If humanitarian aid is considered a matter of negotiation based on political stances, it would be a crime against humanity. In fact, the regime should have acted and asked for help. However, unfortunately, the regime wants to use the aid delivered from outside for its own political interests. The US administration and many other countries are putting their problems with the Syrian regime aside because of the current humanitarian situation. Certain sanctions have been suspended temporarily to allow victims access to humanitarian aid. However, we are afraid that the regime could take advantage of it as it did before. What has been done so far confirms our suspicion.”

‘AID SENT TO ALEPPO AND SHEHBA PREVENTED’

“Şêxmeqsud, Eşrefiye and Shehba are now facing huge problems because of the embargo. The regime is preventing aid delivery to these regions. The hostile attitude of the regime is visible. We have concerns that this policy of the regime will prevail. For this reason, the government of Damascus and the Turkish regime and its mercenary groups should stop their discriminatory policies. They should not turn humanitarian aid into a political issue. They should open the border gates and let aid materials reach the earthquake victims. If this is not done, the lives of thousands of people will remain in jeopardy.”

NO HELP DELIVERED TO THE REGION YET

Kurd reminded that the Autonomous Administration remained in close contact with many countries, including those in the international coalition and Europe during the times of humanitarian chaos. He continued: “The current situation here has been reported to public opinion. We have revealed our stance on how to help the victims. All our institutions stated expressed their readiness to help Syria and Turkey. They also stated that they are ready to help North and East Syria. Our dialogue and diplomatic activities to deal with the issue continue. The issue of aid delivery is being discussed in detail. However, as far as we know, no aid has reached the survivors in North and East Syria, the regions controlled by the regime and even North Kurdistan. Concerned institutions should take urgent intervention, help people and save their lives.”

Those remaining in Scotland, and in other parts of the Kurdish and Turkish diaspora, are working frantically to try and organise aid deliveries to the worst affected regions. Besides damaged roads and severe winter weather, this task is made much more difficult by the Turkish authorities who insist that all aid must be delivered through AFAD, the government’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority. AFAD has been shown to be woefully inadequate for the task it faces, and there are also well-founded concerns over its priorities. Government bodies are known to favour government supporters, and there is no confidence that AFAD will distribute aid where it is most needed. Rather than allow the evolution of local support networks, this top-down approach is designed to make people dependent on, and grateful to, President Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). A record of government corruption makes many wary that aid distribution will be co-opted to boost the image of the government. 

Hatice (not her real name), another Edinburgh resident, told me that she has been working with contacts in Turkey to try and organise the delivery of essential equipment that can help some of the hundreds of thousands of people who have had to leave their homes and are struggling to survive in the bitter cold. They are looking for vehicles that can travel through the snow, and for routes where they can avoid having their supplies confiscated by AFAD. Hatice, in common with a very high proportion of Edinburgh’s Kurds, hales from Elbistan. Their hometown, which was very close to the epicentre of the second earthquake that followed eight hours after the first one, has suffered severe damage. Buildings that had cracked with the first quake were brought down completely by the second. Hatice’s mother-in-law is lost in her collapsed home, as are many of her cousins and friends.

Monday’s earthquakes have devasted ten Turkish provinces that are home to around thirteen million people: well over twice the population of Scotland. They have also caused massive destruction in Syria, especially in government-controlled areas and areas controlled by Turkey (including occupied Afrîn). Autonomous North and East Syria is less badly affected, and their Syrian Democratic forces have offered to provide help to all other parts of Syria – however I only have space to look at Turkey here. The scale of the disaster is terrifying. Thousands are already confirmed dead, but with so many more trapped in the destroyed buildings, and the vast majority of these buildings yet to see any rescue equipment, the number is expected to rise into the tens of thousands. Some fear the final figure may be over 100,000. 

Three days after the initial earthquake, which caught people asleep in their beds, many places, and especially smaller towns and villages, have yet to see any sign of official help. Local people are trying to remove the rubble that is burying their families and neighbours with their bare hands, but without the equipment to cut and lift concrete this is often impossible. Chances of survival in the sub-zero temperatures are eking away with every passing minute. 

Even for those who have escaped the initial destruction, conditions are extremely difficult. The risks from the many aftershocks, as well as dangerous structural damage, makes it unsafe for people to stay in their homes, but AFAD has done very little to supply them with the basic shelter, warmth, and sustenance that they need to survive. Many places are without water and electricity. Checking that surviving buildings are safe for people to return to will be a massive task in itself.

Social media is full of desperate pleas for help, and anger at the absence of the authorities that should be providing it. The response from the government has been to clamp down on people sharing news of what is happening. In an angry television message on Tuesday, President Erdoğan announced a State of Emergency in the affected provinces. The main effect of this, like the national emergency following the 2016 coup attempt, will be to allow much greater government control and suppression of criticism. Erdoğan told viewers that he is keeping a note of all the ‘lies and distortions’ and will open his notebook ‘when the time comes’.  Already, twitter has been restricted – although it was being used to provide vital information for search and rescue. Journalists have been detained while reporting from the rubble in Diyarbakir, and investigations are being opened against TV commentators and social media users.

The one organisation that has the equipment, skills, and competence to make a serious impact on the rescue efforts, the Turkish army, remains in readiness to invade Syria, but only a relatively small force has been deputed to help the rescue operation. 

Prospects are grim and hopes are fading for the tens of thousands still buried. 

A natural disaster in a political context

Before looking at the huge mobilisation by local people in Turkey, and at what people in Scotland can do to help, I want to examine the political context that has massively amplified the horror of this natural disaster. Of course, the focus must be on humanity, but we do need to understand the politics that makes humanity so difficult to achieve, and the political forces that are seeking to exploit the situation for their own, very inhumane, ends.

This natural disaster has taken place in the context of a lethal cocktail of ruthless neoliberal crony capitalism, political corruption, anti-Kurdish racism (which has left infrastructure underdeveloped and attacked political and civic organisation), and an increasingly dictatorial authoritarian regime that will not work with others and will not broach criticism.

Across the affected region, blocks of flats have collapsed like houses of cards. Much of Turkey’s recent economic development was based on a building boom, with contracts awarded to government supporters. Turkey is crossed by major geological fault lines, but in the rush for profits, there was no room for such niceties as observing earthquake design regulations. As a friend who works in disaster planning put it to me, you can have a lot of good regulations and codes, but ‘the snag is in the governance’ and politicians feel that enforcing regulations is not a vote-winning priority and that nothing will happen on their watch. 

The neglect of earthquake preparedness has come from the top. After the 1999 Istanbul earthquake, the government of the time brought in what was commonly known as the ‘Earthquake Tax’, which was supposed to pay for disaster preparation. This is estimated to have brought in £3.8 billion pounds, but there is no evidence that this has been spent on making anything safer. 

It was not as if the government had lacked warnings. The Chairman of the Chamber of Geological Engineers has stated that they had not only expected an earthquake of this kind but had also submitted a report to the president and government on what should be done in preparation, which had received no response. He described the policies of uncontrolled development as ‘rent and plunder’. 

Despite the palpable and massive failure of the government’s disaster response, Erdoğan shows no sense of responsibility, let alone contrition. On Wednesday, when he finally visited Maraş, at the centre of the first earthquake, he told a survivor, ‘The damage is done. These things are part of destiny’s plan.’

We have seen plenty of evidence of this disregard of safety planning before – notably in the lack of vital planes to fight 2021’s forest fires, when, too, Erdoğan seemed more concerned to stamp out negative publicity than extinguish the flames; and also in the mining disasters at Soma in 2014 and Bartın last October, when warnings of dangerous conditions were not heeded, and Erdoğan also provoked anger by putting the blame on ‘destiny’. 

The abject inadequacy of both preparedness and response has not spared any of the cities hit, whatever their ethnic makeup or political leanings, but it is also significant that the predominantly Kurdish southeast of Turkey, where much of the damage occurred, has been purposefully left behind in infrastructural development by successive governments. And, in the places where the population voted for the pro-Kurdish leftist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), they have had their elected mayors removed – and often imprisoned – and civic structures that the mayors supported closed down. 

When people most need to work together and combine resources, Erdoğan is terrified of allowing any involvement from other political parties in case it earns them support. Again, this is not a new phenomenon. The central government confiscated aid for Covid victims collected by the Peoples’ Republican Party (CHP) mayors of Istanbul and Ankara.  An openly HDP delivery of aid to the earthquake areas was seized by the government. 

Faced with a disaster of this scale and a response organisation that is clearly unable to cope, most people would have expected the government to turn to the military – the second biggest army in NATO: all the more so as Erdoğan is looking for a popular victory, and what could be more universally popular than an effective response to a major disaster? That he has opted for only a very limited deployment may also be a consequence of his fear of being upstaged. Despite major purges, many in the army do not endorse his turn against Turkish secularism.

The dreadful failures in the government response can also be seen as a product of the arrogance of dictatorship, where one man cannot oversee everything, but others are afraid to criticise: the emperor’s new clothes syndrome. 

Erdoğan’s desperation to hold onto power at all costs makes him prioritise perception over reality. The Turkish government has increasingly resorted to stifling freedom of speech, and last year’s Disinformation Law has been widely condemned as a vehicle for censorship and the criminalisation of journalism. Although making political predictions for Turkey has become even more difficult, many must be worrying that if he sees his support falling, Erdoğan might use the emergency situation to postpone the forthcoming election.

The scale of the Turkish Governments failures and of their impacts is staggering, but in trying to understand what could have gone so wrong, I found myself thinking of the Grenfell fire. Turkey’s disaster may be a thousand times bigger, but there are many similarities in the underlying forces and in the attempt to manage perceptions rather than face responsibility. 

Inevitably, the lack of effective response – and in many places any response at all – has produced a swell of anger, especially among those who have waited in vain for help to rescue family members trapped beneath the debris. On Wednesday in Adiyaman, where no help had arrived more than two days after the earthquake, the Minister of Transport, and the local governor fled in their cars rather than face the angry crowd.  The AKP mayor of Kirikhan has damned his party’s government in front of the collapsed building that buried his children. There is a new axiom being shared round Turkey: It is not earthquakes that kill people, it is states that kill people.

Solidarity from the grassroots

In contrast to the state’s failures, organisations across Turkey have sprung into action, from political parties to community groups. Cars and trucks are bringing aid supplies from all over the country, organised by local groups or even private individuals.

The big municipalities run by the main opposition Republican People’s Party have been coordinating large collections and deliveries of basic aid, with the CHP leader announcing that they will not accept bureaucratic obstacles even if they ‘have to be arrested for finding bread and blankets’. And the HDP, which has fewer financial resources and has been deprived of municipal power, is also managing to get deliveries through despite government obstruction. (The scale of the relief effort is going to make government control increasingly difficult to implement.)  93 trucks of supplies organised by the HDP had reached the earthquake area by Wednesday morning, and Ugur Cagritekin told me that they had received news that five trucks had reached Elbistan where supplies were being delivered to people in need through the coordination of the HDP and the local Alevi centre. They want to take aid to villages as well as the town centre. Some people in the villages have moved from their homes into the relative safety of their more lightly constructed stables, where they can also benefit from the warmth of the animals, but there has been no help from outside.

The HDP’s strength lies in its ability to mobilise and organise its large network of supporters and sympathisers and like-minded community organisations. As soon as they heard about the earthquake, the party dropped all other plans, set up a central coordination centre, and dispatched leading members to the affected area. Local election centres were transformed into coordination centres, while the youth organisation concentrated on rescue work. They put out calls for solidarity and for people with shelter and food to share with those without, and they helped create a framework to allow people’s natural solidarity to find direction. 

I spoke with a volunteer at Rosa Women’s Association in Diyarbakir as she took a break from preparing soup and tea for 200 people taking shelter from the dangers of damaged buildings. She told me that their city (the unofficial capital of Turkish Kurdistan) benefitted from being left wing and thus easy to organise. Even in relatively accessible Diyarbakir, where the devastation is patchy, official relief efforts are seriously inadequate; however, although the HDP mayor and council have been removed (and the mayor imprisoned), HDP organisation remains extremely strong.

Their earthquake relief coordination is the HDP’s philosophy of grassroots organisation and control put into action. When Ertuğrul Kürkçü, the HDP’s honorary president, writes about ‘transforming earthquake solidarity into a social movement’, he is not talking about an abstract idea but a political practice. 

Kurdish communities outside Turkey have wanted to send essential supplies too, but there are reports of deliveries being turned back for lack of documentation, or being taken over by AFAD at the border. The consensus, across the Kurdish diaspora, is to call for financial donations to the Kurdish Red Crescent, Hevya Sor, which operates throughout the affected areas – and of course helps everyone regardless of background. Hevya Sor have the contacts on the ground that enable them to get the aid through to where it is needed, independent of government meddling. So far, this fundraising has been focused on Kurdish communities, but the many other people who want to help and are uncertain who to trust, should be reassured that this is an organisation supported by those with most reason to be concerned. 

To donate in from the UK please send to Hevya Sor’s German bank account or donate via Paypal: 

Account details:

IBAN: DE49 3705 0299 0004 0104 81
BIC/SWIFT: COKSDE33XXX