Islamic State had taken over the city in 2014 without a fight from allied Islamist groups, led by the Al-Nusra Front. In today’s context, it was primarily the founder of the Al-Nusra Front, Al-Jolani (or Al-Sharaa), who, with the support of Al-Qaeda, made the invasion of the Islamic State possible. Today, Al-Jolani is the self-proclaimed transitional president of Syria.

During a conversation over dinner in one of the high-rise buildings in the center of Raqqa, surrounded by Arab and Kurdish revolutionaries, Aziz tells me in the dim light of a flashlight how he woke up in his parents’ house on the morning of January 13, 2014, and suddenly saw the black flag of ISIS flying over the city. For him and many others, a nightmare came true, involving every form of brutality from prohibitions, arrests, torture, and murder to rape and enslavement of women.

After taking the city, Islamic State destroyed the city’s Shiite mosques. Many of the city’s Christian churches were also destroyed, and the Armenian Catholic Church was even converted into an Islamist recruitment center. Before the Syrian civil war, Christians made up just under 10% of the city’s population. The population was now at the mercy of ISIS’s brutality: public executions, extortion, and forced recruitment were the order of the day. Raqqa became the capital of the IS caliphate. Many of the attacks in Paris, Nice, Brussels, Manchester, and elsewhere were financed, planned, and organized from here.

Aziz had to go into hiding and only escaped by chance. After a night in which contacts from the SDF smuggled him out of the city, a commando unit from the ISIS secret service stood at the door of his parents’ house to arrest him. To this day, Aziz has dedicated himself to the struggle for a free and democratic Middle East and fights side by side with Kurdish comrades in northern and eastern Syria. He told us with pride how important it is for him to overcome the old divisions between Arabs and Kurds, which were created by nationalism and the Baath regime’s aggressive Arabization and anti-Kurdish policies.

On June 6, 2017, the operation to liberate Raqqa began. A multi-ethnic army, led by the SDF and involving many young people from Raqqa and the surrounding region, liberated the city after months of fighting, which military experts later described as the most intense urban combat since World War II. By the time Raqqa was liberated on October 20, 2017, hundreds of the region’s most valuable daughters and sons, Arabs, Kurds, and Armenians, had become martyrs side by side. It is also their sacrifice that laid the foundation for coexistence as what Rêber APO calls the Democratic Nation:

“While the nation-state is a form of power organization, the democratic nation represents a model of societal governance. The nation-state relies on the engineering of a uniform, homogeneous society, whereas the democratic nation is rooted in the heterogeneous nature of a multi-identity, multicultural society. The nation-state instrumentalizes identities for power, fostering conflict and pitting them against one another. In contrast, the democratic nation is grounded in the democratic relationships and solidarity among diverse identities and cultures, freeing identities from being tools of power. In summary, while the nation-state is power-centric, the democratic nation is based on the solidarity and self-governance of communities.“
Abdullah Öcalan (Manifesto for Peace and a Democratic Society, 2025)

It was also Rêber Apo who advised the Kurdish forces within the SDF to liberate Raqqa. Despite the foreseeable sacrifices, he was convinced that the brotherhood of Arabs and Kurds was essential for a new beginning in the Middle East, and that there was a corresponding responsibility to liberate the predominantly Arab areas from the occupation of the Islamic State.

Today, eight years later, hundreds of thousands have returned to Raqqa, and many of the institutions of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria have their headquarters in the city. While schools, hospitals, the stadium, museum, mosques, and parks reopened in the first days after liberation, the first churches have been rebuilt in recent years, and academies of democratic civil society, youth centers of the Revolutionary Youth Movement, and many other projects have been implemented. The Zenobia organization, founded in 2016, organizes women in the region to enable them to live in safety and participate in social life. It has established numerous women’s cooperatives in Raqqa, including a large bakery and a cleaning products factory, which in turn finances many projects for women. While IS almost completely excluded women from public life, women now take on important tasks in all institutions and play a leading role in democratic self-government.

Of course, not all divides have been overcome, and particularly when it comes to women’s liberation, men and tribal elders of some Arab tribes remain skeptical of the revolution. One thing is clear, however: Arab women now have a clear perspective for a free life with a strong will. They have become a natural and fundamental part of the revolution. They are taking on responsibility in self-governing institutions, fighting in the ranks of the SDF, and are a symbol for the future of women throughout Syria.

The fact that brotherhood between Kurds and Arabs is essential for the future of the region is also underlined by the letter that Rêber Apo recently sent directly to the Arab tribes of the region from the prison island of Imrali, calling for Kurdish-Arab unity:

“The friendship between our peoples has lasted for centuries. Today, with your leadership, it takes on a new political and social significance.“ Rêber Apo emphasizes what this relationship should be based on today and how important the participation of Arabs is in defending the region: ”All people should be equal and free, live together, and govern themselves. Equality and justice must be built on this foundation. Kurds and Arabs should live together. This also depends on your support for the SDF. Your support for the SDF is of great importance and significance.” Today, at least half of the SDF fighters are of Arab descent, and the predominantly Arab regions of Raqqa, Deir Ez-Zor, and Tabqa are part of the self-administration. Women in these regions, in particular, have become pioneers of the Democratic Nation. Even though sleeper cells of the Islamic State continue to pose a security risk and media campaigns by Turkey and others target the alliances between Arabs and Kurds, a few weeks ago we sat down again with revolutionary youth, Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, Basques, Portuguese, and Germans over dinner and discussed how much the Democratic Nation in North-East-Syria has already become a reality.

Some days ago, I attended the demonstration of the Young Women’s Movement in Raqqa. Kurdish and Arab women, some in military clothing, some veiled in burkas, demonstrated together. As different as their appearances were, it became clear in the young women’s shared chants: all of these women draw their strength from Rêber Apo and organize themselves according to his philosophy of “Jin Jiyan Azadî – Women Life Freedom.” This image is the result of a serious struggle.

On the day of the anniversary of Raqqa’s liberation, we bow our heads to those who lost their lives in the liberation of the city and look with awe at the achievements of the revolution. Side by side, young people from the region in particular have overcome the divisions between Arabs and Kurds, thereby changing the fate of the entire region. Today, Raqqa is liberated, but the road to the liberation of the Middle East is still long and unpredictable. However, undeniably important steps have been taken in recent years. Rêber Apo’s vision of a democratic nation has become a reality in North East Syria and shows the way to a democratic Middle East.

Internationalists who fell during the liberation of Raqqa and in battles around Raqqa:

Ryan Lock (Berxwedan Givara)
Nazzareno Tassone (Agîr Ararat)
Muzaffer Kandemir (Doğan Kırefe)
Paolo Todd (Kawa Amed)
Albert Avery Harrington (Çekdar Rojava/Neshro Hiro)
Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu (Mehmet Kurnaz)
Ayşe Deniz Karacagil (Destan Temmuz)
Hasan Ali
Robert Grodt (Demhat Goldman)
Luke Rutter (Soro Zinar)
Nicholas Warden (Rodi Deysie)
David Taylor (Zafer Qereçox)
Fermun Çırak (Nubar Ozanyan/Orhan Bakırcıyan)
Gökhan Taşyakan (Ulaş Adalı)
Frédéric Henri Georges Demonchaux (Gabar Légionnaire)
Mehmet Aksoy (Firaz Dag)
Jack Holmes (Şoreş Amanos)
Oliver Hall (Canşêr Zagros)

The spring has arrived in Rojava, the days get warmer again and its greening everywhere. The rain that is falling in winter is the main factor for the growth of the crop during the year. This winter there was quite a lot of rain, which makes everyone looking forward to a good harvest.

Since the days are getting warmer again, we and the children of the Mesrûd Mîrad School also took the opportunity for working on the trees that were planted the last spring. Most of the trees made it through the hot summer, while few also dried out.

Together, we straightened the bent trees with sticks and we cleaned the school yard. A work that might take hours when you are doing it on your own but when 100 children are doing it, it’s done within minutes.

The day we went to the school was a special day for all the children. It was the Day of the Mother Tongue which has, after decades of prescription and assimilation of language, an important meaning here in Rojava. The Kurdish language was banned by the Baath regime. Talking Kurdish was forbidden. Arabic was the only language allowed to use in schools and universities. Some families secretly taught their children how to write and read in their mother tongue. Only after the revolution, the Kurdish language became part of the education system and a way of official communication in institutions of the self-administration. With this mindset more importance was also given to the other languages spoken in the region, like Arabic or Assyrian.

For decades Kurdish children would have to hide in barns and backrooms to sing songs in their mother tongue, play, theatre about the Kurdish tales and stories, to not be caught by the Syrian regime forces. Everything representing Kurdish culture was banned from the public life. Instead, the children were educated in Arabic, got rewarded for speaking and writing good Arabic. The same approach was shown for Kurdish traditional clothes, they were proclaimed as backward.

Just as the regime forbids all parts of Kurdish culture, they forbid the planting of trees and any other plants. The plan was to build up monocultures, to only plant wheat and wool in Rojava. For the regime Rojava, it’s nature and it’s people were only an object of exploitation.

On the day of the mother tongue a lot of children also came in their traditional clothes to school, the girl in their “Fistan” (The Kurdish traditional dress) and the boys in “şal û şapik” (The traditional wide trousers and shirt, tied together with a “şutik” around the waist). Again, something that has been looked down upon as backward under the Syrian regime. When the children of Dêrik today sing songs or read poems in Kurdish. It might not seem as something huge, but thinking about a the time of oppression and denial in all parts of Kurdistan, this is a historic step, for the Kurdish people as well as for the region. The democratic confederalist system that is being built up in Rojava is in the first place an answer to this history of denial. While in most of the countries in the region some identities and language are oppressed and only one nationality is being favored, the self-administration works for ending this. Neither should Arabs or Assyrians be favored over Kurds, nor the other way around.

There is a Kurdish saying that goes “Her dar li ser koka xwe şîn dibe.”, which means literally “Every tree blossoms on it’s own roots” and can be understood in the sense of that people can live and grow the best on their own land, the land of their ancestors, and not where they have been pushed to flee to because of economic and cultural oppression and persecution. The people of Rojava are slowly, but steady building up structures, institutions as well as ecosystems that allow them, after years of colonialism, to live and work on their own land. The Arabic, Kurdish and Assyrian people of the region are now able to live together in peace on their land and slowly building up what has been destroyed by the regime or were never allowed to exist: The trees that have been cut down or dried out under the monoculture politics of the Syrian regime are going to be replanted, and the culture and language of the people of the region are given space to evolve and flourish. Reforestation as well as education in the mother tongue is both essential parts of this project that complete each other.

The conference has seen the alternation of seminars and discussions about the struggle of Rêber Apo and some of the problems that are currently most affecting the youth of the region. In order to find solutions for them, in particular underage marriage, fleeing and migration, and the use of drugs have been discussed.

Beside the military attacks, the population of North-East Syria and its revolution are, since more than 11 years, at the center of a heavy special warfare (psychological, economical, cultural etc.). In this framework women and the youth, the vanguards of the revolution are particularly targeted. What the capitalist system, firstly embodied by the Turkish state, seeks to deepen is the ongoing societycide. This term was created by Rêber Apo to refer to the annihilation of society, destruction of its social fabric, its identity, erase of its history. Confronted with this, what the youth of the region are doing everyday, is struggling against this enemy, in order to build a democratic society and a free life. During this conference the determination showed by the youth to fight on one side the feudalism present in the region, and on the other, the influence of capitalist modernity, has given us a lot of strength.

The first problem that has been discussed was underage marriage. Analyzing the reality of the region, it has clearly emerged how patriarchy, in the form of feudalism, had used religion to legitimize a life-cage for women. A model of how a woman should be, how her life should be. Silent, submissive, serving in the house (cooking cleaning, taking care of children, and the elderly). In front of the search of many women for a different life, capitalist modernity has answered manipulating the idea of freedom, especially through social-media, creating new models of how a woman should be, how her life should look like. But what does a young woman from the Middle East see when she opens Instagram or Facebook? She is bombarded with gender-sexist contents, showing marriage as main goal to achieve. Early marriage and self-sexualization are shown as modern, symbols of progress and “freedom”. With the liberal idea of “Everything you want, you can do it” women are manipulated to think that marriage is their greatest desire. In this way capitalist modernity pushes women, again, inside the same cage of slavery. But with the illusion that this time it’s their “free” choice. Moreover, with the idea of “I want my freedom, to make my own choices” the system pushes individualism and competition between women, in order to break the unity among them and make them isolated and weaker. As an answer, the youth have reaffirmed that the philosophy of Rêber Apo, the science of Jineoloji and the principles of women’s liberation, will be the foundation of their struggle. Something very important has also been the will of “starting from ourselves”, from our own family, challenging the patriarchal mentality within it, and bring instead the principles of women’s liberation, democratic family and Hevjiiyana Azad. This, next to the organization of seminars and educations on women’s liberation, is the way chosen by the youth. This is how they are showing what it means to put in practice the methods of Sociology of Freedom.

Fleeing and migration of the youth, direct consequences of Turkish long-time total warfare, have also been discussed. The continuous threat of invasion, the tension created by the almost daily drone strikes and the economic warfare aim to break the morale of the people and weaken the relation with their land. Making people flee is a strategical step in the colonialist vision of the Turkish state. Especially in a region where the main strength is the resistance of the people, an empty land is easier to occupy. The answer elaborated by the youth is multi-polar. As youth, we have to ask ourselves which world do we want? And, for who do we want it? Just for us, or for everyone? The main perspective elaborated as an answer, by the youth, regards the development of people’s economy, on the basis of democratic modernity. Advancing with the system of cooperatives will be the way to reply to the economical issue. This struggle also means to re-build a deep and truly love for the land, highlighting the indivisible relation between defense of land and society’s self-defense. Beside this, deconstructing the narrative of finding a “better life” abroad, exposing the lies hidden in it, also plays an important role.

In a context of physical and psychological attacks, an additional weapon that is especially used against the youth are drugs. We know very well how also in Europe the spread of drugs, in particular in political environments, is a destructive tool for hundreds of thousands of young people that are searching for perspectives, answers, searching for a community in which being able to share their contradictions, fears and dreams. Drugs have been used as a tool by Nation-states to break revolutionary movements for a long time. Now this is again clearly visible in the region, where both the Turkish and Syrian regimes, through agents and mercenaries, are pushing drugs into North-east Syria. The importance of increasing awareness about it has emerged among the youth. This will not regard only the health effects but will expose how drugs are part of the wider war on society carried on by the system to kill the youth and their spirit, to kill the will and strength of change, to make people dumb and passive.

In all these cases the role of special warfare has emerged as crucial. Of fundamental importance is, therefore, to deepen the understanding of how the system is trying to break the moral of the society and its resistance, substituting at its place individualism and liberalism. In this process the role of so-called ‘social’ media has also been seen as a very powerful tool of manipulation. Labeling many things as backward, the system wants to distance people, and especially the youth, from their roots, it wants to show itself as the only possible alternative, and for this it needs to create fake images of the life in capitalist modernity and make society believe in it. As an answer to all these attacks, the youth have replied expressing their will to increase the level and the strength of social organization, “from village to village, commune to commune, visiting the families and organizing them.” with the aim of re-building a stronger spirit of communality. Also through sport, artistic and cultural activities more and more young people will be involved. All of this would have no basis, methods and perspectives without the philosophy of Rêber Apo, that’s why deepening its understanding is necessary. The will of bringing the paradigm more inside the society, closer to the youth, making it more and more accessible, will be pursued through the organization of seminars, meetings and conferences. The enthusiasm at the end of the discussion has also led to the proposal that a conference like this will yearly be organized.

“A Revolutionary is one who loves life so much that they cannot accept less than a free life, for everyone. A Revolutionary is one who is always looking for solutions to the problems of society” in this vision, these young people, with their level of organization, commitment and love for life are an inspiring example.

This gathering has continued on the path opened by Rêber Apo and all the democratic and resistance forces that have come before us. This conference has definitely made a step in the way towards freedom.

Also check out the interviews with 3 members of the revolutionary youth movement, young people who came from different parts of Rojava like Sehba and Kobanê:

Internationalist Commune of Rojava,
06/11/2023

When we talked about the cooperatives, I thought about the collective farms I know in France. When we went to Jinwar – the women’s village – I thought about the village of Umoja in Kenya… We don’t have the same experiences, the same methods, the same views. We try with our strengths and weaknesses, with our mistakes and successes, we try to build resistances in our different way. We are all sharing the same drive, the same thrive for solidarity, for freedom, for taking our future into our own hands.

Yan Serkeftin, yan Serkeftin

We talked with many people, in families, in the structures of the autonomous administration. Everyone lost someone, a close relative, a friend, a child… sometimes much more. Thousands made sacrifices so that others could have a chance to build a better world. Against these people that try to create a free life, the Turkish state is launching drone strikes, organizing armed clashes, occupies, leading a war on water that is heavily impacting the humanitarian situation, agriculture, electricity and clean water supply. In addition, the embargo is slowly eroding the economy and the daily life, and the threat of Daesh is still strong. Yes, despite the fact that most of the world seems to see it as a problem from the past, Daesh is here, still with support, a lot of weapons at its disposal and a lot of fighters.

But the people of Rojava and North-east Syria gave a lot of sacrifice, struggled so much and built so much with their own hands. They are connected to this revolution in such a way that it’s a part of them. They made Öcalan’s philosophical and political vision their own. They will never back down. They show a determination that is not only necessary, but also admirable, with a humility that commands respect in view of all they have achieved. At on point, we visited the Black Stadium of Raqqa, a stadium turned into a prison by Daesh where civilians were imprisoned, tortured, murdered by beheading or hanging. In the midst of this heavy atmosphere and the smell of death clinging to the walls, our guide casually smoked a cigarette, explaining that when Daesh occupied Raqqa, if you were caught smoking a cigarette, you will have your fingers cut-off. This is what society was struggling with and now every movement in life to became part of the revenge.

Against all odds, against all of these brutal attacks towards the people of the autonomous administration, they fight. They struggle, they resist, they find solutions, they build the future through sweat and blood, they are tirelessly developing democratic methods to work together, to stop domestic violence, to change society, to create a new life. There is nothing here that will be destroyed by mere violence and aggression. They will struggle until the end. And not only for themselves, the ideals that are put into practice, with all the contradictions and difficulties you could imagine, are ideals of peace, democracy, freedom and justice for the entire world. I never understood internationalism as deep as I understood it here. It suddenly becomes obvious.

The youth: first victim as well as revolutionary vanguard

While only 6 years ago Daesh was enforcing its humiliating laws, we met the youth in Raqqa, in Manbij, and we saw how the young people organise themselves with an unstoppable dynamism, especially the young Arab women. They were asking for our experiences, points of view, our stories with interest and humility. They shared their stories, their experience of war, how they discovered the movement, the philosophy and paradigm from Abdullah Öcalan. Describing the difficulties at first with their families and how it evolved and they succeeded in influencing them. Self-organization is very important to defend against the different attacks of capitalism, here in Rojava it reaches a existencial meaning. The embargo is limiting a lot of aspects of life, but still the Turkish State is oppening the way to drugs to be used as a weapon against the youth, trying to kill their revolutionary spirit. With all the propaganda on mass and social media, many young people think theres is a better future elsewhere, mainly in Europe. Here, the youth develops a political defense: creates awareness, proposes alternatives and a frame of work in order to develop the future here with an unmatched vitality.

War

During this week, the war felt very close. In the ruins of Kobanê, one of our guides showed us a destroyed building and said “This was my house.”. When we never saw war it seems very abstract. Here, when you walk in the Şehîd cemetery or in the commemoration places and you see pictures of the faces filled with belief and hope of the young people that gave their life defending Kobanê against Daesh, you feel the value of their sacrifices. During the week of our travel, the Turkish state carried out a series of murderous air strikes. Comrades, military and civilians, are falling under these aggressions. People we could have been working with, people we could have been talking to just a few days ago. Maybe the Turkish state wants to invade Northeastern Syria. But after what I saw, I know it doesn’t stand a chance.

Internationalist Commune of Rojava,
27.08.2023

For little more than a week we had the chance to visit places, discuss with different people, collect experience, make impressions, feel and see at least some of the many faces of this complex social revolution. Of course the time frame of a week was way too short to get a very deep insight to all the processes in the region, but a longer time was not possible because of the very tense war situation. After the elections in Turkey, the AKP-MHP regime again started to threaten the region, while intensifying its attacks. In one town that we visited we had to stay inside because on the same day we arrived, two comrades were martyred in a drone strike by the Turkish state.

Despite this, we decided to do this tour in order to create a better basis to contribute to the various aspects of the revolution and not give in to aggression. Because this is what the Turkish state wants to achieve with its attacks: Spread fear among the people, bring life to a halt and break the revolutionary spirit. So we went to towns such as Heseke, a place that until today marks an important point of resistance against the fascism of DAESH (ISIS). Last year, for example, DAESH attempted to stage a large scale prison escape which only came to a halt after days of fighting, causing many casualties.

We also visited places in the majority Arab regions, cities liberated from the hands of Daesh, such as Raqqa, Minbic and Tebqa. The names of these cities have written a history of resistance, with the effort and unprecedented struggle of all who fought and fell Şehîd, so that freedom could be achieved in the region. Kobane is perhaps the city that represents the legacy of resistance in Rojava the most. It is a place where the revolution is remembered in every corner. It is a place filled with stories of people who fought and went through moments of hope, victory and liberation.

As we were walking, we asked – Questions that accompanied us on the way:

How to put in practice the dialectic of theory and practice? How can we learn from the experience, and how can we put the ideology into practice?

Undoubtedly, this is a never ending process, especially for revolutionaries. Learning from life experience is a value that has become weaker in western societies. Within the framework of the capitalist nation-state, the education system feeds us with positivism, which leads to an extremely narrow view of what and how we can learn something. By forcing the natural and holistic human learning process into analytical and efficient standards, we have unlearned learning.

As internationalists coming from different countries to learn about this revolution, one of our desires and duties is to educate ourselves. But how? Here in Rojava, together with many friends, we have begun to understand more and more what democratic and revolutionary education means. Another important aspect of internationalism is to contribute to the struggles with which we have built a connection. We are not tourists or guests, we want to be comrades of the resisting people in Northeast Syria. This means that we face the responsibility that comes with the possibility of being in a liberated territory.

Many of us will work in the society of Rojava and the education we participated in as well as the series of meetings that took place during the tour aimed to complement each other in order to help us understand better how we can contribute to the organization of the society. We joined an intense education in which we were confronted with our contradictions created by our life within the capitalist system that draws us into attitudes influenced by liberalism and attitudes that prevent us from building a revolutionary personality that fights for the revolution and that allows us to limit our search for comfort and not really strive to be one with society.

These contradictions were able to be fought during this tour by going into society, by understanding how the works are done, but even more by being able to be one with society and by trying to understand its pain. But we also learned what society expects of us as internationalists: As a mother of a fallen guerrilla fighter in Kobanê said to us, after becoming part of this revolution and sharing our memories in a common struggle, our task is to tell the whole world about the reality and the struggle of the people here in Rojava. On this behalf we are going to share more about our experiences in the following weeks.

It’s 7.45am on this Monday morning, it’s now a bit chilly now, but if the sun comes out, which it often does, too often, at midday, the atmosphere still gets quite warm. I have been walking this fifteen-minute walk every day for a few weeks now, skirting the outskirts of this small town where the precariousness jumps out at times, while it rubs shoulders with buildings that are a little better off. Concrete is, unfortunately, undisputed king here, with skeletons of future buildings dotting the landscape without concern for aesthetic considerations. On this bright day, the mountains on the Turkish side sit majestically on the horizon like an inaccessible invitation.

Zigzagging between a few old tractors, guilds of chickens and columns of geese, in a colourful setting that could be used for a Kusturica film. The boundaries between town and country are blurred in these peripheral urban areas. I make my way to what has recently become my “workplace”: a large cream-coloured building, in a very poor state of repair, a former secondary school of the Syrian regime, which today houses the bilingual (Arabic/Kurdish) school administration for the 87 schools in the small town and the many surrounding villages. This morning, there is a calmness worthy of a Friday (which here has the character of a Sunday) that makes me think that I will probably find the door closed. This Monday is not a Monday like any other. Mourning and commemoration are the order of the day. Two nights ago, Turkish bombs sowed death in a region historically rather unscathed compared to others.

On the night of 20-21 November, at around midnight, an airstrike targeted the village of Teqil Beqil, killing two people and destroying a power plant. A group of people rushed to the scene to help the victims and issued a statement denouncing the incident. A journalist from a local media accompanied them. Three more rounds of macabre shells then fell on the assembly, killing nine people. These “double-tap” strikes is a strategy as common as it is despicable on the part of the red-flagged air force adorned with a moon and a white star. The aim is undeniable: to kill by creating psychological shock. It is impossible not to see the sordid hypocrisy of the Turkish Defence Minister who dares to speak of “surgical strikes against specific military targets”. Of course, if the reasoning is to consider any civilian, in solidarity with the popular self-defence forces, as a terrorist, this opens the way to a pseudo-legitimisation of many war crimes.

Yesterday morning, the mood among my colleagues was one of gravity and apprehension. On 20 November, International Children’s Day, a big parade was planned in the city, followed by a party with several schools. I had attended a dress rehearsal at one of the schools. The children were proud to show me the songs and dances they had prepared for the occasion. This year there will be no celebration, the neighbouring army has decided to replace it with stupefaction and grief. The traditional collective coffee/tea at the beginning of the day drags on, everyone exchanging news of the tragic events. News arrives in the course of the morning revealing the number and identity of the colleagues killed during the night. Colleagues learn that people close to them are among the dead. I watch helplessly as they grieve. I don’t know where to stand, what to do, what to say. I content myself with being there, a discreet witness, a stranger in spite of everything. I think of the magnitude of the damage and the pain caused by the interests of a minority willing to carry out the most sordid tricks to stay in power.

If Erdoğan and his gang of murderers are playing the escalation card, it is not in the supposed defence of their threatened people, but because of their disastrous political record and the approaching elections. It never ceases to amaze me that the old strategy of creating an external enemy to deflect responsibility from the elites for the sad fate of the people still works, that it remains, despite the lessons of history, as yet insufficiently learned, frighteningly effective. And no matter how crude the make-up, the media will play its role as a sounding board, refraining from “taking sides”, which is enough to give credence to the lie. It had been a long time since I had heard ‘sehid namirin’ (martyrs never die) sung and chanted with a heavy heart. The collective funeral of the eleven victims was attended by a large crowd, filled with emotion and rage from beginning to end. The people killed were particularly appreciated and recognised for their longstanding involvement in civil society. Their rapid presence at the scene of the attack, in the middle of the night, was a reflection of their constant dedication to supporting the collective construction of this revolutionary democratic alternative. Two of them were, for example, very active in the ”Martyrs’ House“, which provides support and assistance to bereaved families. I met them. They were the first dead people I met in life, which makes this murderous rampage, which has been accelerating for several months now, even more concrete and tangible.

On the way back, I decide to change my itinerary a little. I discover, at the bend in the road, lines of stones marking out children’s play areas, old tins that serve as furniture and crockery for these miniature houses, without walls or roofs but not without a kind of poetry. On the adjoining wall, chalk drawings bear witness to collective moments of unfurled imagination. A creativity that never fails to move the “believing but not practising” teacher that I am. As I immortalise the scene, two women greet me. When I tell them that I have come from Belgium, one of them rejoices: “My son went to live in Belgium a few months ago!” He has gone to join members of his family who have lived there for a long time. It was my turn to ask questions and realise that he lives in the Burning City (Liège), on the heights of the Pierreuse district, of which I am particularly fond. There are times when the world is definitely a small place. We both rejoice at this coincidence and he invites me to his house for tea.

There I met two young budding mural artists. They are ten and twelve years old, called Rojava and Rojhilat. What a symbol! We talk about war and migration, our hopes and our fears. I come away with a stronger conviction that, whatever they say, the world is worse off than most of the human beings who inhabit it are. In short, humanity is, by and large, less rotten than the current state of the planet. I am left wondering what will become of these two young women, where and how they will grow up, what sorrows and joys they will experience. Surely it will be up to them to turn on their shouts and their weapons to make possible, beyond the state borders that date back to colonisation, unconditional respect for women, life and freedom!

The day after the funeral, on Tuesday morning, I went with my colleagues to another tribute, attended by more than a thousand people. The speeches shouted anger and determination to continue the resistance, against all odds. They proclaim, loud and clear, that fear is absent from their bodies. Several speeches highlight the dedication of the guerrillas in northern Iraq and the struggle of Iranian women. A group of teenage girls walk past the audience, waving flags and chanting “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi”, which is echoed by the crowd. This experience of Rojava, which wants to go beyond the nation-state model, the heroic guerrilla battles in the mountains of Iraq and the savagely repressed mobilisations in the streets of Iran, are all ONE. The same struggle, the same desire to live a dignified life, the same cry for women’s freedom. The same critique and rejection of a capitalist modernity that inexorably destroys the diversity of life.