During the July 19 Revolution, known as the Women’s Revolution, women from the Kurdish, Arab, Syriac, Assyrian, Armenian, Circassian, and Turkmen components in Rojava and North and East Syria rose up against the actions of the authorities based on a patriarchal and sectarian mentality.

We present to you in this file the results of women’s efforts and activities, and the achievements they accomplished during the revolution, on the occasion of March 8, International Women’s Day.

The social contract

After the announcement of the Autonomous Administration of al- Jazira Canton on January 21, 2014, Kobani on January 27, and Afrin on January 29, 2014, the Legislative Council of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria met in the city of Amuda in the same year and ratified the Rojava Social Contract, which preserves the military, political, and social rights of women. The system of co-chair was adopted as a fundamental principle in all institutions of the Autonomous Administration.

The social contract was amended on December 29, 2016, and issues of freedom, justice, equality, education, health, environmental protection, women’s freedom, and the protection of women’s and children’s rights were fundamental in this social contract, with women’s representation in these areas reaching 40 percent.

In the context of people’s rights and women’s proposals, the Democratic Autonomous Administration amended the social contract again and ratified the new social contract on December 12, 2023. According to the contract, the representation of women in the public justice system in the region was set at 50 percent.

In 2024, preparations began for a social contract specifically for women, and work on it is still ongoing.

Women’s Authority

Women’s Authority is one of the bodies affiliated with the Executive Council of the Autonomous Administration. Its work involves addressing women’s social, economic, cultural, political, and legal issues, and it operates based on social justice and the democratic family.

The Women’s Authority includes the Women’s Protection Office and the Children’s Protection Office.

At the level of al-Jazira canton, the Amara Office was opened to provide psychological support to women who are subjected to extortion and abuse. Additionally, between 2022 and 2023, 7 centers named “Ahlan Simsim” were opened to develop children’s skills.

Women’s organization

With the aim of standing against all forms of violence and social problems and liberating from prevailing systems, and based on the principle of “Organize yourself according to the ideology of women’s liberation,” the Kongra Star was established as a union before the revolution in 2005, and it continues to manage community organization now under the name Kongra Star.

Kongra Star took the initiative to establish the first women’s councils and centers and organize them in the liberated regions of North and East Syria from ISIS mercenaries (al-Tabqa, Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor). In 2021, the establishment of the Zenobia Women’s Assembly was announced, with its centers located in al-Tabqa, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, and Manbij before being occupied by Turkey and its mercenaries in late 2024. It is concerned with organizing women on all levels, in addition to addressing social issues such as violence, child marriage, polygamy, murder, divorce, and inheritance.

Many institutions to combat the patriarchal mentality

To combat violence against women in North and East Syria, the Sara Organization for Combating Violence Against Women was established in 2013.

The Center for Research and Protection of Women’s Rights was established in 2020 with the aim of providing legal support to women and documenting the ongoing violations against them.

The Free Women’s Foundation in Syria was also established in 2014 with the aim of developing and empowering women in the economic, cultural, social, and health sectors.

The Women’s Environmental Platform was established in Rojava in 2022 to promote environmental awareness.

Alongside these organizations, many women’s councils have been established in the region. In 2019, the Women’s Council in North and East Syria was established, and in 2017, the Syrian Women’s Council, the Women’s Council in the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and women’s councils and offices in the Future Syria Party, the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), and the Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM) were established. These are important and significant organizations in the region.

Women’s unions for the Syriac, Armenian, and Yazidi communities were also established in the region, along with the Young Women’s Union and the Women’s Media Union (YRJ), as well as several associations and civil society organizations dedicated to women.

Women’s House

In order to protect women’s rights, combat violence, prevent child marriage, address harassment and rights violations, and tackle all social issues in various cities, as well as to solve social problems according to the model of a democratic and ecological society and to liberate women, the first women’s house was opened in the city of Qamishlo on March 20, 2011, under the auspices of the Star Union (now the Kongra Star). Today, there are 39 women’s houses in North and East Syria.

Also, in the cities of Qamishlo and Hasakah in 2019, under the auspices of the Syriac Women’s Union, the Ishtarot House for Women was established with the aim of finding solutions to the problems faced by Syriac, Armenian, and Chaldean women.

Women’s Justice Council

The Women’s Justice Council was established in 2016 and operated throughout North and East Syria. Under its umbrella, the Women’s House, the Justice Bureau, the Reconciliation Committee, and the Academy were organized.

After the expansion of the liberated areas, the Women’s Social Justice Council in North and East Syria was announced at al-Jazira Conference for the Women’s Justice Council (2018).

Family law

The Women’s Law, which guarantees women’s political, economic, and social rights without relying on patriarchal or masculine mentality and achieves justice and equality, was issued on October 27, 2014, under the auspices of the Kongra Star and consists of 26 articles. However, due to the absence of specific penal laws, the penal code of the Damascus Government was adopted. The Women’s Law was completed in 2016 with the approval of the criminal and penal laws.

In 2019, at the first conference of the Women’s Council in North and East Syria, which included 62 women’s organizations and independent women, the Women’s Law was discussed as principles for women, and a decision was made to issue the Family Law.

The Family Law consists of 6 titles: marriage, divorce, effects of divorce, alimony, kinship, and family-related crimes, and it includes 41 articles. The law stipulates a prison sentence of 10 years for those who commit crimes of killing women. The Family Law was approved for the first time in 2023 in the al-Jazira region, and it protects women, children, and family members.

The security and military field

The Internal Security Forces – Women took over women’s security practically in 2012 and was officially established in 2014. It includes the Syriac Women’s Protection Units (Sutoro), the Assyrian Internal Security Forces (Natura), and women also have a place in the traffic department.

The Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) were established in 2013. Additionally, women take their place independently within the councils of Kurdish, Arab, Syriac, Assyrian, and Armenian components affiliated with the Syrian Democratic Forces.

In order to protect the community security-wise and prevent the proxy war being waged in the region from abroad, the Community Protection Forces for Women were established in 2016.

Golden Crescent Movement

The Hilal Zerin Movement for Women’s Culture in North and East Syria was established in 2016, and today it has 5 centers distributed across the region’s cities. Under the umbrella of the movement, the Shahida Berxwedan Studio and the Women’s Cinema operate as two institutions managing artistic works such as films, music videos, and song releases.

In 2024, the Hela Zerin Movement for Women’s Culture in North and East Syria inaugurated the Higher Institute of Arts in the city of al-Hasakah.

In 2020, the movement also opened the Martyr Noyla School of Fine Arts and established a children’s music band of the same name.

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.”

During the year 2022, JINEOLOJI conducted many social studies and research, such as conducting studies on women’s psychology, morals and beauty, family relations, reasons for divorce and the resistance of Sheikh Maqsoud‘s women, in addition to conducting studies on every region in North and East Syria; to clarify its historical background.

JINEOLOJI considers training as one of the arenas of life, and attaches great importance to it. During the past year, about 10,000 women and men received training, while about 457 seminars and lectures were held on the equal and free life, and the definition of types of violence against women and ways to confront and eliminate them.

These trainings are organized on the basis of understanding the social reality, and target all segments of society, starting with communes, military and civil academies, and academies affiliated with institutions, such as justice institutions and the Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM), and all the way to the media.

Diplomatically, and to introduce JINEOLOJI (science of women), members of the Academy of JINEOLOJI and women from 30 countries around the world participated in the third conference of women, which was held last September in Tunis, and also participated in the second international conference of women, which was held last November in the capital of Germany, Berlin.

Training, studies and publication

Member of the JINEOLOJI Academy, Alia Amara, considered training an essential part of the work of the JINEOLOJI academies and training centers, which organize themselves on three main items: training, studies, and publishing. And she emphasized that women’s knowledge; It aims at liberation from gender intolerance, and building a democratic life in which equality and justice prevail.

She pointed out that women’s science or JINEOLOJI is directly related to life through training, saying: “It is not a purely scientific subject, but rather a life subject. Therefore, we follow several methods in training, including theater that follows existing reality, dialogue, debate, and preparing short film, as it is a gateway to knowing the truth.” self-discovery, and social relationships.

Alia stood on the reasons for targeting the Turkish occupation state through its intelligence arms in Başûr (Southern Kurdistan) for the activist, academic and member of the JINEOLOJI Research Center, Nakhan Akarsal, saying: “Because women’s science is a science based on participatory democratic foundations and on the principle of society’s freedom through women’s freedom, it also seeks to end an authoritarian era, the Turkish occupation was nothing but targeting a pioneer of this science.

She indicated that the attempts of the Turkish fascist state to undermine women’s struggle by targeting them directly failed, saying: “The echo of the revolution of July 19, 2012 and the accompanying mental revolution extended outside Rojava and North and East Syria. Even in Rojhelat (Eastern Kurdistan), the slogan emanating from Rojava was chanted: “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî “The state opposition to democratic ideas was nothing but targeting the pioneers and fighters of this idea, such as the martyr Nakhan Akarsal.”

Alia promised that targeting the fighter Nakhan “targets the women’s movement as a whole,” affirming “not surrendering to the policies of the enemies and following in their footsteps until freedom is achieved for all women and society.”

Practical experiences

In her turn, a member of the JINEOLOJI Research Center, Nofa Ali, mentioned the mechanism of the research center, which operates on two foundations; “What are the reasons for conducting research, and what is its necessity?”, saying: “We conduct research on the basis of the community’s need for topics of interest, the difficulties and obstacles it faces, and ways to solve it?”

Attention is drawn to the reliance of JINEOLOJI Research Centers on conducting scientific research based on practical experience through religion, myths, society, books and curricula, taking into account the opinions and visions of community members.

The video below sadly does not contain English subtitles.

1. Introduction

The ‘Rojava Revolution’ began exactly ten years ago, on July 19^th 2012, when three predominantly Kurdish-inhabited areas of Syria declared their autonomy from the central government. Since then, a democratic, autonomous administration has attempted to create a grassroots, gender-equal and ecological society in these areas. Communes and councils, the democratic representatives of the population, organize life and administer society. The political model has thus established itself in decided opposition to the old Ba’ath regime. Numerous people within society are involved in a wide variety of local and social activities – from the communes and councils to working in the health sector, the women’s movement or in self-defence structures. 

Rojava has also been synonymous with the war against the Islamic State (ISIS), the occupation of Turkey, overcrowded refugee camps, water shortages, crop failures and widespread poverty. But against the backdrop of an ongoing war, occupation, an embargo due to the Syrian Civil War, and a precarious humanitarian situation that makes basic staples scarce, Rojava has held its ground for ten years. The areas controlled by the democratic ‘Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria’ (AANES) have grown since 2012 and now include a third of Syrian territory and nearly a fifth of its population.

A decade on, the continued existence of North and East Syria (NES) – the more inclusive name of the region, which encompasses Kurdish-majority Rojava and the Arab-majority areas on the banks of the Euphrates – is an achievement in and of itself. In the eleven years since 2011, the Rojava Revolution has remained committed to its former values and consolidated its achievements, even as all other gains of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings were squashed or coopted by national governments. This revolution, however imperfect, thus has something to teach the world about staying power.

The Rojava Revolution began ten years ago in Kobane. As a result, an ‘autonomous administration’ was established to manage society based on the values of (direct) democracy, gender liberation and ecology. For ten years, this administration (under different names; see below) has fought off a number of internal and external enemies. In addition to the military, diplomatic and economic disputes with the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, it is above all the wars with Turkey and ISIS that threaten the very existence of the region’s political project. Turkey has invaded NES twice since 2016, and continues to occupy large swaths of northern Syria. ISIS was only territorially defeated in 2019, after more than four gruelling years since it was first pushed back during the 2014-2015 Battle for Kobane. Since then, however, ISIS has remained active in NES, staging occasional large attacks, while waging an irregular war of attrition in the Deir ez-Zor region and beyond. It has by no means been defeated.

Despite all these adversities, NES society has continued to establish and develop (relatively) stable political structures. Legal institutions, such as peace committees, have been introduced. These consensus-based bodies are responsible for resolving conflicts and have largely replaced the hierarchical court system common in Western societies. In addition, two social contracts – akin to a local constitution – were adopted in 2014 and 2016, as the product of a collaborative social process during which collective discussions determined which topics would be included. Work on a new social contract, which will better reflect all regions under the AANES umbrella, is currently underway. These social contracts have formalized the already-decentralized decision-making processes in the region and consolidated much of the legislative power of local councils. Many of these changes in NES can be described as a radical democratization of society and life. This, in turn, is changing the way people think and conceive of legal concepts such as law and justice.

(The cantons of Rojava in January 2014)

No doubt, the Rojava Revolution has major achievements under its belt, and its importance (especially for the region, but also beyond) cannot be overstated. However, shortfalls also abound. For outside observers with sympathies for the local political project acknowledging the latter has been difficult. The philosopher Slavoj Žižek, in his convocational lecture at Kobane University in April 2021, stated: “As Kurds, you established an actually existing utopia with an intellectual community. You are a symbol not only to resist but to establish a new order.” ¹ In 2018, the late David Graeber claimed that democratic confederalism in Rojava, “should be considered one of the most important events in recent world history.” ² 

This report – particularly part II – aims to focus on the day-to-day challenges in order to provide an accurate insight into NES’ society ten years after the revolution began. In order to gauge its true achievements – and shortcomings – it will sidestep essentializing and sensationalist discourse, such as was mentioned above, focusing instead on the people in NES and the real-world changes to their lives.

At the same time, with the end of the war against ISIS, Western media and political interest in NES has declined significantly. For many casual observers, the Syrian conflict has turned stale, and other global events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine War currently dominate public interest. This has led to a lack of interest (by media as well as on the political level) in the developments in NES. This report also seeks to breathe new life into the discussions around ‘Rojava’.

This report is divided into two parts. The first discusses the history of the Rojava Revolution, as well as the difficulties and threats that NES has faced since then. In addition, this part will cover the institutions that form the basis of this new Syrian reality. The second part will provide a more detailed look at the present social relations in NES. Focusing on a handful of social fields, this report will measure the developments of the revolution – ten years on. In particular, this report will focus on the subjects of the legal system, healthcare and the political economy. Finally, the second part of this report seeks to look into the future. What opportunities and risks do the people who live in NES see? Which developments do they wish for, which do they consider likely – against the background of permanent threats of war – and how do they prepare for them?

2. History of the Rojava Revolution

On March 15^th 2011, peaceful protests against the authoritarian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, and the government’s brutal reaction, were the catalyst for Syria’s Civil War. In the course of the war, the country disintegrated into areas controlled either by Assad’s government, different opposition groups – mainly the Free Syrian Army (FSA) – or jihadists. During the turmoil of the civil war, on the night of July 18^th 2012, armed Syrian Kurds took control of the roads leading into and out of the city of Kobane, in northern Syria. “The Kurdish forces rejected a request by the Free Syrian Army and told them that they [the Kurds] can control their own areas,” Hussein Kochar, a PYD official said at that time.³ Concurrently, civilians in the city besieged and captured all state institutions in the city. Finally, a crowd gathered in front of the city’s Syrian Arab Army (SAA) military base. A popular delegation to the armed force demanded that they hand over their weapons but guaranteed safe passage. Faced with a hopeless situation, the soldiers agreed. Later, some of the soldiers returned to their families across the country, while another group stayed on to prevent the city from falling into the hands of the FSA. Unbeknownst to most attendees, they had been witnesses to the birth of the Rojava Revolution.

From Kobane, the uprising spread to other Kurdish-majority cities across northern Syria in a matter of days. One day after the Ba’ath government and the SAA were forced out of Kobane, the people also took control over the government institutions in Afrin and Amude, as well as in Derik and the whole Cizîrê (Jazeera) Region on July 21^st. The SAA and Syrian government institutions withdrew from these areas (with the exception of Qamishlo and Heseke) without firing so much as a shot. Faced with an insurgency that sought to topple his government, Assad handed the majority of Syria’s north to the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat; PYD), a Syrian-Kurdish party with an ideology of local autonomy, rather than full-fledged independence. 

In these regions, military posts were encircled, and the few remaining SAA troops were forced to surrender. Police buildings were quickly cleansed of the emblems of the old state, and important files were confiscated. Civil Defense committees were established and tasked with ensuring the security of the Kurdish-majority regions. Soon, they established the People’s Defense Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel; YPG), on July 20^th. On the same day, members of the PYD raised the flag of Kurdistan (‘Alaya Rengîn’) alongside the flag of the PKK on all government buildings in the newly liberated cities.  

The only caveats were the major cities of Qamishlo and Heseke, in the Jazeera region (then the Heseke Governorate). Qamishlo, in particular, proved to be a point of contention. The city is split between a Kurdish majority and large Arab, Assyrian Christian, and Armenian populations. Furthermore, it hosted a major SAA base. For this reason, only neighborhoods in which predominantly or exclusively Kurds lived were taken over by the PYD. The city’s downtown, the border crossing to Turkey, a major base to the north, and the city’s airport remained firmly in the government’s hands. A similar agreement was reached in the city of Heseke, which is split between Kurds and Arabs, and which also hosts a major SAA base on its outskirts.⁴ 

Previous History and Forerunners

How did these events come about? Pervin Yusif, currently the Co-Chair of Qamishlo, spoke to RIC about her experience. Before her current position, she was active in the women’s organization Kongreya Star. She remembers the time before the revolution:

“Back then it was very difficult for us as Kurdish people. Before the revolution we lived like slaves. We were oppressed by the regime. We could not build our own houses and we could not send our children to schools to learn their own language. So, we organized ourselves in a struggle for freedom, for our identity and to be able to speak our own language. We wanted to live according to our own language and our own culture on our own land. The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were big inspirations for us. More and more, we saw that our people were the most in need of a change and a revolution. In doing so, it would be possible for everybody to gain basic rights and to become active members in society.” ⁵ 

However, Pervin Yusif also highlights that clandestine self-organization and political structures existed among the Kurdish population in Syria before the revolution. Despite state repression, Kurdish liberation movements had had a strong impact on society. The 2012 revolution was thus able to build on existing structures. In 2003, the PYD was founded as the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, which had operated from Syria and Lebanon until 1998. One year later, in 2004, a city-wide uprising was sparked at a soccer match in Qamishlo. During the game, violent riots broke out between Kurds and visiting Arab spectators, with Syrian government forces coming to the aid of the latter. “The sobering lesson realized by the Syrian Kurds in the aftermath of the violent crackdown on the Qamishlo uprising was that they needed to form their own armed defence units. However, the Kurds as hitherto a comparatively weak minority in the country, would not be able to induce significant changes in the absence of major transformations first taking place in the broader conditions of the Syrian security state.”⁶ Relatively unexpectedly, Syria was struck by such cross-societal anti-government protests in 2011. During the course of this uprising, the Kurdish youth were quick to organize, forming local committees to coordinate efforts with anti-government activists elsewhere in Syria. For example, the Union of Kurdish Youth Coordination Committees took the lead in the protest movement across Kurdish cities, reaching out to youth groups in the cities of Damascus and Homs in order to unify their political demands. ⁷ Nevertheless, Kurds in Afrin, Kobane, and Jazeera quickly shifted to stressing regional concerns in their protests.

Syrian state control over the region vanished in July 2012. It remains debatable to this day whether the retreat of the Syrian Army was a planned handover between the PYD and the government of Assad or an inevitable withdrawal. The weakness of the central government at that time was, however, undeniable. The abandonment of the region’s rich oil fields, to be harnessed by the new administration and the extracted oil sold back to the central government, suggests this was an involuntary retreat.

As a result of this revolution, a democratic autonomy project was proclaimed. In January 2014, the three Kurdish-majority cantons of Cizîrê, Kobane and Afrin declared their autonomy from the Syrian government. After the collapse of state control, a coalition of Kurdish parties, non-Kurdish groups and organizations, created a transitional alternative administration for the region, based on local councils, which were set up in most cities of northern Syria. Its tasks were the distribution of food and fuel, as well as organizing education, self-defence and justice. The existing infrastructure (water, waste collection etc.) also had to be maintained. Within a few months, there was a functioning council system set in place based on this idea of an autonomous administration. ⁸ Popular organizations prevented acts of revenge and destruction, protecting the still intact infrastructure. Former state buildings that people were not allowed to enter were transformed into so-called ‘People’s Houses’, cultural centers and educational institutions. A precondition to the implementation of these ideas of democratic autonomy was rallying the local population, Pervin Yusif told RIC.

“The first thing that was important to us, was to reach unity among the people. This was the most important thing. The regime tried to divide the different people from each other: Syrians, Arabs, Kurds. Kurds against themselves, Kurds against Arabs. The regime created a situation where the different people were in a war-situation with each other – even within the groups. So before building up councils and communes, as a basis, we needed for different people to come together, trust and believe each other – and love each other. […] To begin our work, this unity of the people was necessary. We built up all the other institutions where people could come together and have a shared common space, and ensure all other works, on that basis.”⁹ 

Military Defense, Consolidation and Expansion

The administration succeeded comparatively quickly in building its own institutions, maintaining public life and creating trust among the population. The PYD-led administration also paid the salaries of all YPG fighters and thus provided a valuable source of income for a large part of the population during a time of economic hardship. In addition, the administration had its own civil servants that provided rudimentary government-like services.

The PYD, which adopted many of the PKK’s strategies, introduced several measures in order to protect women from abuse, protect their rights, and ensure greater gender inclusion and equality. For example, a gender balance was introduced to all structures of the administration in the area: The practice that at least 40% of all members of all institutions should be women, and the practice of co-leadership positions shared between a man and a woman in all administrative bodies, including the PYD-leadership. This also led to the establishment of the women-only Women’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Jin; YPJ) militia on April 4^th 2013. 

The YPG/YPJ’s ability to provide real security for the civilian population led to significant popular support. In fierce battles between 2012 and 2014, the militia succeeded in bringing several border towns under its control and proved to be the most effective force at controlling territory and defending Kurdish areas from the growing threat of armed extremist militias. In March 2013, the YPG/YPJ took control of the oil fields in northeastern Syria, near Rimelan, providing it with an important source of revenue.¹⁰ During the Battle of Sere Kaniye in 2013-2014, the YPG gained even more popularity among the population as a determined and capable defender of the (Kurdish) people.

(YPG fighters during the Operation Wrath of Euphrates, near Raqqa)

During this period, as the three autonomous regions established themselves and developed their institutions, a growing ISIS posed the greatest threat to Rojava’s democratic project. After numerous ISIS military victories, the 2014/2015 battle for Kobane represented a turning point in the war. Simultaneously, the Kurdish militia which defended the city became a global symbol of resistance (the YPJ’s women fighters, in particular, played a prominent role during this battle). ISIS launched an offensive against Kobane on September 15^th 2014, and quickly overran nearly the entire city. With the help of US air support, the YPG/YPJ and its allies fought back for over five gruelling months, eventually driving ISIS out of a Kobane reduced to rubble. The battle was the first decisive defeat of ISIS and led to its withdrawal from the region. It halted their earlier seemingly-unstoppable momentum on the battlefield. Following their success in Kobane, the YPG/YPJ managed to capture the ISIS-held town of Tal Abyad in June 2015, thereby linking the two cantons of Cizîrê and Kobane for the first time. ¹¹

The Kobane campaign elevated the importance of the YPG/YPJ. To solidify the anti-ISIS coalition and attract a broader alliance, in October 2015, at the behest of its US ally, the YPG/YPJ and its allies established the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a multi-ethnic coalition of militias. This alliance became the main ground force in the fight against ISIS.

Later the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) was founded and elected on December 10th 2015. Both SDF and SDC are committed to the goal of a secular, democratic, and federally-structured Syria. The SDC is a political assembly representing political parties, organizations and different groups (tribes, Yezidis etc.) in North and East Syria. The SDC creates a political framework for the governance of Syria along a decentralized, federal model. It is also the political counterpart to the Autonomous Administration, which takes on more administrative and executive functions. Negotiations with the Syrian government, as well as diplomatic relations with international powers, are generally conducted through the SDC. ¹² 

Subsequent SDF-military operations successfully liberated all ISIS-held areas in eastern Syria, including cities such as Manbij in August 2016 and Raqqa in October 2017 – followed by the battle for the outskirts of Deir ez-Zor as part of SDF’s ‘Al Jazeera Storm’ campaign.

Another important milestone was the high-profile humanitarian rescue of tens of thousands of Yezidis trapped on Mount Sinjar in 2015 as they attempted to flee ISIS’ advance. Since 2014, ISIS fighters were notorious for raping and enslaving thousands of Yezidi women and girls during their rapid advance through northern Iraq.

The final battle with ISIS ended on March 23^rd 2019, when the SDF defeated the caliphate at Baghouz, marking ISIS’ territorial defeat.

All of these actions strengthened the position of the PYD-led and SDF-defended Autonomous Administration as the hegemonic political-military power in northeastern Syria. As their forces advanced into predominantly non-Kurdish areas, YPG/YPJ commanders had anticipated the need to allay local fears that they were subjugating Arabs. The military forces and the autonomous administration, therefore, needed to broaden their appeal to the non-Kurdish population in the heavily mixed areas. To this end, the SDF began forging alliances with insurgent Sunni Arab tribes and non-Muslim groups. As early as October 2013, it formed an alliance with al-Sanadid, an Arab militia affiliated with the Shammar tribe to take control of the strategically important Yarubiyah border crossing and the town of the same name. As a result of such efforts, in 2017, the SDF included some 30,000 Arab fighters, who made up about 60 percent of the SDF. ¹³ Prior to the military operations in Manbij and in Raqqa, civil councils were established in these cities, in which non-Kurdish groups participated, to establish stronger connections with civil society.

The original areas of the three non-contiguous cantons that first declared independence have a Kurdish majority population, but the extended area that these regions now encompass, as well as the regions that most recently became part of NES (Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor) are largely Arab. The SDF’s territorial gains progressively helped the AANES to expand and consolidate its political-military power as a federal system throughout this multi-ethnical and multi-cultural region. The AANES was guided by an ideology propagated by Abdullah Öcalan and his supporters – namely, that of the ‘democratic nation’ – defined by the construction of local community structures, the forging of multi-ethnic cooperation, the promotion and inclusion of women in organizational structures at all levels, the rejection of centralized and hierarchical societal structures, and ideological flexibility for such cross-ethnic cooperation. As of 2018, the SDF controlled about 25 percent of Syria, including territory along the border with Turkey east of the Euphrates River, as well as Syria’s richest oil and gas fields. ¹⁴

Turkey: Threats from the North

Despite these significant victories over ISIS, the SDF was unable to defeat another enemy actor that posed a serious threat to the consolidation of the Autonomous Administration: Turkey. Turkey arguably poses a greater threat to self-rule than ISIS due to its considerable political influence as a political-military partner of the US and the EU. Turkey, which has NATO’s second-largest army, has stated unequivocally that it will not tolerate the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region in northeastern Syria (similar to the Kurdistan region in Iraq). The abrupt termination of the peace process between the PKK and Ankara in July 2015 also did little to calm the situation between the Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria and Turkey.

Turkey first invaded Syria during its ‘Euphrates Shield’ operation in 2016. Officially, Ankara described the operation as directed against terrorist forces on its borders, though Turkey had been coexisting with ISIS on its border for years. In reality, the occupation served to physically prevent the territorial connection of the Kobane and Afrin cantons. Kurdish fears were confirmed on January 19^th 2018, when Turkey launched the operation ‘Olive Branch’, as the bulk of the SDF was busy fighting ISIS in Deir ez-Zor. Turkish troops and their Syrian allies invaded the Kurdish canton of Afrin in Rojava only after Russian troops withdrew from the region following an agreement with Turkey, revealing the Kurds’ political vulnerability as an unrecognized non-state actor. On March 24^th 2018, Turkey gained full control over Afrin, largely due to their air superiority. Turkey then announced its intention to capture Manbij and Tel Rifaat next – a threat Turkey is currently repeating. The invasion was justified by the need to ward off an alleged “terrorist threat.” Yet Afrin had until this point largely escaped the violence of Syria’s war; its inhabitants posed no threat to Turkey. Several hundred Kurdish civilians were killed in the operation. Turkey subsequently occupied Afrin with little to no international objections.

On October 9^th 2019, Turkey re-launched its invasion of NES under the name of ‘Peace Spring’ with the help of the Syrian National Army (SNA) and other Islamist groups. The invasion followed the US decision to withdraw its troops from Kurdish areas. Turkey justified this invasion in a series of letters to the United Nations, asserting its right to self-defence against a “direct and imminent threat” under Article 51 of the UN Charter and claiming that it “will conduct this operation in support of efforts to ensure the safe and voluntary return of displaced Syrians to their homes.” However, it has become clear that this was merely a pretext for implementing ongoing ethnic cleansing operations in northern Syria targeting the Kurds living there. Thousands of civilians have been forced to flee either to Iraqi Kurdistan or Turkey. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 260,000 Syrians – the vast majority of them Kurds – live in the Iraqi Kurdistan region (as of June 2022). ¹⁵  By the end of October 2019, Turkish forces and the SNA had gained control of an area of 3,800 km², stretching from the town of Tal Abyad to Sere Kaniye, and 25-30 kilometers deep.

(A House bombed by Turkey near Derik, February 22nd 2022)

Turkey’s occupation of Rojava, which is a violation of international law, has been well-documented. As RIC’s own ‘State of the Occupation’ reports documented since the last Turkish military operation ended at the end of 2019, the situation in Afrin and the ‘M4 Strip’ has been marked by hundreds of cases of human rights violations. ¹⁶ These include war crimes such as looting and hostage-taking, appropriation of property and use of civilian homes for military purposes, interrogation of Kurds about their faith and ethnicity by Turkish officials, denial of food or water to Kurdish prisoners, and the forced displacement of civilians of primarily Kurdish origin from the areas of Afrin, Sere Kaniye, and Tal Abyad that are under effective Turkish control. Likewise, kidnappings, murders, and resettlements are part of everyday life for the people, as is the destruction of olive trees, which in many cases are the livelihood of many people, especially in Afrin.

Kurdish women and girls, who are subjected to forced marriage, kidnapping, rape and sexual violence, are particularly affected. Turkish-backed forces have also engaged in the looting and destruction of religious and archaeological sites of great significance. Turkey and its allies have also weaponized water against the Kurdish regions of northern Syria by cutting and restricting water supplies. All this means that the people in Afrin, Sere Kaniye, Tel Halaf, Tal Abyad and elsewhere cannot exercise their right to self-determination under Turkish occupation. Rather, the withdrawal of the Turkish occupation forces from Rojava is a necessary condition for the realization of local self-determination.

Establishment of Democratic Structures and their Consolidation

Central to the Rojava Revolution is the idea of a ‘democratic nation’ and ‘democratic confederalism’ developed by Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK. Critically examining the PKK’s nationalist and Marxist-Leninist past and creatively appropriating, in particular, the writings of American social theorist Murray Bookchin, Öcalan defines ‘democratic confederalism’ as “democracy without a state.” ¹⁷ It is the federation of different ethnic, cultural, religious, intellectual, and economic communities that “can autonomously configure and express themselves as a political unit.” ¹⁷ Öcalan describes his concept as being “open towards other political groups and factions. It is flexible, multicultural, anti-monopolistic, and consensus-oriented. Ecology and feminism are central pillars. In the frame of this kind of self-administration an alternative economy will become necessary.” ¹⁷ This is also emphasized by Berivan Khaled. She is currently Co-Chair of the Executive Council of the AANES, which coordinates the work of the various commissions on health, nature, the economy, and a host of other institutions. Asked about the political-theoretical foundations of her work in NES, she refers directly to Öcalan’s concept:

“The administration is based on the principle of the democratic nation, which means that the rights of all must be protected: including Kurds, Arabs, Syrians, Turkmen and Circassians,” ¹⁸

that is, self-determination and a say for all communities – without state paternalism.

Khaled adds: “how rich the society in North and East Syria is in terms of different groups and beliefs! […] All groups form a mosaic piece in our society.”

‘Democratic confederalism’ is therefore both a political line and a radical but also pragmatic alternative to nationalist solutions. It is a dynamic process of dissolving the state through the self-organization of diverse ethnocultural communities that self-organize in popular councils and communes, systematically replacing the hierarchical and patriarchal authority relations of existing states with horizontal, gender-egalitarian relations of participatory self-government. ‘Democratic confederalism’ is an effort to build a democratic society beyond the state.

TEV-DEM

In 2011, in order to establish this democratic self-administration – together with the constitution of the first communes and councils throughout Rojava – the PYD established an organization that aimed to advance and cement the new ideas of autonomy and democracy in society: the Movement for a Democratic Society (Tevgera Civaka Demokratîk; TEV-DEM). With the help of TEV-DEM, councils for local decision-making and self-administration were established at the various levels of society. On this basis, relatively well-functioning council structures were established within a few months, as war raged in Syria. However, the precise role of TEV-DEM in providing cohesion and direction in the administrative structure of Rojava remained unclear at that time.

Concurrently, communes and councils did not exist in all cities or districts. In particular, there was initially no council structure in districts inhabited mainly by Arabs, Christians and other non-Kurdish groups, as well as in some Kurdish districts that leaned towards the Kurdish nationalist bloc, the Kurdish National Council. The situation was similar in rural areas. 

The council structures emerged in 2011 as a parallel structure to the state, which initially tolerated their existence in order to appease the Kurdish population. However, it is important to emphasize that TEV-DEM did not have to start from scratch. It was based on self-governance structures, including councils, which had been established in Turkey’s Kurdistan region in 2007 within the framework of the Democratic Society Congress – and have an even longer history within society. These councils served as a model and basis for the commune and council movement in northern Syria.

Communes and Councils

In practice, this means the implementation of a decentralized, grassroots approach in the form of a council democracy that puts communes, the smallest unit in the system, at the center and allows them to act autonomously. By allowing them to speak out and directly influence decision-making, politics becomes an integral part of social life. As a project, ‘democratic confederalism’ functions through these units: the communes, the neighborhood, the (sub-)districts, and the regions. The aspect of decentralization is decisive and is also supported by concrete figures. 70% of the total budget in NES goes to the regions, whereas only 30% goes directly to the higher structures of AANES. ¹⁹ 

Democratic control rests with the basic institution of the decentralized and radical democratic system: the commune. It can comprise between a few dozen to over a hundred households, depending on the degree of organization and size – whether in the neighborhoods or villages. These communes manage themselves responsibly and develop solutions for everyday problems, all without the help of state agencies.

“Our system is not a centralized system, it is rather based on the principle of decentralization”, ²⁰ 

is how Berivan Khaled sums up the importance of the communes. These are supposed to spread “from below” and can also emerge within the framework of factories and civil society organizations. This makes them a means of democratizing all social life. They have the right to independent activities, as Berivan Khaled adds: The commune “does not have to turn to higher institutions to make its decisions.” ²⁰ The only condition is that the communes’ decisions must not contradict the essence of the social contract (See below).

The commune meets monthly or fortnightly and all residents are entitled to participate. Each commune has an executive committee, composed of the two co-chairs and additional members from the committees working under the commune – initially the committees on economy, education, health, organizing society, self-defence and a women’s committee. ²¹ Later, this was expanded to include the youth and sports committee, the committee of the families of the martyrs, and the arts and culture committee. At the commune level, not all committees are present in all communes, but the education and self-defence committees are common across all villages and city neighborhoods. Another specific committee is the problem-solving committee or the committee for reconciliation – the purpose of which is to solve the societal problems in the commune. A committee for reconciliation is located in each commune and has the function of assisting in solving problems and disputes between the people. The members of the committee of reconciliation are elected from the members of the commune.

(Meeting of a commune in the city of Qamishlo)

Through the communes and councils, the population could be masters of their own affairs. Although these structures aid in the emancipation of the population, they could not solve all social issues. In particular, there are still difficulties with water and energy supplies. Many problems in NES cannot be solved independently of the state. In addition, there are economic problems among the population caused by the war and the, at times, triple embargos by the Syrian state, Turkey, and the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). These difficulties have not disappeared even after ten years and will likely continue plaguing the region for the foreseeable future. Likewise, there is no uniform implementation of the community structures or day-to-day participation of the population. Experiences vary widely, from impeccably-functioning communes, with regular meetings and a working council structure, to less active communes with unclear responsibilities, opening hours and missing structures. Political structures can only achieve as much as the people populating them are willing to do (or, rather, are able to do in the face of war, embargos and widespread poverty).

If an issue exceeds the capacity of the commune, it goes to the neighborhood, (sub-)district and then to the region. The neighborhood councils comprise recallable delegates that are sent from various communes. On average, a neighborhood council will comprise seven to thirty communes, depending on the size of the population in that area. The next level is the district, which usually contains a city as well as the surrounding villages. Unlike the commune, which is built on direct participation, these levels are representative institutions. Representative delegates function as mouthpieces for the decisions made at the commune level.

The Role of Women

Women in particular have achieved a great deal through the commune and council system in NES. They played and still play an important role in the organization of the commune and have a very important function in the reconciliation committees, in particular. Their status and the social roles they play have transformed through the active participation of women in public life. In addition, violence against women is – for the most part – no longer tolerated, and the communes and committees actively support women and men in cases of (domestic or family) violence to solve these problems. In particular, reconciliation committees provide support in such cases. In addition, there are new legal foundations. For example, women can now only file inheritance lawsuits and claim their inheritance rights, which were previously denied to them (especially under conservative community, tribal and religious systems) in favor of the man.

Parallel to the commune and council system, women have their own organizations and institutions. They include assemblies, academies, cooperatives, foundations, associations, parties, etc. The result is a complex network of councils that originally developed as a working practice and changed over time according to perceived local needs (resulting in a fluid situation with regularly-changing names, roles and emerging institutions). One expression of the special importance of the women’s issue was the foundation of Yekîtîya Star, an autonomous women’s organization, in 2005, which is now known as Kongreya Star and serves as an umbrella organization for all women’s empowerment institutions throughout NES. In addition to Kongreya Star, Women’s Houses throughout NES were opened. In theory, every village should have at least one Women’s House. These facilities play an active role in defending, empowering, and liberating women in an attempt to break free from the patriarchal foundations of the state and conservative society.

(International Women’s Day in Qamishlo, March 8^th 2022)

The Autonomous Administration 

While the commune and council structure – even if it is handled very differently at the local level – shows relative stability, there are clear (organizational) differences and developments at the level of self-government in NES. These were primarily due to the territorial changes that have characterized NES since the beginning of its existence. Though the Rojava Revolution started as a Kurdish revolt against central state erasure, it has grown beyond this horizon, transforming its organizational structure as well as its names, which is why a holistic description of the system remains out of reach. RIC offered a longer-form description of NES’ political model as it was in late 2019. ²² A briefer description should suffice here.

The first political structures adopted post-revolution were – as shown above – the autonomous administration of the Kurdish-dominated areas in the district of Cizîrê, Kobane and Afrin, which formed an ‘Interim Transitional Administration’, adopted in 2013. The three cantons also called themselves ‘Autonomous Regions’ or ‘Democratic Autonomous Administration.’

In an attempt to federalize the Administration and expand the model of democratic autonomy to areas newly-liberated and incorporated into the NES, the SDC was founded in December 2015. On March 17^th 2016, an SDC assembly of Kurdish, Assyrian, Arab and Turkmen delegates proclaimed the establishment of a federal system of government as the ‘Democratic Federation of Rojava – Northern Syria’. In December 2016, as Manbij was liberated and the battle for Raqqa stood before, the name was changed once again to the ‘Democratic Federation of Northern Syria’ – ‘Rojava’ was officially dropped. Here, again, the SDC was the highest legislative assembly and ensured the right of the people to establish democratic autonomous administrations and aimed at unifying all groups under the democratic federalism of North and East Syria. As of September 6th 2018, the SDC adopted the current official name for the region, renaming it the ‘Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria’ (AANES), sometimes translated as the ‘Self-Government of North and East Syria’. This encompasses the Euphrates (the former Kobane canton, including Tel Abyad, Sarrin, and Ayn Issa), and Cizîrê (Jazira) Regions, as well as the local civil councils of Raqqa, Manbij, Tabqa, and Deir ez-Zor Regions. The Afrin canton, on the other hand, remained under occupation by Turkish forces, though AANES institutions also exist in Shehba, southeast of Afrin, and in the majority-Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiye in Aleppo.

These changes are indicative of the increasingly multi-ethnic composition of the population and a move away from Kurdish designations, such as Rojava – an effect due in large part to the territorial changes that have taken place in recent years as a result of the ongoing war against ISIS. The fight against the jihadist terrorist group has claimed many victims and devoured much of the already-scarce financial resources in the region. In addition, the Turkish and Syrian states have repeatedly attacked the region in recent years. 

The AANES was created to unify the various councils and cantonal administrations. The most recently-liberated regions, which include many majority Arab areas, have also been integrated into the federal council system. As a result of these developments, the structures of the AANES are highly dynamic, which has led to constant changes in council structures, especially at the higher levels. Yet these only act as coordinators to implement the will of the communes, which remain a constant element of the bottom-up direct-democratic approach, giving everyone of all cultural identities the right to political participation in discussions, decision-making and the implementation of projects. The importance of TEV-DEM grew as it redefined its role as organizing civil society at a conference organized on August 27^th 2018, and became something akin to an umbrella organization for civil society, which supports, coordinates, and ensures that the voice of civil society is incorporated into the political and administrative aspects of the system. TEV-DEM today can be described as the “civilian institution of the government.” ²³ According to Hawar News, a local news organization, today, TEV-DEM “takes the struggle for a free and dignified life for all social groups, achieving social and economic development and raising productive efficiency, in addition to its support for the democratic, moral and political approach and the protection of rights and freedoms.” ²⁴

The AANES currently covers more than 50,000 km² and is home to around four million inhabitants. 

The Social Contract

The organizational and territorial changes are reflected not only in the various names of the Autonomous Administration, but also in its basic legal documents. As the political bodies, these, too, have been subject to dynamic changes in the past decade.

A first version of the ‘constitution’ of the Autonomous Administration, the so-called ‘social contract’, was accepted by the cantons and enacted in 2014; on three separate days, each canton issued its own declaration of democratic autonomy. In doing so, the cantons, consisting of their different district councils, also established their own transitional administrations. The social contract of 2014 replaces the centralization imposed by the former ruling Ba’ath party and allocates state tasks to the sovereignty of the cantons and the Autonomous Administration. However, it did not deny the legitimacy of the Syrian state. ²⁵ The 2014 ‘Charter of the Social Contract of Rojava’ was reformed in 2016. Currently, in mid-2022, the contract is again being discussed and revised. The social contract stipulates a political system based on participatory democracy, gender equality and ecology. It also aims to ensure the peaceful coexistence of different religions and ethnic groups. RIC is following the development of the draft and will release a more thorough explanation in time with its ratification.

It is noteworthy that in NES there is talk of a ‘social contract’ rather than a ‘constitution’. It reflects the political vision of coexistence without the existence of a higher authority. In the preambles to the social contract, the nation-state is presented as the cause of the conflicts in NES. In this respect, the Autonomous Administration does not aim to proclaim a state.

“A basic principle of our contract is to be flexible and adaptable”,

says Amina Omar, co-chair of the SDC. For Omar, the fact that the social contract is now being amended has much to do with the fact that

“not all areas in northern and eastern Syria were liberated at the same time. In 2014, the three cantons of Rojava – Cizîrê, Kobane and Afrin – united on a federal basis. The institutions there are still based on the 2014 agreement.” ²⁶ 

Other regions were liberated gradually and have different institutions, so a new social contract is needed. An updated version of the contract should be available by the end of the year. The AANES announced plans for its completion at the end of 2021, but according to officials, the COVID-19 pandemic, several amendments, and prolonged deliberations have delayed the process. At least one session of the drafting committee was also cancelled due to ISIS’ attack on Sina’a prison in January 2022.

According to Omar, initially, a preparatory committee of 158 people was elected – representatives of local government, civil society, political parties and various population groups. Of these, 15 men and 15 women were selected to submit a draft within two months. The draft of the new social contract now contains 99 articles that define fundamental rights and freedoms, principles and social regulations, such as coexistence between population groups, protection of the environment, and women’s rights. The right to self-determination and the prohibition of the death penalty and torture are also firmly enshrined in law. However, as it is presented at people’s assemblies across NES, the new social contract could still be amended before it is finally ratified by the Executive Council. 

Berivan Khaled, too, was involved in the drafting process. She tells RIC that it is particularly important to include the will of the people in this process. Decisions are made through the cooperation of citizens and the Administration, and opinions are sought in a democratic manner. Amina Omar sums up that, so far, a large part of the population has accepted and agreed to the social contract:

“This social contract is to the benefit for the people because it guarantees the rights and duties of each individual. Of course, we can’t say that such an agreement is 100 percent perfect, but in principle it is widely accepted.” ²⁷ 

A “lack of democratic thinking” is still noticeable, she said, and the authoritarian nature of Assad’s rule lingers in political discourse. Omar urges patience, but is cautiously optimistic: “In the last ten years, democratic thought has spread a lot, but it’s a long struggle.” A decade may not be enough to undo nearly a century of Syrian authoritarianism.

The social contract is the expression of the AANES’ vision of decentralized power through democratic administration. However, this process does not seek to replace one power with another. Rather, it seeks to democratize political consciousness, people’s attitudes and, consequently, all of society – but this takes time. Finally, Pervin Yusif draws attention to the importance of the change of consciousness within society: 

“What is important for me to say is that our revolution was not just a change of the system. We did not change one system and put another into power, but we really tried to, and managed to a certain degree, was to change the society. Our revolution is a social revolution with a new existence and the possibility to have new ethics and a new ethical way of thinking. Everybody could live together according to their own culture and reality”. ⁹ 

After this historical overview and a brief introduction to the basic political structures that shape life in NES, the second part of this report will look at the present state of society in NES through the lens of healthcare, the legal system, and the political economy. Together with this part, the whole report ‘Rojava Revolution – a Decade on’, will be available soon.

1. Slavoj Žižek (2021): Slavoj Žižek Teaches at Kobane University. bianet.org/english/world/242693-slavoj-zizek-teaches-at-kobane-university.[]
2. David Graeber (2018): Majority Report with David Graeber on Democratic Confederalism in Northern Syria. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iWCXQR92v8.[]
3. https://rb.gy/skgzd2 (www.gulanmedia.com)[]
4. Michael Knapp, Anja Flach, Ercan Ayboğa (2014): Revolution in Rojava. Democratic Autonomy and Women’s Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan. London: Pluto; Michael Knapp, Joost Jongerden (2016): Communal Democracy: The Social Contract and Confederalism in Rojava. Comparative Islamic Studies 10(1), pp. 87–109.[]
5. Interview with Pervin Yusif (June 27th 2022).[]
6. Wladimir Wilgenburg, Mario Fumerton (2022): From the PYD-YPG to the SDF: the Consolidation of Power in Kurdish-controlled Northeast Syria. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, pp. 1-20, p. 4.[]
7. Omar Hossino; Ilhan Tanir (2012): The Decisive Minority: The Role of Syria’s Kurds in the Anti-Assad Revolution. https://rb.gy/oalets (henryjacksonsociety.org).[]
8. Harriet Allsopp, Wladimir Wilgenburg (2019): The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity and Conflicts, London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 90f.[]
9. Interview with Pervin Yusif.[][]
10. Wladimir Wilgenburg (2013): Syrian Kurdish Militia Takes over Oil Fields. https://rb.gy/jfhg02 (www.al-monitor.com).[]
11. Cale Salih (2015): Is Tal Abyad a Turning Point for Syria’s Kurds? https://rb.gy/kiljyy (www.bbc.com) []
12. Rojava Information Center (2020): The Syrian Democratic Council – A proposal for a democratic Syria. https://rb.gy/fwv9fv (www.rojavainformationcenter.com).[]
13. Hassan Hassan (2017): The Battle for Raqqa and the Challenges after Liberation. CTC Sentinel 10 (6). https://rb.gy/ujn5y5 (https://ctc.westpoint.edu) []
14. Rojava Information Center (2019): Beyond the Frontlines. The Building of the Democratic System in North and East Syria, p. 45. https://rb.gy/dws0cy (www.rojavainformationcenter.com).[]
15. See: UNHCR chart for the latest figures at https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/syria/location/5.[]
16. See: Our quarterly reports ‘State of the Occupation’: https://rb.gy/kow9hn (www.rojavainformationcenter.com) []
17. Abdullah Öcalan (2011): Democratic Confederalism. Köln: International Initiative, p. 21.[][][]
18. Interview with Berivan Khaled (April 23th 2022).[]
19. https://rb.gy/nukj5b (www.7al.net).[]
20. Interview with Berivan Khaled.[][]
21. Rojava Information Center 2019, p. 23.[]
22. Ibid, p. 21.[]
23. Eliza Egret, Tom Anderson (2016): Struggles for Autonomy in Kurdistan & Corporate Complicity in the Repression of Social Movements in Rojava and Bakur. London: Freedom Press, p. 62.[]
24. https://rb.gy/6riqqj (www.hawarnews.com).[]
25. Nazan Üstündağ (2016): Self-Defense as a Revolutionary Practice in Rojava, or How to Unmake the State. South Atlantic Quarterly 115(1), 197-210, p. 203.[]
26. Interview with Amina Omar (April 22th 2022).[]
27. Interview with Amina Omar.[]

Introduction

This thesis looks into the anticapitalist economy and the organization of social relations in the context of the revolution and autonomy of Rojava (Kurdistan-Syria); it questions both the limitations and the historical problems of the phenomenon of Revolution as such, and the conflicts and contradictions that have emerged in this process.

This work also feeds off the conflicts and contradictions I have constantly felt as a “political subject” who wants to change the world, especially through my experience in the Kurdish struggle and the Kurdish Movement. For this reason, every question I ask and try to answer in this thesis—given that it refers to a certain extent to the Kurds, Rojava, and the world in general—involves my own subjectivity.

The idea/dream of revolution has been around ever since human history created systems of domination. In essence, revolution, meaning the liberation from systems of domination, has undoubtedly been one of the most discussed subjects in this history. There have been moments when the possibility of revolution has been clearer, and there have also been certain agreements on its content and on the path to get there; however, it has never been something utterly definable. And this is how it continues to be until today. This thesis does not intend to provide a definition of this great phenomenon either; it rather looks into the revolutionary practices that create emancipating realities within these processes, embracing revolution as an undefined, contradictory, and dynamic process. Although classic history has been written by the rulers, the history of social struggles has been and is still being created by many revolutionary and transformational processes, and the future is being shaped on the basis of desired revolutions and of the struggles that, equally, transform their own actors, the people. Therefore, the desire/search of the Kurdish people for liberation from the colonial rule of the nation-states of the Middle East—the subject matter of this thesis—has always been directly linked to the phenomenon of revolution.

Approximately a year after the beginning of the civil war in Syria, in 2012, the Kurdish Movement of Syria—which had adopted the ideas and objectives of the PKK and Abdullah Öcalan (in Syria, the armed struggle is represented by the YPG and the YPJ, and the political and social struggle by the PYD)—declared a de facto autonomy in the smallest part of western Kurdistan, Rojava, where contradictions and social conflicts have always been more intense. It then began to construct a democratic autonomy through military control in the regions inhabited predominantly by Kurds (Afrin, Kobanê, Cezîrê) and, from 2015 on, it extended the construction of autonomy to the entire region of the north of Syria until the Euphrates River, including Tabqa, Raqqa, and Deirezzor, where the Arab population is concentrated.

The process that developed with the declaration of autonomy in Rojava was defined as a “Revolution” by the Kurds, who resisted the division of their territory just as they resisted the colonization and negation of their existence for a century, in the face of which the Kurdish Movement defined the autonomy as the process of the “Construction of the Rojava Revolution”. One of the most significant debates of those days was “Is Rojava a revolution or not?” During the years I spent living in Istanbul, this question led to heated discussions between the groups of the Turkish Left and the Kurds who identified with the revolution of Rojava despite their different political positioning. In fact, a similar discussion took place in Syria too, where Syrian opposition groups accused the Kurds of betraying the Syrian revolution. These discussions/conflicts—in which I was directly or indirectly involved—were amongst the first and defining factors that made me feel the need to conduct this research. For us Kurds there was no point in discussing whether Rojava was a revolution or not; however, “What type of revolution was being organized in Rojava?” was the question that concerned us from the very first days. Therefore, this thesis intends to answer the question “What type of revolution is Rojava?” These discussions, which intensified with the revolution in Rojava and became much more concrete, were not new for us Kurds, for the Kurdish struggle has always been accused of being a nationalist and not a socialist struggle. In fact, similar discussions had paved the way for the separation of the socialist Kurdish movement from the Turkish Left and, later, the founding of the PKK in 1978, the most important Kurdish organization representing this movement. For me, the emergence of these debates was based on my discussions and feelings on issues such as whether “class struggle came before the struggle for national liberation” that took place within a Turkish left-wing group where I first became politically conscious at the age of 15, at the beginning of the decade of 2000.

When I was still 7 years old, my family was forced to emigrate because of the Turkish aggressions against our people, from Bakur (Kurdistan-Turkey) to a Turkish city in west Turkey. After almost two years of working in Turkish fields, living in a tent and working in servitude, we were able to save up some money and rent a house in the outskirts of the city that had no electricity and no road access. There were many Kurdish families such as my own in this neighbourhood, and, therefore, the Turks were a minority, only a few families. These Turks illegally sold state-owned land to the Kurds. We knew that they were Turks and that they were selling us land with no legal documents, but we had no other way of putting a roof over our heads. However, what we did not understand was why they called us “dirty Kurds, Kurds with a tail”. I was not old enough to understand.

According to the Turkish Constitution, all those who live in Turkey are Turks; that is, there are no Kurds. As children at school, however, we were forced to take an oath every morning which read “how fortunate are those who say I am a Turk!”. In other words, the Turkish state is shaped on the basis of negating different, non-Turkish ethnic identities; however, in practice, in everyday life, this is not so. What defined everyday life in Turkey was the conversion of the non-Turks. Wherever we went, it was obvious that we were Kurds; the colour of our hair, of our eyes, the fact that our skin was slightly darker than that of the Turks, it all revealed we were not Turks, and this was a great problem when we wanted to speak. That is why we would not speak Kurdish outside our homes (our parents told us not to speak it, besides the fact that it was banned); however, neither could we speak Turkish well, for our throat is not suitable for the phonetics of the Turkish language. As a result, when we began to speak, we would immediately give ourselves away. Once exposed, we would become the object of a racism that affected all aspects of our everyday life, a violence, humiliation, and fear that tried to convert us to Turks. The different forms of racism that have tried to negate us and render us uniform aimed at dishonouring our Kurdish essence. Our language, culture, family ties, history, roads and cities, our names, our work, all that we have and all that we are where the object of racist negation. This act of dishonour has always enraged me, ever since I was a child. Later on—I do not know why, maybe because of the birds, as Ahmed Arif [1] says—the idea of freedom entered my mind. Freedom was linked to dignity in every book and every poem I read, in every song I heard. Freedom, therefore, was a struggle for dignity. I was probably not aware of these definitions at the beginning; I was able to define them much later. At the beginning, freedom was an abstract, vague possibility; but when this possibility began to occupy its place in my life and in my thoughts, I had already initiated the search and the path which would lead me to writing this thesis. That is how I came to know the ideas and practice of the Left, and that is exactly how I discovered my own contradictions and conflicts. For how can we attain liberation if we do not acknowledge our contradictions and conflicts?

The first lesson I learnt on socialism, which is presumably the social system that follows capitalism, was that it constituted a transition towards a final objective: a communist society in which we would all be free; but, most of all, that we should transcend capitalism as a social and economic system. This required understanding capitalism and organizing ourselves to destroy it. Therefore, I became organized in a socialist party. My comrades told me that if I wanted to understand (!) capitalism, I should read Karl Marx for, how could we transcend capitalism without fully understanding it? This desire to understand capitalism inspired me to study economics, and I began to attend a university in Istanbul. I was very lucky in that, at a time when Marxism was disappearing in academia, I began to attend a university where there were still professors with a Marxist mindset. While I learned the laws of liberal economy (compulsory classes), I also attended classes that criticized this economy (most of these courses were voluntary). Furthermore, great comrades from the party in which I was organized were in Istanbul, many of whom originated from a traditional fraction of the Turkish Left. Apart from the economics classes I was attending at university, I read the works of Marx, Lenin, Engels, Stalin, Trotsky, so as to discuss “Revolution” and “What is to Be Done?” with said comrades. The party defined itself as a Leninist part and acknowledged the existence of Kurds in Turkey; even the party programme supported the struggle of the Kurds for their nation, which could only be achieved through a revolution of the working class and socialism. However, the prevailing opinion in the Left was that the Kurds were not fighting a class struggle, that they were fighting for their national rights and that their only goal was to establish Kurdistan. Even so, the Kurds should partake in the working-class struggle in Turkey and, once they had taken power, the Turks would acknowledge the right of the Kurds to self-determination. In fact, I agreed—and still agree—with the idea that the struggle ought to be a class struggle; that is why this thesis is about anticapitalism. But at that moment I could not perform an emotional synthesis. When Kurds who were organized in different left-wing organizations tried to speak of these feelings that we could not synthesize, we were considered nationalists or, in the best of cases, “nationalists of an oppressed nation”. We had either not read enough on communism or, if we had, we had not understood properly. Then the feminists began to express the same idea, that as Kurdish women we had not read enough on feminism or, if we had, we had not understood properly. But the same question kept repeating itself in my head: Why should Turks give us the right to self-determination? That is how I became aware of my first contradiction within politics: communists did not acknowledge the Kurdish dimension. What I wished for in those years was to be taken care of and to be accepted as a Kurd too. I was a communist, but I was also a Kurd, and my soul was scarred as a result of “being a Kurd”. I had not taken a beating at school because of being a communist; we were beaten for being Kurds or, rather, for playing in Kurdish. And we were not only beaten; we were taught Turkish by force, and our Turkish was never enough to satisfy them. I do not know what could be more difficult for one than enforcing and disciplining the mouth to speak with a force that had been learned well. In other words, to be a communist during that period was, in the best of cases, romantic; but there was nothing romantic about being a Kurd. To be a Kurd was to want and to not want to be a Kurd at the same time.

Just as I was experiencing this emotional conflict with the Left, on the 21 st of November 2004, a 12-year-old Kurdish boy called Uğur Kaymaz was murdered by the Turkish police in front of his house with 13 bullets, in Kiziltepe, Mardin; the city’s main state authority announced that two terrorists had been “annihilated”. On the following day, I learned the Kurds were to gather to read a communiqué for Uğur Kaymaz and his father. We suggested that we go to the meeting as a party, but that did not happen. Finally, only one comrade from the party, also a Kurd, and I went. Two communist Kurds went individually to protest the murder of a Kurdish boy. Once the public communiqué had been read, people began to take the megaphone to express their feelings against the murder. An old man then said: “To be a Kurd in Turkey is to die of 13 bullets at the age of 12”. These words hit me hard. 13 bullets at the age of 12! From that day on, when speaking of Uğur Kaymaz, his name is not mentioned; what is said is “13 bullets at the age of 12!” as a common name for Uğur and for all the other Kurdish children who have been murdered.

With Uğur’s murder, the classic narrative of the Left of “the worker’s revolution comes first and national liberation follows” had lost its meaning for me, for I believed this was a very absurd political stance in the face of the reality of constant massacre that a people, my people, were experiencing. In fact, I left the left-wing party a while later. However, this divergence did not have to do with left thinking or with the idea of organization; it was the partisanship of the Left that had led me to distance myself. Thus, for a short period of time, I became organized in the Kurdish youth movement.

The Kurds I met in Istanbul were not like the Kurds with whom I had grown up in the same neighbourhood; most were my friends from university had arrived to Istanbul directly from the Kurdish cities. They did not deny they were Kurds, they did not struggle to speak Turkish correctly as I did, and they even taught me that to speak Turkish badly was a form of resistance. I became acquainted with the experience of the commune which will be often mentioned in this thesis, as well as with the Kurdish movement, for the first time in these Kurdish student houses. We read Abdullah Öcalan, we described ourselves as a “youth movement”. No one declared it openly, but we knew we sympathized with the PKK. We were critical of the Left, but we always expressed that our struggles had common objectives, although we Kurds had certain specific political goals which required an organization of our own. This organization of our own and the community, student life, made me feel more integrated emotionally with the struggle, but that did not mean that I would feel no contradictions. In fact, I understood later on that to be in struggle is to be in contradiction.

The first part of this thesis, “the debates of the revolution and emancipation in the Kurdish struggle” consists of questions I pose correctly on the basis of these contradictions which emerged in the mentioned political spaces. For, in time, I understood that these are not only contradictions I have experienced individually, that they are not even contradictions experienced only by the Kurds; they are also experienced by the Maya in Chiapas or the Aymara in Bolivia as peoples in struggle. These contradictions are fuelled by a series of problematic and controversial areas on the issue of the socialist revolution, the political concepts and objectives of the traditional Left, the dominant perspectives, identity politics rooted in postmodernism, and the national struggles that are centred in the construction of the state. In the case of the Kurds, they were closely linked to how the Kurdish struggle is understood and discussed, especially in academia, where Kurds are discussed under the title of “The Kurdish Issue”. In very simple terms, the struggle is a “problem”. That is why the first section of this thesis speaks of the Kurds and the Kurdish struggles, and stresses that neither the Kurds nor the Kurdish struggles are homogeneous. The Kurds, whose territory was divided between the nation-states (Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria) that became established in the region after World War I, have risen many times and have been fighting in the four parts of Kurdistan for over a century. However, the movements and organizations of Kurdistan have always been controversial. What will the liberation of Kurdistan and of the Kurds look like, and what forms and methods of struggle will lead to emancipation? Until the beginning of the decade of 2000, a “united and independent Kurdistan” was seen as the only solution, both for nationalist and socialist movements. However, in time, the Kurdish movement led by the PKK and Abdullah Öcalan, which was initially launched with the objective of creating the socialist state of Kurdistan, was transformed. It performed a self-criticism as a party and concluded it had been wrong in considering the state as a solution towards emancipation. Thus, in 2003, it proposed democratic autonomy as a new horizon of struggle under the paradigm of democratic confederalism. The subject-matter and main question of the first chapter is why and how the Kurdish Movement, which had emerged as a Leninist party (PKK), gradually became a popular movement and underwent this intellectual transformation. To understand this transformation, an analysis was required of the revolutionary approach of the traditional Left, which focused on taking power, and of the 21st-century approach of the spontaneous revolution, which emerged following the negation of organization (the party). The transformation of the PKK is one that aspires to overcome both revolutionary approaches (purely hierarchic or horizontal) and to construct a revolutionary process in which the people are the subject. This section of the thesis makes numerous references to the Zapatista Movement. Despite their different social dynamics and histories, the observation of similar reflections led me to establish a reflectional relation between the Kurdish and the Zapatista movements.

The intellectual and organizational transformation of the Kurdish movement and, through this self-critical transformation, the adaptation of autonomy as a new politics of emancipation are not only the historical backdrop which led to the revolution of Rojava; they also define the present of Rojava. The fact that the Kurdish movement firstly problematized power, in the sense of breaking with the idea of the state, then experienced/realized—through its own experience of gender-based conflict within the movement—that power relations can emerge in all areas where the patriarchate is dominant, and finally turned criticism and self-criticism into a methodology of organization against the rise of powers, have led to a change that will allow the movement to always have a dynamic and transformative capacity. In this sense, Rojava is a revolutionary experience that combines this intellectual and organizational transformation of the Kurdish movement with a social transformation. Therefore, the autonomy that is expressed as the process of constructing revolution and how social transformation is produced are amongst the other questions posed in this thesis. However, before analysing the autonomy of Rojava, we believe it is necessary to tell the story of the resistance of Rojava so as to understand the social foundations of its Revolution and the subjectivities of the people who revolt. The second chapter, “The common history of resistance”, is based on a fundamental critique: the history of colonialism is always told through the actions of (colonizing) domination. While the colonized people have always resisted for their freedom, as in Rojava, historiography or social sciences do not see this resistance and treat these peoples as victims of colonialism. This viewpoint reproduces the dominant power of the colonizer. That is why the second chapter underlines the fact that the search for autonomy always walks hand in hand with this resistance and works into the common memory of resistance of the Kurds in Rojava.

In the third chapter, titled “The autonomy of Rojava as a movement”, we analyse democratic autonomy and democratic confederalism, which have been the concepts of struggle of the Kurdish Movement since 2003, in terms of theory and practice. The negation of power constitutes the foundation of these new objectives of struggle. The understanding of autonomy, which negates nationalization and all types of relations of domination between the state and society, points toward a new social, democratic and ecological organization and towards women’s liberation; it turns autonomy into a practice of coexistence and of decision making between different ethnic and religious identities with the standpoint and the practice of the democratic nation. Furthermore, in this chapter we highlight that the process of constructing autonomy in Rojava has not been defined in the seven years that have passed since the declaration of autonomy, and that autonomy transformed as its practices were being revealed. Therefore, it is an ongoing process; we discuss what tendencies exist within these practices and what is revealed by their transformation. The conditions of hot war and the policies against the insurgents render the institutionalization of autonomy compulsory, as well as the acceptance of the relations and forms of domination of the nation-state; that is why the process of transformation of the first popular assemblies in Rojava into the Federation of the North and East of Syria has unfolded under the risk of institutionalization, as has occurred with other experiences of autonomy. However, we assert that popular assemblies and the experiences of the communes can overcome this risk by creating practices that mobilize the peoples from below. Therefore, the possibility of the “Kurdish state” walks hand in hand with the revolutionary process and the construction of autonomy as an emotional contradiction, especially when there are very violent attacks against the villages. The main argument of this chapter is that Rojava, the communes, and popular assemblies have overcome the issue of representation and democracy, and the act of assembly has become a movement; the commune has become the everyday way of life in Rojava, and autonomy is the experience of the relations that organize life. The practices of popular organization, the creation of relations and spaces for collective decision making, and the capacity of the community to make decisions a reality are fundamental social transformations that motivate the autonomous government to deepen the autonomy by creating more autonomous practices, distancing itself from state or capitalist institutionalization. The fact that women participate equally (50%) in all these autonomous practices and have their own organization allows for the autonomy to advance towards an antipatriarchal terrain.

The last part of the thesis touches on the practice of anticapitalist economy in Rojava. Numerous revolutions undertaken by societies have been relegated to the pages of history because of their inability to organize an anticapitalist economy that liberates labour from the rule of capital. Also, many autonomous experiences have attained political autonomy but have not been able to become independent from global capitalism in that they produced a local capitalism, they were not able to bring about true social emancipation. In this sense, for this thesis, what determines the future of the revolution and autonomy is the capacity of liberation from the relations of capital and of the creation of a life guided by use value. This risk, that is, capitalization, is also present in the revolution of Rojava and in its autonomy. Therefore, in the last section we examine the capacity of the revolution and autonomy of Rojava to transcend and destroy capitalism, by focusing on the organization of an anticapitalist economy that is expressed as a “social economy” in Rojava.

The economy is one of the organizational dimensions of democratic autonomy; its goal is to socialize production and communalize property from two areas: as general (mixed) economy and as women’s economy (Aboriya Jin). From 2014, when the organization began in committees and later on through coordination, many different methods have been tried out to organize this dimension. While there are many customs and practices of the peoples in the main fields of life, spontaneous experiences arise. However, organizing a non-capitalist economy and ending capitalist relations is one of the most demanding areas for the Kurdish Movement and the autonomous government of Rojava. That is why all the experiences and problems of past revolutions become suddenly visible in the Rojava Revolution. The main reason for which it is so difficult to get rid of capitalism is the totality it has weaved with the state and the patriarchate, and now with constant war; however, it also has to do with the analysis of capitalism by the Kurdish Movement and the perspective of the communal economy shaped on the basis of this analysis. The main objective of this thesis has been to discuss the theoretical and practical limits of the communal economy against the totality of capitalism. Consequently, in the first part of the last chapter we focus on the contradictions between the perspective and the practice of the communal economy. We argue that the perspective of the communal economy can miss, and has missed, many of the experiences—revolutionary practices—that have emerged during the organization of the economy because the need for an anticapitalist economy is not sufficiently internalized and valued, neither by politics and political leaders nor by the peoples. Furthermore, we considered it necessary to perform a general reflection on cooperativism, for the perspective of the communal economy is based on the cooperatives. We conclude the chapter with the analysis of how cooperatives in Rojava are organized, as well as of their characteristics, dynamics, and limitations. This analysis shows that cooperatives in Rojava are experienced not as structures of production but as something relational.

My experience as a Kurd and as a participant in the Kurdish struggle for many years permeates this entire thesis; even more so, however, the last chapter, which is strongly influenced by the time I spent in the economics committee in Bakur, where we organized and supported cooperatives just like Rojava. Many of the questions and issues that I discuss in this last chapter originate in this experience and in the research I conducted in Rojava.

During the creation of this thesis, I visited Rojava twice—with an interval of approximately two years—and I conducted research in a broad field. My first visit took place between January and April 2018, and the second during November and December of 2019. Since 2011, the whole of Syria has been experiencing a situation of hard war; it is fair to say that the region of Rojava, although not deserted as other regions of Syria, is under constant attack. In fact, during my first visit to the Afrin canton as well as during my second visit, the regions of Serîkanîye and Giresipiye were attacked by the joint invasion of the Turks and the jihadists. My research work was conducted within the possibilities of this atmosphere of war. However, despite the war and the climate of insecurity, especially for women, one can observe that the peoples unite more and more each day around democratic autonomy; the existing resistance, hope, and social transformation, as well as the individuals that are being transformed, turning into subjects of the autonomy, have made me feel that to write on this revolutionary and transformative process is much more vital than the destruction and violence that the war has caused.

I have not limited my field research on a specific geographic region; the social diversity in Rojava and in the north of Syria has created a wealth in which each territory has its own subjectivities, even neighbouring villages. I did not wish to limit these differences to a geography that represents the region in scientific terms. I defined the field of investigation in terms of the relations created by the organization of the non-territorial economy. In other words, I conducted my research following the communities that are part of the organization of the social economy.

The research work consists of individual and collective interviews; participation in and observation of the meetings of the cooperatives, popular assemblies and communes, as well as visits to the cooperatives and different areas of the economic projects. Although the largest part of my field research has to do with the organization of the economy, I was able to conduct numerous interviews and observations outside the field of the economy. I met with the co-presidents of the autonomous government of the Jazeera region, as well as with the co-president of the economic council, and I attended the reunions of the cantonal assemblies of Qamishlo and Heseke as a listener and an observer. Apart from these interviews and reunions, most of which are recorded, many unrecorded interviews, reunions, discussions, and observations also fed into the argumentation of the thesis.

During my time in Rojava, I stayed in the commune houses of the women’s movement (Kongra-star) and thus had the opportunity to experience communal life and community processes. One of the most important experiences that impressed me in Rojava was that, beyond the commune houses, through autonomy, communal life in Rojava and in the north and east of Syria was expanded and became incorporated in the local culture of solidarity and sharing.

During my research I needed almost no money; I received an incredibly important support from all these networks, relations, and communal spaces. Wherever I went I was offered food and tea, followed by many discussions. The members of the coordination of the social economy of Rojava provided all the liaisons for my meetings; I personally chose the people I would interview, and being familiarized with the organization structure and the forms of the Kurdish Movement helped me choose them, creating a field of trust between my interviewees and myself. In my first visit I met with the leaders of the economic committees of TEV-DEM and Kongra-star, who organized the area of the economy, to understand the organizational structure of the social economy. I prepared the schedule of my visits to the cooperatives with the cooperative committee; thus, I met with the members of the cooperatives as well as with the houses of the cooperatives (Mala Kooperatifa). Apart from this, I had the chance to meet with innumerable communes following the popular congregations of “a cooperative for each commune” organized by the movement of cooperativism that the committee of the women’s economy (Aboriya Jin) had launched. On my second visit, I once again met with the coordination of the economy so as to understand the changes and transformations that had taken place since my first visit until the end of 2019. I also conducted visits in the area of the cooperatives, although many cooperatives I had visited in 2018 no longer existed. Furthermore, to understand how the field of the economy is linked and integrated with other dimensions of the autonomy, I met with the women’s movement, the academy of Jineoloji, the women’s village (Jinwar), the coordination of the municipalities and of the ecology, the autonomous government, and the co-presidents of the cantonal assemblies. I took part in numerous massive congregations, such as solidarity campaigns organized by the communes for the displaced populations of Afrin and Giresipiye-Serîkanîye; I also visited tree plantations, marches against the invasion, celebrations of Newroz, women’s marches. In this sense, although it is the social economy that is at the core of the research, the time I spent in Rojava was a process in which I experienced anticapitalist life and was able to experiment, observe, and—more importantly—discuss with people.

One of the most difficult situations I faced while doing this thesis was working within a process of constant change and transformation. That is why, in this text, you will not find final assertions on the revolution and the process of the construction of autonomy in Rojava; on the contrary, I tried to underline the tendencies of the autonomy, the collective efforts to overcome contradictions, conflicts, and time constraints. For, in Rojava, the revolution occurs through the experimentation of the peoples and is not ruled by any institution or predefined thinking.

I must point out that that my experience in Rojava walked hand in hand with the process of getting to know the Zapatista Movement in Chiapas during my stay in Mexico. The peoples of Mesopotamia and of the Land of the Maya once led civilization and the Neolithic revolutions thousands of years ago, and they continue to do so today. They continue fighting to make the world a better and more liveable place. When I became aware of the fact that their struggles have been going on for thousands of years and that democracy, to be fair and—above all—to be free is for these peoples not only a political quest but a way of life, I understood why, thousands of years later, these lands continue to be the global centre of hope. That is why, as a Kurdish woman from Mesopotamia, to touch the soul of the Maya lands is the most beautiful, hopeful and motivating experience I could have in this world. It is not an easy task for a thesis to describe the immensely rich totality of these experiences, for life is always more than a thesis, and the struggle is sometimes more than life itself; however, if it manages to create a thread for the bridge of hope that connects these two centres of hope, it will have achieved its objective.

[1]
“There are also birds, your honour
They are the reason for everything…
They put freedom into the mind of the people…
Look, they are flying like terrorists, terrorists…” (Poem by Ahmed Arif)

In the past 33 years, the Kurdish freedom struggle, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, have not only reacted to social changes but shaped them and proposed further steps in the direction of a liberated society.

Significantly, the PKK conceives the Kurdish question as an issue not of nation or ethnicity but of the liberation of society, of both sexes, and of all people. Öcalan’s book Sociology of Freedom is a kind of a road map for the liberation of Rojava and the entire Middle East, highlighting in detail steps toward freedom.

During our journeys through Rojava, we met many people who had close relationships to Öcalan and to others who have decisively participated in the PKK’s history. This ongoing contact has engendered a transformation in the region’s otherwise feudalistic social terrain. The women especially emphasized this connection—they have known about Kurdish women’s liberation ideology for more than twenty years and have been trying to implement it. Thanks to all the close interconnections within the Kurdish freedom movement, many people [from Rojava] joined the PKK and fought for it in North Kurdistan. So it is a mistake to see the PKK as strictly a North Kurdish phenomenon; this movement also belonged and belongs to tens of thousands of activists from Rojava.

Öcalan’s 1999 arrest, followed by the Assad regime’s intensified repression, gave rise to a period of reorganization in Rojava. After the regime’s 2004 massacre of Kurds in the city of Qamişlo and the subsequent uprising, this reorganization began to gain momentum, to the point of creating armed self-defense units. The leftist Party of Democratic Unity (PYD) had already been founded and quickly became a strong regional political force.  Meanwhile new paradigms emerged from the Kurdish freedom movement and especially from Öcalan, inspired by the work of the libertarian theorist Murray Bookchin, whose model of democratic confederalism and democratic autonomy became a touchstone for the reorientation. Öcalan developed a critique of the history of actually existing socialist states and of national liberation movements, including the PKK itself. As an alternative to conceptions of revolution that strive for an armed uprising and seizure of power, he outlined a plan for a “democratic, ecological, gender-liberated society.” He introduced the concept of an “ethical and political society” that would be self-managed and would situate itself outside the lifeless, homogenous consumer society of capitalism.

Even before the rebellions in Syria began, the Kurds of Rojava had already created the first councils and committees and thereby began to institute a radical democratic organization of most of the region’s population. Starting on June 19, 2012, the cities of Kobanê, Afrîn, Dêrik, and many other places were one by one freed from regime control; the strength of the reorganization then revealed itself. Military bases were reconfigured, and the vastly outnumbered regime troops were offered the option of withdrawal.  Only in Dêrik did the situation lead to a struggle, with a few casualties. But even here, as people in Dêrik told us, the new self-organization prevented violent attacks and acts of destruction and revenge.

Self-Defense and the “Third Way”

As we considered this phase and the politics of the Kurdish movement in Rojava, we also observed the implementation of another paradigm of Democratic Confederalism: self-defense and the primacy of nonviolent solutions. The Kurdish movement and especially the PYD were organized before the Syrian revolution began resisting the Assad regime. At that time they saw it as a matter of democratic transformation; a militarization of the conflict was to be avoided. But with the outbreak of war, Islamization, and the heteronomy of the Syrian revolt, the Kurdish movement in Rojava decided to go a third way: it would side neither with the regime nor with the opposition.  It would defend itself, but it would not wage war. The movement has remained this politics up to the present [July 2014].  Thus in Qamişlo, in the quarters that were inhabited by regime supporters, regime military units were still tolerated. The same was true for the airport. The goal was and is always to reach a political, democratic solution for all of Syria.

The Commune as the Center of Society

“The creation of an operational level where all kinds of social and political groups, religious communities, or intellectual tendencies can express themselves directly in all local decision-making processes can also be called participative democracy.”

— Abdullah Öcalan, Democratic Confederalism (London, 2011), p. 26.

Democratic Confederalism has as its goal the autonomy of society: in other words, instead of the state governing society, a politicized society manages itself. As against capitalist modernity, it proposes democratic modernity. In Rojava, to make this system possible, the center of the social system became the commune. The commune, the self-management of the streets, would emerge as the hub of the society.

Decision making in the communes requires that quotas be met—that is, in order to make a decision, here and in all councils in Rojava, at least 40 percent of those who participate in the discussions must be women. In the communes, current issues of administration, energy, and food supply, as well as social problems like patriarchal violence, family conflicts, and much else, are discussed and if possible resolved. The communes have commissions that address all social questions, everything from the organization of defense to justice to infrastructure to youth to the economy and the construction of individual co-operatives—such as bakeries, clothing production, and agricultural projects. The ecology commissions concern themselves with urban sanitation as well as specifically ecological problems. At the forefront is the imperative to strengthen the social position of women: committees for women’s economy help women develop economic independence.

The commune, as the mala gel (people’s house), lends support in all questions; it is simultaneously an institution of support and a kind of court. Central to its processes is the ideal of agreement and compensation; for general offences, the causes of an infraction are investigated and overcome, and the victim is protected. For patriarchal violence and all attacks that affect women, the mala jin (women’s house) is in charge; it is attached to the women’s council, a parallel structure to the commune’s mixed-gender council.

As we ourselves could see, meanwhile, people of the most diverse identities take part in the communes, especially Arabs and Assyrians. The mala jin likewise works to solve social problems and responsible for implementing the goals of women’s liberation. As much as possible, the councils prefer to vote by consensus. The communes send their representatives to their respective district councils and city councils, and the structure continues into the general council of Rojava.

Democratic Autonomy and the Nation-State

“Peaceful coexistence between the nation-state and democratic confederalism is possible, as long as the nation-state doesn’t interfere with central matters of self-administration.  All such interventions would call for the self-defense of the civil society.”

–Abdullah Öcalan, Democratic Confederalism, p. 32.

Democratic Confederalism is a form of self-management and thus stands in contrast to the model of the state. It is an attempt at permanent social revolution, as is reflected in every facet of the social structure.  Overcoming the nation-state is seen as a long-term goal. The state will be overcome when Democratic Confederalism in practice assumes all structures into its self-organization and self-management. In that society neither statist nor territorial boundaries will play a role.

Indeed, by virtue of the self-management of society, Democratic Confderalism renders the state and the nation-state redundant. In this social model the commune, the council, and the society are integrated, with the commune is the political center. In outward form the region of Rojava has chosen to follow the Swiss cantonal model, structuring itself in terms of the cantons’ far-reaching regional autonomy. Ideally the canton arises from the cooperation of the autonomous political councils. While the nation-state is based on social homogenization through the construction of identity and its reflexively coercive implementation, Democratic Confederalism is based on social diversity. Over the course of world history, the nation-state has been compromised by bloodshed.

In this region, typically only the Arabizing politics of Syria and the Turkicizing politics of Turkey were discussed. But Syria is home to Sunni and Shiite Arabs, Sunni Kurds, Assyrian Christians, Chaldeans, Yezidi Kurds, Armenians, Aramaeans, Chechens, Turkmens, and many other cultural, religious or ethnic groups. All these social groups should achieve representation through the council system with its corresponding quotas.

The commune, as the structure of self-management that directly binds to the neighborhood, must therefore be the center of political self-management. In order to raise the level of social organization, it provides educational forums for members of the commune, on topics like democratic self-determination and rights, women’s liberation, the history of Syria, the history of Kurdistan, the Kurdish language, and many other social issues.

On our journey in the region, we saw that the success in implementation varies from region to region. In many areas Arab councils and especially the Assyrians work very closely together with the Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM).  Central positions are allocated to three or four co-chairpersons, who correspond to the social groups of the region.

The Highest Council, or Parliamentary Democracy?

While in many areas the Kurdish population already has decades of experience with the Kurdish movement’s concepts of women’s liberation and social freedom, here too there are of course also divergences. Some wish to organize in classical parties rather than in councils.

This problem has been solved in Rojava through a dual structure. On one hand a parliament is chosen, to which free elections under international supervision are to take place as soon as possible. This parliament forms a parallel structure to the councils; it forms a transitional government, in which all political and social groups are represented, while the council system forms a kind of parallel parliament. The structuring and rules of this collaboration are at the moment under discussion.

Closing the Gap

Mamosta Abdulselam, of TEV-DEM in Heseke, has explained the system of communes in Heseke. “There was a gap between the councils and the people—that’s why we developed the commune system,” says Mamosta Abdul. “There are 16 district councils here. On each council there are 15 to 30 people. About 50 houses form a commune. The communes are numerous—in each district there are about 10-30 communes with 15-30 persons each. The Mifte district in Heseke has 29 communes, while the neighboring district has 11 communes. Each district forms about 20 communes per 1,000 people. The 16 district councils are formed form the communes. One hundred and one people sit on Heseke’s city council. In addition, the PYD has five representatives, as do five other parties. Families of the Fallen have five, Yekitiya Star [later renamed Kongra Star] has five, the Revolutionary Youth have five, and the Liberals have five. The district councils normally meet every two months. Twenty-one people are elected as the coordination. The leadership meetings take place once a month and as needed in special cases. Always at least 40 percent of the representatives are women and at least 40 percent are men. Decisions are made according to consensus principle. Care is taken that one person doesn’t dominate the proceedings. The co-chairs are elected. Members of the commune nominate them and then elect them.”

Women’s Work

At the beginning of our stay in Rojava, Sirin Ibraham Ömer, a 45-year-old woman from the district of Hileli in Qamişlo, reported to us on women’s work in her commune.

“We are 60 active women in our commune. Once a week we do educational work—we read books together and then discuss them. Twice a month we visit other women and explain the tasks of the revolution.  Many are much influenced by the logic of the state—they don’t see themselves as people who can manage their own affairs. They have many children, and there are many arguments at home. The children are outside on the street and play instead of going to school. We’re concerned about that. If a family has no income, we have a committee for that, to provide the basic foodstuffs.

The peace committee talks with the families. If there is violence in a family, the woman can get help from the Asayiş. In Hileli meanwhile it’s socially disapproved for a man to hit his wife—that’s all but come to a stop. In other districts it’s still present in places. Here it was usual for the television to be on 24 hours in an apartment, with Turkish broadcasts in Arabic language—that was a big problem. But when the energy suddenly went off, so did the TVs, and people’s minds were cleared to do something else.

Many women are married off very young, even as children, so that there will be no extramarital pregnancies. Now they see that education is good for them, that they can have a better life.

Once a week we go out and collect a little money—it’s a symbolic way to help. We distribute the weekly newspaper (Rohahi)—it’s very cheap, so everyone can read it. It appears in Arabic and Kurdish. When we all get together now, our topics are not gossip and chitchat as before, but political developments and the women’s organization. We know it all here in the district.

In many districts there are also so-called women’s houses. They aren’t women’s safe houses like in Germany, but houses where women can get together and educate one another and talk about heir problems. They frequently offer classes in computers, language, and sewing.

The most important work of the women’s houses is however to provide assistance against social sexism. “The women come to us, when they have a problem. Not only the Kurdish women but also the Arab women,” says a representative of the women’s houses, Serê Kaniyê.

We witnessed such an inquiry. Two older Arab women arrived and asked the women at the women’s house for help. “Through the commune system we know every family,” says Serê Kaniyê, “we know every family’s economic situation, and we know who hits his wife and his children. We go directly there and speak with those affected, until it gets to a solution.” She agrees on a date with the two women, to find a solution for their problem.

Conflict Resolution

The commune is a place not only of self-organization but also of social conflict resolution. It concerns itself with social problems in the districts, support of poorer members of the commune, and the just distribution of fuel, bread, and foodstuffs. Meetings of the commune handle not only conflicts, the usual neighborhood fights, but also violence against children, and resolution is attempted. In Dêrik we attended a meeting of representatives of a commune: they were discussing the case of a family that had tied up a child. This behavior was now monitored and controlled. If the misbehavior continues, the children will be taken to a protected place.

The original article appeared in the July-August 2014 issue of the German-language periodical Kurdistan Report.