Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women's Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan

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In that sense, as Gray puts it, “it is better to detach democracy from ideas of national self-determination and think of it as a means whereby disparate communities can reach common decisions. In a growing number of contexts, democracy and the nation-state are no longer coterminous”. In August, a coalition of opposition groups formed the Syrian National Council in hopes of creating a democratic, pluralistic alternative to the Assad government. But internal fighting and disagreement over politics and inclusion plagued the group from its beginnings. In the fall of 2011 the popular uprising escalated to an armed conflict. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) began to coalesce and armed insurrection spread, largely across central and southern Syria. [26] Kurdish parties negotiate [ edit ] Revolution in Rojava tells the story of Rojava's groundbreaking experiment in what they call democratic confederalism, a communally organized democracy that is fiercely anti-capitalist and committed to female equality, while rejecting reactionary nationalist ideologies. 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.

I climb on a long narrow iron boat with its motor trying to fight its way into the frail current of the river. And as soon as my feet touch Syria, a strong hand shakes mine and a voice tells me "welcome to Rojava".The revolution made in Rojava is historic. Because it is a radical break with the past. Of course, we all know that these things take time, they don’t change from one day to another. It requires generations to change attitudes and societies. But we put down the first stones because we believe in change and democratic society. What we want above all is democracy and not independence, we want to stay as part of Syria, a democratic Syria that respects the rights of all the different nationalities as here in Rojava we respect all the ethnic groups in the region”, he says. The head of the company was Johan. His smile was childlike, yet he was 32 years old and a veteran specialist sergeant of the Swiss army. He had been fighting for two and a half years in the frontline against jihadists.

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. [ ↩] Another tomb, a whole family around it. The 19 years old had fallen in the front line a few days before . Almost everything you see here comes illegally from Turkey. We have electricity three hours a day and those who can afford it live with generators. The city administration is also trying to distribute electricity from generators”, says Masud, my friend in Qamishli. In another Christian neighborhood in Qamishli, in front of his church, Peter speaks calmly, but his eyes are full of emotion. His son fights in the YPG units: his daughter is in a committee of the Syriacs. One of the key things the jihadists want to “waste” is the woman. The woman as an equal partner of the man, the woman as a human being.Whatever the answer, what I saw was women and men that had something very different from other fighters. They were fighting on two fronts, one against the threat of pure annihilation and another for a better society. In that sense, they are the only fighters in the region who are not fighting for the preservation and the continuation, in one way of another, of a status quo, but for a radical change and something to come. Isn’t this ideology the most effective weapon of the Syrian Kurdish fighters, women and men, against the barbaric indoctrination of Daesh? Abdullah Öcalan (2011): Democratic Confederalism. Köln: International Initiative, p. 21. [ ↩][ ↩][ ↩]