Maria
Meza, a migrant woman from Honduras, runs away from tear gas with her
five-year-old twin daughters Saira and Cheili at the US-Mexico border on
November 25, 2018 [File: Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon]
Last December, the Trump administration enacted a scheme requiring Central American asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their legal proceedings drag on indefinitely in the United States.
The Migrant Protection Protocols policy – a
handily perverse euphemism – is the approximate equivalent of calling
the Exxon Valdez oil spill the Marine Life Protection Initiative. As
various human rights and advocacy organisations have pointed out, the
border programme has exposed tens of thousands of asylum seekers to violence; including rape, kidnapping and assault, in the unsure border regions of Mexico.
In light of the surplus of rapes and other abuses already documented
as a result of so-called “protection”, the International Day for the
Elimination of Violence against Women – marked annually on November 25 –
is an ideal occasion to reflect on the violence facing migrant women in
an era of mass migration.
Pervasive violence
As the UN Women website observes : ” Rape
is rooted in a complex set of patriarchal beliefs, power, and control
that continue to create a social environment in which sexual violence is
pervasive and normalised.”
The feminist revolution in Rojava, N.Syria, shows how patriarchy can be defeated, even in a rural and strictly religious society. The revolution is now being destroyed by a Turkish invasion with a strongly patriarchal mentality. The Rojava kurds formed the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) in 2015 and welcomed dozens of Arab, Assyrian, yazidi, Christian..militias into a common front, spreading their revolutionary methods (eg in Manbij Council).Yazidi women victims have formed their own militia within SDF and recently the first arab women’s militia has been formed (July ’17). There are profound feminist implications in the context of previous extreme social repression.
For an idea of the extent of normalisation, just recall Patriarch-in-chief President Donald Trump‘s own previous advice about fondling women without their consent: “Grab ’em by the p****.”
Migrant women, of course, are particularly
vulnerable to “grabbing” – and much worse – especially given that crimes
against migrants are not generally reported or prosecuted. And for
Central American women transiting Mexico to the US border, sexual
assault is frequently par for the course.
On
2nd November a global day of resistance for Rojava brought thousands of
people out onto the streets in dozens of cities around the world.
For the people of Northern Syria, currently resisting an invasion by the Turkish army and its jihadist proxies, the joy and hope that these demonstrations brought is amongst the greatest gifts one could hope for. It reminds us that we are not alone against the Salafist hordes that the Turkish state is sending.
We salute all the actions and demonstrations happening in solidarity with Rojava and send our warmest greeting to those who are supporting the campaigns of #RiseUp4Rojava and #WomenDefendRjava. The resistance continues, as does the revolution, and today more than ever we need solidarity and support.
PLEASE HELP.. donate TO Kurdish Red Crescent / Heyva Sor A Kurd
On 2nd November a global day of resistance for Rojava brought thousands of people out onto the streets in dozens of cities around the world.
For the people of Northern Syria, currently resisting an invasion by the Turkish army and its jihadist proxies, the joy and hope that these demonstrations brought is amongst the greatest gifts one could hope for. It reminds us that we are not alone against the Salafist hordes that the Turkish state is sending. We salute all the actions and demonstrations happening in solidarity with Rojava and send our warmest greeting to those who are supporting the campaigns of #RiseUp4Rojava and #WomenDefendRjava. The resistance continues, as does the revolution, and today more than ever we need solidarity and support.
When you make a revolution against patriarchy, the nation-state and capitalism, of course you can’t rely on other states to support you. We use to say that the Kurds have ‘no friends but the mountains’, but on 2nd November we saw this was not true. The international solidarity that Rojava is witnessing is inspirational; it inspires us as internationalists in Rojava to remain steadfast on the barricades of this revolution and to commit to our many different works here, because we know that all our many struggles are entwined. Today the struggle is Rojava, tomorrow it could be anywhere else, and by defending Rojava we are defending not only the people and the revolution here, but also the hope that another world is possible.
Internationalism is an essential dimension in the history of revolutionary movements, and Rojava is today writing an important chapter. From the First International Association of Workers to the Tri-Continental Conference, from the 50,000 of the International Brigades who travelled to Spain to fight fascism in 1936, to the 500,000 Cuban revolutionaries who travelled to Africa to support decolonisation struggles, from the solidarity with the resistance in Vietnam to the antiglobalisation movements, from the revolutionary inter-communalism of the Black Panthers to the solidarity with Palestinian revolutionary resistance. Rojava is today heritage of this history of internationalism, and we are called to play our role in it.
Of course there are other important struggles happening all around the world. We see the uprisings in South America, with big mobilisations happening in Chile, the new ‘caracoles’ declared by the EZLN in Chiapas, and the resistance in Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and Argentina. We see the Catalan people resisting against the attacks of the Spanish state. We see the massive uprisings happening in Middle East, such as in Lebanon or Iraq, in Sudan and Egypt, and other peoples in Africa looking for alternatives to the nation-state model that colonial powers imposed on them. We see the resistance movements of India, Philippines, Indonesia, and we stand with all revolutionaries who fight to bring all oppression to an end.
Internationalism in the twenty-first century has a lot of colours, but for sure the colour of the woman is the one that shines brightest. Patriarchy is the foundation upon which all social oppression is built, and the liberation from the mentality of dominant male must always be in the forefront of any revolutionary struggle. The defence of nature, so exploited and abused by the industrial system, has to be also in the first line, facing the ecological crisis that capitalism created. Democracy is our flag, but not the parliamentary democracy that Western powers tried to impose to the rest of the World. We raise the flag of the commune, the democracy of local councils and popular assemblies.
For all of this, we call to defend this revolution, and to make it a cradle for a global democratic modernity.
When you make a revolution against patriarchy, the nation-state and capitalism, of course you can’t rely on other states to support you. We use to say that the Kurds have ‘no friends but the mountains’, but on 2nd November we saw this was not true. The international solidarity that Rojava is witnessing is inspirational; it inspires us as internationalists in Rojava to remain steadfast on the barricades of this revolution and to commit to our many different works here, because we know that all our many struggles are entwined. Today the struggle is Rojava, tomorrow it could be anywhere else, and by defending Rojava we are defending not only the people and the revolution here, but also the hope that another world is possible.
Internationalism is an essential dimension in the history of revolutionary movements, and Rojava is today writing an important chapter. From the First International Association of Workers to the Tri-Continental Conference, from the 50,000 of the International Brigades who travelled to Spain to fight fascism in 1936, to the 500,000 Cuban revolutionaries who travelled to Africa to support decolonisation struggles, from the solidarity with the resistance in Vietnam to the antiglobalisation movements, from the revolutionary inter-communalism of the Black Panthers to the solidarity with Palestinian revolutionary resistance.
Rojava is today heritage of this history of internationalism, and we are called to play our role in it.
Of course there are other important struggles happening all around the world. We see the uprisings in South America, with big mobilisations happening in Chile, the new ‘caracoles’ declared by the EZLN in Chiapas, and the resistance in Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and Argentina. We see the Catalan people resisting against the attacks of the Spanish state. We see the massive uprisings happening in Middle East, such as in Lebanon or Iraq, in Sudan and Egypt, and other peoples in Africa looking for alternatives to the nation-state model that colonial powers imposed on them. We see the resistance movements of India, Philippines, Indonesia, and we stand with all revolutionaries who fight to bring all oppression to an end.
Internationalism in the twenty-first century has a lot of colours, but for sure the colour of the woman is the one that shines brightest. Patriarchy is the foundation upon which all social oppression is built, and the liberation from the mentality of dominant male must always be in the forefront of any revolutionary struggle. The defence of nature, so exploited and abused by the industrial system, has to be also in the first line, facing the ecological crisis that capitalism created. Democracy is our flag, but not the parliamentary democracy that Western powers tried to impose to the rest of the World. We raise the flag of the commune, the democracy of local councils and popular assemblies.
For all of this, we call to defend this revolution, and to make it a cradle for a global democratic modernity.
Til Temir: Front line – A letter from an internationalist friend
Til Temir: Front line – A letter from an internationalist friend
A combatjet passes in low flight over the city of Til Temir, making
the windows of the houses vibrate, where Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians
coexist in this arid city located today few kilometers of the front.
When the blazing sound of the engine passes, the crying of a baby is the
first thing to break the silence. We did not feel any explosion, it
seems that this flight only wanted to frighten the population. Now heads
of neighbors pop out from the windows to see that everyone is good.
-Perhaps now that their soldiers have arrived, their planes are arriving as well.
-Surely it’s Russian, Russian planes have to fly lower than the others to see what happens!
-No, it must be American! Now that the Americans are leaving, so are their planes.
And they laugh. They laugh to scare the fear. The fear they have is
that the next plane won’t pass by, that it will drop one of the bombs
we’ve heard exploding on the outskirts of the city for days now. That’s
why nobody mentions that the plane in question is surely a Turkish F-16,
so as not to spread fear among the few people who are still left in
this neighborhood. Many neighbors marched days ago to Haseke, where a
couple of weeks ago they have started to build a new refugee camp to
receive people displaced by this new war. A new war that is confused
with the previous one.
Five years ago Til Temir experienced the war against the Islamic
state on the front line, especially the Christian villages nearby where
the Salafists showed their cruelest face, mutilating and decapitating
those who captured alive to the cry of “infidels” and “Allah is the
greatest”. They are the same cries that we hear today in the videos that
come from the front and that circulate between Facebook posts and
WhatsApp messages, where groups of armed men trained by the Turkish
state celebrate how the Kurdish politician Hevrîn Xelef, is executed or
how they capture the fighter of the YPJ Çiçek Kobane.
When we arrived in Til Temir in mid-October, seeking to open a
humanitarian corridor to the then besieged city of Serekaniye, Til
Temir’s seven schools were already filled with elderly people, mothers
and children fleeing Turkish bombs. Since then the front has continued
to inexorably approach the city, and more and more towns and villages
have to be evacuated. Yesterday the father of the host family, a teacher
in one of the schools that had to stop classes to accommodate refugees,
showed me a video of a small village from which a large column of smoke
was rising.
“This is my village. It was bombarded by a Turkish plane. The hevals
(Kurdish word for “friends”, referring to the fighters of the YPG/YPJ)
have been alone defending the village for three days, everyone had to
flee because of the bombs.
A strange front
Following the withdrawal of United States troops in early October, the agreement between the Self-Administration of North-East Syria and the government forces of the Syrian State has created a strange situation. The regular forces of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) are deployed jointly with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to deal with the Turkish occupation.
For the first time in more than seven years, government soldiers have set foot in the territory where the Kurds, along with Assyrians, Arabs and other ethnic groups of northern Syria, have implemented the self-government project inspired by the ideas of Abdullah Öcalan, known as the proposal for democratic confederalism.
A little less than a week ago the first reinforcements of the SAA
arrived in Til Temir. We knew this because the morning they entered the
city, they spent about twenty minutes circling and firing into the air
waving the Syrian flag from old trucks, full of young and badly armed
soldiers, before heading for the front. They hoped that this flag would
protect them from Turkish mortars and fighter planes, but it did not.
From the Legerîn Ciya hospital (an internationalist doctor who came from
Argentina to Rojava and who died just over a year ago) we could see how
the same afternoon, the improvised operating theatres were filled with
Bashar Al-Assad soldiers wounded by the bombings and mortars of
Erdogan’s soldiers (and others of jihadists).
Yesterday we saw once again American helicopters flying over the city, which indicates that they were moving troops again. After announcing their withdrawal in early October, last week, Donald Trump explained that they were returning to Syria to “protect the oil”.
Neighbors explained to us that their convoy of armored vehicles was returning to Qamislo after pro-turk Islamists attacked them as they passed through Ain Issa in the direction of Kobane. In the military base they had there, today the Russian flag is flying, and a few days ago Russian soldiers have been patrolling together with the Turkish army along the border between the cities of Serekaniye and Amude. A few kilometres further, between Qamislo and Derik, it is American soldiers who patrol.
This morning SAA reinforcements arrived again, this time with old Russian tanks and a few mortars and other heavy weapons. They will need them. The day before yesterday, when we went to visit the front, we saw the conditions in which they were deployed in the different villages where the SDF still maintain the defense of the territory. After the withdrawal of the SDF from the city of Serekaniye on October 12, the front has moved to the semi-desert plains that separate the scarce 40 kilometers between Til Temir and Serekaniye, where the Islamists advance thanks to the air support of Turkish planes and combat drones.
In a war in these conditions, it is sometimes difficult to know who
is a friend and who is an enemy. At the front we are usually guided by
the premise that if he doesn’t shoot you, he is a friend. The great
hospitality of the Middle East, where everyone you meet greets you with
vocation and invites you to sit down and have tea, can lead you to live
strange situations. The most recent, looking for a translator to explain
to the captain of a team of SAA mortars that we did not want sugar in
the tea he offered us, while a group of soldiers unloaded the cannons
behind the SDF lines while they asked us, honestly surprised, how it is
possible that we could speak Kurdish and not Arabic.
Rojava’s revolution has inspired social movements all over the world,
highlighting without doubt the libertarian, feminist and ecological
character that Kurdish socialism promotes. Solidarity committees
translate, organize demonstrations and denounce the Turkish occupation
to different countries, coordinating with the extensive Kurdish diaspora
that has dispersed in recent decades because of repeated wars that have
threatened their survival. In the framework of the campaign
#RiseUp4Rojava, last Saturday, November 2, we saw more than a hundred
demonstrations in dozens of countries around the world.
We are also quite a few internationalists who are currently working
on the ground, especially in communication and health care, covering the
fronts that resist the invasion. We said that war sometimes creates
strange companies, and I think it is an adequate description when we see
the two main international teams that are currently assisting the
wounded on the front of Til Temir in coordination with Heyva Sor (the
Kurdish Red Crescent). On the one hand, a group of anarchists from
different countries who have coincided in Rojava and who have been
working for some time as a combat medical team. On the other hand, a
group of American and Burmese Christians who have been working for more
than two decades as combat medical teams in different conflicts.
In fact, one of the international martyrs that this Turkish offensive has claimed so far, belongs to this team. Yesterday one of the ambulances at the rear of the front was hit by a projectile that wounded two people and put an end to the life of a third. His name is Zao Sang, born Thailand, who lost his life shortly after the impact caused by the serious injuries.
Also the German Konstantin G. (Andok), fighter of the international brigade of the YPG, was killed by the Turkish bombs in a convoy headed to Serekaniye. And today we had to add a third name, which is that the commander of the international battalion for freedom Ozge Aydin (Ceren), a Turkish national, died from the wounds that led to her coma last week.
Their names lengthen the list of the hundreds of combatants and civilians who have been killed in this Turkish offensive.
To speak of death and war can easily frighten the western reader, accommodated in the first world where wars always take place away from home. The revolution of 1936, when tens of thousands of international brigadists came to support the war against fascism during the second Spanish Republic, is a long way off. A third of those who came could never return home again, but their actions meant an important chapter in the history of revolutionary internationalism.
Today in Rojava we are a handful of Catalans who are here, together with Castilians and Galicians. Also Basques, Aragonese, Andalusians and Portuguese have passed through here, inspired by the revolutionary project of Rojava, living and discussing the contradictions that this society generates, debating on how to develop an Iberian confederal project. Now that the situation in Catalonia calls into question the model of the Spanish nation-state, it is more than ever necessary to reflect together on what future we want to build.
SEE HERE Orso killed by ISIS.. But Lives Always in our HeartsSEE HERE
In fact, today we have published a global appeal together with other internationalists to come to support the resistance of Rojava, to understand and learn what it means to build (and defend) a revolution.
The number of internationalists who have come to put their grain of sand to Rojava is difficult to calculate, but it is far from the 50,000 brigadists who more than 80 years ago answered the call to confront fascism when we needed it most. No doubt this should make us reflect if we are really ready to carry out a revolutionary process or if it is just a romantic imaginary that we explain while we live our privileged lives. Revolution is not a road of roses, but no one has ever said it was easy. However, the alternative is to allow patriarchy and capitalism to continue to lead our lives, and for me and the many other comrades who are here, this is no longer an option.
101 East investigates how the illegal wildlife trade is wiping out rare species on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
Monkeys, butterflies, bats, snakes and a dazzling assortment of birds – the forests on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are known as the ‘Galapagos of Asia’
…… But for how much longer?
Humanity’s impact is now endangering the survival of Sulawesi’s creatures, many of which are found nowhere else in the world.
“80 to 90 percent of the wildlife in Sulawesi is facing extinction. We are sleepwalking into ecological disaster,” says Billy, who works at the Tasikoki Wildlife Refuge.
”The extinction of the animals is part of climate and environmental breakdown caused by rampant exploitation for personal and corporate profit, imposed from outside by a kleptocratic State. Autonomous government of the islands would grant a stake to local people, along with strict environmental controls and suppression of plundering Corporations”.
Komodo dragons face extinction
A range of animals, from orangutans, sun bears and birds to crocodiles, can be found at the refuge. All of them have been taken from traffickers or people who kept them illegally as pets.
But Billy says the demand for “bushmeat” poses the biggest threat to animals.
“Mostly they are being caught from the wild, from the forest, for bushmeat … to be served on a plate as food,” he says.
Turkey’s latest threat: Give us safe zone or we send refugees to EU …Erdogan threatens: “… we will have to open the gates [to Europe].Either you support us or no one should feel sorry. We would like to host 1 million refugees in the safe zone.”
So Europe is being blackmailed to help this OPENLY fascist invader extend his empire in Syria and to wipe out the local Kurdish people an their democratic, non sectarian, anti racist, feminist revolution ..ETC..
In the last weeks the rate of refugees arriving in Greece has been shooting up, as Erdogan cynically allowed more people to escape, before cashing in on EU euros and political ignoring, if not actually aiding, his nazi invasion plans.
Aug 30 2019 Greece’s Lesvos receives largest single-day refugee arrival since 2015-2016 Some 547 migrants arrived Greece’s eastern Aegean island of Lesvos on Thursday in thirteen boats that set sail from the Turkish coast, marking the largest number of arrivals in a single day since the peak of a refugee crisis. Some 177 were men, 124 were women and 246 were children
So the craven EU politicians cave in and give him (indirectly) billions more public money for fear of losing their jobs and power to the racist right wing being fanned…
The European Commission on July 19 2019 adopted a new set of assistance measures worth €1.41 billion (nearly $1.6 billion), ensuring EU support to refugees and host communities in Turkey. This ups the total to over 6 billion euros. And this was before Erdogan’s latest human blackmail threats!
As well as receiving 6 billion euros to its economy (the cash goes directly to the refugees) there have been a long series of scandals alleging the slave labour exploitation in Turkey of defenseless Syrian refugee families who despite working could starve without the EU aid. (see here: Syrianrefugees: Abuse & exploitation in Turkey…650,000..)
The EU should spend the 6 billion euros of public money not on Turkish blackmailers but on helping refugees return and rebuild their lives in Syria.
This gives the Turkish business class a third big boost in cheaper production , increasing profits for the rich while forcing down wages for many other workers with the threat of cheaper refugee labour. Labour is cheap, refugeelabour is dirt cheap in Turkey
Refugees are being used again as Human Blackmail by Erdogan to extract money and impunity for Rojava invasion
From August 9 to 13, the First March of Indigenous Women of Brazil was carried out, with the slogan “Territory: our body, our spirit”. This march then joined the 6th country women’s March of the Margaridas, and the Tsunami of Education in defense of the education system. The Indigenous Women’s March joined the mobilization in Brasília
Maria Anecy Martins arrived in Brasília this week with glowing eyes to join the 2019 ‘Daisies’ (=Margaridas) March. The 45-year-old small farmer is one of the 100,000 peasant women who joined the 2-day event .
The sixth edition of the ‘Daisies’ March took place in Brasília on Aug. 13 and 14. The name of the event, originally Marcha das Margaridas, pays tribute to Margarida Maria Alves, a union leader in the northeastern state of Paraíba who fought for rural workers’ rights and was murdered by contract killers hired by big landowners in 1983.
Context: The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were started in 2015 to expand the Rojava Revolution by inviting male and female militias of all races and religions to join in expanding and defending the struggle.
Turkey again makes daily threats to eliminate the70,000 strong force, financing and supplying ISIS remnants,as well asHTS Al Qaeda, Islamic militias andinfiltrating terrorist gangs, while Assad forces conspire with tribal leaders to foment resistance. The SDF still has ‘protection’ by none less than a small force of the USA military, for their own imperialist reasons, though Trump still plans to pull out.
Press reports suggest Erdogan may take advantage of the truce in the Turkish supplied Idlib war to invade Rojava (AA) on the pretext of creating a 32km ”safe zone” which would include the main Kurdish cities, in a dirty deal with the US.
In preparation for a planned Turkish military operation east of Euphrates, the media campaign to create Arab–Kurdish strife continues through creation of more fake videos
”Media fabrications by the Turkey-loyal [ie mercenary] groups continue spreading videos showing men dressed as members of the Syria Democratic Forces torturing and beating citizens, in order to create Arab–Kurdish strife in the east Euphrates area and northeast of Aleppo”.
”The latest of these is a video showing members dressed as SDF, speaking in Kurdish, and torturing an Arab family, who they beat, insult, and do immoral acts to. Also the video shows a car belonging to Asayish [SDF security] with SDF flag next to it, which was met with angry reactions on social media.
Originally published on Komun-Academy, Written by Hêlîn Asî, 2019
Around the world, currently, thousands of people, especially youth, protest and demand action against climate change. Under the slogan Fridays for future global strikes and mass demonstrations are taking place. In light of the statistics and prognoses about the causes and effects of climate change over the last few years, the climate question has become one of the most urgent questions of our time.
While on one side, individuals must bear responsibility, it is clear that it does not suffice to merely criticize individual lifestyles without challenging larger structural political and economic conditions. Analyzing climate change as independent from capitalism means depoliticizing the issue. In fact, nearly all conditions that have contributed to climate change can be traced back to the capitalist-consumerist system.
![Maria Meza, a migrant woman from Honduras, runs away from tear gas with her five-year-old twin daughters Saira and Cheili at the US-Mexico border on November 25, 2018 [File: Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/11/25/16a247b20d24445182983ac12bc41b1b_18.jpg "Smash the patriarchy to save the planet")
The Free 