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.
Elderly mother of Suruc bombing victim jailed for seven years on terror charges
Besra Erol, the mother of Evrim Deniz Erol who died in a suicide bombing carried out by the Islamic State (ISIS) that killed 33 people and injured 104 more in Sanliurfa’s Suruc district in 2015 has been sent to jail on terror charges, Gazete Duvar news portal reported on Tuesday.
Besra Erol, 60, was on Monday sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.
She was convicted on charges that include being a member of a terrorist organization and sent to Mus E Type Closed Prison.
The mother was accused of being a member of a terrorist organization due to her remarks in a speech that she gave over the grave of her son Evrim Deniz Erol and some other press statements regarding his death. continues below
July 20, 2015, Suruç: 34 Kurdish humanitarian volunteers were killed and about 100 injured in a suicide bombing in the predominantly-Kurdish town of Suruç near the border with Syria. Turkish officials blamed ISIS. But instead of cracking down on ISIS which at the time was covertly sponsored in Turkey, they immediately began a blitzkrieg persecution of the Kurds themselves who were the victims, resulting in the end of the ceasefire (and the whole Peace Process initiated and maintained by the imprisoned Kurdish leader Ocalan) and unleashing the wave of Turkish nationalism that boosted Erdogan’s march to supreme dictator. ISIS never claimed the attack.
“The other crucial question is the status of .Rojava. In my opinion, it makes sense for the United States to maintain a presence which would deter an attack on the Kurdish areas… The US should stay in northern Syria to deter attacks against Syrian Kurds”, said world famous American linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky in an interview with the Intercept .
Chomsky noted that the Kurds have “succeeded in sustaining a functioning society with many decent elements” in Syria’s north.
“The idea that if they should be subjected to another attack by their bitter enemies the Turks, or by the murderous Assad regime, I think is anything should be done to try to prevent that.”
The defeat of the IS in Syria and especially after the liberation of Raqqa in October 2017, the Turkish state intensified its threats and attacks against the Federation Democratic Federation of Northern Syria.
In this context, the Turkish invasion war against Afrin began on January 20, 2018 violating international law and the sovereignty of its neighboring country.
The Turkish army has launched this war in cooperation with jihadist groups from the ranks of the FSA. Many of them are former members of Al-Qaeda or EI. Since the beginning of March, all districts and the city center of Afrin have suiffered intense aviation and artillery bombardments and drone surveillance that the Turkish army has carried out, especially against civilians. On March 18, more than 200,000 people.
They left the center of the city and were evacuated to avoid physical genocide. Since then, the majority of refugees remain in the Shehba region without security guarantees or international support. In this new phase, the confrontation between the international powers and their interests is increasing throughout Syria.
The spokeswoman for the campaign “Euphrates Anger” (Xezeba Firatê), Jihan Sheikh Ahmad, from the Yekîneyên Parastinê Yên Jinê (Women Defense Units, YPJ) campaign confirmed today the conquest of the old quarter of the Raqqa and the Darayeh district, to the West.
The control of the Old Quarter is a very remarkable advance as it was fortified by a historic wall and its narrow streets, complicated offensive operations.
Darayeh was closed at the beginning of the week and has progressed with street to street fighting.
“From the National Confederation of Labor, CNT we show our utmost grief, indignation, confusion and pain at the attack suffered this afternoon in Barcelona.
Once again it has been the people, the civilian population, the ordinary people, who have suffered the consequences of wars that are not theirs. Once again the people put back the suffering and the dead.
This time the location has changed, the place has changed. This time has been hit the heart of Barcelona. But again the objective has been the same: the civilian population unarmed and innocent.
Whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, London, Paris, Berlin, the Mediterranean or in the fences of Melilla, we return to becoming propitiatory victims, in collateral damages of a war between sides that we do not know, that does not repair media or Limits to reach their goals, who does not know the meaning of the word “love.” Gangs for whom power is above people and life. Gangs that do not represent us. Continue reading “Solidarity with Barcelona victims: No God. No State, No Caliphate”
Kurdish women hold a photo of Arin Mirkan, killed in fight against IS
Dilar Dirik salutes militant women-organised democracy in action in Rojava
It was in the autumn of 2014, only months after so-called Islamic State (ISIS) achieved massive territorial gains inside Syria and Iraq, committing genocidal and femicidal massacres as it did so, that a revolutionary silver lining arose from the little-known town of Kobane.
Having overrun Mosul, Tel Afar and Sinjar in Iraq, as well as a vast expanse of territory inside Syria, ISIS prepared to launch an attack on the north of Syria, known by Kurds as Rojava.
What it did not anticipate in Kobane was to encounter an enemy of a different kind – an organised, political community that was ready to defend itself courageously by all means necessary, and with a worldview that turns ISIS’s death ideology on its head.
Arîn Mîrkan, a young, revolutionary Kurdish woman, would become the symbol of Kobane’s victory.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said an operation to begin liberating the city had already begun, coordinated with a US-led military coalition.”We declare today the start of the great battle to liberate the city of Raqqa, the so-called capital of terrorism and terrorists,” SDF spokesman Telal Silo, Turkmen Seljuk Brigade member, told reporters in the village of Hazima, north of the city.
“With the international coalition’s warplanes and the state-of-the-art weapons they provided to us, we will seize Raqqa from Daesh.”He asked civilians inside the city to keep away from IS positions and from the front lines. IS has been fortifying the city ahead of the coming assault, setting up barriers and covering the street to hide fighters from aircraft overhead.SDF leades announce start of Raqqa campaign
Anarchists Fighting ISIS in Rojava Announce New Formation
By Anonymous ContributorToday we announce the formation of the International Revolutionary People’s Guerrilla Forces, an explicitly anarchist, militant group in Rojava seeking to defend the Revolution and advance the cause of anarchism.
You can also check out our full announcement video here(but the video has been banned twice already!. . ..check on Twitter if its back up and if so COPY.. .ed.)
The Role of the IRPGF
The International Revolutionary People’s Guerrilla Forces (IRPGF) is a militant armed self-organized and horizontal collective working to defend social revolutions around the world, to directly confront capital and the state, and advance the cause of anarchism. We recognize and affirm that principled action necessitates principled politics.
We are not a political party or platform but rather an armed collective comprised of comrades with different anarchist positions. The IRPGF’s collective unity manifests itself in the praxis of militant action which we consider a prerequisite for achieving liberation. Our role is twofold; to be an armed force capable of defending liberatory social revolutions around the world while simultaneously being a force capable of insurrection and struggle against all kyriarchal forms of power wherever they exist.
We do not enter conflict zones with intent to command but rather, while retaining our autonomy as a collective, to fight alongside other armed groups in solidarity with those who are oppressed, exploited and facing annihilation. The IRPGF believes collective action, solidarity and unity are necessary for struggle. International solidarity is the most powerful weapon of the oppressed.
At the same time we maintain the need for criticism when and where appropriate. (Self)Criticism is not something to be feared. It is to be embraced as the constant source of energy that drives individuals, communities and revolutionary movements towards realizing liberation.
The Need for Armed Struggle
Within movements for liberation an enormous chasm exists between those who deploy peaceful means to confront the enemy and those who defend both their communities and themselves through armed struggle. These dichotomous positions contain within them an inter-sectional network of social positions and identities that reveal their location, context and content. For the IRPGF, peaceful methods are unable to confront and destroy the state, capitalism and all forms of kyriarchal power.
In fact, they do the reverse. They protect, embolden and strengthen the enemy, enhancing the forms of oppression against increasingly isolated individuals and divided societies. We believe that our liberation springs forth from the barrel of a gun.
Armed insurrections and rebellions around the world will be carried out to the end. We fight in defense of life and we struggle for total liberation. The nation-state, authority, capital and social hierarchy are the enemies of a liberated world and therefore enemies of us all. While we struggle through self-criticism and collective criticism of our personal and collective internalizations of these oppressive behaviors, attitudes and practices, the external enemies; the bosses, along with their armies and police, must be confronted with bullets, bombs and dynamite.
The fires of justice and freedom are cleansing and all consuming. For us, there is no stepping back and no way to achieve liberation except through struggle. Our communities will only be liberated when we destroy those few whose wealth and power depend on the suffering and exploitation of many.
The master does not give the slave freedom simply out of an ethical act of pity, selflessness and love. The slave must achieve their liberation through insurrection, resistance and revolution, using every tool of the master to destroy both the master and their mechanisms and apparatuses of domination and oppression.
The yoke of tyranny and its chains of repression cannot withstand the insurrection of the oppressed. We long for the day when swords will be turned into ploughshares, but until that day arrives, if it ever does, we will hold on to our weapons.
The IRPGF’s existence is predicated on the necessity of armed struggle. The moment this is no longer necessary, the IRPGF will cease to exist. Our position is against the notion of “standing armies” or ossified revolutionary groups that become insular states unto themselves.
The IRPGF’s International Position
We believe that the third world war has already started and that the conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and in other parts of the world are only the beginning. The capitalist system, nearing its end and having plundered the world and stripped it of its resources, faces its most acute crisis yet.
With no surplus labor population to put in its dungeons and assembly lines, the antagonisms and contradictions of the system in crisis are unfolding. With imperialist powers fighting for the last scraps to safeguard their livelihoods and with fascism on the rise, a common struggle is developing against both the domination of capital and the state.
The IRPGF will stand with all peoples looking to secure their futures free from ALL forms of oppression, domination and exploitation. We are cognizant and recognize the intersection of unique identities and the particularities that exist within individuals, in communities and between individuals and communities.
We support and seek to fully realize the polymorphic nature of human identity and struggle. To this end we join with peoples around the world in their uniqueness, and in ours, to realize our collective liberation.
For our announcement text in full and to stay updated with our recent actions, visit us at @IRPGF on Twitter and IRPGF on Facebook. You can also check out our full announcement video here (but the video has been banned twice already!. I only get ”This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s Terms of Service”. ..check on twitter if its back up anf if so COPY.. .ed.)
We met and interviewed a person who travelled to Rojava to be a volunteer in the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG). We present this interview anonymously, as wished by the person interviewed.
YPG). We present this interview anonymously, as wished by the person interviewed.
What inspired you to travel to Rojava and join the YPG?
Different aspects, but it connected me and others to our own historical roots such as antifascism, or revolutionary internationalism.
Were you in the International Batallion?
I wasn’t in any specific international battalion, just with the YPG/YPJ taburs [Kurdish battallions] formed mostly by Kurds, but also with other people, including other internationals. There is also the International Freedom Batallion, a tabur or batallion inside the YPG/YPJ’s structure, with the participation of different socialist and communist volunteers. Personally, I didn’t have contacts with them, and they are mostly marxist-leninists.
How important are political ideas of the movement (ie. Democratic Confederalism) inside the YPG?
There’s a big variety in the groups. For example the youth from Rojava are all getting new ideas through recent developments, but are still not quite understanding politics or the global perspective, and remain nationalist. Whereas, for example, Kurds from Bakur or Qandil are already very revolutionary, and most of them have a high level of political consciousness and analytical capacity.
Can you tell us about daily life in the YPG and it’s command structure?
In general, daily life in the Kurdish defense units is not very similar to any army. Sometimes you forget it’s a war because of the friendships and the happiness… and dancing! The feeling of revolution is really alive.
The units put a lot of importance on communitarian relations based on Democratic Confederalism. In this model the idea is that the defense force is not an army – it is a popular militia, a guerrilla force.
The command structure is a common responsibility. For example, the komutan (commander) are the only degree of rank. Actually it’s better to call it the co-commander, because above the level of team, the position is shared between a man and a woman. And whether you are the commander of a 5 person team or a tabur commander (a batallion), your position is only a task. The friends will follow your suggestions and direction because there is respect for the structure. You are in that position by consensus and because of your experience, and the rest of the friends recognize the person most suitable for the task.
The komutan is like the basis, or foundation, of the structure because they are the link, the articulation of the common body, and the collective brain. There is a huge responsibility to be a komutan, no matter the number of friends under your responsibility. Because of this, the figure of komutan is respected and they don’t even need, usually, to give any direct orders. It is not necessary. They must at least show the correct ethics and discipline, and intelligence and courage in battle.
The rest of friends will fight following their direction, and in the space for Tekmil [military self-criticism assembly, see below] everyone can participate to discuss the tactics, and mistakes. Of course the commander-friends are human and make mistakes… and that is the moment to change their position, or send them to rest and to have some military and ideology study time. This military system that comes from the school of Qandil’s Kurdish guerrillas is the most advanced in the aspect of guerrilla history and of revolution in the art of war.
Also, there is no formal show of hierarchy such as military decorations or salutations, the only formality is the use of “friend” before the name of others, because that reminds us that we are all friends before all else, so we respect each other and resolve any conflicts in the spirit of friendship.
What is the military assembly or Tekmil? Can you elaborate?
The Tekmil is an assembly for critique, where you can give friendly and constructive critique to your commander or others in your unit, and also criticize yourself. But mostly you will receive critique and you must be up for understanding it and learn to be better.
This is to take care of checking bad behaviour, to avoid personal conflicts, or small problems with attitude that can develop into conflicts. I saw few punishments or repression; if there is a conflict, there is a lot of talk instead. Of course this is just the model, and for most of the friends from Rojava this is the first time they are learning about this, and where they had their first contact with political ideas.
Great to speak and pay my respects at the memorial of the two British heroes – Eric and Dean. They died fighting the Islamic State. They both came before the world woke to the importance of the SDF alliance and it’s ability to destroy ISIS. The recent attack by Turkey and their jihadist allies made the day more poignant. Dean died in Manbij alongside a Kurd. Watching the US sanction the Turkish assault betrays both their sacrifices. These men are an inspiration to everyone. They made the ultimate sacrifice for liberty, justice and the innocent people of Rojava. Rest in peace comrades
But you can bring up anything to anyone at Tekmil. A major aim of it is to challenge your perspective, and get away from your ego. Making a critique is thus a great responsibility – to you, and towards the person you direct your critique to – and you should look for a solution and take responsibility for that solution.
This is very similar to the criticism that happens in Tev-Dem, the self-government assembly, where you take something practical and open it up to philosophical discussion. Here you can really see the Kurdish movement evolving.
What are your thoughts on joining the YPG and the training you participated in?
The YPG academy has a lot of ideological, political, and historical education. It also included philosophy and its own Jineology classes (sociology of women). It’s really like a academy. One’s education there can be short or long, it depends. I was in the academy for a month and a half.
The military academy is pretty basic. There are a lot of daily life routines, with an emphasis on how to stay in a team and work together, such as self-discipline and cleaning weapons. There are also academies for specialist military skills like sabotage and sniping.
Did you just spend your time in fighting units? Did you participate in any revolutionary aspect of social organization?
No, though it’s hard to say where the limits of “civilian” or “social”
The Coopfunding campaign raised 98K euros, now closed, (14 July16), but the contribute page lists various ways people for people to participate and help this cause. Also right now volunteers can`t get into as the siege is total.
structures are in a revolutionary situation. Everyone is in a process of education and self-education, building tools for self-government. Every institution has its own autonomy and in some cases its own interests.
This can seem like a huge chaos and full of contradictions, but the confederal system keeps it self-regulating. The Tev-Dem and the people’s self defense, the HPC (Hêza Parastina Cewherî), are the most revolutionary aspects in my opinion – it provides the people with their own tools to defend themselves against even the YPG interests, the Canton’s institutions – government-etc.
Did you witness a Tev-Dem assembly taking place?
Yes, I saw an assembly but did not participate. I was rather engaged with the Tekmil assemblies in the military context.
The assembly self-goverment model is forming a really strong basis for the revolution. How assemblies are created is that if an issue or new social or interest group comes up, one must make an assembly. If another interest or issue comes along, an assembly can be made within the first assembly.
The assembly also needs to follow gender quotas; the equality of women is in all aspects of society. Actually the canton’s coordination imposes that if a social group, tribe or village makes an assembly, for example, to manage some cooperative farms, they must also have a women’s assembly that reflects the women’s view about it, and that the people in charge must not be only one, that normally used to be a patriarch, but rather there has to be a co-leadership shared by a man and a woman.
So there is a shared leadership position of the co-delegates; the woman represents the local women’s autonomous movement. Involving the people in an assembly system to resolve their own problems is the best way to think about revolution…and keeps them away from the TV!
It has been stated that building an ecological society is one of the primary goals of Rojava Revolution. What did you see in terms of ecology and the ecology movement?
They don’t understand too much in terms of ecology, in my experience. People from the mountains or Bakur know what it means to act sustainably and with the nature in mind, but in Rojava or Syria in general, not so much. A common experience was to hear that “Rojava is beautiful!” but then see plastic trash burning somewhere.
In terms of real projects, Qamislo has a food sovereignty project, and Kobane has different proposals – and needs! – but needs volunteers. They need people! Not only to visit, but for serious projects and proposals to build a new society and new infrastructure.
However, a lot of people from Bakur and Iran are already mobilized and supporting social and ecological projects in Rojava.
What about the cooperative economy movement? Did you visit any cooperative farms, factories or workplaces?
Personally, I noticed that big landowners have escaped because they supported the regime, ISIS, or Barzani. Those lands were collectivized by the YPG/YPJ, and this includes some huge cement factories managed by foreign Turkish and French corporations, that had Syrian workers from western parts of the country.
was tied to the program of arabization of Kurdish regions during the Syrian Regime. Also there are some empty villages, and the Kurdish organizations called on refugees to not leave and go to Europe, but instead come there and be cooperative owners of their own land and work.
But all of these experiments are limited; there are not enough people, the war puts everything in a fragile situation, there is an embargo that has stopped all investments in infrastructure, they don’t have qualified and committed people like volunteer technicians and engineers, the territory is destroyed by years of intensive monoculture, the people themselves are socially and culturally destroyed…
Also there are different interests inside the “Kurdish” reality. But even on this subject, some time ago I saw a text on the internet, like a call to action to help them to learn and study, and to put in practice, different historical or political socialization models. I’m not sure if it was some socialist or anarcho-syndicalist union working on this, I think traditional “revolutionary” movements and structures are watching the events in Kurdistan from a distance, they are not involved because it is a completly new paradigm of social revolution.
I saw lot of critiques on the “mixed” economy in Rojava, and the capitalism in Rojava, as well as the class interests that must lead the revolution to become a Revolution. There are a lot of socialists and anarchists of different political strains and tendencies, talking in forums and meetings about this, but very few are going there to work with them to build socialism. Although people in Rojava don’t need foreign socialists to teach them what to do, they rather need to build their own reality for themselves.
There is not more economic socialism in Rojava than what the local people want to build, such as the cooperatives that are working like socialist communities. The canton governments and armed structures cannot impose the socialization of production and economy.
They cannot do it and they don’t want to do it, so remembering this we can have a better approach to the reality in Rojava. They do have regulations over the economy and social planning programs, but if the people want to live in capitalist relations, there are not many possibilities other than for pedagogic intervention to change people’s perspectives.
There is cooperative and collective interest and support appearing thanks to the revolution, so we are at the beginning of the process of education and a process to build new social relations. Maybe we will need the next half a century of new struggles to see the fruits of these seeds.
The Kurdish movement has great respect for its martyrs. What are your thoughts on martyrship?
Martyrs and martyrdom are part of daily life for the Kurdish people and the revolutionaries. In the Middle East, but lost in Europe, the philosophy that martyrs don’t die continues to live in the communal mind. This is because the martyrs gave their lives for all of us, they sacrificed for our life and our freedom. That is sacred, and it is spiritual because it trespasses the material interest of the individual. Many show respect for martyrs by showing an image of them in events, and remembering them in salutations.
I know that this is a shock for our individualist mind, that we prefer to take care of our own asses first, and that being a martyr sounds like something fanatical, not like the highest category a person can be. But is true, our martyrs don’t die! Their blood never touches the ground!
Is Rojava really so ideal? Do you have any criticisms of the revolutionary process in Rojava?
If I look back on my experience now, it seems ideal. But you can also see a hard reality and lot of contradictions, and sometimes you can even feel that there is more to the aims and propaganda than in reality. There is a process with an honest intention, but it has a lot of problems to confront in reality.
We experienced a shock to our perception of reality in Rojava. I think that we arrived there with a backpack of idealistic and romantic views about the revolution, but in reality you need to build the revolution if you want it, and that means sometimes accepting that not everyone around you has the same idea of revolution and sometimes they cannot even understand why you came there to fight.
We are engaged in a democratic revolution, in the sense that no-one will impose anything upon another. This is totally opposed to the ‘proletarian dictatorship’ conception of revolution, definitely. This democratic conception accepts working with our own people, and other tendencies, that in many cases are the strongly opposed to our idea of revolution, or have practices opposite to our ethics.
Yes, the gangs of Daesh and the Turkish state are bad people, everybody there agrees, but you can also see racist attitudes against Arabs, and all those ‘circumstantial alliances’ one day with USA, another with Russia and the Syrian regime. And some people are always trying to get positions of power, just like in any other part of the world.
Democratic Confederalism is against nationalism, but the nationalist idea is alive in most of the Kurdish people. This is not only about Kurdish national rights, that must be respected and defended, but about some positions and perspectives that do not care for the reality and struggles of others. Another criticism is the opportunistic use of capitalism we talked about before, and the so-called “mixed economy”, but I cannot think of any other economic system for that situation, so I only remind of this criticism because we have some comrades that insist on it.
It is also important to understand that the armed structures of Kurds come from a stalinist tradition, and that they did a deep, collective self-criticism and are in a process towards a libertarian ethic, thanks to the confederalist idea and the culture of criticism. But that is a process, and although large parts of the movement are not following the stalinist model anymore, you can see it continuing in some practices like personal hierarchies and other roles.
Would you want to go back?
I wouldn’t go back, but who knows… The situation in Rojava is not comfortable, in the sense that there is a hard war, and you should not have other reasons for being involved in the war than your own. I needed to go there to find a perspective on and a sense of our struggles and our lives, but now it is the time for others to do it. We need a generation with new perspectives, since our movements and environments lost the perspective long time ago.
Many Kurdish friends, in different situations, repeated the same thing to me: “Return to your people and continue the same fight over there”, “We don’t need Western martyrs, we need a revolution in Western countries!” So personally I absorbed the learning and experience in Rojava, and now is the time to see what is happening in our Western countries with this growth of racism and fascism.
Can you tell us about other international volunteers in Rojava and especially were there many women among them?
Many foreigners without political ideas, or former military men, become revolutionaries over there. It’s good to remember that people can become conscious to these ideas when surrounded by revolution, and can fight and spread ideas.
A few foreign women come to fight, but I didn’t see any of them personally. However, compared to men, the number was very small, anecdotic. We have an internationalist woman martyr, a marxist Euro-African woman, who fought in the International Battalion. And certainly there are much more from other non-Western countries, like Turkish, Arab, or Iranian women. But it is a weak point for the “white western” feminism that there is not enough active involvement in this women’s revolution, sadly.
What are your thoughts on Jineology and feminism?
The social science of Jineology (sociology or anthropology of the Woman) explains how the mankind lost a lot of their old nature because of the onset of hierarchical civilization, through the break from communitarian life, men becoming soldiers, priests, workers, etc. Even slaves, but remaining lords of their own house and wife.
Jineology argues that mankind can recover their nature through women’s liberation and through communitarian life. However, this is an issue that I’m not too deep in at the moment. It is very complex, but also interesting to study and discuss. It is a new idea for humanity.
We have understood our history as the history of Man, and sociology as the social science of a patriarchal society, but now emerging from years of study and discussion by the Free Women’s Union in the mountains, we have a new tool to understand the evolution of power with history, and the role of women in it. Jineology is a tool for liberation because that history is also a history of the resistance of women, that we have to learn and know. Jineology is also a rupture with the tradition of Western liberal feminism.
Those inspired by Jineology are breaking with Western feminism because for them, Jineology is much more deep in its analysis; it is not partial and doesn’t have tendencies of interpretations or interest groups, but it is integral and universal.
It also has an important factor: Jineology is being put in to practice through autonomous women’s organizations and co-delegations in the administrative and political management of the communities. It is a real social practice, not just the thesis of some intellectual bourgeoise women, or the lifestyle of hedonist youngsters. For example, Jineology and the Kurdish women’s movement in Rojava criticize Western feminism because it was taken into the hands of modernity and positivism, and has broken ties with communitarian life to become individualistic.
I think that Jineology is a good tool to provoke a restructuring of Western (liberal and radical) feminism, especially since any new ideas around the Woman and Revolution haven’t appeared in decades. We have revolutionary feminist comrades, but the feminism itself is not revolutionary anymore.
Real practice is revolutionary, much more than ideas or aesthetics. Also, I do have to say that the Free Women’s Movement from Kurdistan has more conscience in the radical analysis of hierarchical civilization and domination, and has much more of an internationalist and libertarian perspective than the rest of the men in the movement. And this is thanks to the study of Jineology and the example of the Kurdish guerrilla women.
But even in this situation, the Kurdish women’s movement also needs to learn more from modern feminism, especially in respect of individuality and sexual liberation.
They have social repression against this aspect of woman, and I think it’s because they built up a military revolutionary structure that needed to defend itself against the individualist interests and sexual domination in the Middle East, but in some situations, in my opinion and with all my respects, they reproduce some Middle East’s religious taboos about the body and the sex.
Murray Bookchin, The Rise of Urbanization and Decline of Citizenship (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1987), pages 260-65. (This book was later republished under the titles Urbanization Against Cities and Urbanization Without Cities.)
Janet Biehl, The Politics of Social Ecology: Libertarian Municipalism (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1998), chapter 12.
SDF leades announce start of Raqqa campaign
from 
because they are the link, the articulation of the common body, and the collective brain. There is a huge responsibility to be a komutan, no matter the number of friends under your responsibility. Because of this, the figure of komutan is respected and they don’t even need, usually, to give any direct orders. It is not necessary. They must at least show the correct ethics and discipline, and intelligence and courage in battle.
was tied to the program of arabization of Kurdish regions during the Syrian Regime. Also there are some empty villages, and the Kurdish organizations called on refugees to not leave and go to Europe, but instead come there and be cooperative owners of their own land and work.
thanks to the revolution, so we are at the beginning of the process of education and a process to build new social relations. Maybe we will need the next half a century of new struggles to see the fruits of these seeds.
We are engaged in a democratic revolution, in the sense that no-one will impose anything upon another. This is totally opposed to the ‘proletarian dictatorship’ conception of revolution, definitely. This democratic conception accepts working with our own people, and other tendencies, that in many cases are the strongly opposed to our idea of revolution, or have practices opposite to our ethics.
The Free 
