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

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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 David Graeber (2018): Majority Report with David Graeber on Democratic Confederalism in Northern Syria. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iWCXQR92v8. [ ↩] For some, this strange cohabitation is a proof of some secret deal between the Kurds and Assad. For others, the fact that the regime still pays the civil servants is interpreted as a “logical” sign that Assad doesn’t want to recognize the complete loss of the Kurdish areas and wants to keep acting as if the Syrian state is present on the territory. Rojava Information Center (2020): The Syrian Democratic Council – A proposal for a democratic Syria. https://rb.gy/fwv9fv ( www.rojavainformationcenter.com). [ ↩]

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? 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 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.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. Abdullah Öcalan (2011): Democratic Confederalism. Köln: International Initiative, p. 21. [ ↩][ ↩][ ↩] During the August summit in Istanbul, which led to the creation of the Syrian National Council, only two of the parties in the National Movement of Kurdish Parties in Syria, the Kurdish Union Party and the Kurdish Freedom Party, attended the summit. [28]

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 ] Night fell some hours ago now. And in the hospitable family house of Masud, I try to find some sleep between the heavy noise of the generator and my thoughts about Rojava and the war. Fighting on the front line, and in the rear I am now following proceeding at the 31st assembly of the Parliament, after the proclamation of the self-government in Rojava. Three secretaries are keeping the records of all the proceedings made by the members of the parliament, in three languages: Kurdish, Arabic and Syriac. 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”. 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. Rooted in the ideas of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, the system is built on effective gender quotas, bottom-up democratic structures, far-sighted ecological policies, and a powerful militancy that has allowed the region to keep ISIS at bay.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.

We are all like brothers here. And the brand new administration gives us Christians a status that we have never had. We have always lived on very good terms with the Kurds and Arabs here but never had such equality in administration and politics". 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.Slavoj Žižek (2021): Slavoj Žižek Teaches at Kobane University. bianet.org/english/world/242693-slavoj-zizek-teaches-at-kobane-university. [ ↩]

Hassan Hassan (2017): The Battle for Raqqa and the Challenges after Liberation. CTC Sentinel 10 (6). https://rb.gy/ujn5y5 ( https://ctc.westpoint.edu) [ ↩] Kobane, December 2014. Demotix/Jonathan Raa. All rights reserved.“We all help in one way or another, one is fighting in the front, another is translating texts. But we are free to get organized in the Tev-Dem or not, there is no obligation and there is no social pressure to be part of it”, Judy told me while we were eating sweetmeats in a tiny pastry shop. We feel safe here in Syrian Kurdistan. As Christians our brothers feel confident in Iraqi Kurdistan too where they are protected by the Peshmergas. The Kurds have saved us from destruction", his wife says. 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”. 9The strange cohabitation between the Kurds and the regime stems from the fact that, as I was told, the salaries of the civil servants, like teachers, are still paid regularly with cash flows coming from Damascus, and a national Syrian lottery that people can easily buy into on the streets of Qamishli. This sui generis accommodation with the Damascus regime doesn’t exclude outbursts of heavy clashes with regime forces south of Qamishli.