Trump is Destroying the Rojava Project

Trump destroyed the Rojava project
By Dave Anderson - October 17, 2019
When Turkey invaded Syria, there was almost universal condemnation
across the political spectrum. But the most unique protesters are the
anarchists all over the planet who say that a new egalitarian society
is being created in Rojava, the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in
northeast Syria.

Shortly after the invasion, an international campaign called “Rise Up
For Rojava’” was formed (riseup4rojava.org/). The campaign declares:

“Seven years ago a revolution began in Rojava that was to radically
change the lives of millions of people. The Kurds liberated themselves
from the dictatorship of the Assad regime and began to organize
themselves in self-governed councils, communes and cooperatives. In
particular, the autonomous organization of women became the driving
force behind the social revolution. Over the course of the struggle
against the Islamic state, a unique multi-ethnic and multi-religious
project developed, which today guarantees the peaceful coexistence of
millions of Kurds, Arabs and Christians. The Democratic Federation of
Northeast Syria is a unique example of the vision of a peaceful and
democratic Middle East and has therefore always been a thorn in the
side of both regional powers and imperialist states.”

The Rojava project is the brainchild of Abdullah Öcalan, the founder
of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Turkish based party adopted
authoritarian Marxist Leninist politics and initiated a campaign of
armed conflict against the Turkish government in 1984 in order to
create an independent Kurdish state. The PKK attacked government
forces as well as civilians.

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In 1980, Öcalan fled his home in Turkey and turned up in Syria. The
regime of Hafez al-Assad allowed him to set up guerrilla training
camps. The PKK directed attacks on Turkey from Syrian soil. In 1997,
the U.S. declared the PKK a terrorist organization and the next year
Assad kicked Öcalan out and he went to various countries until Turkish
intelligence, with the help of the CIA, captured him in Kenya.

Öcalan was sentenced to death for treason and separatism. The sentence
was commuted to life imprisonment. Turkey had to do that since it
wants to enter the European Union. In order for a nation to become an
EU member, it has to abolish the death penalty.

In prison, Öcalan has been an insatiable reader and has been inspired
by social theorists such as Michel Foucault and Immanuel Wallerstein.
But he has been particularly influenced by a little known anarchist
philosopher in Vermont named Murray Bookchin. Öcalan liked Bookchin’s
ideology of “communalism” which proposed a social order where central
governments would be replaced by loose federations of autonomous
communities. Öcalan’s manifesto of “Democratic Confederalism” merged
Bookchin’s ideas with the emerging Kurdish feminist movement.

Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer describes what this looks like in practice:

“It’s difficult to overstate how radically politics have been
transformed in Rojava since its ‘self-administration’ was formed in
2013. Rather than revolving around a single strongman or a central
authority, the territory is organized into cantons, largely
self-governing regions with their own decision-making councils and
institutions…

“Each canton is split into neighborhood or village communes. …One that
I visited encompassed 257 homes. Every two years, its residents elect
a man and a woman who manage neighborhood concerns and meet with the
co-chairs of other communes to address community issues. The commune
sold gas for heating and cooking, managed health care, developed local
economic projects, and helped reconcile neighborhood disputes. One
commune I visited had recently helped reconcile a marital dispute and
set up nighttime patrols to improve safety. Another was planning to
install streetlights.”

Bauer says there has been a feminist social transformation:

“Probably the most dramatic effect of the Rojava revolution has been
its impact on women. Every public institution, from communes to courts
to canton ministries, is chaired by a man and a woman. The cantons
require that at least 40 percent of all political positions are held
by women. While Syrian law is based on Shariah, Rojava’s ‘social
contract’ separates religion and state. It has abolished forced
marriage, polygamy, and child marriage…”

But this utopia was built in hell. The Kurds remembered that they had
been betrayed many times by the U.S. in the past but hoped that this
time would be different. They were appreciated by the U.S. troops who
worked with them. The U.S. military concluded that the Syrian Kurds
were the most reliable and toughest fighters in the battle against
ISIS. The Kurds, backed by U.S. air power, took back nearly all the
land seized by Islamic State fighters since 2014. They lost 11,000
troops in the fighting and have seen another 20,000 wounded.

We have to get out of the endless wars but we need to seek peaceful
diplomatic solutions with other nations. Trump’s sudden and brazen
green-lighting of Turkey’s invasion was immoral, idiotic and
dangerous.