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

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Later the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) was founded and elected on December 10 th 2015. Both SDF and SDC are committed to the goal of a secular, democratic, and federally-structured Syria. The SDC is a political assembly representing political parties, organizations and different groups (tribes, Yezidis etc.) in North and East Syria. The SDC creates a political framework for the governance of Syria along a decentralized, federal model. It is also the political counterpart to the Autonomous Administration, which takes on more administrative and executive functions. Negotiations with the Syrian government, as well as diplomatic relations with international powers, are generally conducted through the SDC. 12 The AANES was created to unify the various councils and cantonal administrations. The most recently-liberated regions, which include many majority Arab areas, have also been integrated into the federal council system. As a result of these developments, the structures of the AANES are highly dynamic, which has led to constant changes in council structures, especially at the higher levels. Yet these only act as coordinators to implement the will of the communes, which remain a constant element of the bottom-up direct-democratic approach, giving everyone of all cultural identities the right to political participation in discussions, decision-making and the implementation of projects. The importance of TEV-DEM grew as it redefined its role as organizing civil society at a conference organized on August 27 th 2018, and became something akin to an umbrella organization for civil society, which supports, coordinates, and ensures that the voice of civil society is incorporated into the political and administrative aspects of the system. TEV-DEM today can be described as the “civilian institution of the government.” 23 According to Hawar News, a local news organization, today, TEV-DEM “takes the struggle for a free and dignified life for all social groups, achieving social and economic development and raising productive efficiency, in addition to its support for the democratic, moral and political approach and the protection of rights and freedoms.” 24

News of the fight of the Syrian Kurds has reached many homes in Europe and the US over the last year as TV channels around the world have covered the resistance of the Kurds against Daesh (self-proclaimed “Islamic State”) in Kobane. The fighting was indeed a great human endeavor, often portrayed in heroic, almost mythological terms. Behind the men and women fighters of this heroic resistance lies a large but still unknown political and cultural revolution which is in full effervescence in Rojava, Syrian Kurdistan. The fundamental basis of this “Social Contract” is the equality and rights of all ethnic, racial and religious groups in Syrian Kurdistan, direct democracy and the rejection of the concept of the nation-state. Abandoned villages, ruined houses, stables without animals. Even the holy tombs of the Nakshibendi mystics are desecrated by jihadists. Deserted land. “Waste land”… After this historical overview and a brief introduction to the basic political structures that shape life in NES, the second part of this report will look at the present state of society in NES through the lens of healthcare, the legal system, and the political economy. Together with this part, the whole report ‘Rojava Revolution – a Decade on’, will be available soon.Subsequent SDF-military operations successfully liberated all ISIS-held areas in eastern Syria, including cities such as Manbij in August 2016 and Raqqa in October 2017 – followed by the battle for the outskirts of Deir ez-Zor as part of SDF’s ‘Al Jazeera Storm’ campaign. 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. This radical democracy is a system that enables citizens, all citizens who wish to get organized and to be actively implicated in the government at the local level. We start from the smallest entity, the Commune, at neighborhood level. Then we have the local assembly composed of representatives of the Commune and then we have municipal councils composed by representatives of local assemblies", says Cinak Sagli.

The efforts of the government of Rojava to give a new position to women in the society and in politics and to change the attitudes and traditions are indeed revolutionary for the region. An excellent introduction to Bookchin’s thought: Murray Bookchin, The Next Revolution, 2015, Verso, UK/USA

Front line in Kobane, December 2014. Demotix/Jonathan Raa. All rights reserved.We spend the night with Masud and his family discussing the future of Rojava. They are all eager to know how people in Europe see Rojava and its revolution. And they don’t understand why Europe doesn’t help them. Being a Christian in Rojava It is also realistic because in regions where the Kurds are in the majority but where they are not alone (Cizre Canton being the less homogenous of the three cantons of Rojava), a “classical” Kurdish nationalism that would try to create a nation state could easily lead to acts of ethnic cleansing. That would damage from the very beginning any efforts of the Syrian Kurds to legitimize their cause and to show that what they are trying to do is really different. says Amina Omar, co-chair of the SDC. For Omar, the fact that the social contract is now being amended has much to do with the fact that He died for something bigger, for an idea that you people in Europe have forgotten. He died for everyone who lives here in Kurdistan Syria, for freedom and brotherhood. Not only for the Kurds but also the Christians and Arabs who live with us. "

The second dimension of the revolutionary character of the Rojava experiment is that it wants to establish from the beginning what John Gray calls a “modus vivendi” [2]: a sort of post-liberalism where the main point is peaceful coexistence of different ways of life under common institutions which take their legitimacy from their ability to peacefully manage and negotiate conflicts amongst those different ways of life. Abdullah Öcalan (2011): Democratic Confederalism. Köln: International Initiative, p. 21. [ ↩][ ↩][ ↩]Everything in Rojava seems to be still in a grey area, somewhere between the old Syria and something new that has not yet taken shape. Between tradition and modernity, between gradual change and revolutionary overthrow, between war and peace. Spending time here is like spending time in a living laboratory where everything is on its way to being created. The gangs of Daesh want the woman to be a slave. They don’t consider us as human beings but only as objects to serve men and to satisfy his specific needs. They ostentatiously sell women as slaves as if they were animals”. The girl I speak with is Nupelda, 20 years old and serves in a mobile company of the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) on the front line. This is the army of women in the autonomous administration of Rojava, fighting side by side with men in the YPG. Both forces are under the control and command of PYD. Nupelda has been fighting for two years now. A long mournful cry fills the air. Women and children with restless eyes are hunched over a grave. A baby in his mother's arms is crying. The first political structures adopted post-revolution were – as shown above – the autonomous administration of the Kurdish-dominated areas in the district of Cizîrê , Kobane and Afrin, which formed an ‘Interim Transitional Administration’, adopted in 2013. The three cantons also called themselves ‘Autonomous Regions’ or ‘Democratic Autonomous Administration.’