Rojava means "The West" in Kurdish and it's a region in Northern Syria which has been relatively independent since the civil war started. The PKK is a Kurdish group formed in the 1970s and began an armed struggle against Turkey in 1984. It formed as a Statist Marxist group under the leadership of Abdullah Ocalan. In 1999 he was captured and has been held in jail on an island as the only prisoner since then.

While in prison he called for the end of the armed struggle in Turkey and reading Murray Bookchin among others he converted to an anti-state libertarian socialist/anarchist/Democratic Confederalist with a particular focus on feminism which he calls Jineology.

A movement inspired more than led by Ocalan split off from the PKK to form various groups which now make up the Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria.

I think it's very interesting and have been following it. I posted first about it in the anarchy thread, because it's anarchy, but around here anarchy seems to mean anarcho-capitalism, which is most certainly isn't. Shame_Trolley directed me to the Another World is Possible Thread which is about what he calls "Real World Anarchy."

But, I would prefer to have this subject in alpha rather than 7.0 and hope it gets followed at least a little here. I think it's important for people to know about what is happening a little bit. I know there's a lot of propaganda on all sides everywhere all the time and it's pretty hard to know exactly what is happening. But, it seems to be a very very progressive and very very democratic experiment which happens to be very anti-capitalist and, like the anarchists of the Spanish Civil War, it's very vulnerable to being wiped out and virtually written out of history. That's less likely if people know about it.

Whether or not the West ends up supporting the Democratic Confederalism is going to depend almost entirely on what label they end up with and that boils down to some version of Democratic/Freedom Fighters vs. Terrorists with cause and effect going both directions. Turkey would definitely prefer the terrorist label and in the battle over the narrative scored a victory today in the International Business Times:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-target...attack-1608360

Now this isn't the thrust of the article, but they slipped this in

"Supported by the US" in there makes it look like we support Turkey vs. the YPG, but that's not true. We have been supplying weapons and training to the YPG, which is part of the Syrian Defense Force (SDF), and also just today a US General visited the SDF.

http://aranews.net/2017/02/top-us-ge...qqa-operation/

The IBT is probably just regurgitating something from Turkey in their story, but who knows?

The Kurdish forces, especially in Northern Syria, might be one of the best things in the world at the moment. As you say it's incredibly difficult to find trustworthy sources coming out of a war zone, and you can more-or-less find someone saying anything, but it seems clear that in an environment where sectarian hatred and massacre has become a fact of every-day life, there's an effective armed force fighting for democracy and secularism. Genuinely heroic stuff, imo, in a world where that sort of thing is in very short supply.

Worth pointing out that the US has provided support to the 'FSA', which stand for the Free Syrian Army. As far as I can tell that's essentially a fiction these days. In the early days of the Syrian war it was the name for forces from the Syrian Army who opposed the Assad-led regime, but that it hasn't been a stable, unitary force for a long time now - it's more a nice sounding label you can give to anti-regime sunni militia. I think the US prefers 'Rebels' these days, but has used it, as has Turkey, in all probability for units that now form part of Euphrates Shield.

The US also publicly backs the current Turkish offensive as it's ostensibly an anti-ISIS operation, even though most everyone agrees the strategic goal is preventing the Kurds from joining up their territory. They have provided some actual support to the operation as well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.7c1a8dd78138

Although usually the statements of support include statements of support for the Kurds as well.

I agree that the US faces a choice in its support of the Kurdish groups going forwards, and that the signs don't look great. If Turkey and Russia are the real power behind the current 'ceasefire', and if the US is content to follow that initiative as its route back into real relevancy in Syria, then the Kurds are the obvious choice for who'll lose out.

There's also bizarre signs that parts of the American left want to do a number on the Kurds, I guess as part of general support for regime change in Syria and therefore support of the 'Rebels'. The worst so far was this article in The Nation a few weeks ago which tries to imply they're war criminals:

https://www.thenation.com/article/ha...ed-war-crimes/

Its main claim is that the SDF has

Its evidence is that

This was at a time when ISIS was at its height and the Kurdish forces were some of the only ground forces even trying to effectively counter them. Obviously retreating to a defensible position is just bog-standard, sensible tactics, utterly unremarkable to anyone who thinks about it - though no doubt horrendous to be part of when it's your house. As a result Kobani was just about held and eventually inflicted one of the first serious defeats on ISIS.

I have taken the liberty of copying over the relevant posts from the Baja "Another World is Possible" thread. I'd like to once again thank microbet for all the excellent linkees. It's surely frustrating here in the interwebs age to have a somewhat effectively and actually a mystery going on somewhere else in the world. I'll be contributing more, likely ITT now, as I learn more.

Why is Democratic confederalism superior to the more conventional democracy of the KRG in Iraq? I love me some gender-equal libertarianism, of course, but in some ways it seems strucurally reminiscent of the first Soviet constitution and in particular to have some risk of having all the real power devolve into some kind of executive committee that can entrench itself and form a dictatorship.

Also, Amnesty seems to corroborate the war crimes allegations:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-rel...to-war-crimes/

There was a quite a bit more evidence for the claim of forced expulsions than a description of maneuvers in Kobani, including an interview with a family that claimed to have been victims of a forced expulsion. Very odd way to characterize that.

EDIT: interestingly, pyatnitski used to post exclusively about American football, took some time off, and then re engaged with the community as a European of unspecified nationality with a deep interest in slamming Le Pen's political opponents, casting doubt on Intelligence leaks trying Trump to the Russians, and apparently Rojava as well.

Yes, I'm a curious person who has more than one interest and who doesn't spend all of my time trying to construct a coherent picture of myself on this board.

I don't deny they forced people out of their homes, I think it was mostly due to defensible military tactics, but I could certainly be wrong. It would be surprising if a military force in the Syrian war had always acted admirably, but I don't want to use that as an excuse. My concern with my post was that the accusations of war crimes against the Kurds are currently being used to set up their abandonment by the US, which would be a disaster for Northern Syria, in my opinion.

ETA: I've been fairly clear in my posts I'm a British person who lives in France, and who has posted several critiques of Le Pen in the French thread.

Re war crimes

I posted the article from The Nation which as I recall was about the amnesty international report as well as people contesting it. I don't think the info available on the internet is good enough to really have a strong opinion on it. But, I'm pretty sure that there have been war crimes because I think there are always war crimes. There are big differences in degrees, like Americans raped tens of thousands of German women at the end of WW2 while the Russians raped millions, but I don't think there's ever been a protracted war without atrocities beyond the usual of soldiers blowing each other up.

On the scale of evil atrocity filled organizations, It doesn't seem like this group is far on the evil side, but there's not a lot of info coming out so who knows?

Regarding democratic confederation

First, there are many people criticizing the KRG as fairly authoritarian, so it may not be the best representative of a democracy with strong central power. But, generally it seems to me that a weak central government and a lot of local control allows for more freedom and more authority vested in each individual.

Regarding who does and who doesn't support rojava it's interesting.

The US under Obama pretty heavily supported them and Trump's people look to continue support. The only big source of conflict seems to be dealing with Turkey.

Russia seems to have been supportive as well. Probably they have been more diplomatically supportive than the US, but less militarily supportive.

The Assad regime pretty likely would want things to go back to normal, but they haven't engaged Rojava a lot, probably because the SDF has been pretty successful against ISIS.

Turkey hates all Kurdish organizations, but I think the KRG is much less threatening. The SDF isn't going to attack Turkey, but the Rojava movement was built out of the Kurdish resistance in Turkey.

The American Enterprise Institute (neo-cons) published something supporting Rojava.

Most far left anti-capitalists support Rojava.

Iran may play some role as well. They certainly have an interest as they are supportive of Assad and have a Kurdish population/area themselves.

Regarding the stability of democratic confederation and personal freedom

I think there's a general rule that militarism breeds authoritarianism and that happened in Soviet Russia and is happening in the US now.

Can the cantons of Rojava remain independent? Probably not if they have perpetual war or even the threat from much larger powers.

The role of women here though might make a big difference. If they can maintain the requirement of equal representation in government and women's units and integration in the military, Maybe the old rules don't apply.

http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-e...8#.WLJEK9QrKWg

This is basically a short travel diary of a trip through part of Rojava. The point of view seems supportive imo, but just a little. It's mostly neutral. The most interesting thing about it is it being in Stars and Stripes.

Subscribed. I'm somewhat cynical about the chances of such a project surviving, but I hope it does.

I was on the fence about posting this because people seem not to like yootoobs too much, but this is a good interview of a journalist who was in Rojava. She writes for the Guardian at least sometimes. The interview is from 7:35-22:35. I decided to post especially for Shame Trolley when at 22:22 she says it's not just that Another World is Possible but another world is here.

The concentration of the interview is on feminism.

Yootoobz are fine if they're just recommended watching/listening, as opposed to substituting for posts in a dialogue. "I enjoyed this yootoob, I recommend it to those interested" is fine. Answering a question with "here is a 15 minute yootoob that may or may not educate you as to the answer to this question", nope, gtfo.

McCain went to Rojava last week.

http://thekurdishproject.org/latest-...ilitary-kurds/

https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-ho...granddad-21317

heres an hour long interview with an american socialist who left san francisco to go fight for the ypg. they discuss the society, miltary operations, daily life, that gutman article etc.

^ Heh, I opened the thread to post that. Incredible interview.

Cool, I'll listen when I can. I've been reading pisspiggranddad on twitter.

Listening now. It's interesting that he mentions that the Christians are all into the Nazis when you think about Trump's carve out for Christian immigrants.

Pisspiggranddad was nominated for Rector of Glasgow University

https://www.commonspace.scot/article...versity-rector

War update: Turkey has been attacking and threatening the SDF (Rojava military coalition). KNG (Kurdish nationalists from Iraq) forces have attacked SDF forces and 80 of the KNG peshmerga were arrested for not fighting the Yazidi forces of the SDF (the Yazidi are the religious/ethnic minority that ISIS had trapped on that mountain and the SDF rescued) and they turned the 80 over to the Turkish police. In Manjib the Turks promised to attack the SDF, the local SDF forces made agreements with Russian and Syrian forces for protection and now US has forces (though it may be a misstatement and it's US-allied forces) just outside town with Russian forces inside and on the other side of town - ostensibly working towards the same goal.

Also, there's been some fighting the last few days and no tweets for a week from pisspiggranddad. His interview with Chappo Trap House is being used in Turkish media emphasizing the Stalinist State and horrors of collectivism.

Once again, everything taken with a grain of salt. Even the stories from outlets like WaPo, which had a story today, are coming from places outside the area like Istanbul.

The Manbij Military Council which is affiliated with the SDF seems to be being forced into Assad and Russia's arms by Turkey despite it not being a Kurdish group.

Still very murky as to what's actually happening in Manbij - both at a diplomatic and military level.

There's reports that Russian, Syrian state and US forces have been deployed between the Euphrates Shield forces and the SDF (and alleged pictures of all of them in the area), but most of the reports of actual fighting are still about clashes between Turkish backed FSA units and SDF.

It's not surprising that Turkey doesn't want to engage Russia or the US (and vice-versa, I would guess), but mildly strange that fighting still continues if that area has indeed been ceded to Russian backed troops.

Seems like US and Russian ground troops are in close proximity without issue, and probably communicating positions at least via higher command. Honestly don't know how novel a thing that is, but it's impossible to be very certain of that. This is the latest thing I've read from aranews, a kurdish source, but a fairly decent one (imho).

http://aranews.net/2017/03/top-russi...syrias-manbij/

It's unclear what the extent of 'the territorial spoils of the counter-ISIS war' would be, but interpreting that as widely as benefits your side certainly seems the diplomatic game at the moment. I did see reports yesterday that Russia now supports Kurdish representation at the next round of peace talks, which is probably a decent thing to be involved in.

I hope aranews is really decent as they have the most and seemingly best info I've seen.

Turkey really seems to have developed a pretty close relationship with the KNC/Kurdish peshmurga/Iraqi Kurdistan. I guess it's just divide and conquer, but clearly Turkey feels less threatened by Kurdish Nationalism than by a revolutionary movement originating with Kurds by allying with other groups.