Our struggle is the struggle against oppression and exploitation, the struggle against capitalism, against nation-state and against patriarchy. Now more than ever, we will continue the fight for a free and green Rojava. Because the land must be defended or there will be no place for the revolution.
Make Rojava Green Again
This week, the Turkish state invaded North-East Syria (Rojava), intensifying its war with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Its aims are as transparent as they are horrible; the genocide of the Kurdish people, the ecocide of the local environment, and the annihilation of one of the world’s only bastions of freedom, equality, direct democracy, feminism and ecology. The SDF were on the frontlines of the war against Daesh (ISIL), fighting back from holding 3 small enclaves in the north, they chased Daesh back to the Euphrates where the last of the fascist horde’s territory was swept away. This did not mean the war against Daesh was over, but the United States under the Trump regime declared “job done” and gave the Turkish military the green light to invade.
Far from the job being done, as soon as the Turkish military invaded Rojava, Daesh’s insurgents began launching attacks on the weakened SDF outposts along the Euphrates. Fascist attacks from the North and South, combined with the ambivalence of the state regimes in the East and West, mean Rojava could be isolated – surrounded on all sides. But even in the face of this terror, the Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Assyrians of Rojava pulled together to fight it.
The people of Rojava have called for the diplomatic isolation of the Turkish state, the institution of a no-fly zone above Northern and Eastern Syria and solidarity from all those that ally themselves with the struggle for freedom and equality. As Internationalists (both inside and outside North-East Syria) we must meet their call for help in whatever way we can. Here’s what you can do to defend democracy:
Agitate
Boycott goods and services provided by the Turkish state and the companies which supply it. Find out who is arming them and make the business of supporting fascism all the more difficult for them. Contact trade unions that represent the people that work for these companies, urge them to follow in the footsteps of the Scottish Rolls Royce workers that defied Pinochet, and sabotage the manufacturing and selling of weapons to the fascist Turkish state:
- Airbus – Unite the Union
- AXA – Unite the Union
- BAE Systems – IndustriALL Global Union
- Jaguar-LandRover – GMB Union
- Rolls Royce – Unite the Union
If you’re in a trade union yourself, then ask them what you could be doing to show solidarity the people of Rojava, and help organize these workplaces against the Turkish state. If you’re not in a trade union, then get out there and join one.
Educate
Share articles about Rojava’s budding stateless democracy, fight for women’s liberation, and social ecologist philosophy, documentaries covering their construction of a just society from the bottom-up, the International Volunteers that fight and die there, and how it is experienced by the people who visit, and books about how they are re-greening the desert, practicing a radical new type of democracy, and inspiring other cities and municipalities to do the same.
Tell your friends, family and comrades what is happening in North-East Syria, host Rojava information nights in order to provide a platform for Kurdish and Syrian people to talk about their experiences, and raise funds for the Make Rojava Green Again & Kurdish Red Crescent campaigns so that in the face of this threat they can continue their work to help the people and ecology of Rojava.
Organise
Find out where and when a Rojava Solidarity demonstration is happening in your local area, show your support in as many numbers as possible. Get involved with a local solidarity campaign or start your own. The Kurdish Solidarity Network, #RiseUp4Rojava campaign and Its Going Down! are all publishing and updating lists of where you can find them.
Practice the politics of Rojava in your neighbourhood, by setting up assemblies from which our communities can self-organise. Examples of similar kinds of communal organization can be seen today in Scotland; in Eigg & Eriskay, South Uist and Benbecula, as well as smaller initiatives in Edinburgh & West Dunbartonshire.
The UK Government cannot be trusted to do all this themselves. Under Theresa May, the UK overtook the US in becoming the biggest supplier of arms to Turkey. The ‘Conservative & Unionist Party’ itself is part of the ‘European Conservatives and Reformists Party’, which plays host to several fascist and far-right parties including Turkey’s governing party: the AKP. Waiting around for the government to do something will bring us nothing, nor will waiting for some other party to be swept into office. What we need is immediate action, and if the state’s excuse for democracy can’t take that action, we must build a democracy that will from the ground-up.
Only solidarity can defeat tyranny.
Biji Rojava! Biji SDF! Biji Karkerên!