GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY IN ROJAVA
This talk was given by SSK member, Sarah Glynn, at our day school in Glasgow in April 2017. It draws heavily on Revolution in Rojava, published by Pluto Press ()
Most surprisingly, I first got interested in Rojava due to a BBC documentary.
Rojava – Syria’s Secret Revolution was broadcast in 2014, and it was inspiring. ( What it described seemed comparable with what was happening in Spain in the 1930s – but without the Stalinists, just the POUM. I was reminded of that scene in Ken Loach’s Spanish Civil War film, Land and Freedom, when they debate collectivisation. Like in that scene, this was ordinary people making revolutionary politics. Real bottom up democracy. And it was happening now – and happening in the middle of the horror and barbarism of today’s Middle East. It was secular, cross cultural, and gave a full role for women. I needed to find out more.
I will start with some historic background. This fundamental change is part of a long process, and it is still a work in progress.
Rojavameansthe west. It is used to refer to the western bit of Kurdistan; the bit that is currently part of Syria. National borders in that area of the world are the
result of divisions by the great powers following the First World War. The predominantly Kurdish regionwas divided between Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. The border between Syria and Turkey was drawn in 1923 on the line of the Berlin Baghdad railway. Like the railway line, it cuts through communities. Syria was administered by France and didn’t become independent until 1946. The Ba-athParty of today’s Syrian president, Bashar Al-Assad, was founded in 1940 as a pan-Arab nationalist and mildly leftist. As an Arab party it was not for the Kurds. Many Kurds joined the Communist Party, and a Kurdish Nationalist party was established in 1957. Syria has a political history of coups and counter coups. Bashar Al-Assad’s father,Hafez,took power in 1970, establishing a repressive regime with some limited state socialism. He repressed both the left and the Muslim Brotherhood. When Bashar Al-Assad inherited power in 2000, he replaced the state socialism with neoliberalism, bringing in economic deregulation, privatisation, and foreign investment; and there was a big rise in rural poverty.
The PKK – the Kurdistan Workers Party – was founded in 1978 in North Kurdistan, the predominantly Kurdish part of Turkey, as a Marxist Leninist liberation movement.After the 1980 coup in Turkey the PKK suffered mass arrests and Syria allowed the organisation to relocatewithin its borders. Turkey and Syria were rivals and on different sides of the Coldwar divide, with Turkey part of NATO and Syria close to the USSR. The PKK was now organising from Damascus and trainingfighters in Syrian occupied Lebanon, butthe Syrian government was still repressing Syrian Kurds. In 1984 the PKK started a guerrilla war against the Turkish state. (This included women fighters, and from 1993 a separate women’s army.) The PKK was developing links with the Syrian Kurds and many crossed the border to fight with the PKK guerrillas in Turkey. In 1998 Turkey threatened to attack Syria unless they expelled the PKK and itsleader Abdullah Öcalan. In February 1999 Öcalanhad taken refuge in the Greek Consulate in Niarobi, from where he was abducted by the CIA and brought to Turkey. Initially he was sentenced to death, but this was later commuted to solitary confinement. Öcalan used his trial to call for peace and told the PKK to withdraw to South Kurdistan – the Kurdish area of Iraq. But Turkey used the opportunity to kill over five hundred PKK members.
In Syria the PKK was repressed. There were lots of arrests and the organisation moved underground. In 2003 Kurds in Syria founded the leftist PYD, the Democratic Union Party. This has now become the biggest party in Rojava. It plays an important part in overall organisation and in the development of ideas, but there are other parties too.
In March 2004 at a football match in Qamislo, Arab Ba-athistswere bussed in to attack Kurdish fans. When the Syrian security forces responded by shooting Kurds, protests spread. The growing uprising was violently put down and hundreds of people were arrested. Underground organisations expanded. With so many men in prison, women took on a bigger role. Yekitiya Star – the umbrella women’s organisation – was established in 2005.
The first Syrian protests in the Arab Spring were only small. Then, in March 2011, twoSyrian youths accused of painting slogans were arrested and tortured. Protests called for their release, along with political reform and an end to corruption. These were met by a police crackdown and demonstrators were shot. Demonstrations then escalated into armed revolt. The Assad government gave some concessions, including Syrian citizenship for registered (but not unregistered) Kurds, but repression continued. Within the Syrian resistance the Muslim Brotherhood gained a controlling position. The rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), formed in July 2011, was backed by the Gulf States and Turkey.
In the Kurdish areas, as protests spread in March, people set up local assemblies and established their own autonomous democratic organisations. The PYD acted as the driving force in establishing a network of community councils open to all people and democratic parties. With the state failing, these councils took over more functions, especiallyoutwiththe main centres. This type of organisation was in line with the PYD’s political philosophy. It also mirrored organisational forms set up by previous revolutions such as the Paris Commune and the early soviets. As more people got involved they were able to develop more small units; but not everywhere was equally advanced and overall take up was patchy.
The PYD argued for democratic change. They didn’t support the Ba-athist regime or the FSA,but looked to a ‘third way’. They hoped for a solution through dialogue, but were prepared to resist outside interference and armed themselves for defence. Protection units were established in July and August. The PYD was organising across Rojava, and holding elections for a people’s council.
The mass take-over of control in the three main Kurdish areas of Rojava was achieved with little resistance and few casualties. The Kurds were anxious to pre-empt any attempted takeover by the FSA and began action in Kobanîon the night of the 18th-19thJuly 2012. They took control of the roads in and out, surrounded the garrison, and told the army to give up their weapons. Action then spread to other areas, resulting in three autonomous enclaves– Afrin,Kobanîand Cizire. The population in these areas expanded as people came from other parts of Syria.
Then, just as the Kurdish autonomous areas were getting established and organised, they came under attack from ISIS. The RojavaKurds soon proved themselves to be the most effective fighters against ISIS. They repulsed the attacks, including a major assault on Kobanî, and then pushed ISIS back. Two of the Kurdish enclaves, Kobanî and Cizere, were able to join together. The liberated areas were growing, and these were more ethnically mixed. Rojava also came under attack from Turkey who don’t want to see a Kurdish controlled area on their border and have prevented the third enclave, Afrin, from linking with the other two. US bombing supported the Kurds’ attack on ISIS, and Russia help mediate with the Syrian regime, but the Kurds are aware that neither the US nor Russia are real friends and both would drop the Kurds if and when it suited them. Rojava is isolated by its neighbours as the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq has close economic ties to Turkey and its relations with the Rojava Kurds are bad.
The organisation of all the liberated areas has followed ideas developed in the PKKand the Kurdish underground organisations. They have taken on a new approach set out by Öcalan in prison, but by others too. This brings in ideas from different thinkers especiallyMurray Bookchin, who combined ideas from Anarchism and Marxism.
This new politics calls for the end of hierarchy, and the end of patriarchy, which is regarded as the original hierarchy. Gender equality is central. It looks back to early communalistic society, and wants to create a modern communalismas an alternative to capitalism. It calls for radical bottom-up democracy through an active citizenship base on local councils. In this democracy, as much should be run locally as possible, with local areas sending delegates to bigger co-ordinating areas upwards, in what Öcalan has called democratic confederalism. This politics envisages the state dying away – and the leading ideology no longer aims for a Kurdish state, though individual Kurds may not be so easy to persuade. It calls for a social economy, run co-operatively by and for local communities. And it emphasisesan ecological approachthat regards human society as an extension of the natural world and not its master.
But how is all this implemented and manifested in practice? It is important to acknowledge that these ideas and forms of organisation haven’t just emerged but have had a long gestation. Bookchinimagines grassroots democratic autonomy being built up as a parallel system and gradually taking over. This was possible in Syria because war created a vacuum of power. Many members of the oldelites had also fled as refugees. Added to this, the need for defence brings people together, united in protection of their land and for their survival. They have to rely on each other and work together to get things done. The people of Rojava have been learning by doing - and arguing out how, like in that scene from Land and Freedom. The lack of an existing strong capitalist organisation in these areas may also make it easier to generate a system based on community; and much land and other key resources were already in public ownership.
Kurdish society is traditionally patriarchal, but women had little to lose; and the urgency of a war situation facilitates rapid social change. A full role for womenhas been guaranteed at all levels through quotas and joint chairs. There are women’s organisations and committees, and also women’s courts to address issues such as domestic abuse. In line with its left roots, this new social order is secular and without ethnic hierarchies. As more areas are liberated, they are encouraged to adopt democratic autonomy, and a deliberate effort is made to involve all ethnicities.
Community meetings and organisation are a huge commitment – especially for people who are also delegates to higher order assemblies – but these aren’t regarded as an add on after work. They have become not an optional extra, but a central part of life. Bottom-up self-organisation includes real community policing answerable to local assemblies. Genuine dialogue and discussion and engagement with ideas has followed on from decades of underground organisation. Many, including the PYD, see this autonomous democratic system as a solution for all Syria and beyond.
Of course all this is not without problems. War has provided terrible opportunity, but also hugedifficulties. Rojava is in a massively dangerous political situation with no real allies – just tactical alliances. It’s not in the interest of the big powers for an alternative system to succeed. The area is under siege from surrounding countries, leading to shortages, including in basic materials to rebuild homes. And, despite ecological principles, Rojava still relies heavily on its oil and on very dirty refining methods. So far they have not really addressed existing class privileges or existing differences in wealth.As well as grassroots bottom-up organisation, overarching structures,like regional parliaments, were established in 2014. These are necessary for dealing with rest of world, and have been strengthened to incorporate the different groups in the liberated areaswho are not yet taking part in local councils. However, this could lead to conflict with the system of democratic confederalism.
We acknowledge that there are problems, but set against these is a movement that can be seen to be protecting people from outside aggression, organising daily life, and encouraging people to take possession of their own revolution.People have been given an opportunity to use their skills, and have been enthused by what they have achieved. We need to support this and to learn from it. We have a world to win
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