(en) Anarkismo.net: An Revolution under Attack the Alternative in midst the War in Syria by Ulrike Flader

The most recent pictures of thousands of refugees fleeing from heavy attacks of ISIS and 
making their way from Syria across the border to Turkey, come from the area of Kobani ? 
one of three cantons of the self- proclaimed Autonomy Region Rojava in Northern Syria. 
---- This region ? which consists of three geographically disconnected enclaves along the 
Turkish border ? strategically used the deteriorating situation to declare self-rule in 
July 2012 and has since been celebrated as the ?Rojava Revolution? within the Kurdish 
Movement associated around the Kurdistan Workers? Party (PKK). The population of Rojava, 
which has long been a stronghold of the PKK, is predominantly made up of Kurds ? both 
Muslim and Yezidi[1] ? as well as Arabs, Christian Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmen and 
Chechens. The desire for some form of self-determination especially among the Kurds was 
triggered through decades of denial of basic citizenship rights under the Assad-regime.

This quiet revolution is, however, not a question of independence. It is not the founding 
of yet another nation-state. Deliberately declaring itself an autonomy region instead of a 
state, derived from the critique of existing nation-states with their homogenising and 
exclusionary principals of citizenship, centralism of government and non-democratic 
structures under which the Kurds in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria have suffered on the one 
hand and the strategies of classic national liberation movements on the other. This 
critique along with an alternative model of ?democratic autonomy? was brought forward by 
the imprisoned leader of the PKK, Abdullah ?calan, and replaced the earlier struggle for 
independence. The concept of democratic autonomy is envisaged along the lines of 
libertarian thinker Murray Bookchin as a decentralised, radical democracy within or 
despite the given nation-states which abides by principals of equality between genders, 
religious- and ethnic affiliations as well as ecology[2]. In this sense, the PKK and its 
affiliated organisation PYD (Democratic Union Party) in Syria are promoting this model, 
whose fundamental principal is to achieve a unity of all different faiths and ethnic 
groups without assimilating them, for the whole of the Middle East.

Within the past one and a half years the outnumbered Syrian military has been expelled 
from most parts of the region; police, secret service, and the civil service of the old 
regime have been dismantled, and the legal and education system transformed. Additionally, 
despite the detrimental security situation, central institutions for the most radical 
changes have been established in three main areas: the introduction of direct 
self-government through communes, assurance of equal participation in all areas of 
decision-making for all faith and ethnic groups and the strengthening of the position of 
women.

Aiming at decentralizing decision-making and realizing self-rule, village- or street 
communes consisting of 30-150 households have been organised. These communes decide on 
questions regarding administration, electricity, provision of nutrition, as well as 
discussing and solving other social problems. They have commissions for the organisation 
of defence, justice, infrastructure, ecology, youth, as well as economy. Some have erected 
communal cooperatives, e.g. bakeries, sewing workshops or agricultural initiatives[3]. 
They also organise the support of the poorest of the community with basic nutrition and 
fuel. Delegates of the communes form together a council for 7-10 villages or a 
city-district, and every city has yet another city council. The city council is made up of 
representatives of the communes, all political parties, the organisation of the fallen 
fighters, the women?s organisation, and the youth organisation. All councils as well as 
the communes have a 40% quota for women. The decisions are to be made on basis of 
consensus and equal speaking-time is enforced. Besides this, a co-chairperson system has 
been implemented for all organisations, which means that all councils have both a female 
and male chairperson. All members are suggested and elected by the population. However, 
according to the co-president of the PYD, Salih Muslim, this radical change from 
dictatorship to this form of self-rule is not an easy process: ?The people are learning 
how to govern themselves?[4].

This change in decision-making has also brought about a radical change in the legal 
system: the establishment of ?peace and consensus committees?[5]. These committees, which 
originally developed as leftist Kurdish underground institutions in the cities of the 
Kurdish region of Syria in the 1990 and were severely repressed in the 2000s, have resumed 
their importance with the uprising, and have transformed into the basic structure and 
fundamental principal of the new legal system. The aim of these committees, which attend 
to all general legal questions and disputes apart from severe crimes such as murder, is to 
achieve a consensus between the conflicting parties and in doing so a lasting settlement. 
In a general assembly of all residents every commune elects the 5-9 members of its local 
peace and consensus committee (40% of which have to be women) according to their ability 
to facilitate such a consensus in discussion among between the parties. It is emphasized 
that these members should not be co-opted by traditional authorities, but democratically 
elected and in accordance with the gender-equality principal. These peace and consensus 
committees also exist on the district level, whose members are elected by the popular 
councils on that level respectively. Parallel women-only committees have been established 
which specifically attend cases of crimes against women, such as domestic violence, 
forced-marriages and multiple marriages. Cases which cannot be solved in this 
consensus-finding way are forwarded on to higher institutions which exist on city, 
regional and canton level. Courts of appeals have been established in every region and a 
constitutional court is concerned with the further development of the constitution which 
has however been framed as a ?social contract?[6].

The decision to agree on a social contract instead of a constitution is the manifestation 
of the centrality of the multi-faith/ethnicity principal behind the concept of the 
democratic autonomy in Rojava. This contract, which developed out of meetings among 
representatives of different ethnic and belief groups, has the aim to secure safety and 
self-rule to all groups. All groups are to be equally present and active in 
decision-making on political as well as economic and social questions and their right to 
self-determination is to be ensured not only through self-rule on village-level, but also 
through the right to organise themselves autonomously on other levels. According to the 
report of a delegation which visited the region in May this year, the participation of 
Arabs an Assyrians is steadily increasing in all areas[7]. All groups are also supported 
in participating in the armed wing YPG or founding their own self-defence groups, as the 
Assyrians have done most recently.

Similarly, the empowerment of women is not only to be achieved through the presence of 
women in all parts of decision-making processes through the 40% quota, the co-chairperson 
system, woman?s legal committees, but also through the establishment of their own military 
wing YPJ (Women?s Defence Unit)[8]. In an interview, co-president of PYD, Asya Abdullah, 
argues that the movement in Syria has learned from other revolutions that the women?s 
question cannot be left until after the revolution. Instead, women in Rojava are playing a 
leading role in politics, diplomacy, social questions, in the building of a new democratic 
family structure as well as in self-defence[9]. According to her the self-government 
structures as well as the self-organisation of women are just as important as the existing 
independent education institutions and seminars, and the projects to enhance women?s 
economic independence.

This attempt for a peaceful democratic transformation in co-existence to the state, but on 
the premises of grassroots self-determination, pluralism and gender-equality is, 
unfortunately, not welcomed by all in the region. The most recent heavy attacks on the 
canton of Kobani by ISIS fighters indicate a greater interest in annihilating this 
autonomy region, which is identified with an increasing strength of the PKK in the region. 
The Turkish government has reacted sharply to claims made by New York Times and other 
media that it is, in one way or another, supporting ISIS fighters[10]. Yet the PKK sees 
these accusations as grounded. Such cooperation raises strong doubts on the sincerity of 
the government towards the peace talks which it has been holding with ?calan over the past 
year. The PKK has warned that it could put an end to the ceasefire it had declared to 
facilitate a possible peace process[11]. For those who have made their way from all parts 
of Turkey to the Syrian border to protest and are organising marches and rallies in many 
cities across Europe, Rojava is not only the test-ground for an alternative democracy in 
the region, but also a bastion against ISIS.

Usable links at: http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27433
[1] The majority of Yezidi Kurds live in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The attack of ISIS 
on the city of Sinjar and the massacre on its inhabitants triggered strong international 
attention and the decision for intervention in the US. Since then, many Yezidi Kurds were 
helped to flee into Rojava by the Syrian wing of PKK-guerrilla fighters (YPG).

[2]Gunes, Cengiz (2012) The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey. From Protest to 
Resistance. New York: Routledge; also see Biehl, Janet (2012) ?Bookchin, ?calan, and the 
Dialectics of Democracy?, New Compass, 
http://new-compass.net/articles/bookchin-%C3%B6calan-an...cracy, accessed 20.02.2012

[3] Knapp, Micheal (2014) ?Die Demokratische Autonomie in Rojava. Ziel ist eine 
demokratische L?sung f?r den gesamten Mittleren Osten?, Kurdistan Report 174, 
http://www.kurdistan-report.de/index.php/archiv/2014/17...osten, accessed 25.09.2014

[4] Interview with Co-president of PYD, Salih Muslim, ?Die Menschen lernen, sich selbst zu 
bestimmen?, Kurdistan Report 175, 
http://www.kurdistan-report.de/index.php/archiv/2014/17...immen, accessed 25.09.2014.

[5] Aybo?a, Ercan (2014) ?Das neue Rechtssystem in Rojava. Der Konsens ist Entscheidend?, 
Kurdistan Report 175, http://www.kurdistan-report.de/index.php/archiv/2014/17...idend, 
accessed 25.09.2014.

[6] See ?Charter of the Social Contract? of Rojava under 
http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.com/resources/rojava/ch...ract/, accessed 26.09.2014

[7] Knapp 2014.

[8] Interview with ?lham Ehmed, Representative of the Kurdish Women?s Movement in Rojava 
and Member of the Kurdish Highest Council: Civaka Azad (2014) ?Perspektiven der 
Frauenbewegung in Rojava?, 
http://civaka-azad.org/perspektiven-der-frauenbewegung-...java/, accessed 25.09.2014

[9] Interview with Asya Abdullah Co-President of PYD: ???n?, P?nar (2014) ?Kad?n ?zg?r 
de?ilse demokrasi olmaz?, Radikal, 22.08.2013, 
http://www.radikal.com.tr/yazarlar/pinar_ogunc/kadin_oz...47222, accessed 25.09.2014

[10] Official summary of President Erdo?an?s speech at Assembly of the Confederation of 
Turkish Crafts- and Tradesmen (TESK): TCCB (2014) ?We do not accept and have never 
accepted the notion of Islamic terrorism?, 
http://www.tccb.gov.tr/news/397/91043/we-do-not-accept-....html, accessed 25.09.2014; The 
speech refers to this article published in the New York Times on the 15.09.2014: Yeginsu, 
Ceylan (2014) ?ISIS Draws a Steady Stream of Recruits from Turkey?, New York Times, 
15.09.2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/world/europe/turkey-i....html, accessed 
25.09.2014.

[11] Declaration of Cemil Bay?k, Co-President of the Executive Council of the Union of 
Kurdistan Communities (KCK) see Firatnews (2014) ?Bay?k: We may end the cease-fire?, 
firatnews, 27.09.2014, http://en.firatajans.com/news/news/bayik-we-may-end-the...e.htm, 
accessed 27.09.2014
Related Link: http://www.movements.manchester.ac.uk/the-alternative-i...yria/