Anarkismo.net: Interview about Rojava – Topics for Debate: Questions about the Strategic Scope by BrunoL

[Editor’s Note, Conjuncture Magazine: A dear friend and supporter of ours from Brazil, Dr. 
Bruno Lima Rocha, established contact with a series of organizations involved in the 
social revolution taking place in Kurdistan. Mainstream media sources have largely failed 
to cover the social process, though news have been able to break the radio silence. This 
is the second internview we publish in this series. ---- It should also be said that minor 
grammatical errors were corrected (as neither participant in the interview is native to 
English). But most is left in the original form, for fear of losing accuarcy.]
Introduction: Since the Kobani siege started I have been dedicating several hours per week 
to understand and divulgate as much as possible about this social revolution, initiated in 
a combination of Democratic Confederalism and the Syrian civil war. As a militant, I 
always have been involved in international solidarity. As an Arab descendant, I always 
have been trying to find a reliable left-wing force combining direct action and internal 
democracy.

As a scholar and a professor of geopolitics, studying the region for more than 25 years, 
Rojava is a dream coming true. Here I start the first of some interviews with 
organizations that have real experience in this process and on the ground. In this 
interview, I was lucky to get information from PYD (Democratic Union Party) officials, 
women and men concerned with building a new society in Western Kurdistan in the middle of 
the Syrian and Iraq civil war.

1. Is it possible to understand the PKK as a politico-military force formed by the thought 
of their historic leader (currently stuck in prison with life sentence) which were then 
transferred organically into the whole organization? Hence we have two questions in 
sequence: Can you imagine the reproduction of these ideas beyond a certain cult of 
personality around the image of Abdullah Ocallan? And, will it be possible to universalize 
the proposals of the PKK-KCK beyond national issue not yet resolved yet by the Kurds?

- It is clear that PKK was not that classic party such as any familiar Marxian party, PKK 
have criticized the Soviet experiment in the eighties which bothered some social parties 
in the Middle East in that time. Moreover, Ocallan has in his book ‘’Built Socialism- 
Soviet Socialism and its accessories’’ predicted the fall down of the Soviet Regime and 
that was the main reason that PKK didn’t get affected by this fall down (As per Ocallan in 
an interview with an Arab newspaper). Worthwhile that the great review and change was 
happening throughout Ocallan pleadings starting from the first pleading ‘’Subject: from 
the State of Sumerian priests towards democratic civilization’’ and ending up with the 
last pleading ‘’Subject: Kurdish case and the Democratic Nation solution’’, it is a series 
of pleadings under main subject: ‘’Democratic Civilization Manifesto’’. Yes, PKK and their 
historical leader have made a big change in their ideological system and even in their 
organizational system, this major change has affected logically all parties who adopted or 
referred to PKK ideology. Therefore we said that there is no reproduction of Ocallan 
ideology but it a deep understanding plus creation as needed due to the circumstances and 
conditions of each part of Kurdistan and each group of Kurdish people. Regarding the 
‘’cult of personality’’, we totally disagree about this expression because it leads to 
destruction in all aspects, our movement aims to liberation, so how it will chain/tie up 
itself by ‘’personality cult’’!

Yes, PKK-KCK proposals could be universalized in different directions, for instance: 
Women, strategic relations, coexistence between religious and ethnic components, and stay 
away from intolerance and narrow-mindedness. This is what is actually applied in Rojava. 
The PKK vision is not a narrow national vision, it is a humanitarian international vision 
and the main target is to change the whole world towards the better by pushing everybody 
to accept others and not to suppress each other.

2. There is a strategic problem observable for the Rojava revolution. I do explain: The 
current border, and the one which can be used as sanctuary is with the KRG, beside Kobane, 
which is in the epicenter of the war. It seems that if there is no reinforcement of 
Peshmergas, the anti-Isis US-led coalition would probably not be bombarding the jihadists 
positions. Soon, the alliance between PKK-PYD and the KDP and its coalition with Barzani, 
head of KRG cabinet, could imply an inevitable approach to the West? It is possible to 
survive as a revolutionary process if this depends on military aid from KRG and the West?

Geography plays an important role in creating the history, Kurds are surrounded by states 
which were occupying their lands. That makes the Kurdish case not a simple case. But this 
time it is a different story because our brothers are at the other side of the borders and 
because of some considerations of KRG towards the Turkish state there was border blockage 
till 14th October 2014 when the agreement between TEV-Dem and Kurdish National Council was 
signed. Our point here is that we have no issue to have relation with western countries 
and the agreement and relation between us and KRG will support this relation with the West.

KRG has thankfully offered some aid but it was not enough comparing with the difficult 
circumstances which we are facing. As for support from western countries we could also say 
that it does not per se attack and challenge our experiment. Here we want to mention what 
our core practical ideology is: to rely on ourselves, our people, and our resources, to 
depend on our capabilities and abilities and to compensate the lack of resources though 
the revolutionary and sacrificing souls and through people’s eagerness to the liberation, 
the people who sacrificed thousands of their sons and daughters to get this liberation.

3. Still within the strategic theme; by all indications, the Government of Turkey is 
controlling supplying lines and leaves ISIS stronger within in the territory under control 
of the Turkish army. Apparently, this is caused by the realistic calculation of Ankara and 
the AKP government, to consider a ‘caliphate’ or the return of the Ummah less dangerous 
than the idea of Kurdish separatism, or even political autonomy for Rojava inside the 
failing State of Syria? From the Turkish position, how to evaluate the dispute between the 
other States operating through Sunni Jihadists, like Saudi Arabia and Qatar?

Turkey is one of the countries which highly negatively affected by the Syrian revolution, 
The AKP government which raised the slogan of ‘’Zero Troubles’’ was supported by the west 
as a moderate Islamic model. Therefore AKP did want the Islamic orientation for the Syrian 
revolution and the opposition via Muslim Brothers Movement and jihadists hoping to 
complete its control in the Syrian case, especially after Islamic groups have taken the 
lead of the so-called Arab spring in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. That caused a problem 
between Turkey and Saudi and later on with Egypt. The Qatari – Saudi struggle has affected 
negatively the case and Syria became a national, regional, and international struggle 
field. This situation makes our party tasks more complex to create the suitable foundation 
for a political agreement in order to limit the violence in Syria, the continuous 
destruction of the infrastructure, millions of people displacement and more than 200 
thousands victims.

4. Getting into the theme of the Syrian civil war, what can be seen today as a growing war 
between Sunnis and Shiites, and going together, a war between ISIS (and before Front 
Al-Nusra) and the attempted to conquest Kobani. Considering this reality, what would be 
the role of the Free Syrian Army today (FSA)? Does this force still have some protective 
power – as the Qatar-or was dropped on condition of a secondary YPG ally? Can we consider 
Qatar the major funder of the FSA? And, because of this, may be the reason why, whereas 
both FSA as YPG are opponents of the Assad regime, Damascus and its allies (financiers) 
preferred to release the area of Aleppo and Raqqa for ISIS operations, allowing the Sunni 
Jihadists to advance in Rojava?

You are right; there is a complex conducted civil war in Syria now. And the Syrian regime 
likes to see that, so that they can prove that they are the only key to solve this issue, 
The Syrian regime doesn’t like to see such party like self-rule Administration in Rojava 
because they have a message that they are protecting minorities in Syria and they are the 
only guarantee for that. What is happening in Rojava is not their target because Rojava is 
successfully managing and protecting itself and their people. So the regime is pushing or 
at least makes it easy for ISIS to access and attack the Rojava experiment. The Syrian 
regime wants to show the world that the only safe regions in Syria are the ones where they 
are in control, and that is not Rojava.

Regarding FSA, there are only few scattered structure of FSA here and there, but they are 
not unified, the only shiny point for FSA is that there are a very few fractions fighting 
with YPG/YPJ in Kobani nowadays, otherwise there is no effective unified power on the 
ground for the FSA in Syria.

5. I understand, even at a distant glance that for the States of Turkey, Syria (what was 
left of it) and Iran, a Western Kurdistan with political autonomy and a society working on 
a secular and egalitarian basis implies an insoluble problem. The proposal of PYD would 
not formally separate [Kurdistan] from Syria, but obtain a status of autonomy federated 
policy on Syria, as well as a future rearrangement with Iraq and the Government of Irbil. 
Would Turkey tolerate a similar Statute, even though it has the second largest army of 
NATO and the biggest contingent on a State with the major population being Islamic? If 
Turkish Kurdistan received such status, what would prevent a confederation with Syrian 
Kurdistan? And, if so, what would be the reaction of the KRG and the coalition of the 
right wing and pro-Western Kurdish parties, like the KDP?

This question is kind of an assumption, but we could say here: we believe in the self-rule 
Administration and we don’t have any intention in the separation of Syria. At the same 
time, we believe in a confederation of all Kurdistan which is the core of Ocallan’s future 
theory for Middle-east.

6. Would it be interesting for the KRG that Washington no longer considers the PKK-HPG as 
a terrorist force? Would this enable a request for freedom for Ocallan, reinforcing the 
leadership of this political force?

Officially, nobody from the Kurdistan-Iraq leaders accepted to call PKK a terrorist 
organization but at the same time they didn’t exert an effort to push this title 
(terrorist) away from the PKK. Even some of their media channels deliberately want to 
corrupt the PKK picture!, Even though there is a different international look towards PKK 
nowadays (after fighting ISIS).

7. How do you project the existence of a legal sovereignty and political autonomy status 
to Rojava considering some fundamental themes like: movement of currency (what it would be 
like? would there be a central bank?); trade relations with other territories (for 
example, in the petroleum trade); belonging to a territorial Federation (as in a 
reorganized Syria or Federated to KRG); and what concrete measures would be instituted 
trough Democratic Confederalism with full territorial unity and existence of the three 
cantons?

We could say that the social contract of self-rule administration in Rojava (attached) 
which details the administrative structure of the self-rule administration but let us 
explain it briefly:

Currency of Rojava: It will stay the same of the center (Damascus) such as in the canton 
system in Switzerland and federal system in Germany, but the flexibility will be more 
applied in Rojava. That means that the center will be the reference in the strategic and 
political main cases only. As for military and financial affairs of Rojava, the decision 
will be made by Rojava citizens from Kurds, Assyrian, Arabs and etc… old regimes economic 
policies will be denied as well, for instance Rojava citizens will have the priority to 
take the advantage of the oil of Rojava first then the center/others not the other way 
around- So all of Syria’s advantages will be mutually beneficial. Anyway, this will remain 
theoretical policy until the Syrian crisis will be over and until Syria will have a new 
comprehensive social contract for all Syria components.

The interview was originally published in Conjuncture Magazine and the questions have been 
sent in November 2014.

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27948