Transcribed from the 21 February 2015 episode of "This is Hell"! Listen to the audio at:
https://soundcloud.com/this-is-hell/837dilardirik ---- “The people of Kobanê were about to
face a massacre, and the president of Turkey just wore his sunglasses and made macho
statements. He exploited the desperate situation in Kobanê.” ---- Chuck Mertz: We’ve been
talking about all the new challenges to the traditional seats of power around the world,
from the Islamic State and how it challenges our notion of the modern state, to SYRIZA and
how they’re standing up to the Eurozone’s austerity policies, to Spain’s Podemos, who have
created a whole new form of democracy, even to the extra-statecraft of free trade zones
that exist outside nations’ and a people’s laws. ---- But there’s something completely
unique happening in Western Kurdistan, a new kind of democracy, and it’s led by women, and
they are fighting and beating the Islamic State. Here to tell us about Rojava, Kurdish
refugee Dilar Dirik is an activist of the Kurdish women’s movement, and a Ph.D. candidate
in the sociology department of the University of Cambridge, where her research focuses on
Kurdistan, the Kurdish Women’s Movement, and the PYD (Democratic Union Party) which has
existed in the Rojava territories since 2004.
Dilar’s blog gets occasionally reposted at the Roj Women’s Association website or you can
read it directly at dilar91.blogspot.com.
Good morning in Chicago, Dilar, good evening in the Middle East, wherever you are.
Dilar Dirik: Hello! Thank you. I’m in Amid, but Amid is the Kurdish name for the city
officially called Diyarbakır, which is in Northern Kurdistan (Turkey).
CM: No wonder we were having so much trouble getting in touch with you.
So, like when we interviewed Yanis Varoufakis about SYRIZA prior to their winning the
election in Greece, and like when we spoke with Jesus Castillo last week about the Spanish
anti-austerity movement Podemos, we have to start at the very beginning with this, the
very basics, as these are movements that are not reported on in the US media whatsoever.
I have not seen any reporting on what’s going on in Rojava. I’ve seen hardly any
reporting, over the last twenty years of doing this show, about even what’s going on with
the Kurdish people, what’s going on with Kurdistan at all.
So to start, Rojava means “western” in Kurdish, as in Western Kurdistan. And along the
Syrian-Turkish border in northern Syria, there are three areas that are not physically
connected to one another—one of those zones, Kobanê, was in the news in January as the
Islamic State was fighting for control of that area. Essentially the three zones that make
up Rojava in northern and northeastern Syria are de facto autonomous zones.
My first thought about this revolution, Dilar, is that it exists because of a vacuum
created by the Syrian civil war. I figure the Syrian government and military was busy,
gave up on some areas, and the revolution was allowed to take place. But in fact, the
Rojava revolution began back in 2004.
So why did Bashar al-Assad allow it to go on, and what allows it to continue to this day?
DD: Well, Bashar al-Assad did not in fact allow the revolution in Rojava to go on. In
2004, an uprising in Qamishli began, in which many people that took part were arrested,
they were tortured, they disappeared in the prisons or elsewhere. Many of them are still
missing today. There was a lot of state repression back then.
But it just wasn’t very relevant, because at that time Syria wasn’t very relevant to the
world. But also ever since—people have been struggling there for more than ten years—it’s
gone largely unnoticed, even by the Syrian opposition.
Basically, what happened after 2012 is the Kurds were able to take over their region after
Bashar al-Assad’s forces withdrew—because as you said, they were busy elsewhere, in
Aleppo, in Damascus and so on. That was the golden moment for the people to finally seize
control over their areas and implement what they had envisioned before.
It’s not right to say that Assad allowed the Kurds to engage in politics all this time,
because he simply didn’t.
At that time, too, Syria had very good relations with Turkey and other neighbors. Salih
Müslim, actually, the co-president of the PYD, after he was accused of collaborating with
Assad—he said to Erdoğan, the prime minister and now president of Turkey: “While Kurds
were being tortured and imprisoned, you were having dinner with Bashar al-Assad.” That’s
very important to keep in mind.
So even though the 2012 period—and in general the Syrian civil war—has provided a
necessary vacuum for this revolution to take place, it still has roots. This ideology that
they are fighting with, this collective mobilization and so on, was preexistent. It didn’t
just start in 2012. 2012 was a new era, but it certainly was not the beginning.
CM: That’s really fascinating.
You mentioned the PYD (again, that’s the Democratic Union Party). Here in the States, when
we see any coverage of what is taking place in Kurdistan, in Syria, in Iraq—whenever there
are any fights against the Islamic State, Kurds are said to be winning the battle. For
instance the other day I was in email contact with a friend of mine, Patrick Cockburn; he
was in Erbil, and I was getting reports from there about how within twenty miles of Erbil,
the Islamic State had been held back by Kurdish fighters.
But whenever there’s talk of Kurdish fighters, what’s synonymous with that is the word
“Peshmerga.” What do we miss when we label all Kurdish fighters “Peshmerga?”
DD: What you’re asking is very important. It’s also, to be honest, quite difficult to
answer, given that right now everyone is propagating this necessary “Kurdish Unity” notion
in facing the Islamic State. But the truth is, the Kurds are not united. Certainly not
politically.
“Peshmerga” literally means “those who confront death.” And years ago, perhaps decades
ago, this term was applied to all Kurdish armed resistance forces that were fighting
regimes such as Saddam Hussein’s and so on. Also PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) guerillas
were called Peshmerga at one point. But now, that term is usually used for the fighters of
the KRG (Kurdish Regional Government) who are paid and employed by the government in
northern Iraq, in South Kurdistan.

So when we refer to all Kurdish fighters synonymously, we simply blur the fact that they
have very different politics, they have very different loyalties, ideologies. Their only
common denominator is perhaps the fact that they are Kurdish—and that they are now
fighting the Islamic State. But everything else is different.
For example, PKK fighters are also fighting against the Islamic State, specifically in
Makhmur, in Kirkuk, and in Shingal (Sinjar) as well. They played a key role in the rescue
of the Yezidi community in the August attack of the Islamic State. But the key difference
here is that the Peshmerga fighters of the KRG receive weapons and military support and
financial aid, humanitarian aid, and so on—and they should, of course they should—while at
the same time the PKK is labeled as terrorist by the same powers.
The fighters of the YPJ and the YPG (the People’s Defense Forces and the Women’s Defense
Forces in Rojava) also hadn’t received any support until recently, when the Islamic State
launched this major attack on Kobanê. But they have been fighting against the Islamic
State for more than two years, and in general for more than three years now. But they were
completely ignored. And in fact, not only ignored but also marginalized and excluded.
So there is acute selective empathy. And this has changed, but largely due to the fact
that the people in Kobanê have displayed a completely epic resistance. That’s when the
sympathy towards them increased. But before that, they were just seen as another sister
branch of an organization that is labeled terrorists, the PKK.
It’s very important to make that distinction, because the people fighting the Islamic
State in Syria and the fighters in Turkey don’t call themselves Peshmerga. Only the ones
in Iraq. Also some in Iran, older armies, have called themselves Peshmerga as well.
I think it’s very interesting to notice the politics behind this selective empathy, and it
has a lot to do with ideology. Because the KRG government is also very close to the United
States and Turkey, etcetera, whereas those affiliated with the PKK—loosely affiliated,
let’s say, ideologically affiliated to the PKK—such as the fighters in Kobanê and in
general in Rojava, they have been marginalized because their ideology is radically
different. It’s a danger to these states.
I think these are very important issues, and you can probably understand that it’s quite
hard to talk about these issues and act like there are no political divisions. Because
right now, yes, the people are facing the Islamic State threat, so it’s very important to
have a unified focus. But the truth is, ideologically and politically these are very, very
different systems. Actually almost opposite to each other.
CM: You know, when I was reading your work and when I was doing research about Rojava, I
couldn’t help but keep thinking, who does Turkey believe is their worst enemy, the Kurdish
people or the Islamic State?
One thing that was definitely not reported here in the US was when the assault by the
Islamic State started on Kobanê, protests erupted throughout Turkey amongst the Kurdish
people, who wanted to go into Kobanê and fight against the Islamic State.
Why did the Turkish government refuse to allow those people in? And what does that tell us
about the battle against the Islamic State?
DD: I think this is a very important issue. Because if you look at Turkey’s politics
towards Syria in general from the beginning, we can actually understand many of the things
that are happening at the moment. The ugly truth is that many who say they are now forming
a coalition against the Islamic State have benefited from jihadists being in Syria.
Because their main goal was to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, and in many cases they didn’t
care who was fighting him, as long as Bashar leaves.
Countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey in fact supported—financially, militarily,
politically, logistically—jihadists in Syria. We have been saying this for years, but
nobody listened. Actually, nobody cared; they didn’t want to see. It was dismissed as some
kind of conspiracy theory. But now even US officials say it. And we are just like, well,
good morning! We have been saying this for ages now.
“Kurdish women have much better things to do than worry about than what white women in
America think about them. The people in Rojava actively oppose capitalism as an economic
system. They oppose the premises on which the international order is built, such as the
state, such as patriarchy. And they do not believe that women are more liberated in the West.”
And what has been done this whole time? The Kurds were not invited anywhere, to major
decisionmaking conferences, the Geneva II conference and so on. So the Kurds were in fact
marginalized long before jihadists started getting marginalized—this is very important—not
just by Turkey but also by the United States, because of their closeness to the PKK, which
of course is labeled as terrorist by the most important NATO ally, Turkey. The second
largest NATO army.
So if we consider this and look at the fact that jihadists use Turkey as the main gate to
get into Syria; that jihadists—as has been repeatedly reported—were treated in private
clinics in Turkey; that jihadists are swinging their swords around in Istanbul, wearing
t-shirts of the Islamic State; while Kurdish activists, human rights activists, teachers,
journalists, are imprisoned by the thousands in Turkey; we can tell that actually, even
though Erdoğan has said, “For us, ISIS and the PKK—and with the PKK the PYD—are the same…”
(He actually said that. He said that the people who are raping and massacring and
enslaving the people in the Middle East, ISIS, they are the same as the people who are
fighting them in Kobanê. This is actually what he said.)
…Actually, if we deconstruct this statement and look at his actions too, we will see that
actually they are not the same to him. Because the PKK and the YPG/YPJ did not receive any
support from the Turkish government.
And in fact, in October, while all these demonstrations were happening at the border, when
people tried to cross over but they weren’t allowed, and the army actually attacked the
people who wanted to go in and fight—at the same time, the Turkish army was able to see
with the naked eye the black flag of the Islamic State from Suruç. They saw it, literally,
when the Islamic State had advanced so much. But they didn’t do anything.
What they did do is at the same time go and bomb the Qandil mountains, where the PKK are
based. Turkey actually went and attacked those that are fighting the Islamic State.

Furthermore, for the last two years there’s been a peace process between the PKK and
Turkey. This could have been a moment for Turkey to prove that they are actually genuine
about peace with the Kurds. But what did Turkey do instead? They said, “No, we have our
conditions for support for Kobanê. Our conditions are that the PYD join the Arab Sunni
[Syrian] opposition, that they sever their ties with the PKK, and that they give up any
claims to autonomy.”
This is absolutely unacceptable. The people are about to face a massacre, and the
president of Turkey wore his sunglasses and just made all these macho statements like
that. He exploited the desperate situation in Kobanê at that time.
But he did not expect that all these clashes would erupt. A civil war almost started in
Turkey. October was terrible here. I wasn’t here; I was in Europe, and we started a hunger
strike there as well. So many, many things happened, in the diaspora as well. And Turkey
was pressured into giving up these politics, but not voluntarily.
And actually, we can say that it’s not just Turkey, it’s also all of the other governments
who are now forming this coalition against ISIS—had they just listened to the ones that
have been fighting the Islamic State for the last two-three years, all of this mess could
have been avoided. Those who have been fighting them have been warning about them over and
over and over again.
Just the word “ISIS” or “Islamic State” is very new for many people. Many people have only
gotten to know this organization since the summer, when Iraq was attacked also, or after
August when the massacre on the Ězidis happened. But we have been talking about them for
the last couple of years, and simply put, nobody cared, and now everyone tries to act like
the hero, but we know who the real hero is and who has been fighting the Islamic State for
this long and who has been actively marginalized by the same forces who are now forming
the coalition.
CM: Let’s get to the PKK for a moment. The last time we had a guest on the show to discuss
the plight of the Kurds, the Kurdish language was still illegal in Turkey, and Turkey
didn’t even recognize Kurds as even existing. They denied there were Kurds. NATO—and
Turkey is a member of NATO—designated the PKK as a terror group in 2002. In 2008, the
European Court of First Instance ordered the PKK to be removed from the EU terror list
because the EU failed to give a proper justification for listing the PKK as a terror
group. But EU officials dismissed the ruling. Individually, most EU countries do not have
the PKK on their terror list, but the UK, Germany, and France do. The PKK has never been
designated as a terrorist organization by the UN.
You write, “It is intellectually and journalistically lazy and factually fraudulent to
keep calling the PKK a separatist organization, as many news outlets do. The PKK condemned
civilian attacks that were committed in their name, declared several unilateral
ceasefires, and currently is engaging in peace talks. Even the Turkish state accepts the
PKK as a negotiating partner.”
So there’s been a ceasefire since march of 2013, as you were saying. How far would the war
against the Islamic State move forward if the PKK were delisted as a terror group by the
United States?
DD: Oh! You know, I don’t think I can give a definite answer to this. But I think that
would actually be a major solution to many problems that we face.
The terror listing not only means that this organization will not get any military
support, it also means that anyone who is trying to raise this issue, even just me talking
to you right now—if a police officer were listening to me right now, I could perhaps be
put in prison. Imagine that. We’re just trying to engage in a common sense conversation,
but this is what the terror listing means. Just a thought crime makes you potentially a
prisoner.
And it’s the same in Europe, actually. The criminalization of ordinary Kurdish people in
Europe is absolutely insane. Journalists get arrested all the time in Europe. Nobody
really talks about it, because it’s taboo. People cannot really engage in legal work,
their institutions cannot work properly, they cannot get any funding. It’s just absolutely
insane.
“If the people in the Middle East are left alone, if nobody comes and constantly hijacks
their dreams and visions and revolutions and their genuine desire to create a better,
brighter world, if all these revolutions in the Arab Spring had not been hijacked by
foreign forces that supposedly advocate democracy but just wanted to stir up the situation
further, this region would be different. It would be the most beautiful place that it
could be.”
Listing people as terrorists has a lot of social impacts. It impacts my own research as
well. I cannot work properly. Many people cannot work properly. And there are so many
people who want to do something, and they have to do it “illegally,” even though
everything they are doing is good.
The other problem with this terror listing is it’s absolutely politically motivated. It
has everything to do with Turkey being an important NATO ally. The PKK does not pose a
single threat to any citizen of the United States. Everyone knows this.
In the nineties there were escalations in Germany, which is why the PKK was listed. This
was when Abdullah Öcalan was arrested. People were engaging in some violent acts. But that
was very context-related and these actions have been denounced, and it was not like random
terrorist violence or anything. It was something completely different.
The fact that the PKK—which has moved away from many of its initial aims, including that
of a separate state—is still considered a terrorist organization has a lot to do also with
the fact that the monopoly on power and force is in the state.
The violence—the real terrorism in the classical sense—of states such as Turkey against
ordinary people who are exercising their rights (given by the same constitution of the
same state) is not seen as terrorism. It’s seen as a legitimate use of force. The
resistance of the people is labeled as “terrorist” because they are non-state actors. We
just worship the state in this global system.
That’s why the terrorist labeling is connected to so many other things. I think if the PKK
would be de-listed by the United States, it would first of all be something very
common-sensical because the PKK does not pose a threat to the United States of America.
But it would also acknowledge that the bigger danger to the US is not the PKK but in fact
their NATO ally, Turkey. Because as we have seen, Turkey’s politics actively contributed
to the rise of ISIS, and now it is the same people that are listed as terrorists by the
United States that are the biggest enemies of ISIS.

So I don’t know, what can be done? These terror listings are so random. Sometimes just one
single signature can change everything. And I don’t really believe in terror listings. I
do believe that terrorism in the classical sense—irrationally spreading fear and
terrorizing people—is a thing, but many states are doing that. Not non-state actors who
are often resistance forces.
This terror listing is a huge bureaucratic obstacle to a huge cause, and I could go on and
on like this. Because it really impacts millions of people who are just trying to live
normal lives, and just one article can label you as a terrorist because of that.
People have to move on and realize that the PKK is not the same as it was before; it is
engaging in negotiations, as I said. The aims are not the same anymore. They do not pose
any threat to ordinary citizens. Their violence is directed at the state, and actually
there is no violence right now—for two years there has been a ceasefire, and it’s just one
of the many unilateral ceasefires issued by the PKK’s administration.
So yeah, I think we have to check our priorities when we talk about terror listings, and
how much sense it makes to keep the PKK on there. And you don’t have to like them. To
argue for the PKK’s removal from these lists does not mean that you endorse the PKK.
CM: So yesterday, President Obama announced that there is going to be an assault on Mosul,
the capital of the Islamic State, and that this is going to mean 20,000-25,000 troops in a
ground invasion. Let me ask you this, then, because I think this is important; I think
this war is more to do about politics than it has to do with military strategy.
What would be of greater benefit in the war against the Islamic State? Sending in 25,000
ground troops and doing airstrikes as the US has? Or delisting the PKK and recognizing the
people in Rojava as an alternative that we’re looking for—the alternative that we’re
looking for to “offer” to people who might otherwise be attracted by the Islamic State?
DD: Well, there have been several ground invasions by the United States in the Middle
East, and we all know the outcomes. One of these outcomes is, in fact, the vacuum that
helped the Islamic State to rise. Because when we look at the politics of America and Iraq
ever since 2003, we see that the marginalization of the Sunni community there, for
example, has contributed a lot to the fact that many people do in fact support the Islamic
State.
The post-9/11 islamophobia that was fueled afterwards, and which was used to legitimize
the wars in the Middle East, also contributed to the fact that many, many jihadists are
now flying all the way from Canada, from America, from European countries, to take revenge
on the West. Which is why we also see attacks like the one in Paris, in Copenhagen and so on.
Nobody—absolutely nobody—wants American ground troops in the Middle East. There are many,
many forces on the ground, including the Kurdish forces, who can fight and who are willing
to fight ISIS. Look, it’s different to go on a mission, to supposedly spread democracy in
a place where the context is just so confusing and complicated—that’s different than
defending your home.
CM: Let’s talk a little bit about the way Rojava is structured. At the Rojava Women’s
Association website where you blog, there’s a story posted from the November 10th
International Business Times headlined, “Syria-ISIS Crisis: Kurds grant women equal rights
in defiance of ISIS laws. New decree also abolishes forced marriage and honor killing.”
The story reports that the local government of an autonomous Kurdish area in Syria has
“granted women equal rights to men.”
What do you mean by equal rights to men? Because this sounds great! There isn’t equal
rights between men and women anywhere in the world!
“Of course we should acknowledge that it’s incredibly brave that these women are fighting
against an ideology that is explicitly enslaving women as sex slaves, raping them, selling
them, killing them and so on—these are two quite contrary worldviews, we could say. But on
the other hand, why not support the politics of Rojava, the system that is being created
there, that is explicitly centered around women’s liberation?”
DD: Well first of all, this whole talk about the West having to “offer” something to the
backwards, uncivilized Muslims is completely idiotic, patronizing, dehumanizing, and just
incredibly hypocritical given the fact that if it weren’t for Western politics in the
Middle East, this region would not be so full of bloodshed. The devastation, the horrible
stuff that is happening here, has a lot to do with Western imperialism. I think that is
very important to keep in mind.
Also, assuming that Muslims or Muslim communities or anyone who does not live in an
advanced capitalist country cannot come up with their own solutions and their own forms of
organization of life is just very, very racist.
This news item is actually quite old, and very inadequate. And there was also a columnist
on CNN who wrote something very problematic (though meaning to sound very nice or
something—I don’t know what her intention was). Basically what she said is, “The Kurdish
women who are fighting against ISIS are in fact trying to send us, the West, a message
that they share our values.”
No! They aren’t and they don’t. They have much, much better things to do than worry about
than what white women in America think about them. First of all, the people in Rojava
actively oppose capitalism as an economic system. They oppose the premises on which the
international order is built, such as the state, such as patriarchy and so on. And they do
not believe that women are more liberated in the West.
“Giving them rights” is also not something that happened recently. Ever since the
beginning, since 2012, in the foundations of these three cantons as well, they have gotten
rid of polygamy, of child marriage; they criminalized honor killings and so on. This
“equal rights” thing was there before.

But the important answer to this is that the women’s movement in Rojava does not think in
terms of “rights.” Because there is no state to give you rights. They have learned that
the hard way. Rights simply don’t exist. You have to struggle in order to create a society
in which social justice and equality are internalized. Who cares about rights that exist
on paper and don’t mean anything in reality?
This is a very feudal, patriarchal society, and only with real, meaningful struggle will
the mentality of the society change. Turning it into terms of “Oh, look, there’s equal
rights here, and on the other side ISIS is enslaving women!” is also very simplistic, and
this is not what this revolution is about. This revolution is also criticizing the West.
It is also criticizing the chauvinism with which many people are approaching what’s happening.
This is something that’s quite common, I think, in advanced capitalist countries, even
among leftists: to look down on revolutions or changes in the Global South, and I think
this is very problematic. And even though many of these people are trying to be in
solidarity with the people in Rojava, they actually don’t do them a favor by pitting
different communities against each other and making it about secularism versus religion or
civilization versus barbarism.
No, the issue is much, much more complicated than that. Had it not been for US politics in
Iraq, or NATO in the Middle East, or all these other issues that are linked to imperialism
and also to ideas and ideals imposed on other places by the West, this barbarism was not
possible.
American drones, for example: are they any less barbaric? We have to criticize the entire
system in which we live, and that’s when we will see we cannot just make clear-cut
divisions between black and white, between West and East and so on, because these issues
are very, very complicated.
And if we look at global arms trade, who’s trading arms with whom? For example, the
country I grew up in, where I received asylum when I was a child, Germany, has openly and
in huge exhibition-style places sold arms to countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia. All of
the villages that were destroyed here in Turkey, those Kurdish villages were destroyed by
German tanks. Germany calls itself democratic and opposes any kind of barbarism,
supposedly, in the Middle East. But it’s German weapons with which the people here are
fighting, both regimes and non-state actors.
These issues show us how hypocritical it is to think in these black and white terms. I
think it’s a very easy way to push responsibility away. But I think we have to be honest
about it; we have to confront these uncomfortable issues and also realize that if the
people in the Middle East are left alone, if nobody comes and constantly hijacks their
dreams and visions and revolutions and their genuine desire to create a better, brighter
world, if all these revolutions in the Arab Spring had not been hijacked by foreign forces
that supposedly advocate democracy but just wanted to stir up the situation further, this
region would be different. It would be the most beautiful place that it could be.
But it’s not. Because it’s in nobody’s interest that the Middle East develops. And this is
the tragedy of our time, I think.
CM: I want to mention one thing real quick, because we were mentioning stereotypes that
the West has of the Middle East, of Arab people, of Muslim people, all the stereotypes
that we have. You write about how much the glamorization of the Kurdish woman fighter is
distracting the media from the message, from the politics of the Kurdish women fighters.
I think this is also based on stereotypes and sexism and racism towards people in the
Middle East, because we believe, in the West, that the Middle East is the most patriarchal
society, and that the women are—for whatever reason, even if it’s just the wearing of the
veil—subjugated or subordinated and somehow that they like that position, they don’t mind
being subjugated or subordinated. But in fact, that is not the case whatsoever.
Why is it not unique, to you, that Kurdish women are leading the fight against the Islamic
State?
“The women who have been fighting against ISIS have really been like a rising sun to many
people, and I think this will be a much more powerful counterforce than what the Islamic
State has done in terms of damage.”
DD: Thank you for these questions. First of all, we do have to keep in mind that this is a
very patriarchal region. That is true. There are many different reasons for that, but it
is true that in this region women have it really bad. It’s always important to keep that
in mind.
But, well, I’m a nineties child, and I grew up seeing Kurdish guerilla fighters who are
women. And most Kurdish people in my generation have grown up with this reality. So
actually, we would have been surprised if Kurdish women had not been fighting against the
Islamic State. Because this had been established as something quite natural in Kurdish
politics.
And it doesn’t matter if you support these fighters or if you don’t; the truth is they are
there. This, of course, changes your perception of women if you see women who are armed as
fighters, fighting against different states. That does a lot with your perception.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the cause of women in places that are perceived
as oppressive has often been used by imperialism. “We have to go and rescue the women!”
For example Afghan women, Iraqi women. This has always been used to portray this region as
a very patriarchal, backwards place, and the West has to intervene and rescue specifically
the women.
(And many times, the voices of these women are not listened to. You can disagree or agree
with it, but many women do not just measure their level of oppressed-ness by a veil that
they are wearing or not wearing. It’s not simple like that.)
In order to justify these unjust wars in the Middle East, women have always been portrayed
as these victims that need to be rescued. But then what happens? Why don’t US drone
strikes, the airstrikes, the devastation caused in these wars, which have
disproportionally affected women and killed women and displaced women—that’s not
oppression, or what? The existing patriarchy in this region—justifying unjust wars by that
is just absolutely insane.
From an orientalist perspective, seeing women taking up arms against the explicitly
femicidal system of ISIS of course challenges very stereotypical prejudiced perceptions of
women in the Middle East. But as I’ve said in my articles and as we’ve mentioned here,
this is not something that just came out of nowhere, and it’s very disheartening to see
that the politics of these women are taken out of the equation.
But the truth is, as we discussed earlier, the ideology of the PKK plays an explicit role
in this. The PKK’s ideology is directly responsible for the fighters in Kobanê who are
women. I was there, not in Kobanê but in another region of Rojava. I spoke to these women
fighters, and I spoke about their media representation as well, and one of them, a
commander, said, “We don’t want the world to know us only as ‘the women fighting ISIS.’
And we also don’t want people to know us for our weapons. We want them to know us for our
ideas. And our ideas are based on the philosophy of Abdullah Öcalan,” who is the
philosophical, ideological representative of the PKK.
This is something a commander of a brigade that is fighting against ISIS in Rojava told
me. And you see Öcalan’s picture everywhere. You may or may not like the PKK, but that
does not matter. What matters is the fact that these people are fighting with this
philosophy. When Kobanê was liberated, they immediately chanted slogans praising Öcalan,
for example. You can criticize many things, but at least acknowledge that this is these
people’s loyalty. You don’t have to like it; you can criticize this ideology, but this is
what it is. This ideology lies behind this resistance against the Islamic State. But
nobody wants to know that, because the PKK is listed as a terrorist organization.
Further, taking these women who are fighting against ISIS as this sympathetic enemy
against the Islamic State and legitimizing your islamophobia with it by saying, “Oh, look!
Islamic State is being hurt by women, ha ha!”—this is also very problematic. Because the
fight against ISIS by these women is much, much more than that. It’s really important to
listen to what these women are saying, and you will see that you cannot draw it in black
and white colors.
Of course we should acknowledge that it’s incredibly brave that these women are fighting
against an ideology that is explicitly enslaving women as sex slaves, raping them, selling
them, killing them and so on—these are two quite contrary worldviews, we could say. But on
the other hand, why not support the politics of Rojava, the system that is being created
there, that is explicitly centered around women’s liberation? Gender equality is being
taught to the soldiers, to the internal security officers, to the teachers, to the health
officers and so on. There is a new kind of alternative society that is being created there.

But that’s also something that people don’t want to see. Even leftists, even anarchists
and so on, people who should be in solidarity with what is happening in Rojava, keep
criticizing it for not being, I don’t know, “Ideology X” enough. Marxist enough, anarchist
enough, feminist enough, whatever. But the truth is that these people are creating a new
life there. They are establishing a revolution there. It should be everyone’s task to
support this. At least give constructive critiques, rather than just ranting about why
they’re not fitting into your dogmatic ideology or whatever.
CM: One last question for you, Dilar, but first I want to make sure that people in our
audience know that you, as well as a whole bunch of other delegates, including David
Graeber, went to the Rojava area in December. You released a statement on Rojava; our
listeners can find out how you can support the people of Rojava by going there.
Okay, so the last question that we do with every one of our guests is the Question from
Hell. It’s the question we hate to ask, you might hate to answer, or our audience might
hate your response. And I’ve got to tell you, I’m going to hate asking this question.
Do you believe that the Islamic State, because of the way it so horribly treats, rapes,
enslaves women—do you believe that the Islamic State can actually bolster feminism in the
Middle East and around the world?
DD: I’m actually quite comfortable with this question. I think yes and no. One terrible
thing about this is that whenever a huge tragedy such as this one happens, the threshold
of atrocity that people can handle changes. Things then start to be measured by the “worst.”
For example, the enslavement of specifically the Yezidi women has traumatized and caused
so much damage and suffering to the people in this region. One danger is that from now on
violence against women will be measured by these standards, the worst standards. And the
worse standards get, the more tolerant we get to it. That’s a horrible, horrible side effect.
But on the other hand, I think it’s not the Islamic State’s specific war on women but
rather the resistance which women have shown, specifically in Kobanê, that has changed a
lot. It’s changed the terms of what it means to be a woman in the Middle East, I think.
Many people contact me just to say how inspired they are, and how this has inspired their
own struggles.
I think it’s not the Islamic State’s terribleness but the resistance, the strength, the
pride—really, the real sense of pride—with which these women have confronted the Islamic
State and showed that a different world was possible, that women can do this and that,
that women exist, that women are not slaves, that women have the power to change their
status and change the patriarchy in the region…I think it’s the women’s resistance that
will change perceptions.
But only if it is accompanied by a longer, endless struggle. Because just taking up arms
in times of war and conflict is often just forgotten afterwards. But if we look at the
system in Rojava, we will see that all the policies of the people there, the activists of
the women’s movement, and the critique of the fighters there, how they talk about the ways
their lives have changed, how they’re seen as different now because they have taken part
in this resistance—I think this is what will eventually change things. Not what the
Islamic State has done.
From what I’ve observed, the women who have been fighting against ISIS have really been
like a rising sun to many people, and I think this will be a much more powerful
counterforce than what the Islamic State has done in terms of damage.
CM: Well, this morning in Chicago, Dilar, I have to tell you that you are a rising sun for
me. I really, really appreciate you being on the show with us, and have really enjoyed our
conversation. This really was an honor. Thank you very, very much.
DD: Oh, thank you so much. I’m very happy to be on; I really appreciate the kindness of
your show and I really appreciate the conversation that we engaged in. It’s very nice,
because I’ve been interviewed a lot recently, and I’m tired of giving the same answers,
the same conclusions and so on. That’s why I kind of ranted.
Because I actually just finished interviewing a woman who is a co-mayor in a city here,
and she just told me her story. She was married off at fifteen, and then she was a mother
when she was underage, and she went through years of domestic violence and now she is a
co-mayor of a very patriarchal district here in Diyarbakır. Her story just really, really
touched me. When she said this is all due to the Kurdish Women’s Movement, and the Kurdish
liberation movement, it was just very inspiring.
And that’s why I’m quite emotionally loaded right now. Because all of these things, the
increasing sexual violence here in Turkey, the fight against ISIS in Kobanê and generally
in Kurdistan and elsewhere, the protection of Muslims—because this woman was a veiled
practicing Muslim, actually—all of these things are linked together.
Just talking to her was very, very emotional, and I’m very happy that this struggle of
women like her, who have gone through years of domestic violence and now can be
politicians in the public sphere, that this same struggle is now being talked about in a
radio show in Chicago. That just makes me really happy. That’s why I thank you for having
me on the show.
CM: Well, thank you for being on, and enjoy the rest of your day in Kurdistan. Take care.
DD: You too. Bye, bye.
Home »
» ROJAVA VERSUS THE WORLD - shortened transcrip to audio of