Resisting Turkish Imperialism in Rojava ft Debbie Bookchin

We talk with Debbie Bookchin and researcher Meghan Bodette about the revolution in northern Syria, the Kurdish freedom movement, and how to prevent Turkey from carrying out their plans to wipe it out.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to It Could Happen Here,
a podcast about things falling apart and occasionally about how
to put them back together again. And today we have
a special episode we're gonna be talking about a place
where things did in fact fall apart and that people
are you could say, still in the process of putting
them back together again and trying to do it in
a way that is much more equitable and better than

(00:28):
things have been before the collapse. That is Rojaba in
Northeast Syria. UM. I'm going to introduce kind of that
concept in h I'll do it right now. Basically if
you if you don't know anything about this, you might
check out our podcast The Women's War UM. But it
is a it is an autonomous region, not a state
in northeast Syria that is not under the control of

(00:49):
the Assad regime UM or of any other state in
the area. It's an independent UM community that is based
on some pretty radical it's it's organ to zation is
based on some pretty radical political philosophies UM in large
part ones that were sort of initially explored by a
man named Murray Buchin, who is an American social theorist

(01:10):
and anarchists anarchist political philosopher Um and some of his
ideas were adopted by the leader of a militant group
in the region called the p K k Um And
the leader of that group was a guy in a
Turkish prison named of Dula Augelan, who was you might say,
a Kurdish freedom fighter. Um Augelon encountered books ideas and
started writing his own books of political theory that we're

(01:32):
kind of based off of them. And then when uh,
two thousand thirteen, you get the Syrian Civil War reaches
its kind of height, Isis becomes the thing. Suddenly the
government's not in this area that has a large Kurtish population,
Northeast Syria, and you know, people who are followers of
Augelan takeover and start as they're fighting. Isis instituting this

(01:54):
kind of radical feminist, egalitarian vision of society which is
currently under attacked by the Turkish government, which is what
we're gonna be talking about. So I want to introduce
our guests for today. First off, we have have James
Stout and we have Chris on the call from our
normal Cool Zone team, and then our guests today are
Debbie book Chin Debtie is a journalist and author and
co editor of the Next Revolution, Popular Assemblies and the

(02:16):
Promise of Direct Democracy. UM. And then we also have
Megan Bodette from the Kurdish Peace Institute, where she is
the director of research. UM. Welcome to the show, Megan
and Debbie. Thank you, it's great to be here. Thank
you so much, really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you both

(02:37):
for your time. I think maybe to start us out, Megan, UM,
would you be willing to talk a little bit about
why the Turkish government is so aggressive towards this independent
region in northeast Syria and kind of what the situation
on the ground is now. Yeah, absolutely so. For some background, essentially,

(02:57):
since the division of the Middle East into the modern
nation states that exist there today after World War One,
with the agreements by European powers, the Kurdish people have
been divided between four different states Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria,

(03:18):
and all of those states have had governments that have
been ethno nationalists, that have been repressive, that have not
provided Kurds and other ethnic and religious minorities equal citizenship rights, UM,
to participate in politics and to practice their culture, to
speak their language. UM. In addition to denying many of
these rights to many of their other citizens of different

(03:39):
ethnicities and religions as well. And so as a result
of this repression, and the repression in Turkey was some
of the strongest and most systemic um the Kurdish people
in these regions have continued to struggle for and demand
self determination and freedom in different political forms. What happened
in Turkey in the nineteen twenties and the nineteen thirties,

(04:02):
there were Kurdish revolts against the new um Turkish Republic,
which was a very autocratic nation state that denied the
existence of all non Turkish ethnicities. And these revolts were
all violently put down with attacks that not only targeted
those who tried to resist these policies of assimilation, but

(04:25):
that also resulted in um Turkish you know, mass violence
against Kurdish civilians in these regions. You had forced deportations,
you had ethnic cleansing, you had all kinds of brutal
violence against civilians in order to specifically create this homogeneous
Turkish ethnic identity in Kurdish regions. And so after this

(04:47):
period of time, there were um there was a period
wherein there was less resistance, and I think, you know,
the Turkish government believed that the Kurdish problem had been
solved by force. They had successfully been able to kill
or assimilate all of the Kurdish people. But in the

(05:07):
nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties, sort of concurrent with
many national liberation movements around the world, you had the
beginning of the PKK or the Kurdistan Workers Parties national
liberation struggle. Now, they began as a socialist movement seeking
an independent and socialist Kurdish state, and they saw Kurdistan
as a colony that was occupied by Turkey, and with

(05:30):
the colonialism of Turkey in Kurdistan, was supported by imperialist
powers in the rest of the world as well, and
they sought to write that as other national liberation movements
in Africa, Asia, Latin America many places at the time
did with an armed struggle for independence. And in responding

(05:51):
to the PKK's formation and armed struggle, the Turkish state
once again, rather than acceding to any Kurdish demands, they
responded with brutal, violent oppression of not only Kurds who
were active in the armed struggle, not only politically active Kurds,
but on all forms of Kurdish identity. After the military

(06:14):
coup in Turkey in nineteen eighty, the Kurdish language was banned.
UM Kurds were imprisoned on false charges or no charges
at all. UM torture was prevalent, show trials were prevalent.
UM any kind of publication or other public interaction in
Kurdish was completely illegal. So there was this full scale

(06:34):
effort to repress the Kurds and any other progressive segments
of society in Turkey that would have supported them, and
as the conflict went on, Turkey did very little to change.
By the nineteen nineties, the success of the Kurdish movement
had forced the state to recalibrate, as had developments in
Iraqi Kurdistan with Kords, they're achieving autonomy and so you

(06:57):
started to have the ability of Kurdish political actors to
work within the system. We saw the development of pro
Kurdish legal political parties at that time, but there was
still very severe repression of any and all things Kurdish
as they made their demands, even of those who increasingly

(07:17):
attempted to make demands peacefully. So the conflict went on
throughout the nineteen nineties and the two thousands and to
this day UM despite a peace process between the government
of Turkey and the PKK and the Kurdish movement between
and UM. That process failed. When Radwan's government saw that

(07:43):
it was allowing for Kurds to take advantage of expanded
democratic space in Turkey organized and achieve electoral political success,
the government abandoned its commitments and sadly returned to war,
and the conflict has been going on ever since and
has included, you know, again, not only this military component,

(08:04):
but this component of crushing all forms of organized Kurdish
political and cultural expression. So what we've been seeing in
Turkey over the past UM nearly a decade, now more
than a half decade, is the repression of the pro
Kurdish political opposition in parliament, the People's Democratic Party or
the HDP. UM. We've seen repression of Kurdish media, attacks

(08:26):
on Kurdish journalists. UM, we've seen any kind of Kurdish activism,
not only UM that that's explicitly political, but any kind
of acknowledgment of the Kurdish language, of Kurdish colors, of
Kurdish clothing very readily criminalized and this campaign of attacking
and repressing all things Kurdish has of course expanded beyond

(08:48):
Turkey's borders. So Turkey opposes North Anys Syria because the
Syrian Kurds have created a form of autonomous governance that
protects and promotes Kurdish rights, because they have done so
in the framework of the Kurdish freedom movement that has
its roots in Turkey UM and in Ochelan's ideas, as
you explained, and because they've been able to create a

(09:10):
successful alternative to the very sort of nationalist project that
the modern Turkish state is based on. You know, I
would say that the Turkish Kurdish conflict, and I don't
like to call it that, but that is what most
people call it today, is really a conflict now over
to competing visions of regional order with Turkeys based on

(09:32):
the right ring wing neoliberal nation state and the Kurdish
movement's vision of a Middle East based on self determination, liberation,
equality for women, and other values not only for birds,
but for all people. So because Northern East Syria represents
UM both Kurdish success and in creating an autonomous region,

(09:55):
and it represents these ideas of the Kurdish freedom movement
that challenge Turkish National Project UM. Turkey has been trying
to destroy the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria
by all possible means for a very long time now.
They've invaded Syrian territory twice to attack the Autonomous Administration
and the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces, once in a

(10:18):
Frina in two thousand and eighteen Afrina Is in northwestern Syria,
and then once in two thousand nineteen after UM, you
know Trump and air Tawan's phone call that we all
infamously remember, in Seri Kanier and tal Abiad in northeastern Syria.
So you've had these two invasions and occupations of UM

(10:38):
North and East Syria's territory that have included not only
the terrible violence of invasion and occupation, but also all
kinds of crimes against civilians who remained. We've seen uptakes
in violence and abuse of women, ethnically motivated, religiously motivated
hatred and persecution that's driven virtually all of the non

(11:00):
Arab and non Muslim people living in these regions to
flee their homes. Attacks on anyone who is perceived as
having collaborated with the prior administration all being carried out
by Turkey and Turkish back Syrian militia groups. So we've
seen the persecution of the civilians in these areas with
the intent of changing demographics and installing not only a

(11:22):
government sympathetic to Turkey and the military structure sympathetic to Turkey,
but also removing the social base for the Autonomous Administration's project.
And then, in addition to these all out attacks on
the Autonomous Administration in these regions, Turkey continues to threaten
the territory that North Aneast Syria does have left, which
is still nearly one third of Syrian territory concentrated in

(11:44):
the northeast. There's been an escalating campaign of drone strikes
targeting leaders in the Autonomous Administration and the STF, as
well as Syrian civilians. Turkey is cutting water access to
North Aneast Syria by restricting the flow of the Euphrates River.
This is an agricultural region. People depend on that water
for all aspects of life um and certainly for the economy.

(12:08):
That's caused a great deal of suffering. The entire Turkish
Syrian border is very heavily militarized, when you drive by
it and you see the wall and you know, very
lit up at night with the barbed wire and everything,
and you just look at you know, these civilian towns,
very peaceful on both sides. It's something very disturbing to see. UM.

(12:28):
But it's a highly militarized border and it is completely
sealed border. UM. Turkey does not trade with North in
East Syria and supports an international economic blockade on the region,
including by pressuring its allies to restrict the access of
goods to North and East Syria. So there's economics they're

(12:48):
going on there. There are really every tactic that Turkey
is able to use, whether military, economic, environmental, political, or
anything else in order to crush and destroy on with
any serious political project and force the Kurdish people and
the other peoples of that region to flee so that
there is no base for such a project again in

(13:10):
the future. They're doing everything they can to achieve that outcome.
So the situation is very difficult, and it is a
direct result of Turkey's you know, century old Kurdish question
that it has been unable and unwilling to honestly and
in good faith a peaceful solution to UM. And we'll

(13:33):
get to it later, but the international community has played
a very big role in ensuring that that conflict goes
on with all of those negative consequences for Northeast Syria. Yeah,
I mean, and that's one of the obviously Turkey is
the second largest military in NATO UM and has you know,

(13:54):
one of the things that is such like so messy
about this is that on paper and on the ground,
in fact, the United States has been supporting the Autonomous
Region UM in Northeast Syria and particularly the White PG
and the White PJ, which is you know, the militia
essentially um as as partners in the fight against ISIS.

(14:14):
And still to this day, right now, there's an operation
going on in the Al Whole camp, which is where
a lot of ISIS prisoners are held. UM that is
like a coalition supported operation. At the same time that
the United States is doing this, we're selling weapons to
the people who are have essentially declared the folks that
are military has been aiding a terrorist organization UM, which

(14:36):
is a peculiar in frustrating situation to say the least. Yeah,
And and actually the other thing that's happening, Robert is
that you know, Turkey, while it's threatening a full scale invasion,
they've been doing all of these things that Megan described
sort of on this sort of low intensity warfare scale,

(14:59):
a kind of military strategy that uses a whole variety
of tactics, um that are short of you know, a
full scale invasion, which still may come. And so you know,
there's these extra judicial killings of uh, some of the
leaders of the SDF, which is the Syrian Democratic Forces

(15:19):
which is the sort of umbrella group of the two
militia Kurdish militias that you described, and which also includes
many Arab fighters and others who have who have been
central and defeating ISIS at the cost I might add
of about thirteen thousand lives, you know, and um, you know,
and the and the use of their proxy groups like

(15:41):
the Syrian so called you know s N, a Syrian
National Army, which is really you know, a group of
jihadi militias that Turkey has kind of assembled and now
completely is responsive to Turkey and and is the sort
of shock troops for when they went did go into
Afra and and for these other invasions, um, you know,

(16:03):
economic pressures as Megan described. But the point is that
this kind of warfare, it produces these sort of ongoing
low level attacks, but it keeps it sort of off
the radar of the of the bigger political and and
and media machine, and therefore it keeps it from getting
the attention that it really deserves in Western societies. It

(16:27):
also has the impact of displacing hundreds of thousands of people,
and and uh, you know, and and many hundreds have
also been killed. I'm sure probably you're familiar with some
of the recent bombings by drone that have been occurring
in Rojiva, which you know, including many civilians, school children Turkey.

(16:50):
Turkeys doesn't care at all about about who gets hit,
and they have been very aggressive, um, without any respect
for civilian cash sualties as well. So you know. So,
I mean, I think it's it's important to also just
note that this democratic project is in Syria is a

(17:11):
deep threat to Turkey because and and that every time
Airdoan steps up these military sort of disaggression, um, it
leads him to bryce slightly in the polls, which is
something that's important to him because he has an election
coming up next year. So there's that sort of political
dimension to it. But the fact is that that Rojeva

(17:33):
is basically a women's revolution. Women are involved in every
aspect of running society there, the political, the social, the economic,
and Turkey is essentially a femicidal state. You know it
not only reviews women within within Turkey is less than
human where husbands can basically get away with murdering their wives.

(17:54):
But you know, it targets girls with drones, as it
did on August eighteenth when a Turkish rome bombed to
you and supported education center for young girls and in
Herseka and Rosava. So you know, it's it's very much,
as Megan said, a war of ideologies as well. Again,

(18:24):
one of the things that's so frustrating with this so historically,
the reason why Turkey was it was so important for
NATO to get Turkey as a member is because that's
essentially NATO's eastern flank. If you're still thinking about that
big theoretical conflict between you know, Russia and UH and
the Western democracies. That was why, you know, part of
why why initially like Turkey was such a valued partner,

(18:46):
and then as time has gone on, it's um primarily
one of the big things is we have a massive
air base in Turkey in sirlik Um, where a number
of US nuclear warheads are kept. UM. So there's a
tremendous fear cowardice might be a better way to say it,
on behalf of politicians in the United States and other
Western countries to actually engage with the ethnic cleansings UM

(19:10):
and with the human rights abuses that the Turkish government,
particularly under Air to One has has continued. And one
of the things that's really frustrating about this, you know,
if you think about the way in which ISIS was
discussed by US media, was discussed by conservatives by Donald
Trump during his campaign, you know, it was this ultimate boogeyman. Well,
a huge chunk of the support for for ISSIS and

(19:33):
in fact, even logistics for some of their fighters came
allegedly courtesy of the Turkish state, and there's some evidence
for this. There's certainly evidence of support for wounded fighters
and kind of a a lax policy that allowed a
lot of people to come through Turkey and get into
northeast Syria to fight UM. And you know, as you

(19:53):
noted earlier, thirteen thousand, somewhere around their fighters men and
women UM in the YPG and J died fighting ISIS
in you know UM, and we're you know, not just
fighting ISIS kind of with the backing of the United States.
But prior to getting any support, one of the most
important things they did the while ISIS was on the

(20:15):
move in Iraq as well as Syria, they were carrying
out an active ethnic cleansing, a genocidal operation in Mount
Sinjar against the z D s UM and that was
only really stopped because while they were fighting a defensive
war in northeast Syria, the YPG sent fighters into Iraq
to stop the genocide UM and they were successful in this.

(20:36):
You know, you talked to IS. I have a lot
of y ZD survivors of the genocide and they'll say,
the only reason we got out is because of you know,
the YPG, UM and the p k K and the PEAK. Well,
and that is that it is. It is, so we
should we could talk a little bit about the p
k K. They are the the YPG and J and
the SDF, which is kind of the umbrella organization are

(20:58):
not recognized as terroristorganizations by the United States or by
most Western democracies. The p k K is recognized as
a terrorist organization. Turkeys allegations would be that the YPG
and j and and other you know militias are just
p KK affiliates. Um. The reality is that they are
in quite a fact quite closely tied um uh and

(21:21):
you will you know, but also there it's not the
exact like when you're in Rajaba and you encounter people
who are p KK, people will speak about them differently
than they will talk about other people who are kind
of you know, they're the folks from the mountains is
the term that I here use the most. But the
thing is, see, here's the problem. The problem is that

(21:42):
that whatever the p k k's history is and has been,
and it's where more than we can get into, the
p k K made a dramatic shift in its ideology
and has done everything possible to try to restart peace
negotiations with Turkey. So first of all, you know, there

(22:04):
are several as Megan mentioned before, there was a piece
initiative that went on for a few years that then
everyone decided wasn't um you know, beneficial to him, so
he stopped it. But the PKK and as recently as
I think a year or two ago, the leader of
the p KK and the Mountains right Najamil Bayek wrote

(22:24):
an op ed for The Washington Post saying, we want
to have talks, We want to have a reconciliation with Turkey.
We're not asking for separate Cornish state. All we want
is some degree of autonomy. And and uh, you know,
and and it's actually to the enduring shame of the
Western media, including the New York Times, that they continue

(22:45):
to talk about them as a separatist organization. But that's
another story as well. The fact is that these um
ideologies that they both subscribe to p k K and
the White PG YPG, regardless of whether to what extent
they may be related. The political ideology is an ideology

(23:08):
about direct democracy. It's about empowering people at the local level.
It's about making sure that every adult and also the
youth have a say in their communities. And it's as
grassroots democratic as anything that you could ever imagine. And
so really, you would think that the United States, you know,

(23:30):
would understand that there's certainly no threat that the neither
the YPG nor the YPG has ever shown any aggression
towards Turkey, which is what makes this idea of a
buff the idea that they need a buffer zone kind
of a joke, you know. So really it's it's an
ideological shift that's so profound and so empowering to local

(23:52):
people that it's also something that frankly, those of us
who are on the left should be much more supportive of,
I think, than than people have been so far. Yeah,
I mean, the thing that is most remarkable because I
spent a lot, I spent more time, certainly in Iraq
than in Syria. And we should note here that we're
talking about Syria today and we're talking about Rojava. Turkish

(24:15):
aggression against particularly UM, against the p KK, but against
you know, Kurd's kind of in an ethnic sense, UM
extends beyond Syria. Turkey has illegally attacked Iraq and in
fact moved troops into Iraqi soil a number of times,
escalating within the last year, and killed a substantial number
of people in the in the Kurdish regional government territories. UM.

(24:38):
So that is also occurring here. Although it's it's worth
noting again because people mix this up a lot. What's
happening in Kurdish control Iraq is profoundly different from what's
happening in Rojava, and they're extremely different political organization. Yeah.
I think it's also worth mentioning that it's not just
UM Kurdish groups have been attacking in Iraq. There's been

(24:59):
a bun of attacks, like a yeah, it's killed a
bunch of those people too. It is the yeah, they're
just they're doing the genocide again. Yeah, I think, yeah,
it's u it's interesting, you know, I uh, it's also
kind of worth. The thing that was perhaps most surprising

(25:20):
to me there was the degree to which people I
would meet who were just like in many cases just
like kind of you know, terrorism police assays guys, or
people who were like working traffic checkpoints, are working in
the farms. There were people were really careful to not
refer or talk to like what the project was as
a state, and it's it's not on a state a state,
it's an autonomous region. That's one of the terms I

(25:41):
heard the most is the autonomous regions, which is is
really interesting to me. And it's it's hard. It's something
certainly like mainstream media writing about it, UM seems to
have trouble grasping, as you say, And it's it's interesting
because obviously, Debbie, in case folks haven't put it together
you are the daughter of Murray book Chin, who is
the who is the political philosopher whose ideas formed a

(26:04):
significant core of of sort of what the organizational structure
in is. UM. Well, I just want to say, first
of all, thank you for that. But I also just
want to say that I really want to remind everybody that,
of course, you know, Abdullah Chelan read hundreds and hundreds
of books, not just my dad's, so I mean, I

(26:25):
appreciate that, but you know they have He has really
especially placed emphasis on the need for any revolutionary project
to have the liberation of women at its core. My
dad talked a lot about hierarchy and patriarchy, but Chilan,
by making women central, has really done something unique I think,

(26:46):
you know, in in the history of because in the
history of sort of revolutionary you know movements, because as
many women who have participated in those movements in the
past can tell you, it was always sure fight with
us and will do with the women's issue when the
revolution is over, and a Gelan turned that upside down,
you know, and he said it's got to be a

(27:06):
women's revolution. And the women in those movements over there
really fought for that themselves. To UM, and one of
the things that you know, it was most interesting for
me to see, UM, was when I would go into
meetings there with women in all kinds of different you know,
military and civilian institutions and different cities across the region,

(27:27):
that before I would even bring it up as a researcher,
you know, women would say to me that if it
weren't for A. Gelan's theories, we wouldn't have the organizations
that we had, we wouldn't have the political power that
we have. And they have this incredible articulation of how
they use these ideas, you know, as inspiration for their
own work and also as almost political cover to do

(27:50):
kinds of things that wouldn't be accepted in other places
because they can go to men who they work with
who might be suspicious, but who you know, have this
public stated claim to this ideology and they can say, well,
Gelon's books say that society can never be free without
women's liberation, that women's can have their own separate institutions.

(28:12):
So they've been able to really take these ideas and
expand on them and you know, push them and use
them with their own practice. UM. And the way that
the ideas came about themselves. One book that I would
recommend anyone interested in the Kurdish movement, UM, in revolutionary
women's movements anywhere in the world, and really any topic

(28:34):
related to any of this to read is UM, the
autobiography of Sakina Johnson's, who was the only woman present
for the founding of the PKK and was really instrumental
in organizing both the armed and civilian sides of the
Kurdish women's movement in Turkey. UM there are pictures of
her everywhere in Syria. She was assassinated in France in

(28:57):
two thousand thirteen by Turkey nationalists affiliated with the state,
likely suspected, you know, hoping to disrupt the peace negotiations
that were ongoing at that time. But she's remembered everywhere
in northeast Syria for her role, and you can see
in her book her talking about seeing the inequalities that,
as Debbie mentioned, women in socialist movements and revolutionary movements

(29:20):
often faced where they were asked to, you know, be
as committed to this struggle as their male comrades were,
but we're still treated in very patriarchal ways by men
that they worked with, because you know, the patriarchy embedded
into these societies, and you see her talking about organizing
women to overcome this. UM. And when you look at

(29:43):
the history of the Kurdish movement moving into what you
see in Northeast Syria as well, you know, women were
really able to do so much in practice that the
theory had to move to catch up to them. And
then to take this new incredible theory of you know,
women's oppression being the basis of all oppression UM and
the form of oppression that you know must be addressed

(30:04):
to free all members of society in all ways. You know,
they took this and they continued to expand it so
in a very difficult place in context to do so.
I mean we know that in more UM, there's more
violence against women, there's more discrimination, there's more emphasis on
traditional gender rules. That this holds true across different societies

(30:24):
and different conflicts. So they have UM that they face
many challenges. They're up against a lot here, certainly, you know,
with all the problems UM that they're facing in Northeast
Syria because of conflict and poverty, UM, everything that Turkey
is doing that we've discussed, So they're up against a
lot and it's not easy, but they've really, you know,

(30:46):
they've come incredibly far. Um. And seeing how you know,
they've taken very high level theoretical ideas and then done
so much in practice, and how their practice and theory
from each other. Um, really one of the most incredible
things to see over there. Um. And it's another reason
why Turkey wants to destroy them, because arid Land does

(31:07):
not believe that women can be equal to men. Um.
He does not see male violence against women as a problem.
And yeah, you know, as we've discussed, Turkey and the
Kurdish movement couldn't be any more different on this question. No,
And it's um, I think the thing because you know,
going over there, I went with the eye as a
journalist where like I had heard all these things and

(31:28):
and Rojava has kind of become among some chunks of
the left, chunks of the left that cause celeb in
part because of you know, the achievements of the revolution
in that space, and I wanted to see how legitimate
is it? And um. Part of why you know I
kind of went in with that attitude is that I
had spent so much time in the Kurdish regions of Iraq,
and if if you remember when the fighting against ISIS

(31:51):
was at its height, there was a tremendous amount of
coverage of the female Peshmerga and the fact that you know,
the Kurds in northern Iraq, who were the worst force
in Iraq that collapsed the least when ISIS was on
the advance. Um, it's overstated how well they did. That's
why the YPG needed to rescue the z e s
At Sinjar Is. The the Kurdish military in northern Iraq

(32:12):
just kind of bounced at that point. But um, you know,
I had heard about you know these that that this
woman's right situation is great in northern Iraq. It's very egalitarian.
There's women fighters, and it is it's certainly and anyone
who lives there will tell you much safer and easier
to be a woman. In the KRG, the Kurdish region
like control Kurdish Regional Government parts of Iraq than it

(32:34):
is further south in the country. But that doesn't mean
it's it's good. It is. It is more like certain
things are somewhat more tolerated, there's more freedom, but it's
still a very traditionalist society. And for example, I didn't
see any female Peshmerga. UM, they did not make much
of a presence on the ground and and there there

(32:54):
their involvement in the fighting was exaggerated somewhat as part
of a conscious pr strategy. UM. As soon as you
cross in to northeast Syria, you see women manning and
running checkpoints stations you see as you go in because
there's like you know, they like you get like passport
and stuff like looked at and you get like stamps
and whatnot. When you kind of come into the to

(33:16):
the region, UM, you see a lot of women like
running that part of the operation. You go in to
the actual country itself and there's we we visited a
restaurant that was run by a collective of women who
had all lost husbands in the fighting. We ran. We
went to a farm that was all young women who
had left their families who were very traditionalist in their

(33:37):
religious attitude. UM. And and go on independent and of
course you see um, female military units and female we
saw mixed male and female like military policing units and stuff.
And it's it's one of those things that if you
are going there kind of with a critical eye to
try and see how extensive the revolution can be. I
can't imagine not being convinced of the reality of it,

(33:58):
because it's it's just so start well also, Robert, you know,
first of all, just to again, you could say a
lot about what's going on in in Iraqi Kurdistan, but
just to very quickly sum it up, I mean, it
is a capitalist petrol state run by a plan the Barzanies,

(34:18):
you know who who a crew basically all the wealth
to themselves. And you can't even begin to compare it
with with the kind of revolutionary project in Syria. So
I mean, I just want to in case so people understand.
I mean, I don't want to use I hate to
use the word socialist because it's such a it's so fraught,

(34:39):
but you could the closest thing, you know, it's a
it's built on a socialist economic model, except a better one,
well more like what my father and what Abdullah clan
have in mind, which my father called communalism, and this
democratic confederalist model is based on cooperatives, you know, where
people really do um have the means control the means

(35:00):
production as much as possible. I mean, it's obviously all
you know, still in formation, it's still growing and like
the energy sector where things that you know are less
like that. But are I hope in that direction. Yeah,
I mean obviously no, this is certainly not some kind
of perfect utopian in the middle of a war zone.

(35:22):
But but as you pointed out, what you see when
you go there is women so active in every aspect.
I would add to to what the great examples you
gave the women's houses to talk about that right where
they are literally resolving so many problems for both men
and women, you know, at the community level, and and

(35:43):
so it's it's really quite an extraordinary you know, I
guess what I want to say about it is that
like if if we all got on board of you know,
one of that that Cretan elon Musk's space ships and
found a colony you know where they were doing this,

(36:04):
we'd be cherishing it. We'd be going, oh my god.
You know, look at these people. They're like they have
a cooperative economy and they have women's councils at every level. Wow,
men can't overrule women on a decision that comes to
say women's bodies. Think here the Dobbs decision right on
the Supreme Court. Women only women can can decide those

(36:26):
issues that are related to women. And there there are
councils at every level and people sending delegates, you know,
meeting in their little villages and towns and communities and
electing delegates to the next level. It is a true
grassroots democracy, and it's ecological, and it's feminist. It's like
if Ursula La Gwinn we're writing about it and the disgust,

(36:47):
we'd all be going wow. So so really, you know,
it's something that I think, especially anybody who considers themselves
a feminist, you know, should be supporting and and certainly
and I hope all of us do, you know, And
and certainly anybody you know I would think who's an anarchist.
To me, it's pretty close to an every anarchist's dream,

(37:09):
you know. And and so I think, yeah, I just
wanted to make that contrast with Iraq because I think
it's really important, really goes to why the Kurdish project
really needs very badly the support of people in the
United States, because in so many ways, the United States
kind of calls the shots about what can and cannot

(37:32):
happen over there if you look at the problems they have,
you know, to all of that. Because of course, all
of these places are not perfect, and have you know,
these serious issues alongside these serious achievements. Every issue that
they have is an issue that any society would have
if that society had been through ten years of war. Um,

(37:54):
we're impoverished and blockaded from virtually all economic activity with
the outside world if they had had to not only
you know, fight the occupation of a group like ISIS,
but then immediately turn around to fight a state army
much larger than them, you know, bent on taking and
occupying their territory. A society where people fear going outside

(38:15):
because they don't know if they'll be in the wrong
place at the wrong time when there'll be a drone
strike on a local military leader going around doing their
job keeping their communities safe from ISIS, or a local
political leader going around doing their job trying to you know,
build this new system. So I think when we look
at the flaws, their flaws that are the result of

(38:38):
in large part poverty and conflict and all of the
compounding crisis crises that the people of North Aneas Syria
have to face because of what they've gone through, you know,
as Debbie mentioned, much at the hands of larger powers.
So much of what happens in Syria is up to
what the United States wants, up to what Russia wants,

(39:00):
up to what Turkey wants. UM. All of these countries
and regions, you know, with different priorities, different outlooks, but
it somehow happens that at the end of the day,
you know, the one thing they can all agree on
is that, Um, it's okay to sell out the autonomous administration,
It's okay to have consequences for them. You know, if
the Courtish people suffer, the zd people suffer, the people

(39:24):
of northern East Syria, all of these different demographics, if
they're the people who are victimized, you know, because they
don't have a state, because they're fighting for something different,
because they're challenging the status quo, it's okay if they're
the ones who faced the consequences. We saw this, you know,
with what happened with Isis. We saw this with the
complete international silence when a fren was invaded, with the

(39:44):
you know, piecemeal response that stopped the Turkish invasion in
twenty nineteen, but allowed them to convert what they were
doing to this kind of low intensity war. UM. You know,
with a terrible ceasefire, you know, with undefined lines, and
with these drone strikes being allowed in air is where
Russia and the United States, both of which have agreements
with Turkey, are active, um, you know, and both of

(40:06):
whom tolerate this. So essentially every powerful interest in Syria
can agree on, you know, ensuring that the autonomous administration
comes in last. And as people in the US, you know,
anyone who considers themselves on the left, who considers themselves
a feminist, who cares about persecuted ethnic and religious minorities,

(40:28):
who opposes endless war and militarist foreign policy that props
up autocrats and you know, props up far right regimes.
Anyone with any of those values should be very concerned
about the situation in Northeast Syria right now and should
be looking at what we can do to UH, to
get our government to stop supporting some of these very
harmful policies against the region, you know, even while it

(40:50):
claims to be supporting their fight against isis. What can
people listening here, presumably most of you are in the
United States or Canada or Western Europe, What can people

(41:13):
listening here, particularly in the US, do they have an
impact to help. Well, we could talk about that. Um,
we could have an entire other podcast episode on that,
because there's a lot to be done. But you know,
to summarize in a few words, the way that the
United States supports Turkey's war on the Kurdish people, all
the peoples of the region and the Kurdish National Liberation

(41:36):
movement is through military cooperation and support, through diplomatic cooperation
and support, intelligence sharing, and these pro war legal pretexts.
So go tell Congress that you don't want them to
send weapons to Turkey. There's an EP six team sale
right now. That Um, it was really great to see

(41:58):
the majority of Congress in Looting. All of the squad members,
people like AOHC. Rashida Talai, Bilhan Omar all opposed that sale.
So opposing arms sales very important something that there's momentum
there for um and that there's momentum among progressives therefore,
which is very heartening. Opposing military aid and security assistance

(42:21):
to Turkey. You know, I've done research on this. U
S Security assistance has trained senior Turkish officials, including the
country's current defense minister and several perpetrators of the violent
repressive nineteen eighty military coup. Obviously, we should not be
training coup plotters and war criminals. That is not something
I think most people learning this want their tax dollars

(42:42):
to go to. So calling for an end to U
S security assistance to Turkey very important in addition to
ending those arms sales and challenging the pro war legal
pretexts and designations that allowed Turkey to get this kind
of Western support. Or you know, a wonderful thing that
we saw a couple of weeks back was the Democratic

(43:04):
Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the US,
saying that they oppose the terror designation of the PKK
and believe it should be delisted. That's something that progressive
support very strongly. In Europe. We've seen, you know, calls
from places like Ireland and South Africa where people know

(43:24):
a lot about you know what terror designations and you know,
the criminalization of struggles, you know, can can have impacts
on conflict resolution. You know, people who participated in these
kinds of post conflict processes in some of these places
saying get rid of the designation. It's harmful for peace.
You know, it will be difficult to end this less
violently without it. So that's something where you know, it

(43:48):
seems the international case for it is something that's rather obvious,
and where pressure in the US on the US designation
to remove it would be an important step for facilitating
dialogue and a negotiated end to this conflict. So understanding
how the US supports Turkey's wars on the Kurdish people

(44:09):
and opposing all of those different policies and programs as
one of the most important things that we can do
to say this war is not in our name. We
stand with the people of northeast Syria, with the people
in Turkey suffering from Turkish authoritarianism, with the people in Iraqi, Kurdistan,
uzd S and Shngal being bombed by Turkish drones. When

(44:30):
we say that we don't want to support this war,
we stand with all of those people. Um And I
think that that kind of action against arms, sales, security assistance,
and pro war legal pretexts could be a really great
base for solidarity opposing endless war in the Middle East
and standing up for you know, peacefully ending this conflict.

(44:50):
Um And it would align us with progressives all around
the world, and you know, people who really believe in
in peace and in ending these kinds of things. And
and if I could just add, you know, one one
element to that would also be really pressing for a
diplomatic solution to the whole so called Kurdish question, because

(45:15):
Rojeva will remain in danger as long as air Dewan
and and his and his party think that they can
basically that they have to be fighting Kurds because you know,
to them, as Megan said before, Rojeva is an extension
of their own Kurds and of the PKK. So what
but but what really needs to happen, just as as

(45:38):
it happened in South Africa, is there has to be
a negotiated settlement. One of the things that would help
with this, and there are movements that people can get
involved with if they want, would be free in a
Chelan who has been in a sitting in a Turkish
jail for the last twenty two years because he is
sort of the Nelson Mandela really of of the Kurdish

(45:58):
freedom movement, and he's would be involved in these negotiations
and was even while he was in jail. But really,
you know, a jail person can't really do that properly,
So pressing for a diplomatic solution because basically rat one
uses the p k k UM and the listing of

(46:20):
the PKK as a terrorist organization to basically kill all
Kurds everywhere, and in order to stop that, somehow there
has to be a break in this. And so I
think that, you know, people, there are certainly plenty of
peace organizations and people who want to work on peace,
and I think this is a really important demand that

(46:41):
they begin that the United States and the United States
has nothing to lose by pressuring Turkey to engage in
negotiations with the p k k This is an hour war.
The p KK has never done anything to the United States.
It would make, as Megan said, for a lasting peace
in the entire Middle East, And would you know, And

(47:02):
and so what I would say is, first of all, folks,
would be great if people who want more information about
any of this could contact the organization that I helped
co found, the Emergency Committee for Rojeva, which is at
defend Rojeva dot org. And we have scripts to call

(47:22):
congress Person's resources and we even have fun monthly meetings
that people can come to. Um you know, and there's
of course a lot of information at Megan's website also
Kurdish Peace dot org. But you know, one of the
things that people could do is go out and talk
to their communities, whether it's a religious community or a

(47:43):
labor union or a food coop or your kids nursery
school or reading group, women's group, and sort of talk
and and help because there's a lot of people who
surprisingly really don't know much about Roojeva. I think maybe
because they're the cause, the Zabatistas are a little closer
geographically that that project is a bit better known, you know,

(48:06):
So talking to people and getting people engaged, and for example,
if there's anybody listening from New Jersey. Bob Menendez is
the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he's
been pretty hostile towards Air to one and and keeping
on him with phone calls emails is a great way,
you know, for for our m As somebody who worked

(48:30):
in Washington for a while when I worked for Bernie Sanders,
I know that these guys listen to their constituents, you know,
and if they get enough calls, they start to pay
attention to those things that they come around. We could
even get, you know, somebody to send a letter around
to their colleagues in Congress saying, you know, it's time
to start peace negotiations. Those kinds of things do have

(48:53):
impact because, as I said before, unfortunately the United States
is really at the helm and on so many ways
of what happens internationally in these geopolitical battles. UM. Well,
thank you so much, Debbie, Thank you so much, Megan. UM.
I think that's that's going to do it for us today. UM. Please,

(49:14):
you know, continue paying attention to this. Um. Did you
want to you know, Megan, did you have anything else
you wanted to kind of kind of add um or
let people know actually both of you would let people
know where they can follow you on the internet. Yeah. Well,
I mean I think that that about covers it. Look,
the only solution for peace, democracy and self determination in

(49:38):
Turkey and in the wider Middle East is a just
and democratic, negotiated settlement to the Kurdish question. And I
think that just as Debbie said, learn about what's going on,
reach out to your communities, talk to your local Kurdish
community if there is one, find the opportunities that there
are to engage with people in Turkey, in Syria and

(50:01):
all of these places, you know, working for peace and
standing up for these ideas, and then no efforts too small,
because ending this conflict would benefit everyone in Northeast Syria,
everyone in Turkey and all of us here, you know,
knowing that our government was no longer supporting this terrible,
unjust war. UM, So just get out there and do something. UM.

(50:24):
To see the work that the think tank where I
work UM is doing on this issue, you can go
to Kurdish Peace dot org where we have research and
analysis on everything related to do related to the Kurdish
issue from all different perspectives, and you can check out
our work there, UM. And you can follow me on

(50:45):
Twitter UM Megan Bodette and the Twitter handle is at
five underscores m j B excellent. My Twitter is simpler.
It's just Debbie book Shin at Debbie book Action. And
again I just want to say that you know people
we do at defend Rojeva dot org and we're also

(51:08):
on Twitter at defend Rojeva. We have so many ideas
and so much information about how people can get involved.
Is making said, if nothing else, no more weapons to
Turkey until they begin peace negotiations, give Rojeva political recognition,
that would be another thing people can be demanding also

(51:31):
that curds have a place at the bargaining table and
any discussions about the future of Syria. So we have
all those kinds of ideas, scripts, as I said, model
emails and more at defend Rojeva dot org. Awesome, UM,
thank you all for for being on and um, yeah,
that's going to do it for us here. It could

(51:51):
happen here for the day. Thank you for having us. Thanks.
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from the cool Zone Media, visit our
website cool zone media dot com or check us out
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It

(52:13):
could happen here, updated monthly at cool zone media dot
com slash sources. Thanks for listening.