May 10, 2024 • 36 mins
James, Robert, and Mia are joined by Debbie Bookchin (@debbiebookchin) and Arthur Pye (@TheArthurPye) to talk about the situation in Rojava, how listeners can help, and the ECR’s upcoming speaking tour.
For more information about the Emergency Committee for Rojava and their upcoming West Coast speaking tour (May 11-17) featuring Debbie Bookchin and Arthur Pye, go to defendrojava.org or follow @defendrojava on any social media platform.
For a more in-depth reflection on the Rojava revolution, Arthur's recent writings can be found in Strange Matters magazine. https://strangematters.coop/arthur-pye-rojava-reporting-preface/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All Ze Media. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here,
a podcast about it happening here. And you know, when
we talk about like collapse, things falling apart, there's very
few case studies that are more important for folks to
(00:23):
be aware of than what has happened and is continuing
to happen in Northeast Syria, in a region of the
world known as Rojava or the Autonomous Regions of Northeast Syria.
And I'm here with James Stout. He and I have
both reported from the ro Javon project, and we are
talking again with Arthur and Debbie Bookchin about what's going
(00:47):
on there now, kind of as the struggle continues, so
to speak.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That's right, and thank you very much for joining us. Arthurine, Debbie,
and you're both here in your capacity as representatives of
the Emergency Committee for Rajava.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Right, that's right, and thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, thanks for coming back.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
So I think perhaps we should begin by explaining what
ECI is and does. I've been very fortunate to be
asked to speak at one of your meetings, so I'm familiar,
but I think maybe some of our listeners wouldn't be.
So could you begin with explaining what it is what
it does.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Yeah, absolutely, so, the Emergency Committee for Rojeva is it's
kind of the only standing US based organization focused on
solidarity with the Rojeva Revolution. And what we do is
we try to build a grassroots solidarity movement with the
revolution in North East Syria, with the Curtis Freedom movement
(01:45):
more broadly, and we do that in a few different ways.
One is like just trying to inform the public right
so kind of public education. Another is advocacy trying to
sort of put pressure on the United States government to
stop arming people who are trying to kill everybody in
Rogevo and to support the people instead. But another thing
(02:07):
that we do is try to build kind of movement
to movement relationships. None like finding social movements in the
United States that we think share a lot of affinity
with movement over there, try to put them in touch
and try to kind of facilitate dialogue.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
No, I mean I think it's important to kind of start,
as we often do, with the attempt to get the
US government to stop arming folks killing the people there,
which in this case refers specifically to the Turkish military.
I mean, we're all kind of dealing with in a
separate part of the world, how difficult it is to
stop the United States government from arming people.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Do that, right, Yeah, it's a great point, Robert. You know,
I think sometimes it's hard for people to even comprehend
just the massive flow of weapons from the United States
to Turkey. I mean, over the years it's been it's
just I think in the last fifteen years alone, the
US has sold Turkey something like four billion dollars worth
(03:10):
of Patriot missiles alone, you know, and then billions or
at least millions, and you know, helicopters, the Cobra attack helicopters.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
There is just a huge.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Flow of arms from the United States to Turkey. And
as Arthur said, you know, one of the things that
we really do try and do at ECR is to
get people not only aware but also into doing some
advocacy on that. And one of the things that we're
also trying to prevent right now is the sale of
(03:44):
any more F sixteen's to Turkey, which, as I'm sure
your listeners know, are used in the bombing of people
in Rojeva and also in Turkey and in northern Iraq.
So that's a very critical issue in.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Fact, yeah, yeah, and it's a critical issue in part
because like what we're seeing is a I would describe
it as a pretty concentrated attempt to destroy civil society
in Rojeva, right, Like, you're absolutely not just through the
use of air strikes, through things like blocking off access
to water, but the f sixteens that Turkey purchases from
(04:24):
the United States and the continuing armaments to keep those
things flying and firing missiles are a huge part of
how they're able to continue degrading the capacity of the
self administration to maintain civil society exactly.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
I mean, there is really an aim there, aim to
completely destabilize the society, to shake confidence and the autonomous administration,
to break morale, to engage in psychological terror, and frankly,
you know, also to do physical harm. As I'm sure
you know and your listeners know. They Turkey very effectively
(05:02):
uses drones and other methods to take out leadership, particularly
female leadership, women who are leaders of the movement. And
you know, there's not a day that goes by really
that doesn't include strikes from Turkey into Rojeva. I mean,
I'm just thinking, you know, the Membij military Council just
(05:26):
has reported in the last couple of days that the
State of Turkey has shelled various villages and membies. You
know that Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo are really subjected to
continuous embargoes by the Damascus government, but also you know,
(05:48):
Turkey intercedes to prevent supplies from getting to these places.
So it's really I think there's something like more than
two hundred bombings by Turkey Racky Kurdistan even since just
the beginning of the year, So it's really ongoing assault.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
No, absolutely, I think you know, for people who are
less familiar with it, it's easy to kind of get
bogged down in the weeds because all the details they
change every day. But I think the broadze strokes are pretty.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Clear and they haven't changed for a long time. I mean,
Turkey sees.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
This revolution rightly so as a threat to its own power,
to its own ideology. You know, the idea that local
communities would govern themselves pluralistically through autonomy is a direct
threat to the idea of the Turkish state, which is
basically a fascist nation state. And they kind of have
a twofold strategy. I think you could see it this way, right. So,
(06:46):
like for those who don't know, Turkey has already invade
in Northeastiria multiple times. It's invaded Euphrine in twenty eighteen,
set Kanye te Labiat in twenty nineteen, and it occupies
that territory still to this day. But when it's been
unable to seize more territory directly, it kind of has
this twofold strategy where the other side of the coin
(07:07):
is to just do everything possible to make life unlivable, right,
So that's where the assassinations come in.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
That's where the sort.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Of information warfare, blocking of water, sort of economic embargo.
The basic idea is just to spread fear, to spread
uncertainty into every sphere of life, and like you said, Robert,
to basically attack civil society itself.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, I wonder if you could explain. I think our
listeners are maybe familiar with the campaign against civil society
and civilian targets that we saw in October November of
last year, that I saw some of while I was there.
But Turkey's recently launched like a spring offensive, right, which
(07:51):
doesn't isn't exclusively unlimited to bombing, but also it contains
like I guess combined ons infantry bombing. Can you explain
what's happening there and what the sort of I think
the plan you've sort of very well summed up already, right,
which is to make life unlivable for the Kurdish freedom movement.
(08:11):
But can you explain what's been happening in the last
few weeks for people who haven't caught up.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
So for one, for people to understand the connection in
the first place, right, it's important to understand that really,
while there are distinct organizations which are autonomous and are
place based within the Kurdish movement, right there's they have
their own parties and self defense forces in Syria and
in Iraq and other parts of Kurdistan.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
It's important to see it also.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
As kind of one big Kurtish freedom movement in another
sense and an important sense, because Turkey sees it in
that light. So for the same reasons the Turkey wants
to crush the revolution in northeast Syria, the Turkey wants
to crush the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party, right, and
the gorillas of the PKK are based in northern Iraq,
and time and time again they've tried to sort of
(09:00):
dislodge the gorilla forces from the mountains.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
But it's pretty hard to do.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
You know, this is NATO's second largest military and they
still after decades, have not been able to crush this
like insurgency, and so what we're seeing.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
In recent weeks is not necessarily so novel.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
I mean, you can, again, you can get into the
weeds about the region of Metina and a particular road
that they're trying to seize for logistics on their way
to the mountain of Ghara. But the truth is they're
trying to crush the movement where it is and they're
seizing an opportunity. There's often like a weather window for
the fighting in the mountains as well, and so when
(09:39):
the snow starts to melt in the spring, you start
to see an escalation of the fighting in the mountains,
which often winds down in the fall.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Again, but it's yet to be seen how this is
going to go.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
I mean, y'all have I don't have to tell you right,
like you've done some recent episodes on technological developments with
the movement, and Turkey's been having a really hard time
gains on the ground.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
And also I mean, as I think as Megan Bodette
noted on this podcast recently, you know, the Turkish leader
Erdowan tends to take out any insults he feels he suffered,
and particularly elections setbacks has happened in the local elections
at the end of March on the Kurdish regions everywhere
(10:22):
in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and so we're seeing also crackdowns
has happened also for quite some time, but on journalists
again sort of cranking up again. It's funny that on
World Press Day, which was May third, Kurdish journalist was arrested,
(10:48):
you know, strip search, a woman thrown in jail, and
this is you know, another sort of wave of politicians
being arrested. Just again on Monday, I think thirteen politicians
were sentenced to six years plus in jail in prison.
So this sort of policy that seems to show itself
(11:13):
every time Airdawan feels a bit threatened is one that
we're seeing right now, in part I think as a
result of those election defeats that his party suffered.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Absolutely, and as sinister as it is, whenever they lose
in the mountains, they often hit harder in North Eastyria
and vice versa. So it's all just a big kind
of ugly game that they're playing.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Well, I want to get to some more here, but
first we've got to take a quick break. We're going
to throw to some ads and then we'll come back
and continue this discussion. All right, we're back, and I'm
(12:04):
trying to get a sense of how the situation is
on the ground right now despite the or considering the
challenges of the attacks on infrastructure that have continued to
go on, Like, what are we looking at from a
daily life point of view in places like Camichelo.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Well, you know, one of the things that I think
is important to emphasize is just how strong a lot
of the civil structures really are even in the face
of these attacks by Turkey. And I'm sure Arthur will
have something to say about that, and also about maybe
some of the sort of the military side of this.
But you know, the extraordinary thing about Rojeva is just
(12:48):
how deeply engaged they are on the civil level. In
our group at the Emergency Committee for Rozeva, we're in
contact with a lot of people in civil society and
I'm always amazed at how many sort of requests we
get for you know, exchanges of information and scholars, and
(13:10):
they're building the university there to do more and more
technical things, you know, whether computers or agricultural sciences or
you know, just a vast variety of graduate program they
want to do right now in social ecology that I've
been working with them on. And so, even though there's
(13:32):
this effort by Turkey to kind of terrorize the civilian population,
and I'm sure you know, people can imagine what it
must feel like to have drones flying constantly overhead and
wondering if you get into a car whether it might
you might you know, be the subject of a drone attack. Nonetheless,
there is still this extraordinary sort of hopefulness and also
(13:56):
energy towards building the society. And for example, but one
of the things that they recently did, and it took
a long time, but they rewrote their Social Contract, which
is what we would think of as a constitution, to
empower women even more, you know, to empower various ethnic
minorities more, and to make it a document that is
(14:20):
truly inclusive in terms of how it was written and
how it will be implemented, and so on the ground,
I think, even though they are suffering in a lot
of ways, and they are because you know, Rojeve is
also a region that is subject to terrible environmental dislocations
because of global warming. There's still a huge sort of
(14:44):
excitement I think about the fact that they are self
governing and the fact that they are empowering women and
those kinds of activities, especially on the part of the
women's movement. Congress star just continue to you know, they've
built an alternative justice system. They are increasingly turning their
(15:06):
sort of economy as much as is feasible, and it's
a slow process, but into it more of a cooperative economy.
So all of those things are very much underway there.
And education is a huge part of that.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
No, I mean, that's that's also true, it really is.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
But just to speak to kind of the other side
of that, you know, Robert asked, sort of what is
life like, say, in a place like Commushula right now?
You know, I think in some ways it's a lot
like it was when when I was in a place
called Zirgon, which is another frontline city where at the
same time Debbie's describing people, life goes on. People trying
(15:46):
to build up civil society, They're trying to organize the
communes and the cooperatives. At the same time, there's a
tremendous fear and uncertainty, fear in an immediate sense around
these drone strikes. I mean, you guys have been there too,
write like I've been home, I think eleven months now,
and I still every time I hear a small airplane,
my body, just even if my brain knows that it's
(16:09):
just a plane, like, my body's convinced it's a Turkish drone.
And imagine, you know you live your whole life in
a place like that, or you've spent the last ten years,
So a lot of people are living in this constant
state of fear an uncertainty.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Even on a practical level.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
You know, say you're a farmer and you're going to
plant your seats this year, do you know that you're
even going to have your land in a month or
six months? You know, people are taking Turkey's threat of
an invasion seriously. It hasn't happened again since twenty nineteen,
but I can tell you I talk to people there
almost every day, and they're taking it extremely seriously. So
(16:46):
there's kind of this idea of impending invasion sort of
hangs like a cloud over daily life in so many ways.
And on top of all of that, of course, since
I left Northeast Syria, there was this major wave of
attacks against civilian infrastructure right around the time you were
there last, James, you know, and you can probably speak
(17:08):
to it more, but I mean we're talking about power
stations and oil wells and hospitals and schools and food
storage facilities. So they're still really reeling from these infrastructure attacks.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
Cutting off electricity to a million people at a time
and water supplies.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Which is about a third of the population of the region.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, I mean, you know, war crimes. There's another word
for it, that's what they're called.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, it's a very jarring experience at East in my
time there, which is much briefer, and then the amount
of time both of you have spent there to go
out in the daytime and talk to people and see
this incredible optimism for like we are building a different
worlds and like it's there and you can see it
and we're moving towards it. It's not like, you know,
(17:59):
we're building a different world when we have encampments on
campus too, But this is a tangible societal product.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, Well, and that it speaks to that's why the
attacks Turkey is carrying out take the form they're taking, right,
because the priority, the primary strength of the self administration
is not in its arms. It's in its ability to
provide a functional civil society that people are motivated to
(18:26):
take part in, which is why their primary weapon is
to try to destroy the ability of people to live.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah, and that's what it.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Feels like, like you know my experience with a brief
you know, we lost electricity every night. People are not
willing or people are less willing to go out and
drive long distances after dark. There is very clearly damage
to the infrastructure. You know, I was in a couple
of different places. One of them was having issues getting
(18:56):
getting water pumped. There are massive funerals right for people
who have been killed, and you get to see this
what is like it's a beautiful spectacle in a sense,
but also like, you know, you can't spend a week
in Roger were a Nazi a little baby say goodbye
to their dad or just a dead baby, and that's
(19:18):
that's terrible, you know. And like the one thing that
I noticed, which I think people might not have picked
up on, just sort of consuming media the presence of
people hop about martyrs as they call them, right shaheeds.
It's so it's everywhere, Like from the first place I
step foot across the river, you know, there were these portraits,
(19:42):
these yellow and green portraits on around about since cities
and people's homes. Like the scale of the sacrifice both
to build this project and to defeat ISIS, I think
is very hot. I mean in the United States has
been more for most of our lives, but it has
nowhere near the same impact on our data the lives
it has had there.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
There's not a family really in Rogeval. When you spend
some time there and you meet with different people, there's
not a single family that hasn't lost somebody. I mean,
it's thirteen thousand people in the fight against ISIS alone
and now, and not to mention, for example, the two
hundred thousand people who were displaced when Turkey is you know,
(20:26):
jihadi malicious invaded Afrin, the westernmost region. So it's it's
absolutely effect of everyday life.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, every time I spend a lot of time volunteering
at the border, as people listening know, and every time
we meet Kurdish people often they're from Northern Kurdistan, which
is in Turkey under in control of the Turkish State.
I guess even like the volunteers who are not super
briefed out jaba, who are just people who want to help.
(21:00):
Like everyone knows what it means when people when you
talk to people and they have the little green picture
of the little little yellow picture on them, Yeah, which
is it's a profound part of the lived experience of
being part of the Kurdish freedom movement or just existing
as a Kurdish person in that area. And that's it's
it's really hard to grasp the scale of that.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
No, it's so true.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
I mean, it just makes me think that it's kind
of related to this larger sort of spirit of sacrifice
that's part of what the movement calls, like a revolutionary personality.
You know, in a lot of ways, the families of
you know what, they call them martyrs, they also see
it as their sacrifice, it's their contribution to the movement.
(21:41):
And it's it's easy for I think Westerners to kind of,
I don't know, dismiss it or get really uncomfortable with it.
We're not familiar with that on a cultural level as
much but I think it's it's a mistake to see
it that way. I think there's something incredibly profound about
it that has to do with the way that people
(22:01):
really identify their whole lives, the meaning of their lives
with the revolution, with the movement, that that is what,
that is the purpose of their life, that's the purpose
of the life of their their families, and come what may,
that's something that you know, movements here can't really relate
to in the same way.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yet, I think, yeah, and I kind of want to
talk a little bit more about that. We're gonna We're
gonna throw one last time to adds and then we'll
come back and kind of flesh out this discussion, and
(22:44):
we're back talking about like what it means to be
part of a revolution as opposed to someone who has
revolutionary sympathies, which it's easy to be, and we have
a lot of those in the United States. I'm going
to guess most of the people listening to this show
have least some of those, right. Whether or not you
think there's any realistic chance of seeing that during your
(23:05):
own life, it's a very different thing from being from
living it, which people do you know about three million
of them in Rojava every day, and the sacrifice is
a part of it. The kind of continual conflict is
another part of it, because you know, it's worth emphasizing
(23:27):
we're about a decade into the project right now, right
if we consider that being from you know, the start
of the self administration in varying fashions, and that's not
like it's not a perfectly even process, right because it
occurred as part of this series of broader conflicts. But
what you've seen is both the retreat of the government
(23:48):
that had formerly controlled the area. You've seen a successful
war prosecuted against isis you've seen when you could look
at as one conflict or kind of a series of
conflicts with both these Turkish backed militias and the Turkish
military itself. And then this also this continuing conflict both
(24:08):
with the environment, you know, just because that that is
really that that's a force at work here, the Cold War,
that kind of that's not even really a perfect way
of describing the situation with the the Assad regime and
with you know, their their backers and their Russian government,
but it's a it's it's a complex, interwoven series of conflict.
(24:30):
But but kind of the result is just a life
of conflict for the people who are are part of
this revolution as sort of a just a fact of
daily life. And I think that is really hard to grasp.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Mmm.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
I think that's true.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
And I think there's there's part of it, like you say,
that has to do with this the sort of objective situation,
with the conditions that people are living in, this perpetual
conflict that you're talking about, And at the same time,
I think there's also an aspect that's more like, I
don't know, like.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Subjective, you could call it.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
It has to do with the kind of movement that
they've really actively been building for themselves and the kind
of spirit that their movement has taken on that they've
cultivated themselves, sort of painstaking me for years. I mean,
I think one of the things that I know, Debbie
and I really want to get to in our conversations
with the speaking tour that we're working on, which is
(25:25):
coming up later later this month on the West Coast,
is we really, well, we want people to be.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Inspired by this revolution.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
We really don't want people to just see it as
this very like other thing on the other side of
the world, you know, even those who are really supportive,
especially as you know anarchistory, say, fellow travelers, we have
a tendency to kind of maybe oversimplify or romanticize what's
happening over there and think, oh, well, you know, if
(25:52):
the state could just collapse here, I'm sure everybody would
just sort of like melt into an anarchist utopia of statelessness.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
And that would be a mistake too.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
I think the truth is that what Rojava shows you
is a real revolution is incredibly messy, and they only
were able to kind of face the threats and the
opportunities that crisis brought to them in Syria because of
the kind of movement they had built for themselves, and
they had these practical tools to kind of help local
(26:24):
communities govern themselves in that sort of chaos in the
power vacuum that arose. And you know, in a moment
like this the world over, especially here in the United States,
you know, we're the crises that we're facing, the crisis
that we're looking down the barrel of. I think there's
been no more kind of relevant or urgent time to
think about how those lessons actually could apply here and
(26:46):
what it means for us, what kind of movement do
we need to build to be ready for that moment.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
Yeah, you know, I really agree, And Robert, I'm glad
you mentioned, you know, the fact that the revolution is
over ten years old, because I think, you know, and
to follow up sort of just on what Arthur was
saying that sort of sometimes the crises that we face
environmentally logical, global warming and not to mention democracy itself,
(27:13):
you know, can seem almost paralyzing, or that we're constantly
in a state of reaction. But one of the things
that the revolution in Rojev teaches us is that, first
of all, that moments of crisis can also be moments
of great transformation, but really only if we're prepared for them.
(27:36):
And that's why, you know, whenever I talk about the
Rojeva project, I feel it's important to remind people that
it didn't just spring miraculously out of nowhere in the
moment of the Syrian Civil War. The folks on the
ground there had really been preparing for years, I mean decades,
(27:56):
even for the opportunity that opened up for them during
the Syrian Civil War. And in various ways, of course,
they were educating themselves on radical history and particular understanding
you know, the failures of classical Marxism, Leninism, you know,
which had been embraced previously by the PKK, and and
(28:18):
putting also into practice clandestinely the kinds of grassroots democratic
social structures that we see operating on the ground there today.
So I think that that's one of the lessons that
we hear in the US can absorb that, you know,
that we need to be able to exploit the crisis
(28:40):
of legitimacy that's growing here today, thinking about what kind
of alternatives we want to build and showing people that
those alternatives exists, you know those yeah, that, and you
know that's includes engaging in a kind of prefigurative politics
that that really focuses on things like dual power, you know,
(29:03):
cooperative economic project but also local assembly democratic politics. So
that's one of the things that I'm also really excited
about talking about talking about as Arthur and I make
our way from Seattle down to San Francisco and Oakland
during the course of these six presentations and chats and
(29:25):
talks and discussions that we're really excited about having beginning
next weekend.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's let's let's provide people with a
little bit of information on how you know they might
be able to attend and take part in that. So
what what should folks look up and look into if
they if they're interested in where are you guys going
to be?
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Absolutely? Yeah, thanks.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
I think the best thing people can do is go
to defend dot org. That's the website for the Emergency
Committee for Rojeva, our group. But right there at the
front page, you're going to see a poster for our
tour that you can click on. It'll take you to
links for all the different stops that we're going to do.
We're going to be making our way all the way
from Bellingham, Washington, which is up near the border of.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Canada, down to the Bay Area, and you know, we
really wish we could make more cities.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
There are a couple events that are our comrades and
colleagues are organizing on the East Coast around the same timeframe,
so be sure to look up the calendar on our website.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
But people can go to defend dot org to hear more.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
But the basic idea, like Debbie said, is we want
to talk to people not only about what's going on
in Rogevo. Why we think it matters how they can
stand in solidarity. But we want to talk about what
we're going to do in our own communities to take
those lessons and to apply them to our own context.
We want to help connect people who are doing you know,
(30:53):
real community organizing in local movements, and to try to
kind of inspire and strengthen what's already going on, rather
than just to see this as being strictly about Roseevolk,
because I mean, y'all probably were told the same thing
when when you're over there and you ask people what
can we do to support, one of the things they'll
tell you is you've got to organize the revolution at home.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
And that's on us. You know, it's easier said than done, right,
and we're not saying we have.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
All the answers, but what we do want to do
is to invite local grassroots activists especially to come join
the discussion and let's talk together about what it would
mean to apply these basic principles, not to copy and
paste them, but to apply these basic principles and lessons,
principles of direct democracy, local autonomy, you know, cooperation, feminism.
(31:45):
We haven't even talked about how central, you know, gender
liberation is.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
To the Kurdish freedom movement. How do we apply these
things in our own communities.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
Yeah, And one of the things, by the way, if
people are interested in getting some more detail and a
real inside look at what is going on in Rojaeven
detail is that Arthur has two pieces in the magazine
Strange Matters, which is also online, which are just terrific
and they're part of a series that he's going to
(32:14):
be doing, i think monthly over the next few months.
And so that's some great background as well.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Aw shucks, Yeah, it's fantastic, Stev.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Yeah, well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, check that out obviously, folks, if you haven't. We've
also got a podcast series, The Women's War, that covers
the earlier history of the Rajavan Revolution up to about
twenty nineteen, late twenty nineteen, which will cover quite a
bit of the of the impact that kind of this
sort of feminist lens has had on what's happening over
(32:50):
there and how it's actually persisted, you know, under the
conditions that are really kind of almost impossibly challenging when
you when you look at what these people are up again,
which is part of again, I guess ultimately why as
we've repeatedly come back to I think this is so
important for people in the West to study as things
get worse for a lot of folks here and as
(33:12):
we attempt to arrest and take charge of the situation
in our own lives. You know, we have all these
questions about how do we stop our government from arming
not just Turkey, but all of these regimes around the
world that are doing such terrible things. How do we stop,
how do we arrest you know, these problems that are
continuing to affect you know, really ultimately billions of people
(33:35):
around the world. It's taking charge of our own lives,
and the same way that these people have. It's kind
of making that slogan of the Rejavian Revolution, you know,
resistance is life. Actually embracing that in a way that matters,
And when you focus on sort of the challenges to
like the sheer amount of work that has to be
(33:56):
done here, the very primitive state of any kind of
meaningful resistance, the relatively primitive state of organizing on the left,
compared to, for example, the organizing that the right does
in tandem with paramilitaries in the state, it can seem
like an impossible challenge, but ten years on, the people
(34:16):
in Northeast Syria are still are still fighting, you know,
and I think you have to. I think paying attention
to that makes it clear that it is actually possible
to win.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
So true.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Well, I guess that's kind of it for us today.
Is there anything else we want to plug? I just
wanted to go out on a better note.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, I'm writing a piece for Kurdish Piece Institute. I'm
manifesting this on the podcast, so I've actually write it
about me and Ma Kurtis stan S solidarity.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Which I think is cool, so great topic.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yes, yeah, I don't think we have a lot of time,
but I think that one thing that I've learned from
the friends in roche is that, like, even when you
are going through difficulties, you can still stand in solidarity
with other people. And God knows, we're all going through
difficulties in economic and political and state violence terms in
(35:13):
this country, and I think that like one thing I
really took from that was that it's never too hard
for you to be in solidarity. And I hope that
folks who are in this country will appreciate that and
be in solidarity with people in Rocheba as well.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Absolutely well, Debbie Arthur, Thank you both so much for
being here with us, and thank you for continuing to
do the work that you do to keep this topic
alive in people's hearts and minds.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Thank you all so much.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yeah, always happy.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yeah, keep up the great work yourselves.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
All right, everybody, that's the episode. We will be back tomorrow,
unless this comes out on a Friday, in which case
we might not be back tomorrow, but we'll be back,
you know, Monday. You understand how this works at this point, right.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at Coolzonmedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Thanks for listening.
All Ze Media. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here,
a podcast about it happening here. And you know, when
we talk about like collapse, things falling apart, there's very
few case studies that are more important for folks to
(00:23):
be aware of than what has happened and is continuing
to happen in Northeast Syria, in a region of the
world known as Rojava or the Autonomous Regions of Northeast Syria.
And I'm here with James Stout. He and I have
both reported from the ro Javon project, and we are
talking again with Arthur and Debbie Bookchin about what's going
(00:47):
on there now, kind of as the struggle continues, so
to speak.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That's right, and thank you very much for joining us. Arthurine, Debbie,
and you're both here in your capacity as representatives of
the Emergency Committee for Rajava.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Right, that's right, and thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, thanks for coming back.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
So I think perhaps we should begin by explaining what
ECI is and does. I've been very fortunate to be
asked to speak at one of your meetings, so I'm familiar,
but I think maybe some of our listeners wouldn't be.
So could you begin with explaining what it is what
it does.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Yeah, absolutely, so, the Emergency Committee for Rojeva is it's
kind of the only standing US based organization focused on
solidarity with the Rojeva Revolution. And what we do is
we try to build a grassroots solidarity movement with the
revolution in North East Syria, with the Curtis Freedom movement
(01:45):
more broadly, and we do that in a few different ways.
One is like just trying to inform the public right
so kind of public education. Another is advocacy trying to
sort of put pressure on the United States government to
stop arming people who are trying to kill everybody in
Rogevo and to support the people instead. But another thing
(02:07):
that we do is try to build kind of movement
to movement relationships. None like finding social movements in the
United States that we think share a lot of affinity
with movement over there, try to put them in touch
and try to kind of facilitate dialogue.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
No, I mean I think it's important to kind of start,
as we often do, with the attempt to get the
US government to stop arming folks killing the people there,
which in this case refers specifically to the Turkish military.
I mean, we're all kind of dealing with in a
separate part of the world, how difficult it is to
stop the United States government from arming people.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Do that, right, Yeah, it's a great point, Robert. You know,
I think sometimes it's hard for people to even comprehend
just the massive flow of weapons from the United States
to Turkey. I mean, over the years it's been it's
just I think in the last fifteen years alone, the
US has sold Turkey something like four billion dollars worth
(03:10):
of Patriot missiles alone, you know, and then billions or
at least millions, and you know, helicopters, the Cobra attack helicopters.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
There is just a huge.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Flow of arms from the United States to Turkey. And
as Arthur said, you know, one of the things that
we really do try and do at ECR is to
get people not only aware but also into doing some
advocacy on that. And one of the things that we're
also trying to prevent right now is the sale of
(03:44):
any more F sixteen's to Turkey, which, as I'm sure
your listeners know, are used in the bombing of people
in Rojeva and also in Turkey and in northern Iraq.
So that's a very critical issue in.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Fact, yeah, yeah, and it's a critical issue in part
because like what we're seeing is a I would describe
it as a pretty concentrated attempt to destroy civil society
in Rojeva, right, Like, you're absolutely not just through the
use of air strikes, through things like blocking off access
to water, but the f sixteens that Turkey purchases from
(04:24):
the United States and the continuing armaments to keep those
things flying and firing missiles are a huge part of
how they're able to continue degrading the capacity of the
self administration to maintain civil society exactly.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
I mean, there is really an aim there, aim to
completely destabilize the society, to shake confidence and the autonomous administration,
to break morale, to engage in psychological terror, and frankly,
you know, also to do physical harm. As I'm sure
you know and your listeners know. They Turkey very effectively
(05:02):
uses drones and other methods to take out leadership, particularly
female leadership, women who are leaders of the movement. And
you know, there's not a day that goes by really
that doesn't include strikes from Turkey into Rojeva. I mean,
I'm just thinking, you know, the Membij military Council just
(05:26):
has reported in the last couple of days that the
State of Turkey has shelled various villages and membies. You
know that Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo are really subjected to
continuous embargoes by the Damascus government, but also you know,
(05:48):
Turkey intercedes to prevent supplies from getting to these places.
So it's really I think there's something like more than
two hundred bombings by Turkey Racky Kurdistan even since just
the beginning of the year, So it's really ongoing assault.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
No, absolutely, I think you know, for people who are
less familiar with it, it's easy to kind of get
bogged down in the weeds because all the details they
change every day. But I think the broadze strokes are pretty.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Clear and they haven't changed for a long time. I mean,
Turkey sees.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
This revolution rightly so as a threat to its own power,
to its own ideology. You know, the idea that local
communities would govern themselves pluralistically through autonomy is a direct
threat to the idea of the Turkish state, which is
basically a fascist nation state. And they kind of have
a twofold strategy. I think you could see it this way, right. So,
(06:46):
like for those who don't know, Turkey has already invade
in Northeastiria multiple times. It's invaded Euphrine in twenty eighteen,
set Kanye te Labiat in twenty nineteen, and it occupies
that territory still to this day. But when it's been
unable to seize more territory directly, it kind of has
this twofold strategy where the other side of the coin
(07:07):
is to just do everything possible to make life unlivable, right,
So that's where the assassinations come in.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
That's where the sort.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Of information warfare, blocking of water, sort of economic embargo.
The basic idea is just to spread fear, to spread
uncertainty into every sphere of life, and like you said, Robert,
to basically attack civil society itself.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, I wonder if you could explain. I think our
listeners are maybe familiar with the campaign against civil society
and civilian targets that we saw in October November of
last year, that I saw some of while I was there.
But Turkey's recently launched like a spring offensive, right, which
(07:51):
doesn't isn't exclusively unlimited to bombing, but also it contains
like I guess combined ons infantry bombing. Can you explain
what's happening there and what the sort of I think
the plan you've sort of very well summed up already, right,
which is to make life unlivable for the Kurdish freedom movement.
(08:11):
But can you explain what's been happening in the last
few weeks for people who haven't caught up.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
So for one, for people to understand the connection in
the first place, right, it's important to understand that really,
while there are distinct organizations which are autonomous and are
place based within the Kurdish movement, right there's they have
their own parties and self defense forces in Syria and
in Iraq and other parts of Kurdistan.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
It's important to see it also.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
As kind of one big Kurtish freedom movement in another
sense and an important sense, because Turkey sees it in
that light. So for the same reasons the Turkey wants
to crush the revolution in northeast Syria, the Turkey wants
to crush the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party, right, and
the gorillas of the PKK are based in northern Iraq,
and time and time again they've tried to sort of
(09:00):
dislodge the gorilla forces from the mountains.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
But it's pretty hard to do.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
You know, this is NATO's second largest military and they
still after decades, have not been able to crush this
like insurgency, and so what we're seeing.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
In recent weeks is not necessarily so novel.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
I mean, you can, again, you can get into the
weeds about the region of Metina and a particular road
that they're trying to seize for logistics on their way
to the mountain of Ghara. But the truth is they're
trying to crush the movement where it is and they're
seizing an opportunity. There's often like a weather window for
the fighting in the mountains as well, and so when
(09:39):
the snow starts to melt in the spring, you start
to see an escalation of the fighting in the mountains,
which often winds down in the fall.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Again, but it's yet to be seen how this is
going to go.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
I mean, y'all have I don't have to tell you right,
like you've done some recent episodes on technological developments with
the movement, and Turkey's been having a really hard time
gains on the ground.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
And also I mean, as I think as Megan Bodette
noted on this podcast recently, you know, the Turkish leader
Erdowan tends to take out any insults he feels he suffered,
and particularly elections setbacks has happened in the local elections
at the end of March on the Kurdish regions everywhere
(10:22):
in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and so we're seeing also crackdowns
has happened also for quite some time, but on journalists
again sort of cranking up again. It's funny that on
World Press Day, which was May third, Kurdish journalist was arrested,
(10:48):
you know, strip search, a woman thrown in jail, and
this is you know, another sort of wave of politicians
being arrested. Just again on Monday, I think thirteen politicians
were sentenced to six years plus in jail in prison.
So this sort of policy that seems to show itself
(11:13):
every time Airdawan feels a bit threatened is one that
we're seeing right now, in part I think as a
result of those election defeats that his party suffered.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Absolutely, and as sinister as it is, whenever they lose
in the mountains, they often hit harder in North Eastyria
and vice versa. So it's all just a big kind
of ugly game that they're playing.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Well, I want to get to some more here, but
first we've got to take a quick break. We're going
to throw to some ads and then we'll come back
and continue this discussion. All right, we're back, and I'm
(12:04):
trying to get a sense of how the situation is
on the ground right now despite the or considering the
challenges of the attacks on infrastructure that have continued to
go on, Like, what are we looking at from a
daily life point of view in places like Camichelo.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Well, you know, one of the things that I think
is important to emphasize is just how strong a lot
of the civil structures really are even in the face
of these attacks by Turkey. And I'm sure Arthur will
have something to say about that, and also about maybe
some of the sort of the military side of this.
But you know, the extraordinary thing about Rojeva is just
(12:48):
how deeply engaged they are on the civil level. In
our group at the Emergency Committee for Rozeva, we're in
contact with a lot of people in civil society and
I'm always amazed at how many sort of requests we
get for you know, exchanges of information and scholars, and
(13:10):
they're building the university there to do more and more
technical things, you know, whether computers or agricultural sciences or
you know, just a vast variety of graduate program they
want to do right now in social ecology that I've
been working with them on. And so, even though there's
(13:32):
this effort by Turkey to kind of terrorize the civilian population,
and I'm sure you know, people can imagine what it
must feel like to have drones flying constantly overhead and
wondering if you get into a car whether it might
you might you know, be the subject of a drone attack. Nonetheless,
there is still this extraordinary sort of hopefulness and also
(13:56):
energy towards building the society. And for example, but one
of the things that they recently did, and it took
a long time, but they rewrote their Social Contract, which
is what we would think of as a constitution, to
empower women even more, you know, to empower various ethnic
minorities more, and to make it a document that is
(14:20):
truly inclusive in terms of how it was written and
how it will be implemented, and so on the ground,
I think, even though they are suffering in a lot
of ways, and they are because you know, Rojeve is
also a region that is subject to terrible environmental dislocations
because of global warming. There's still a huge sort of
(14:44):
excitement I think about the fact that they are self
governing and the fact that they are empowering women and
those kinds of activities, especially on the part of the
women's movement. Congress star just continue to you know, they've
built an alternative justice system. They are increasingly turning their
(15:06):
sort of economy as much as is feasible, and it's
a slow process, but into it more of a cooperative economy.
So all of those things are very much underway there.
And education is a huge part of that.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
No, I mean, that's that's also true, it really is.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
But just to speak to kind of the other side
of that, you know, Robert asked, sort of what is
life like, say, in a place like Commushula right now?
You know, I think in some ways it's a lot
like it was when when I was in a place
called Zirgon, which is another frontline city where at the
same time Debbie's describing people, life goes on. People trying
(15:46):
to build up civil society, They're trying to organize the
communes and the cooperatives. At the same time, there's a
tremendous fear and uncertainty, fear in an immediate sense around
these drone strikes. I mean, you guys have been there too,
write like I've been home, I think eleven months now,
and I still every time I hear a small airplane,
my body, just even if my brain knows that it's
(16:09):
just a plane, like, my body's convinced it's a Turkish drone.
And imagine, you know you live your whole life in
a place like that, or you've spent the last ten years,
So a lot of people are living in this constant
state of fear an uncertainty.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Even on a practical level.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
You know, say you're a farmer and you're going to
plant your seats this year, do you know that you're
even going to have your land in a month or
six months? You know, people are taking Turkey's threat of
an invasion seriously. It hasn't happened again since twenty nineteen,
but I can tell you I talk to people there
almost every day, and they're taking it extremely seriously. So
(16:46):
there's kind of this idea of impending invasion sort of
hangs like a cloud over daily life in so many ways.
And on top of all of that, of course, since
I left Northeast Syria, there was this major wave of
attacks against civilian infrastructure right around the time you were
there last, James, you know, and you can probably speak
(17:08):
to it more, but I mean we're talking about power
stations and oil wells and hospitals and schools and food
storage facilities. So they're still really reeling from these infrastructure attacks.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
Cutting off electricity to a million people at a time
and water supplies.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Which is about a third of the population of the region.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, I mean, you know, war crimes. There's another word
for it, that's what they're called.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, it's a very jarring experience at East in my
time there, which is much briefer, and then the amount
of time both of you have spent there to go
out in the daytime and talk to people and see
this incredible optimism for like we are building a different
worlds and like it's there and you can see it
and we're moving towards it. It's not like, you know,
(17:59):
we're building a different world when we have encampments on
campus too, But this is a tangible societal product.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, Well, and that it speaks to that's why the
attacks Turkey is carrying out take the form they're taking, right,
because the priority, the primary strength of the self administration
is not in its arms. It's in its ability to
provide a functional civil society that people are motivated to
(18:26):
take part in, which is why their primary weapon is
to try to destroy the ability of people to live.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah, and that's what it.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Feels like, like you know my experience with a brief
you know, we lost electricity every night. People are not
willing or people are less willing to go out and
drive long distances after dark. There is very clearly damage
to the infrastructure. You know, I was in a couple
of different places. One of them was having issues getting
(18:56):
getting water pumped. There are massive funerals right for people
who have been killed, and you get to see this
what is like it's a beautiful spectacle in a sense,
but also like, you know, you can't spend a week
in Roger were a Nazi a little baby say goodbye
to their dad or just a dead baby, and that's
(19:18):
that's terrible, you know. And like the one thing that
I noticed, which I think people might not have picked
up on, just sort of consuming media the presence of
people hop about martyrs as they call them, right shaheeds.
It's so it's everywhere, Like from the first place I
step foot across the river, you know, there were these portraits,
(19:42):
these yellow and green portraits on around about since cities
and people's homes. Like the scale of the sacrifice both
to build this project and to defeat ISIS, I think
is very hot. I mean in the United States has
been more for most of our lives, but it has
nowhere near the same impact on our data the lives
it has had there.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
There's not a family really in Rogeval. When you spend
some time there and you meet with different people, there's
not a single family that hasn't lost somebody. I mean,
it's thirteen thousand people in the fight against ISIS alone
and now, and not to mention, for example, the two
hundred thousand people who were displaced when Turkey is you know,
(20:26):
jihadi malicious invaded Afrin, the westernmost region. So it's it's
absolutely effect of everyday life.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, every time I spend a lot of time volunteering
at the border, as people listening know, and every time
we meet Kurdish people often they're from Northern Kurdistan, which
is in Turkey under in control of the Turkish State.
I guess even like the volunteers who are not super
briefed out jaba, who are just people who want to help.
(21:00):
Like everyone knows what it means when people when you
talk to people and they have the little green picture
of the little little yellow picture on them, Yeah, which
is it's a profound part of the lived experience of
being part of the Kurdish freedom movement or just existing
as a Kurdish person in that area. And that's it's
it's really hard to grasp the scale of that.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
No, it's so true.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
I mean, it just makes me think that it's kind
of related to this larger sort of spirit of sacrifice
that's part of what the movement calls, like a revolutionary personality.
You know, in a lot of ways, the families of
you know what, they call them martyrs, they also see
it as their sacrifice, it's their contribution to the movement.
(21:41):
And it's it's easy for I think Westerners to kind of,
I don't know, dismiss it or get really uncomfortable with it.
We're not familiar with that on a cultural level as
much but I think it's it's a mistake to see
it that way. I think there's something incredibly profound about
it that has to do with the way that people
(22:01):
really identify their whole lives, the meaning of their lives
with the revolution, with the movement, that that is what,
that is the purpose of their life, that's the purpose
of the life of their their families, and come what may,
that's something that you know, movements here can't really relate
to in the same way.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yet, I think, yeah, and I kind of want to
talk a little bit more about that. We're gonna We're
gonna throw one last time to adds and then we'll
come back and kind of flesh out this discussion, and
(22:44):
we're back talking about like what it means to be
part of a revolution as opposed to someone who has
revolutionary sympathies, which it's easy to be, and we have
a lot of those in the United States. I'm going
to guess most of the people listening to this show
have least some of those, right. Whether or not you
think there's any realistic chance of seeing that during your
(23:05):
own life, it's a very different thing from being from
living it, which people do you know about three million
of them in Rojava every day, and the sacrifice is
a part of it. The kind of continual conflict is
another part of it, because you know, it's worth emphasizing
(23:27):
we're about a decade into the project right now, right
if we consider that being from you know, the start
of the self administration in varying fashions, and that's not
like it's not a perfectly even process, right because it
occurred as part of this series of broader conflicts. But
what you've seen is both the retreat of the government
(23:48):
that had formerly controlled the area. You've seen a successful
war prosecuted against isis you've seen when you could look
at as one conflict or kind of a series of
conflicts with both these Turkish backed militias and the Turkish
military itself. And then this also this continuing conflict both
(24:08):
with the environment, you know, just because that that is
really that that's a force at work here, the Cold War,
that kind of that's not even really a perfect way
of describing the situation with the the Assad regime and
with you know, their their backers and their Russian government,
but it's a it's it's a complex, interwoven series of conflict.
(24:30):
But but kind of the result is just a life
of conflict for the people who are are part of
this revolution as sort of a just a fact of
daily life. And I think that is really hard to grasp.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Mmm.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
I think that's true.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
And I think there's there's part of it, like you say,
that has to do with this the sort of objective situation,
with the conditions that people are living in, this perpetual
conflict that you're talking about, And at the same time,
I think there's also an aspect that's more like, I
don't know, like.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Subjective, you could call it.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
It has to do with the kind of movement that
they've really actively been building for themselves and the kind
of spirit that their movement has taken on that they've
cultivated themselves, sort of painstaking me for years. I mean,
I think one of the things that I know, Debbie
and I really want to get to in our conversations
with the speaking tour that we're working on, which is
(25:25):
coming up later later this month on the West Coast,
is we really, well, we want people to be.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Inspired by this revolution.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
We really don't want people to just see it as
this very like other thing on the other side of
the world, you know, even those who are really supportive,
especially as you know anarchistory, say, fellow travelers, we have
a tendency to kind of maybe oversimplify or romanticize what's
happening over there and think, oh, well, you know, if
(25:52):
the state could just collapse here, I'm sure everybody would
just sort of like melt into an anarchist utopia of statelessness.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
And that would be a mistake too.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
I think the truth is that what Rojava shows you
is a real revolution is incredibly messy, and they only
were able to kind of face the threats and the
opportunities that crisis brought to them in Syria because of
the kind of movement they had built for themselves, and
they had these practical tools to kind of help local
(26:24):
communities govern themselves in that sort of chaos in the
power vacuum that arose. And you know, in a moment
like this the world over, especially here in the United States,
you know, we're the crises that we're facing, the crisis
that we're looking down the barrel of. I think there's
been no more kind of relevant or urgent time to
think about how those lessons actually could apply here and
(26:46):
what it means for us, what kind of movement do
we need to build to be ready for that moment.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
Yeah, you know, I really agree, And Robert, I'm glad
you mentioned, you know, the fact that the revolution is
over ten years old, because I think, you know, and
to follow up sort of just on what Arthur was
saying that sort of sometimes the crises that we face
environmentally logical, global warming and not to mention democracy itself,
(27:13):
you know, can seem almost paralyzing, or that we're constantly
in a state of reaction. But one of the things
that the revolution in Rojev teaches us is that, first
of all, that moments of crisis can also be moments
of great transformation, but really only if we're prepared for them.
(27:36):
And that's why, you know, whenever I talk about the
Rojeva project, I feel it's important to remind people that
it didn't just spring miraculously out of nowhere in the
moment of the Syrian Civil War. The folks on the
ground there had really been preparing for years, I mean decades,
(27:56):
even for the opportunity that opened up for them during
the Syrian Civil War. And in various ways, of course,
they were educating themselves on radical history and particular understanding
you know, the failures of classical Marxism, Leninism, you know,
which had been embraced previously by the PKK, and and
(28:18):
putting also into practice clandestinely the kinds of grassroots democratic
social structures that we see operating on the ground there today.
So I think that that's one of the lessons that
we hear in the US can absorb that, you know,
that we need to be able to exploit the crisis
(28:40):
of legitimacy that's growing here today, thinking about what kind
of alternatives we want to build and showing people that
those alternatives exists, you know those yeah, that, and you
know that's includes engaging in a kind of prefigurative politics
that that really focuses on things like dual power, you know,
(29:03):
cooperative economic project but also local assembly democratic politics. So
that's one of the things that I'm also really excited
about talking about talking about as Arthur and I make
our way from Seattle down to San Francisco and Oakland
during the course of these six presentations and chats and
(29:25):
talks and discussions that we're really excited about having beginning
next weekend.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's let's let's provide people with a
little bit of information on how you know they might
be able to attend and take part in that. So
what what should folks look up and look into if
they if they're interested in where are you guys going
to be?
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Absolutely? Yeah, thanks.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
I think the best thing people can do is go
to defend dot org. That's the website for the Emergency
Committee for Rojeva, our group. But right there at the
front page, you're going to see a poster for our
tour that you can click on. It'll take you to
links for all the different stops that we're going to do.
We're going to be making our way all the way
from Bellingham, Washington, which is up near the border of.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Canada, down to the Bay Area, and you know, we
really wish we could make more cities.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
There are a couple events that are our comrades and
colleagues are organizing on the East Coast around the same timeframe,
so be sure to look up the calendar on our website.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
But people can go to defend dot org to hear more.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
But the basic idea, like Debbie said, is we want
to talk to people not only about what's going on
in Rogevo. Why we think it matters how they can
stand in solidarity. But we want to talk about what
we're going to do in our own communities to take
those lessons and to apply them to our own context.
We want to help connect people who are doing you know,
(30:53):
real community organizing in local movements, and to try to
kind of inspire and strengthen what's already going on, rather
than just to see this as being strictly about Roseevolk,
because I mean, y'all probably were told the same thing
when when you're over there and you ask people what
can we do to support, one of the things they'll
tell you is you've got to organize the revolution at home.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
And that's on us. You know, it's easier said than done, right,
and we're not saying we have.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
All the answers, but what we do want to do
is to invite local grassroots activists especially to come join
the discussion and let's talk together about what it would
mean to apply these basic principles, not to copy and
paste them, but to apply these basic principles and lessons,
principles of direct democracy, local autonomy, you know, cooperation, feminism.
(31:45):
We haven't even talked about how central, you know, gender
liberation is.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
To the Kurdish freedom movement. How do we apply these
things in our own communities.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
Yeah, And one of the things, by the way, if
people are interested in getting some more detail and a
real inside look at what is going on in Rojaeven
detail is that Arthur has two pieces in the magazine
Strange Matters, which is also online, which are just terrific
and they're part of a series that he's going to
(32:14):
be doing, i think monthly over the next few months.
And so that's some great background as well.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Aw shucks, Yeah, it's fantastic, Stev.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Yeah, well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, check that out obviously, folks, if you haven't. We've
also got a podcast series, The Women's War, that covers
the earlier history of the Rajavan Revolution up to about
twenty nineteen, late twenty nineteen, which will cover quite a
bit of the of the impact that kind of this
sort of feminist lens has had on what's happening over
(32:50):
there and how it's actually persisted, you know, under the
conditions that are really kind of almost impossibly challenging when
you when you look at what these people are up again,
which is part of again, I guess ultimately why as
we've repeatedly come back to I think this is so
important for people in the West to study as things
get worse for a lot of folks here and as
(33:12):
we attempt to arrest and take charge of the situation
in our own lives. You know, we have all these
questions about how do we stop our government from arming
not just Turkey, but all of these regimes around the
world that are doing such terrible things. How do we stop,
how do we arrest you know, these problems that are
continuing to affect you know, really ultimately billions of people
(33:35):
around the world. It's taking charge of our own lives,
and the same way that these people have. It's kind
of making that slogan of the Rejavian Revolution, you know,
resistance is life. Actually embracing that in a way that matters,
And when you focus on sort of the challenges to
like the sheer amount of work that has to be
(33:56):
done here, the very primitive state of any kind of
meaningful resistance, the relatively primitive state of organizing on the left,
compared to, for example, the organizing that the right does
in tandem with paramilitaries in the state, it can seem
like an impossible challenge, but ten years on, the people
(34:16):
in Northeast Syria are still are still fighting, you know,
and I think you have to. I think paying attention
to that makes it clear that it is actually possible
to win.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
So true.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Well, I guess that's kind of it for us today.
Is there anything else we want to plug? I just
wanted to go out on a better note.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, I'm writing a piece for Kurdish Piece Institute. I'm
manifesting this on the podcast, so I've actually write it
about me and Ma Kurtis stan S solidarity.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Which I think is cool, so great topic.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yes, yeah, I don't think we have a lot of time,
but I think that one thing that I've learned from
the friends in roche is that, like, even when you
are going through difficulties, you can still stand in solidarity
with other people. And God knows, we're all going through
difficulties in economic and political and state violence terms in
(35:13):
this country, and I think that like one thing I
really took from that was that it's never too hard
for you to be in solidarity. And I hope that
folks who are in this country will appreciate that and
be in solidarity with people in Rocheba as well.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Absolutely well, Debbie Arthur, Thank you both so much for
being here with us, and thank you for continuing to
do the work that you do to keep this topic
alive in people's hearts and minds.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Thank you all so much.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yeah, always happy.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yeah, keep up the great work yourselves.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
All right, everybody, that's the episode. We will be back tomorrow,
unless this comes out on a Friday, in which case
we might not be back tomorrow, but we'll be back,
you know, Monday. You understand how this works at this point, right.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at Coolzonmedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Host
Robert Evans
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