What’s Happening In Rojava

James talks to Dani Ellis about Turkish aggression in North and East Syria and we hear from Têkoşîna Anarşîst from their position on the front lines.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hi everyone, and welcome to the podcast. It's me James
today and I'm joined by Danny. Danny's an engineering photographer
who lived in North East Syria from twenty eighteen until
twenty twenty three and a founding member of the RISE,
which is the Rajarva Information Center if you're not familiar,
and she worked for self administration Civil Engineering while she
was there. Welcome to show Danny.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Hi James, it's really good to be on Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Jas, thanks thanks for coming. I know it's like a
stressful time. So what I thought we would do is
there's been a lot of reporting on Syria that people
have probably seen if they're living in the US or
the UK. Nearly all of it has either excluded or
like footnoted what's happening in North and East Syria and
specifically in the areas that are under a self administration.

(00:48):
So I was hoping today we could give people a
little more introduction to what's happening there. There's been a
lot of like jubilation about what's happening in Syria, and
things have been very far from universally positive.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Right.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
There's a massive dis placement of civilians, ethnic lensing of
areas that have been captured by the Turkish Baksterian National
Army and genuine like peril for the self administration project,
the like of which we haven't seen for a long time.
So perhaps if listeners an't familiar, would you give them
the real basics of the self administration of the AA
ANDES and what it means and what's going on there.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, well that's a big question because it's like it's
a big project. It's been going on for quite some time. Yeah, yeah,
it really has. It's kind of been lost in discussions
and news about the Serian Civil War because it has
been such a complex, multipolar, multi access, multi ethnic conflict,
and it's been going on for what like thirteen fourteen

(01:44):
years now, yeah, coming up to fourteen years. The Kurds
in the northeast had been preparing for some time before
the outbreak of civil war back in twenty eleven for
something like this. Obviously they didn't they didn't know this
was going to happen. That they had been working on
revolutionary emancipation for decades, and in particular since around two thousand,

(02:08):
they've been working on this concept of democratic and federalism,
which is moving away from a sort of what they
call an old paradigm of Marxist Leninist thought to this
system they've now quite effectively built up there where democracy
is bottom up. It's structured around small communes and self

(02:30):
organizing units, cooperatives. There's a market economy, but it's not
a catalyst economy where there's sort of radical emancipation of
oppressed to people's particular women who are really centered in
the revolutionary process and organizing there. And I think because
they maybe you can't call them conflict avoided, that they
haven't avoided conflict. They very famously defeated Isis amongst other

(02:54):
groups in the northeast, they fought against Alan's Refront and
various other Hadi groups. They also didn't enter into serious
conflict with either their FSA as they were, or the
regime and the assad regime, and so they kind of
managed to carve out a sort of democratic and semi enclave.

(03:16):
I mean people who describe it as a state that
they quite vehemently say it's not a state in the
northeast of Syria. Whilst the worst of the fighting was
between the Assid regime and the FSA and groups that
came out of the FSA in the west and south
of the country.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, I think it's very good summary. I think like
it gets missed maybe because of how relatively successful it's
been compared to other democratization projects within Syria. It gets
missed that like when people are talking about what will
happen in Syria now bizarrely and I don't quite like
I don't quite understand how we get here, but people

(03:56):
seem to go to like Libya or I understand how
we get here process like orientalism and ignorance, but we
have a functioning democracy an example of like, it's not
just Kurdish people, right, it's lots of communities living together
in northern East Syria, and because of democratic and federalism
they're able to coexist and still feel that they have

(04:17):
enough sovereignty to be safe. Is that fair?

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah? Yeah, absolutely, And I think something that it's hard
to convey or fully understand unless you spend a lot
of time there or you're deeply involved with any of
these communities, is quite how hard that was to do. Yeah,
a lot of different ethnic groups, political groups that hate
each other, you know. Yeah, the Kurds, they brought in

(04:42):
lots of different policies like their right to be taught
in your mother tongue. When they took power twenty twelve onwards,
they were very keen not to just sort of replace
everything with Kurdish, make a Kurdish state, you know, start
being the oppressor and sort of be oppressed. They made
sure that they continue us An Arabic as the majority

(05:02):
language because it is the majority language. That the north
and east of Syria is still an Arab majority area,
and this is despite the fact that they've been pretty
horrendously oppressed by the Arab population through the Bath Party
and its oppressive systems for decades. So it has been
a pretty hard ongoing process to negotiate and to put

(05:22):
aside pretty serious conflicts between quite a few different groups
that exist there.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, it won't be any easier of across the whole
country than it was there, but like, they have a
system that works, and it's kind of frustrating to see
these discussions of what happens next that just ignore the
fact that there's a functioning multi ethnic democracy right there.
So if we do just look at women's liberation, you know,
I've reported from lots of places around the world, lots

(05:48):
of places in that part of the world, and the
difference is profound in like everyday life. It's not just
a kind of rhetorical commitment, right, Like, at least my
impression as a man is that, like, this is a
revolution by women, not a revolution and it's about women.
It's not a revolution by men that like seeks to
liberate women, says it's going to liberate women, you know,

(06:10):
with the US in verie Afghanistan saying it's going to
liberate women, and look what we got. And like the
difference in just the way people are able to live,
like every aspect of everyday life is completely different. But
that's in danger right now. The narrative I guess that
people will be familiar with from Syria is that the
state has been defeated, the A Sad regime has been defeated,
and that therefore the revolution has succeeded. But the A

(06:35):
Sad regime is not the only state in play in Syria, right, So,
can you explain the Turkish antipathy to the project in
northern East Syria and how that's manifesting itself currently.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, it's pretty hard to discuss any of the stuff
without talking about Turkey and without understanding where they're coming from. Yeah,
I think it's something that is said enough or understood
enough that the modern state of Turkey is an nationalist project.
And you know, I don't say that as a slur.
That's like a basic founding principle of the state. It's

(07:09):
a state founded on genocide and the mass for demographic
change across the whole country. And it's continued that way,
and there have been reforms for sure, but that's still
a founding principle. And even now sort of speaking a
non Turkish language in the Turkish Parliament is a pretty

(07:31):
serious violation. And the size of Turkey, the size of
its economy, the size of its military, the regional power
status they have in the Middle East means that they
have an enormous gravity. They have an enormous amount of
power over Syria. A lot of the goods and services
that Syria relies on coming through Turkey or rely on

(07:52):
the Turkish industry, and the Turkish military is a huge
supporter of their groups in the northwestam and the Syrian
National Army, and of course the Kurdish question within Turkey
is the main reason for their antipathy towards the What's

(08:12):
been built up in North East Syria. As much as
the self determination for oppressed people's minorities is something that's
an issue, the fact that it's Kurdish led, and in
particular it's emancipating for Kurdish people threatens this nationalist aspect
of their state, and they kind of they see it
something that needs to be nipped in the Bud right,

(08:35):
and they've they've sort of done that with Northern Iraq,
that the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq by essentially vassalizing
the KDP, the main party there, and they know they
can't do the same in North Eastyria, and the military
option is their best chance, their best hope of nipping

(08:55):
Kurdish emancipation in Kurdish sub determination in the Bud and
preventing it from sort of snowboarding across the region.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, I think we should probably mention that, Like I
guess if we talk about like the electoral method or
the electoral path people in Turkish Kurdistan, in Northern Kurdistan,
if you want to call it. In addition to the
arms struggle which has been there since nineteen eighty four,
they have also like tried to vote and repeatedly seen
their votes ignored or changed, or their elected officials removed.

(09:26):
Like this is within the last year, I'm not talking
about back in the eighties and nineties, and like Turkey
has been aggressively attacking any attempts at like self determination
within the country and then as you say, like militarily
attacking the Kurdish freedom movement within North and Eassyria. Do
you want to talk about the Syrian National Army or

(09:46):
the Turkish back Free Syrian Army, whatever you want to
call them, and explain, Like, I think part of what
we're dealing with is like that Turkey has a very
well established state media project and they seem to do
very well and like creating viral social media content. So
people might not be fully familiar with who the SNA
are and specifically like Turkey's role in creating them. Do

(10:07):
you want to explain that a bit to people?

Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yeah, I mean this is this is one of the
reasons why I think it's so hard for people to
report on the Syrian Civil War. It's very hard to
convey like a simple coherent narrative of one side versus
the other, you know, like Ukraine versus Russia. The Russian
world and the Ukrainian world, because there are there are
so many different groups in the sna IS that it's
an important one and they are their group. Together with

(10:32):
this concept of the rebels that have liberated Syria, despite
the fact that they're not actually part of High Alshan,
the liberation movement as it calls itself, that have taken
over the Syria. Yeah, the Syrian National Army, it's it's
kind of like a loose collection of various some of

(10:54):
them called themselves brigades or groups. It's essentially a military
proxy force of Turkey. They don't have a coherent political framework.
They're not revolutionary groups. They're not liberatory or mancipatory. They
wouldn't describe themselves as that in the same way that
maybe HTS would. I mean, the Kurds in North Eastyria

(11:17):
describe them as gangs, which kind of sounds like a
propagana term, but when you actually look at what they do,
they really are like a sort of a criminal enterprise,
a criminal gang that's used as a convenient proxy for
force by Turkey because ultimately Turkey has like a massive
military then maybe is quite underfunded and not particularly ast
After the air force has suffered pretty seriously from the

(11:40):
fallout of the cop in twenty sixteen. But the army
is massive, it's relatively well funded, in their drone program
is huge. The thing that they struggle with is the
losses that are incurred against Kurdish groups, particularly the PKK
in the mountains between Ark and Turkey. And they need
to control that because they realized that they've been fighting

(12:02):
military because as you say, since the early nineteen eighties,
and they can't have a vitnance situation right of a
mass movement against their military occupation and against their military efforts.
And Syria, they can't afford financially or politically to get
into a quagmire there, and so by funding this sort

(12:23):
of collection of groups called the SNA, that's their way
of being able to incur pretty massive losses without having
to report on it, without that creating unrest or opposition
within the Turkish population of Turkey.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Right, And I think especially when like some of the
things the SNA have done, which we can maybe get
into in MANPJ like, it gives them a deniability that
wouldn't exist if that was regular soldiers doing that, Like
some stuff which is war crimes is I guess a
nice way of saying it, like a more sanitized way
of saying it. Horrific stuff, really terrible stuff. This has

(12:59):
been happening since at least twenty eighteen. But Turkey doesn't
have to be held accountable for that because, like you said,
it's not Turkish, it's not the Turkish Army. Do you
want to explain how the situation in North Syria has
changed since what was it like two weeks ago? A
week ago? I guess that they moved south from Aleppo
and start the HTS Largy with some support from SNA,

(13:21):
moved towards Damascus, and then the SNA launched its own
assault on the Self Administration. Can you explain a little
bit of what's happened there in terms of displacement and
in terms of the terrain that's the SNA have captured.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
Yeah, it's been very fast moving now, as you say,
like it's only been two weeks since the Battle Aleppos started,
if you call it a battle. So the SDH, so
this is like the alliance of military groups that falls
under the remit of the Self Administration in the north
East Siria. So the YPG and the YPG are like
the most famous and largest components of this force, but

(13:57):
there are a whole bunch of Arab and Syrian and
Armenian units within the SDF. They held this sort of
salient pushing out into northwest Aria towards Afrin, which was
captured by the SNA in Turkey in twenty eighteen. That
was on one side finded by HTS and on the
other by the SNA. When things really kicked off, the

(14:18):
SNA started a pretty concerned campaign to capture this area
and own as Shedpa, and because of its position and
it's relatively difficult terrain and difficult logitical position to resupply,
they pulled back from that towards Aleppo and man Beach,
which is the only major city that the SDS still

(14:38):
held on the west of the Euphrates. It's the area
closest to Aleppo. They got hit pretty hard. If you
follow a live upday map or and you vie sort
of update maps, it looked like that. That's pretty quickly. Actually,
it ended up being a sort of large gray zone
of the gorilla attacks and potential still ongoing. It's been

(15:01):
really murking hot tell what's going on there, But essentially
there's a large area of uncontrolled but heavily contested territory
between Aleppo and the Euphrates River now and which the
SDF and the SNA have been fighting over.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
Like.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
One of the curious things for me is that the
Turkish Air Force and literally did not get involved for
a while, but after about a week they did, and
they started hitting man Beach very very heavily. And at
that point, when the center of man Beach started being
contested and for over, the US stepped in. We don't
know the details of it, but there seems to have
been some kind of negotiation whereby the suggestion is that

(15:37):
if the SDF fighters pulled back across the Euphrates, the
SDF would assure their protection from any further resorts. We
don't know how true that is, and we know that
today further negotiations on this failed. But it's really hard
to tell right now as we speak what's disinformation and
what's truth, because stuff's only coming out officially in ribs.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Traps, yeah, and stuff's coming out unofficially often that it's
just not true, yeah, every five minutes and getting blasted
by maybe people who just don't understand or who do understand,
but have a certain agenda to push on social media,
especially but on telegram too, and it can be really confusing,
it's really frustrating.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yeah. For instance, like just before we came on air,
I saw a couple of videos being posted by pro
Turkish accounts purportedly showing mass troop concentrations lined up against
this border war waiting to invade. And I realized that
they were from two thousand and nineteen, when Sarah Kane
and Tellerbayad were invaded, and they were just reposting material

(16:42):
from then, you know, as disinformation on these movements and
whether in Ta's going to happen, what the negotiations between
the US and Turkey turned out to be. And the
truth is like right now, we don't know exactly what's
going on.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, and like you probably won't and that's probably a
good thing. One other thing is that like the SDF
tends to have much better operational security discipline than the
SNA does, so you won't see as much of like
media with an SDF spin or people directly streaming. I mean,
one thing the SDNA likes to do is a war

(17:19):
crime and then post it on Telegram and so like
it can be easy to only see that and be like,
oh god, it's terrible, and it is terrible. Those things
are horrific. But like, because you're not seeing when the
SDF is making movements or making advances until a bit later,
until you get something from like an official press channel,
it can give the impression that the SNA is just
romping around, which is not the case.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
Yeah, we saw this a few times when manbut is
reported to being captured by the SNA and they posted
video of themselves in the middle of the city, and
then an hour later, the SDF posted a video from
the center of the city of twenty or thirty dead
SNA litting about the streets and then flying their own flag.
So yeah, yeah, it's really it's really hard to tell.

(18:03):
It's also really hard as like anyone who cares about
the region has been there, is reported on it. Anyone
interested in the kind of politics that the Kurds are
built up in the region and others I should says,
you know, it's been a multithink project if you care
about that. It's really hard not to be glued to
social media to see what's going on, but it can

(18:23):
be quite detrimental to morrow it can be quite an
active self harm to be like constantly checking on this
because it's so mucky. Yeah, and as you say, like
things can turn around within two hours of infer or
distance for getting out there.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, And I think it's it's a super important time
to be looking at trusted sources and be considering if
you need to be on telegram that much, something I
have been considering this weekend. So let's talk about like

(19:00):
right now, certainly the focus is on Kabani, right, but
there's also well, there's a lot of the self administration
that could potentially be under threat if Turkey decides to
go as hard as as it can against the self administration,
against the existence of I guess any form of democratic
project in northern Easteria of attempts to kind of bring

(19:21):
the whole thing under one government from Damascus. Can you
explain like what might happen, what people can do, and
like we should talk about what's at stake as well,
especially with the prisoner our whole, which maybe we can
come to after those two things, because I think that's
a lot to ask you one question, but maybe people
aren't familiar with our whole. We'll leave that one. But
can you explain at first, like what could potentially happen

(19:43):
if Turkey decides to go as hard as it wants
to hear?

Speaker 3 (19:46):
I mean, I think the best way to answer that
question is to look at what's already happened. So in
twenty eighteen and nineteen, they already captured three significant cities
and that were under control of the self administration to
the first and most famously was Afrin, which was in
the far northwest of the country, like just north of Villeppo,
sort of jutting out into Turkey. That was a majority

(20:09):
Kurdish city. I don't know exactly, does it with something
like eighty or ninety percent, which I think is higher
than any other city in northern Syria. And it was
also like it's seen the least fighting of pretty much
anywhere in Syria by that point. So the war had
been going on for like what seven years, and Afin
was pretty much untouched. So it was in a pretty

(20:31):
good state. And Turkey and the SNA invaded just as
the war against ISIS was winding down, and I mean,
it's become a hell on Earth. It's been almost completely depopulated.
I think it's less than ten percent now Kurdish ethnically,
it has been ruled by a number of different groups.
We can say the SNA, but you know, different groups

(20:51):
within the SNA and have fought over it. At the
HTS at times have had control over certain parts of
the area, and there's been a in fighting. There's been
horrendous war crimes committed, great murder, thousands of disappeared people,
and as you say, they really like to openly put

(21:11):
videos out of them committing this stuff. I mean, they're
pretty shameless about it. There are some pretty disturbing videos
that they're mutilating the bodies of fallen WIPJ soldiers, of
coming some re executions, of wiping out whole towns. It's
been awful. And the same thing happened again in twenty nineteen

(21:34):
around in October when they captured as Sarah Khane and Talabayad.
And it's worth also pointing out that these were not
Kurdish majority city surprise, and so I think that Sarah
Karney maybe was about fifty percent and Telebiads, which is
kind of close to Kurbani, I'm pretty sure wasn't Kurlish
majority city. B was organized under the self administration and

(21:55):
it was organized quite effectively, and they committed the same
horrific crimes there. They are an anti Kurdish for so
if we can say that they are racist, they do
have a stated goal of committing genocide against the Kurts.
That's not an exaggeration. There's something they openly say. But
they don't seem to care who they steal from, or

(22:18):
who they rape or who they extort. Wherever they go,
it's death and destruction. And it still is now, And
there's still something like a quarter of a million internally
displaced people from these areas in North Essyria hoping to
go back and now having to see the situation get
even worse and not knowing if they ever well be
able to.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, and I think like you were talking about, like
we're seeing it right now in man Beach, right like
the SNA seems to lie. You be in controlled of
the city, albeit with YPG fighters kind of boring and
I guess in a gorilla role, so it would seem
still fighting there. But where I believe we're on the
second day of a general strike in man Beach after

(23:00):
less than a week of the SNA holding it because
of looting and executions and other war crimes.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
Yeah, I think this is like actually really good political
education to see what's happening because what's been built up
in the Northeast has been built up over decades. Right.
They like to use this anology of the myosolium and
the fruiting bodies of a mushroom. They appear to magically
emerge from the earth in the autumn out of nowhere,

(23:30):
but actually, you know, they've been brewing underground for years before,
and they use this analogy because it took decades to
put in place these structures. That's why they were ready
as soon as the regime the Acid region poured out
and collapsed in the face of Isis in the early
stages of the war, they were ready to build up
these structures. They already had self organized militias, They had

(23:53):
the economy planned out that they set to work immediately,
and their SNA don't have any of that. They are
a force of convenience. They're mostly sort of young men
who were in groups before that were defeated in Syria
like Isis, who are simply taking the opportunity to enrich themselves.

(24:13):
And that's also very convenient for Turkey because they do
the dirty work against the population of North Easypyria. So
I think it is worth saying that that aspect of it,
that preparation, that resilience, is something that also works in
favor in the event of the worst case of full
invasion of northern Assyria. I do think they are significantly

(24:36):
better prepared than they were in twenty eighteen and nineteen.
And even if the worst happens, even if militarily it's defeated,
that's not going to be the end of this project, right,
It's not going to be the end of this emancipation.
There's now an entire generation of young people in North
Eastyria who have grown up entirely living amongst a liberated

(24:58):
and emancipated region and people that's not something you can
militarily defeat. So I you know, I'm not completely hopeless,
and obviously I'll be like devastated if the worst does
happen there, But like, I don't think it means the
end of this incredible political And it feels wrong to
call it a project because it's not. It's really is

(25:19):
a revolution in the every possible meaning of the word,
and it's deeply embedded. Now.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, and I think everyone I spoke to there, like
there's a deeply held conviction that they're not going back
some people who have seen like first hand the fascist
violence of ISIS, and fascist is the right word. It's
something maybe worse than fascism, but like certainly that like
speaking to women in Chava about how they're not going

(25:47):
back to the gendered violence of they experience for decades
to include ISIS, but by no means like only from ISIS.
And I guess that kind of brings us on to
I wanted to talk a little bit of the situation
in the parts of Syria that are controlled by HCS
and and inso much as they really are controlled, controller
perhaps are on word like they haven't fully established their

(26:10):
state project yet, but they're certainly moving towards that they've
sort of captured the institutions of the state rather than
destroyed them. You'd spoken about, like there's this very I
don't know, I think, I guess maybe i'll use an
examples or I'm phrasing this question in a very meandering way.
I sort of ce ann clip where they're they're like, Oh,
we found a guy who's liberally who's like in this
prison and he was stuck here, and then second part

(26:32):
of this was not broadcast on CNN, as this person
turns out to be like an Air Force lieutenant who
was in fact himself someone who tortured and killed civilians.
And like, there's this very liberatory, very excited messaging coming
from media in the West. I guess some of which
is good, right, Like, it's good that the Assabe regime
is good, Asab was fucking terrible and tortured and killed

(26:54):
hundreds of thousands of his own people. But that doesn't
mean that things are all affected Damascus. So do you
want to talk a little bit about like some of
the worrying stuff we see in the last few days
from those areas.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
Yeah, I mean this is something that I worry isn't
being spoken about enough. I don't, as a non Syrian,
don't want to say to people, you know, you shouldn't
be celebrating your own liberation, because people should absolutely should
be and it's their right to be. And I'm, like it,
extremely happy that this brutal dictator has gone. I mean,
it's it's hard to summarize quite how awful he was,

(27:31):
and it's it's deeply refiltrating that he's probably not going
to see justice, but it's also really hard to see
stuff which is really reminiscent of like nineteen seventy nine Tehran,
two thousand and three Baghdad, of a sort of jubilation,
whilst at the same time there are videos of sort
of programs being carried out against minorities, minorities like the

(27:53):
Allites who were in control, and you don't know if
the person being executed in the street was a torture
an intelligence agent, and you don't know who they were.
But like, this is happening, but you're also seeing like
sallaphist groups raising their flag, you know, like hardline is
mis raising their flag in places like the Takia and

(28:14):
Tatoos that have significant minority populations. I am very I
mean concerned, is in the right word, Like it's hard
to feel that spirit of liberation when when you see
not only these things happening, but that the people who
have captured these state institutions are admitted former members of
al Qaida, and they are they are Jihad's hard line

(28:37):
people that have now got a very evitably made themselves
about to be moderate. But my guart feeling is that
we're going to see something like May seventy nine Tehran,
of a lot of talk of reconciliation, a lot of
talk of you know, the concerns of the Kurds or
working with the communists, but you know, mass executions and

(28:58):
oppression is not far around them corner. And I guess
when the jubilation dies down, my question is what's going
to happen when minorities do you demand their rights? Or
women don't want to write a job in you know,
inside the building's inst state institutions. And I'm finding it
very hard to believe that these men who are professed

(29:21):
is themists are going to allow a moderate future to exist.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, it's I don't know. Every day we get different information, right,
but like, yeah, I don't know if concerned it's the
right word either, I don't quite know what the word is.
But like I'm worried. I guess I'm worried that I'm
especially worried when like, rather than what we saw in
the self administration was not like a continuation of institutions

(29:48):
right when the Assad regime left in twenty eleven, in
twenty twelve, and areas that the regime or isis have
left since then, like it wasn't like Okay, we'll take
over these institutions and minister them differently, as we will
build democracy from the bottom up, not we'll just change
to people in charge versus what it seems like we're
now seeing for Damascus is like, hey, can the police

(30:09):
from the cyber regime police stay at work? Which is
concerning Talking of police, the last thing I wanted to
address was that our whole camp. I've spoken about it
before on this show, and people can look back or

(30:30):
other episodes, but if you've not heard about it, can
you explain briefly what our whole is and then the
massive risk that this Turkish backed invasion poses to our
whole and other camps. I guess the whole is not
the only camp, just the biggest one.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yeah, our whole is a really important point to talk about.
Our whole is a very large camp. It's hard to
sum up what kind of camp it is because it's
so vast and had different sections. It's near Alhasseko, which
is one of the largest cities in north East Syria.

(31:04):
It mostly it mostly contains families who were members or
were resident in the Islamic State when it collapsed. So
in the beginning of twenty nineteen ISIS was sort of
squeezed into this little corner in the eastern side of
Syria between the Euphrates and the Iraqi border, and when

(31:25):
the state collapsed, for the caliphate collapse, a lot of
people had nowhere to go, and a lot of them
were foreignly succoming from abroad. I'm going to say a lot.
I mean like tens of thousands. There were something like
twenty thousand families left within SUSA and that was like
the last parts of the Califate to hold out, and
they didn't have anywhere to go. And there were already

(31:46):
camps set up for IDPs for members of ISIS and
families in North Assyria, but alcohol was rapidly expanded to
take these on. So it's a sort of semi prison,
semi open camp that I think peaked at seventy five
thousand people, which it sounds like a lot on its own,
but when you consider that a large city in northern

(32:08):
Eastsyria is about one hundred and fifty thousand people, it
still is significant. I don't you probably have work of
recent because I mean, but I think the current population
is about forty thousand.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, it shrunk definitely. I'm not sure what it is exactly.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
The big problem that the self administration have had is multitude.
Really many of the people there are foreigners. Many of
them don't have papers. Many of them come from countries
that I either don't want them back or will almost
certainly execute them if they're sent back like a rock,
which is against the policy of the abolition of death penalty.

(32:41):
Inn Asyria. There are some in al whole, but mostly
other camps in the North and East Asyria. Former ISIS
members like Shamama Begam who come from countries like the
UK who simply won't take them back, and the uk
IS taken back some families that simply refuses to take
back their since you joined ISIS, says, you know, card

(33:02):
carrying members. So they've made a pretty massive effort to
repatriate as many families as possible. They've made a big
effort to rehabilitate and deradicalize as many people as possible.
They have strung the camp massively, but they're still, yeah,
forty thousand or something left there. And these are like
really a lot of them are really radical, Like I think,

(33:25):
I don't know what an exact number is, but something
in the order of ten thousand of them are still
like professed being members of ices, and they have a
lot of children. And this was something that shocked me
when I was at the end of the Caliphate and
back Goods and witnessed tens of thousands of people coming out,
and I could not have imagined how many children that were.

(33:45):
And this was like what five years ago now coming
up to six years ago. So some of them who
were you know, seven, eight, nine years old are now
like heading towards their mid teens. They've spent their entire
lives being radicalized, and like what do you do with them?
And it's no I think there's no coincidence that in
previous Turkish attacks, because Turkey's been attacking the north and
East Assyria for the last five six years now through

(34:08):
the air, through national warfare, and a lot of their
attacks have focused on trying to break these people out.
They have bombed the entrances to prisons multiple times, They
provided funding and arms and ammunition to groups that are
trying to break them out, and they provide a safe
passage back to Turkey for those who have managed to escape.
So it's massively in their favor, but of course it's

(34:29):
a Pandora's box, because you know, if that does break over,
and if these people aren't repatriated or aren't you radicalized,
then that's a lot of people who have pretty much
only known their whole lives a extremely radical fascist Islamist ideology.
And I don't think they're just going to give it up. Yeah, No,
that they're not going to join this moderate future Syria.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
No, And like those people have probably experienced, like probably
have terrible experiences within that camp, and that's not going
to make that they don't tend to be moderated and
sort of pacifying experiences. And I'm sure that they will.
There'll be a lot of hate coming from there when
those people come out. And I don't want to lick
a portion blame too much, but we've had a long

(35:12):
time to deal with this. The world has had a
long time to deal with I mean, I would.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
Happily blame this is entirely on the hands of the coalition.
Northern Assyria is a very poor places. It's deeply impoverished.
It's been kept in poverished by by sanctions by Turkey.
You know, the oil refining is that the industry, the
economy has been smashed to pieces that they've held on

(35:37):
really well, and that like all credit to them, they
have maintained this camp. They have tried to give these
people alive, but it's it's pretty awful conditions. Yeah, and
this could have been sold if the international community, if
the coalition, particularly United States, had helped with these repatriations,
so put political pressure on European comeses some particulars take

(36:00):
back their citizens and had just provided the funding, you know,
for they have provided funding. I'm not saying they haven't
ready much, but like it's a drop in the ocean
compared to the Department Defense budget. You know, we're talking
a few tens of millions here and there as opposed
to a concerted effort to deradicalize and repatriate people that

(36:20):
could pose a serious threat to Europe and the US.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, and like you've got Britain doing the opposite of
what's helpful, which is fucking like removing people's passports right
the naturalizing them, leaving these people stateless and like saying
it's not our problem, which is pathetic and I'm.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
Very incredibly short sighted. Yeah. You know, I don't like
using the word terror or terrorism because I think it's
they've become meaningless terms. But like ISIS did commit horrendous
acts of terror in Europe and the United States, and
these people, a lot of them, I'm sure would happily
do so given the opportunity. So I don't think that
the threat is like sufficiently understood in the West.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, No, And like it's going to end up biting
them in the ass because they've you know, they've put
this off and put this off, and wouldn't spend the
money to like have justice related to go through a
system and to have a chance to plead their cases
or have a tribune or whatever it is. Instead, these
people have just been essentially abandoned by most of the world.

(37:23):
The self administration has been forced to take care of
the people who did horrific things right there. And yeah,
at some point, this population will continue to grow if
we don't keep removing people from it, and that's going
to be a problem for the whole world, even if
the whole world wants to pretend it's not happening right now.
And it is just endlessly frustrating to see it not

(37:46):
even be covered, let alone kind of addressed in the West.

Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah, I think that's a really important point when similar
atrustees have been carried out in Europe. We see international tribunals,
we see the ICC and the ICJ step in. We
see arrests, we see prosecutions, you know, like Molossovich, like
the newer Bent trials, and Isis was a massive state.

(38:10):
It had some ten million inhabitants. It committed multiple genocides,
you know, and this is just you know, people in
the regions saying, oh, they're committing just these are like
Western highly studied, highly understood, accepted by Western states as
genocide against like the Uzds. They committed horrendous atrocities. They
posed an international threat and a massive regional threat, and

(38:33):
at the end of the caliphe as a territorial realm,
as a serious military presence. It just, yeah, it just
disappeared off the radar. And I think this is like
a you know, a really is really shows the sort
of racist and clonal mindset behind this rules based international
order that the people who were their victims and who
have left to pick up the pieces after it's got

(38:54):
very little support or recognition. And they've been calling for
for tribunals for years and it's just fallen on deaf ears.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Yeah, and sadly idgy that changing given the incoming administration
in the United States. Like it's it's deeply concerning, deeply concerned.
Their own word, it's just fucked. I want to ask, like,
people I think want to be in solidarity with the revolution,
They want to help if they can, they want to support.
I did the fundraiser last night. Thank you to everyone

(39:24):
who gave their money and came. That was really nice.
But what can people do to you know, it's one
thing to like be in solidarity or post or whatever,
but like, what concrete actions can they take to help.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
This is This is a question that I gets asked
a lot. Yeah, I think and doing anything is helpful. Yeah,
it's also a question that's really hard to answer given
how things are just across the border in Palestine. You know,
I personally find it hard to to engage and ask
for help and ask for solidarity when you know there's

(39:56):
a there's a genocide being committed next door. But we
might be about to see the same thing happened in Syria,
and I do think we should be taking it seriously.
And yeah, anything from raising awareness to actually going there
and lending support, anything on that spectrum it's not just
like it's not just the material contribution that you can make.

(40:16):
It's the people that do really feel left doubt, they
feel betrayed, they feel let down by the international community,
by the rest of the world, and any act of
solidarity goes out incredibly well. Like the first year I
was there, I was basically useless because I didn't speak
the language, I didn't know my way around. I was

(40:38):
like a burden on society more or less. And for
people just like happy that you're there, you know, showing solidarity.
And it's not about being useful, it's about that act.
It's about more than that. That's what I'm trying to say.
And if you can show solidarity in any way you can,
like this is incredibly incredibly important to find to do it.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah, I think, like I don't know, if I go
back to when I move to the US, which was
two thousand and eight, George W. Bush as president, and
like I have my little free Palestine badge when I
got off the plane in my little kafir and like
was immediately sent to secondary inspection by the customs people
because like that was not really of course, there were

(41:17):
Palestinian people and people in solidarity with the people of
Palestine and the US in and they were for a
long time before. But like I would never have imagined
that I would see thousands of people in the streets
for the Palestinian cause, and like that the only thing
that has materially held back the genocide of the Palestinian
people has been the solidarity that they've experienced, And like

(41:38):
that shows the power that people have. Though obviously it's
been able to do comparatively little in Israel still seems
to be killing bill children every day, but like it
shows that we can build solidarity really quickly and really meaningfully.
And like you don't have to go, but you can go.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
You get.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
It's much harder to get to Palestine than it is
to get to northern Newsyria. I went last year, And
I think people who are already organizing can bring that
into their organizing too. These things don't have to compete
like they can be. There's a lot of solidarity to
go around. But I would say a lot of the
news we see, unfortunately from Turkey and that will unfortunately

(42:18):
give you information that the extremely biased when it comes
to Naughsi Siria. So being conscious of your media consumption
is very important.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yeah, absolutely, I think I would just add that to
say that solidarity with any group is a long term project, right,
You're not going to jump in and be able to
make a huge difference immediately. But also at the same time,
like if the worst happens, if Turkey invades Ullon and
as genocide and North Assyria, that isn't the end of it.

(42:45):
It's a massive international movement and there are practices from
it that are being put in place in things that
actually don't even have anything to do with the curves
of the nation. And there are always organizing, there are
matters that they use as personality analysis, there's criticism and
self criticism that there's a lot of that that goes

(43:05):
far beyond a single geographic region, and I think engaging
with that can and I've seen with my own I
since I've been back, like there's a lot of groups
around the UK that use techniques for self organization within
land rights movement, within worker struggle, within ant Cutts campaigning,
and the's got nothing to do with with Rajava, but

(43:28):
they have seen that through solidarity with Rajava and Kurdistan
that there are ways that can improve their own practice
and their own actions.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah, I think that's really important too, and those are
things maybe we'll cover in the future. And there are
plenty of good resources online. Are there any resources you'd
like to plug or like personal social media's things? Do
you think people could follow to get good information on
what's happening.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Definitely the ri C, that's the Java Information Center. They
are probably the best source on the ground in Java,
and they are a collective of journalists, a mixture of
locals and internationalists who've been working there for six years now,
so they're a rejar. But I see on various social
media platforms you can follow me as at lapinesque la

(44:15):
p I n E, s q u E. I'm also
posting about it, although I'm not there anymore. I'm using
updates from friends, people I know there and my take
on the situation based on my experiences being there from
five years.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah, I think good to follow if you can. Thank
you very much, Danny. What we're going to do now
is I got some voice notes from some friends who
are at the front with a technosina and assist, which
means anarchist struggle in Kurdish. They're a group within the
SDF that is an anarchist group that they're fighting, and
in this case as to doing frontline medical support on

(44:52):
behalf of the self administration, on behalf of the revolution.
They sent me some notes this morning, Monday today their
positions on the front line. So obviously those notes will
be a little bit they'll be like twenty four hours
old by the time you hear them. But I still
think it's very important to hear from people who are there.
One we can not from, like someone who's supposed to be
an expert but hasn't set for in Syria in fifteen

(45:15):
years and hasn't really talked to anyone who's Syrian either.
So we'll drop those in after the advertising break here,
and with that I will say thank you very much, Danny,
thanks for giving us your time, and he'll be really
appreciate all you're insight today.

Speaker 5 (45:27):
Thanks very much, James, talking from the Provisional branch after divisions.

Speaker 6 (45:43):
We want to share the situation here.

Speaker 4 (45:49):
Because you're probably now the regime has fun. You've left
the country after a big offensive that started from Italy
that took over quite soon, quite fast, the city of
Aliba and continued moving.

Speaker 6 (46:11):
We wanted to explain how is the situation right now
on the ground and also give some insight on the.

Speaker 4 (46:17):
Situation of North in Syria and what the media is
not covering of the different events and situations that are
unknowing here. The main thing to remark that this can
be a bit of a confusion confusion interview for those
that are maybe not familiar with the unknowing situation. To

(46:38):
give a short context, we can mention that there are
right now two main conflicts ongoing military conflicts.

Speaker 6 (46:48):
One is when you reported they're not so much.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
We are talking about the war that HDRS or the
offensive that HDS launched against the CERN or a part me.
And the other is the offensive that the SMA and
Turkish proxy forces the writin or the name of that
Syrian National Army, but that they are trained, paid and

(47:14):
supported by the Turkish state. The offensive they have been
launching against Northern Asyria and the Democratic Administration of North
Asyria is the area also known sometimes as Forgiver that
is started as the.

Speaker 6 (47:32):
Court Desilberation movement leaving the world.

Speaker 4 (47:35):
Of Islamic state and establishing this autonomy's administration. So let's
go shoot it to the first conflict. This offensive of
its theater of the faith of Reaction, but it's Islamis
group direct heritage of.

Speaker 6 (47:52):
An austral that was the Syrian.

Speaker 4 (47:55):
Branch of the GUIDO that has been governing having somewhat
govern and the strict region in the Region of Europe
in the north west of Syria and was under heavisage
from the region. Process of Syria Army and the twenty
seventh of Nanda Bay count is the offensive.

Speaker 6 (48:13):
That led to the collapse of the region.

Speaker 4 (48:17):
We could reflect about the regions now on one side,
the Syria appeny was exhausted the two years of war
here in Senia, but especially their main allies and supporters
were also in that situation.

Speaker 6 (48:32):
We were talking mostly about Russia and Iran.

Speaker 4 (48:35):
As we currently know, Russia has been in change in
a war in Ukraine for three years almost Iran recently
had been also engaged in supporting the militias in the
conflict against Israel after the virtual occupation that Israel started

(48:56):
on another year ago. These two conflicts create a situation
that both.

Speaker 6 (49:03):
Partners that Russian Iran were not able to support the
army as they within the past.

Speaker 4 (49:11):
And this led also to the collapse of the front
lands of the Serra Party, allowing the offensive of HDS
to overrun very fast the defenses in the city of
Alipo and also take in control of the city of Hamma.
These sparked also all the groups that also opposed the

(49:34):
region for a long time to start also the in
action and in southern Syria and the regions of the
Sula and and Couneta, there was also an autonomous military
operation room that started coordinated insurgeons and the vision.

Speaker 6 (49:54):
These sparked the collapse of the region.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
A lot of soldiers were defect in their positions and
finally the different military groups leaving the offensive.

Speaker 6 (50:05):
To the mass Post.

Speaker 4 (50:07):
This was an offensive that was really not very builded
in the sense of a lot of the similar party
souldiers who were.

Speaker 6 (50:17):
Just leaving their positions and running away.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
And offensive was able to do advance very fast, very easily.

Speaker 6 (50:26):
Right now.

Speaker 4 (50:27):
The offensive led to the transition that we are seeing
in the mass Post, where the leader of HDS.

Speaker 6 (50:36):
Had been doing really.

Speaker 4 (50:39):
Public speeches and the carrying the trium of the revolution,
trying to harvest.

Speaker 6 (50:49):
And the revolutionary spirit of the twenty eleven for their.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
Own benefit, and they imposed or composed a traditional government
that is from exclusively by like members connected to aligned
to HDS. Could be good to discuss more about HDS,
but maybe it's not the focus of.

Speaker 6 (51:13):
Our interview right now. Just mentioned that the authoritarian.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Government in Egypt has been also really criticized by local
population organizing protest against it and right now running this
interim government, they are already making proposals for like a
morality police, is amy courts.

Speaker 6 (51:39):
So I don't know how much this comparison has been
really shared. That clearly what we saw in Afhanistan with Taliban.

Speaker 4 (51:48):
Taking over the state destructors is probably a good guide
to understand what could be happening in Syria if HBO
states control of the the state as it's.

Speaker 6 (52:00):
To be happening.

Speaker 4 (52:01):
So this is one of the confident going that is
widely reported. The only one maybe is not so much reported.
We see how the Turkish has been for a long
time to bested, has been for a long time and
attacking the vision of that Norway Syria, especially the Cooltish areas, and.

Speaker 6 (52:22):
This is connected not to their war against the.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
Condliberation movement that has been known for more than forty
years and the last chapter of US started in coordination
with this offensive of Hds where the Appropi forces and
started to attack, mainly the region of Takifact that was
an area where a lot of the refugees from a

(52:47):
friend were living. A frin was a region that was
a ray occupied by thirty in twenty eighteen and a
lot of the people from the city was displaced and
living in refuge.

Speaker 6 (52:58):
Avants in the in the region of.

Speaker 4 (53:01):
Hinda and the civil Tetrifact, and these Turkish pecty forces
attacked and conquered that vision, forcing all these people that
already had to leave their homes more than five years
ago two thousand eighteen. Yeah, so forcing them to flee

(53:23):
once again. A lot of these people was trapped in
a caroline that suffered brutal grades attacks, kidnapping, ransoms like
it has been like a really terrible experience for a
lot of people that was trying to flee the offensive

(53:43):
of the Turkish practy forces. And most of them are
now arriving to do bad. Time to write to the
visions of the self administration when where they are founding
and they can find shelter and for those willing to
help with the mention that Hava Shirt is the humanitary
organization one of the biggest humanitarior organizations working in other

(54:05):
Syria and has been providing tans and fought and blankage
and everything they can to support all these people that
is arriving on these areas.

Speaker 6 (54:15):
So those willing to support.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
Economically and the humanical and crisis that we are experiencing,
they can easily.

Speaker 6 (54:24):
Find the right side and the Banga Kama.

Speaker 4 (54:27):
Favasa to donate to them to support all these people
that went again, those in their homes that the offensive
didn't stop on An Shaffa and the SMA continued their
attacks and took over the city of man Ma gerally
right now and this was a really heavy classis that

(54:50):
it was a really serious military conflict that has been
totally supported by Turkish artillery.

Speaker 6 (54:59):
And air force. We are talking about.

Speaker 4 (55:01):
Drones sitting different positions and even airplanes.

Speaker 6 (55:06):
That of course nature air force have been.

Speaker 4 (55:09):
Bombing positions of the Cerum democratic forces, allowing.

Speaker 6 (55:13):
These different is on groups that part of.

Speaker 4 (55:18):
This coalition of the SMA, these poklish pactic forces to
control of the city. At the moment, there is already
several days that manage this city have been organizing protests
and even in general strike that started yesterday and in
the occupation because these groups that occupy the city are

(55:42):
looting and even killing local populations in a really terrible situation.
Of this experience in the local people living in Manage,
and they are willing to continue. They have been threatening
the city of Colony, the symbol of resists terms of
the visual revolution against the designed state and the straits

(56:05):
and the city are not just the bombings of the
top air force and artillery, but also a lot of
military personal of the Turkish Prepsy forces gathering on the
bridge that connects the divisions.

Speaker 6 (56:21):
Of man Beach and Commanding and all across the air
for this river.

Speaker 4 (56:27):
So this war is not so reported that it's been
really both times against the self administration in Northeastyria. We
are trying to report and update about the situation. We
also published two studments to to call out attention for

(56:48):
comrade what is ongoing here and maybe also.

Speaker 6 (56:53):
Talk a bit about the work that we have been
doing on the ground.

Speaker 4 (57:00):
We need to remark that this offensive of the Mambage
and now districts and Colony have not been the only adults.

Speaker 6 (57:07):
Of the Turkish army and the party forces and.

Speaker 4 (57:10):
The build all around the Street that they occupied in
twenty eighteen and two thousand nineteen. In the areas around
the city of Sylvania and Anisa next to the border
with Tricky also host a lot of islam As groups
that are part of this Turkish Party coalition and they

(57:32):
have been intensively bounding the areas and their surroundings and
there have been quiet widespread forms. This ze group togethering
forces to continue their results on the self administration of
Nordestria and the ward of the Syrian Democratic Forces. We

(57:55):
from the Casinosis, we have been working in the medical capacity,
provide i think materials for the medical points in the
in the fundance and being present in the foundlands together
with the Syrian Democratic Forces in case that a new
invasion and is happening right now, the bombings are hitting.

Speaker 6 (58:17):
Different areas and it has been really intense in the
last days.

Speaker 4 (58:21):
The Syrian Democratic Forces are in maximilar and especially there
is an important call in solidarity with the city of Covany,
a symbol of resistance that is small ones again under threat.
We have been seen as demonstrations are around the world
in solebarity with like the revolutions here and this has

(58:46):
been also bringing lots motivation to continue the resistance underground.
Right now, these situations of the instability and political tradition
is still plain in ways that are difficult to predict.

Speaker 6 (59:03):
We can see how the self administration has been sending political.

Speaker 4 (59:07):
Realizations and to the masters to never shad with this
new provisional government with the attempt to reach autonomy for
the region that connects with the ideas of democratic conferenism,
the DEAs of democratic confulism. Don't expect to run a

(59:28):
state institutions.

Speaker 6 (59:29):
Because we don't want to live.

Speaker 4 (59:31):
In a society that is ruled by a state, and
are calling for tums economy in a lot of governments
where that the different communities can live together, colleges together,
administering their social forms together, and also with their defense.

(59:53):
We'll see how the democratic forces is at a military
coalition of different local military forces that it's blade on
the principles of self defense. Maybe to give a bit
of context also of what we have been doing here
for several years that our organization has been operating in
another Syria.

Speaker 6 (01:00:15):
As anarchists. We can hear in.

Speaker 4 (01:00:18):
Solidarity international society with this revolution because their political values.

Speaker 6 (01:00:23):
And their political project is really close to our ideas.

Speaker 4 (01:00:29):
We see big similarities with the ideas of libertarian socialism
and social ecology and thinkers and model Bootin have been
a big inspiration for unvers In, leader of the Court
Desirition movement that has been proposing this political friend called

(01:00:50):
democratic confromism, where especially with the principles of one liberation,
social ecology and studios andocracy has been political campus of
the revolution here.

Speaker 6 (01:01:04):
Building autonomy in the.

Speaker 4 (01:01:06):
Different regions has been also a very important element to
develop the project, and especially during the war and the
Islamic State, as soon as the different territories were liberated,
there was a big emphasis on creating local councils civilian

(01:01:27):
and military councils both that.

Speaker 6 (01:01:31):
Around their own affairs.

Speaker 4 (01:01:34):
This is very interesting from anarchists perspective not to see
how one of the main political points is these promotings
of defense and creating a military force that is not
based on a centralized monopoly of balance, but on allowing
every community to take care of their own defense and

(01:01:55):
their own affairs.

Speaker 6 (01:01:56):
This is a really inspiring.

Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
Element that for us as I mean also a really
extraordinary learning process.

Speaker 6 (01:02:04):
Being part of a revolution.

Speaker 4 (01:02:05):
Leaving day to day the developments that are happening here
and seeing what doesn't mean to make a revolution because
in something that sometimes we anarchists look back often in
at the epic times of like Spain on thirty six
Ukraine in the twenties to see examples of like an

(01:02:26):
anarchist revolution.

Speaker 6 (01:02:28):
And this is something that today is happening here.

Speaker 4 (01:02:32):
Good.

Speaker 6 (01:02:33):
This tant has been for a long time leaving a
resistance against.

Speaker 4 (01:02:38):
The logic of national states, especially in turky but we
saw how it has been funding in Syria where like
this movement found the space to put in practice these
ideas and to develop the revolutionary society that has been
theorized for a long time. So even if we cannot
save Vergialism an anarchist region can say how at his

(01:03:01):
principles inspired the project and that it's been developed here
and implemented. This is a really an important school. It
brings a lot of lections of the big challenges of
reorganizing a society with principles of libertarian socialism. It is

(01:03:22):
especially complicated here because of external reasons like the situation
of the Marble, the constant threat of the Tutis army,
and this is something that for sure we can point
out as like, well, it's very difficult to make a
revolution with these factors. But this is also a lesson
that making a revolution will always be.

Speaker 6 (01:03:44):
Difficult, and we always have really big.

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
Factors that make the situation very difficult. If making a
revolution would be easy, we would already have done it.
So of course it's something that brings a lot of difficulties,
a lot of compleation, and a lot of challenges and
use here day to day living what it means to
build their evolutionary society, a lot of a lot of

(01:04:09):
equations from the reflections that we also able to translate
and to reflect together with.

Speaker 6 (01:04:15):
The artist movements from around the world, to learn family.

Speaker 7 (01:04:18):
Experience, and to be able to analyze together and reflect
and discuss together of what it means to build anarchism
in the twenty first century, what it means to build
libertarian socialism nowadays.

Speaker 6 (01:04:35):
In the current society with all the different elements that
we see, and of course in.

Speaker 4 (01:04:41):
The military council division going, it can seem maybe sometimes
far away of community in western countries, but I think
it's important to remember that revolution and war have been
always to site. At the same time, it's in these
mode of instability of war where the logic and the

(01:05:04):
established school of national states is more weak, because we
can actually see.

Speaker 6 (01:05:11):
Nine other times in another moment or.

Speaker 4 (01:05:13):
Even in other places nowadays, what is happening for example,
and there now what is happening in the different areas
where the logic of a national state has been questioned,
creates in the stability to create a situation where the
different actors will push to take control.

Speaker 6 (01:05:31):
And we know that often those actors will be met by.

Speaker 4 (01:05:35):
A nationalism and forces mentality with an authoritarian logic to
just impose their ideas and their aims by force. And
it's very important that we think and we reflect and
reorganize force that is able to react to that situation
because a traitarian and hierarchic miter structures.

Speaker 6 (01:06:00):
Are quite false.

Speaker 4 (01:06:02):
To react, we as anarchists, we need time to organize
arizon pay because our structures.

Speaker 6 (01:06:08):
Function based us on trust also make knowing each other
and even if I really believe that they are much
more solid and much more.

Speaker 4 (01:06:19):
Reliable in a long term, in a short term we
can face.

Speaker 6 (01:06:24):
Big, big challenge. So it's important.

Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
To see fascism is as with advancing all around the world,
and we can see how the intentions are growing.

Speaker 6 (01:06:36):
So maybe this isn't.

Speaker 4 (01:06:37):
As a call min to learn from the lessons here,
to learn from how the Kurdish movement have been working
and preparing for decades and what happened in Syria made
possible for the revolutionary movement to put the cards on
the table, to organize together with the people and to

(01:06:59):
defend their people and their communities, building these rebuffering process
that nowadays that so many people have been like taking
inspiration from.

Speaker 6 (01:07:10):
So yeah, probably this is a bit confusing and maybe
not so clearent.

Speaker 4 (01:07:17):
Sorry, we have been quiet some hours. We've had several
weeks that have been extremely challenging with really few hours
of sleep. But I hope this is more or less clear,
and this is doing is something that it's not so
understandable and always welcome new and new questions and helping answer,

(01:07:42):
answer and share more perspective.

Speaker 6 (01:07:45):
We have been answer writing some statements and we are
answer trying to answer all.

Speaker 4 (01:07:53):
Those people interested in learning more about the situation here
and in ways to support the revenue.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
It could happen. Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website.
Folzonmedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
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Speaker 6 (01:08:20):
Thanks for listening,