April 22, 2020 • 46 mins
In this episode, we visit an all-women farming commune and a group of grandmas who have taken the task of local law enforcement into their own hands.
Episode Transcript: https://www.thewomenswar.com/
Music: "Bella Ciao" by Astronautalis (feat. Subp Yao & Rickolus)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Women's War, a production of I Heart Radio.
Jake and I are pretty experienced travelers. We're both well
used to dangerous places. But something about Kamischlow, the city
(00:21):
where we spend the night of July, sets us on edge.
The city itself is, if not exactly clean, not particularly
dirty either. It is overcrowded, badly so, but orderly enough.
Given all that, the graffiti on the walls is generally
friendly and pro social. There are the names of various
Shihid's martyrs who died fighting for Rojava, brightly colored recycling symbols,
(00:44):
and cozy cartoon illustrations of women with a K forty
seven's but alone among the ruins of Rojava. Kamish Loo
is not entirely under the control of the SDF. The
Syrian regime and its blood soaked dictator Bashar al Assad
still run a few square blocks of the city, along
with its military airport. The result of this is that
(01:06):
every so often you turn a corner in Komischlow and
run face to face into a gigantic portrait of Bashar.
The regime. Bits of town are walled off, protected by
razor wire and surly looking young male soldiers with kalashnikovs.
A few days before our arrival, an American tourist was
kidnapped by regime soldiers. Here. The full story of this
(01:26):
that comes out later is profoundly dumb. Sam Goodwin, aged thirty,
was trying to visit every country in the world. The
Syrian regime, of course, would not approve his visa, so
he hired our friend Sangar to get him approval to
cross the Iraqi border into Rojava. Once in Rojava, Sam
planned to head to Kamichlo so he could step briefly
into the regime controlled side of town. Sangar told him
(01:49):
that this was a terrible idea, and also told him
that if he was going to safely visit Kamischlow, he
really needed a local Kurdish fixer to show him around
there too. It was easy to accidentally why end up
in the wrong part of town and thus get arrested
by the regime. But Sam decided he knew best. He
didn't have much money, so he decided he wouldn't have
a fixer once he reached Rojava. This was safe enough
(02:12):
until he got to Kamischlow, and he decided to execute
his cunning plan he checked into the Aja Hotel two A's,
which is where most foreigners stay, and then he hit
the ground and scoped out a regime checkpoint. Sam's plan,
it seems, was to hop across into regime territory and
then run back over into Rojava very quickly. Only he
(02:32):
wasn't quite as fast as he needed to be, and
so when Jake and I checked into the Aja Hotel
on the night of July, Sam sat in a prison
cell somewhere nearby in regime controlled Syria. His fate at
that moment was uncertain, although he's since been freed, and
it lingered in our minds. Our nerves were not helped
by the ten minute speech Kobat and our hotel's manager
(02:55):
gave us on which parts of town were actually safe
to visit and which parts of town get us arrested
like Sam. The key, they explained, was just to avoid
wandering too close to the regime parts of town. Large
chunks of the city, they assured us, were totally safe.
It was just that foreigners had a nasty tendency to
funk up in the unfamiliar environs. Now, neither Jake nor
(03:18):
I wanted to spend a lot of time out on
the street. Given all the reasons, I just laid out.
But we were hungry, and so we ventured out for
schwarma and for some beer from me. We were about
ten feet from the door of our hotel when a
technical a flatbed truck with a giant gun melted in
the bed, farted into view. When a cloud of exhausted
wheels to stop just a few feet ahead of us,
(03:38):
smack in the middle of an intersection, two WYPG men
hopped out from the bed of the truck, a K
forty seven's in hand. They took up positions on either
side of the street and began searching vehicles and questioning people.
They did not seem overly aggressive or frightened, but they
did seem very serious, and the mood on the street
turned icy and weird in a way that's hard to
describe to people who haven't watched roving pat rolls of
(04:00):
armed men search for suicide bombers. That is what the
hPG we're looking for. That afternoon, Kamischla was large, and
it's chaotic enough. That isis sleeper cells have had an
easier time operating there than in most parts of Rajava.
There had been suicide bombings earlier in the year. Jake
and I gave the whole scene a wide berth as
we walked past and on to our destination, a little
(04:21):
hole in the wall Shwarma Joint. We ate, and then
we set out to find a beer store. We were
maybe half a block into that mission when a young
man on a motorcycle burned right past the air SATs
checkpoint and up to Jake and I. We both tensed up.
I wouldn't say I've been close to a suicide bomb detonating,
but I have been closer than I wanted to be.
(04:41):
Jake and I never talked about this, but I kind
of gathered from his reaction that he'd had a similar experience,
and so we were both rather jumpy at this. But
the kid just topped off his bike and breeze passed
us into a shop. We relaxed, but we also decided
it was probably a good idea at a high tail
it back to our hotel rooms. We did not go
back out into Kamichelo alone again. We made it through
(05:03):
the night, though, and we awoke the next morning to
an even tenser mood. The commander of Sincom United States
Central Command had just flown into Rojava's capital, Kobani to
meet with the leadership of the SDF. Rojava's military security
was correspondingly tightened. Kabat and Alan picked Jake and I
up that morning, and as soon as we got out
on the road the additional a Sayish patrols were very obvious.
(05:26):
That's not the only reason things felt tense, though. The
reason that the head of Sentcom had flown to Rojava
was to discuss the so called Turkish buffer Zone. President
Erdowin wanted the United States to force the SDF to
withdraw from all of the areas immediately around a Turkey's border,
but a lot of northeast Syria is bordered by Turkey,
including most of the defensive fortifications and tunnels that would
(05:48):
give Rojava a hope of defending itself against NATO's second
largest military. As we ate breakfast, the news dropped that
an individual in Rojava had fired a small rocket into Turkey.
No one was hurt and the STF arrest at the culprit,
but it did not seem to bode well for future peace.
Moments later, scanning my phone, I came across another piece
of breaking news. Iran had just announced its arrest of
(06:11):
seventeen people it called CIA Operatives. I began to feel
as if Jake and I might be standing on the
edge of some yawning, terrible chasm, and so I elected
to set down my phone. This proved to be a
wise decision. My mood improved immensely as we got out
of Commissil and on the road to our next destination.
Today we were headed to a woman's cooperative farm out
(06:32):
in the countryside near a town called Trebespie. The farmer
is one of several co ops training up a new
generation of female farmers. As a law tour across the landscape,
he began to play as one of his favorite songs,
Destane Kobani that means long Live Rojava, We are ready
(06:54):
to die for you. The attacks of the enemy are
in vain. Revolutionary men and women are defending the homeland
without fear of barbaric dogs. You get the idea. It's
pretty standard militant stuff, but there's a pretty sweet breakdown
(07:14):
at the halfway point. Jake and I like it, and
it gets us to thinking about our favorite Irish rebel songs.
A lot of Jake's family came from Ireland, so he
grew up listening to the stuff. I don't have any
Irish blood at all, but for whatever reason, I fell
in love with old ira A anthems when I was
(07:35):
in high school. We decided to play one of them
for Kabbat, and there's no question among us as to
which song it should be. Come out and fight me
like a major, like Calabey from The Green Lovely Day,
(07:57):
This is come out Ye Black and Tans, a classic
tune about a drunk Irish partisan taunting members of a
British military unit. The notoriously violent Black and Hands. The
defiance of the song appears to Kabbat. She asks us
if we've heard Sia Madonni's cover of Bella Chow Jake has,
but I haven't, and she plays it fish Son the
(08:19):
Stars Chocho. In response, Jake and I put on another
one of our favorite i RA songs, Home Soldiers, go
on home, have you done looking homes? Or rad under
jeers and will fight you for ray. Kabat likes that
(08:47):
one a lot. She spent most of her life with
foreign soldiers occupying her homeland or threatening to occupy it
Syrians from regime controlled territory Russians, Americans, Turks. Kabat identifies
deeply with the sentimentic spressed in this song, and she
laughs a lot during it. We have to stop by
(09:09):
the nearby Asaish or Military police office to get more
paper stamped and inspected. We drive into a walled complex
of buildings with a large friendly poster of Apo up
de Lagelon, the founder of Rojaba, wearing his Cosby sweater
and smiling. It's displayed prominently out front. The process takes
a little while, and while we wait, how About starts
a conversation with one of the cops in the office
(09:31):
with us. She asks him a variant of the same
question I've had her asking a number of the men.
The gist of the question is do you find working
with women to be weird? Did you used to feel
differently about their place in society? Is this strange at
all for you? And this guy insists that it's never
been an issue for him. Then he shoots back a
question to Jake. Are women allowed to serve in frontline
(09:51):
combat units in the British military? Jake tells him yes,
but only recently, because for a long time people thought
women could not do those jobs. I tell him the
things are more or less the same over in the
United States. The asaish man regards this as ridiculous. He
tells us our daughters they defeated isis So there is
the proof. We get our permission to move on, and
(10:26):
before long we're rolling up the dirt road leading to
the women's cooperative Farming Commune. It's a sizeable endeavor, more
than two dozen acres under cultivation and a complex of
a dozen greenhouses, each the size of two eighteen wheelers
park next to each other. Alan stops the van and
we get out and meet a middle aged man outside
a pair of trailers that seemed to function as an
office space. He introduces himself as haveal ken War and
(10:48):
explains that he's an agricultural engineer and that he acts
as an adviser to the young women who live in
work here. He takes us into the trailers and he
leads us to a small classroom with YPG and J
flags in one corner and a desk with a computer
and an a K forty seven lint against it. Two
young women sit in a low slung couch at the
other end of the room. They could have walked out
of downtown Los Angeles. Both war jenes, sneakers and colorful
(11:12):
t shirts. Ahim has dark glasses, a head scarf, and
presents with an overwhelming air of shyness. Her partner, Salam
is her polar opposite, with a penetrating gaze and a wide,
(11:32):
toothy and thoroughly winsome smile. Both young women are the
elected representatives of the commune, chosen by their fellows to
represent the group at local council meetings and in the
instances when foreign journalists rolled through town. They both looked
very young to be taking on leadership roles and an
endeavor as large as this farm. When we arrived, there
were enough crops on the ground to fill a couple
(11:52):
of large trucks. My first question for a human Salam
as if before the revolution they had ever thought they
might end up leading a project like this. Kabbat asks
them for me that tutting noise was Salam saying no
in a way that translated very clearly to everyone in
the room, even if it didn't quite translate over my recording. No,
(12:18):
we never thought the world could be like this, I
asked her when she first realized that the world had changed,
and that women in her society suddenly had more options.
The memory was clear to her. She was sitting with
a group of friends shortly after the start of the revolution,
and as they began to talk about the changes happening
to their society, an avalanche of buried desires began to
bubble up from within them. We were young, and we
(12:40):
wanted to study. One of us said I want to
be a doctor, and I said, I want to study economics.
Salam and her friends went to the women's house that
had been newly established in their town. When this place
was set up, our neighbors and other people in the
community talked about it. Salam came from a fairly traditional
Arab village, and it was not the norm for women
(13:00):
and her family to have careers or to even really
live independently before marriage. I asked her if her family
made things more difficult for her when she announced that
she wanted to do this work. The sound she made
wasn't picked up perfectly by my little handheld audio recorder.
I will try to recreate it as best as I
(13:21):
can on my own. The sound only conveys half of
her message. The other half was on her wide open
eyes and cheerfully traumatized grin. It's the kind of look
you see on your friend's faces when they were called
the times their parents caught them out drinking underage, or
sneaking out to visit a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or
doing something else that caused their parents to blow up
in a huge way. Announcing that she planned to leave
(13:42):
home was clearly not a pleasant memory, but her family
weren't able to make her stop either. Perhaps it's true
that our work was men's work before, but now it
is women's work. We said, yes, we will work like
the men, and we put in long hours here to
do so. After a period of study, Salama sided that
her interest in economics would be best served by helping
(14:02):
to start and operate a business. Her training for this
involved classroom lessons and practical training and agriculture, but it
also included the same month of ideological and armed training
required of new recruits who joined the militias of the SDF.
We had classes about ancient history starting with the Big Bang,
classes on Abdullah Alan, on ethics, on how we should
(14:24):
relate to others in our community. We had many classes,
including education on economics. They also learned how to use
a gun. Basic arm training is considered a critical skill
for just about everybody who takes any sort of real
role in Rojava. Did remember what she thought the first
time that she had the first time that she fired
a weather it was scary up until the first bullet
(14:47):
I fired. My hand was shaking and the comrade had
to help me. But the second time I fired it.
I also asked what was probably a more important question,
how had it felt the first time she was able
to eat crops that she'd helped grow herself. It was
hard work, but we enjoyed it when the crops were
finally ready. The cucumbers finished first, We liked them a lot.
(15:08):
The harvest was difficult, but after we had everything gathered,
we were so happy. Now you can see our fields here.
They're so big, and it took a lot of effort
to make them this way. Days spent under the sun,
irritated by the heat, but once we had that food
in our hands, we forgot our discomfort. After we conclude
our interview, Salamin Aheim take us on a tour of
(15:29):
their farm. We pass a man cutting up metal segments
of fencing while a female apprentice observes. We pass a
fertile field filled with row after row of cucumbers, cantaloupes,
and zucchini. I'm not an expert on agriculture, but I've
spent a decent chunk of my life on small farms
in Texas, Oklahoma, California, and Oregon. It is clear to
(15:49):
me that this is not a tiny token endeavor. There
is an enormous amount of food on the ground, a
lot of thick, flavorful cucumbers with an almost media richness
to them that's entirely absent from the ones I've back
in the United States. We eat them while we walk.
The pastoral charm of the field is broken by the
enormous oil refinery that dominates the horizon in the distance.
(16:09):
Rojava holds a number of very rich oil fields which
provide a significant amount of serious total oil output. The
refinery ahead of US doubles as a base for US
troops in the region. Oil production definitely does not jell
well with the ecology balance bits of the Rojavan constitution,
but selling it represents a pragmatic necessity. There are taxes
(16:30):
in Rojava, but this is not a wealthy region of
the world. War is expensive without oil sales the STFs
position would be even less secure. A great deal has
been written about the oil refineries of northeast Syria. A
few months before my own arrival in Rojava, a reporter
with Mother Jones named Shane Bauer published a massive long
form article about his own experiences in the region. Rujava's
(16:51):
oil refineries and the role of US played in securing
them were a major focus of his story. Bauer was
critical of the Rojavan Project, and he spends relatively little
time discussing economic cooperatives like the farm Moron. He writes
of them, quote, These profit sharing ventures are subsidized with
interest free loans, but their role in the economy is
relatively marginal. There are just a hundred and twenty nine
(17:12):
cooperatives in Jazeera, which is one of the cantons in Rojava.
Their goods are bought and sold on the free market.
The question of whether or not these cooperatives really matter
in the big picture is a debatable point, to be sure,
but it's worth noting that none of those one d
and twenty nine cooperatives existed prior to the revolution, and
there are more cooperatives in the other cantons of Rojava.
(17:32):
Fifty five of these co ops are all women endeavors.
Like the restaurant we ate at in Darek and Salam
and Ahms Farm, these employ more than seven thousand women.
It feels significant to me that something of this scale
has been accomplished while the people of Rojava have also
fought an expensive, grinding war with ISIS. And it feels
significant to me when we step into the large complex
(17:54):
of greenhouses on Salam and Ahims Farm. Yeah. Here we
see on one end of the very large greenhouse space.
There's no internal walls between them group six women, all masks,
cutting down plants. Watching these young women chopped down old vines,
(18:15):
remnants of the last harvest to clear up space free
planting pulls my mind back to California and the medical
marijuana farms that I spent a sizeable chunk of the
late Oughts living in and around. Perhaps Shane is right,
and everything happening here is an insignificant side show, but
it doesn't feel that way standing in the middle of it.
We eat a cantaloupe before we leave. Like most right
(18:35):
thinking people, I've spent most of my life considering cantaloupe
to be among the very worst fruits. I find it
dull and flavorless, and I've always sort of assumed that
its main purpose was to be an inexpensive way to
fill out the weight of cafeteria fruit salad. I don't
know if it's something in the soil or just the
fact that I've never had a farm fresh cantaloup before,
but it tastes incredible here, so much sweeter than i'd expected.
(18:57):
Bellies full, We bet our hosts farewell and drive to Turbespi,
a large town of about sixteen thousand. I want to
get a sense of how men on the street feel
about the changes to women's rights here since the revolution.
We haven't heard from many men who are just normal civilians,
not involved in any of the militias or political parties
that make up Rojava. One allegation you'll hear from people
who are critical of Rojava is the idea that the
(19:19):
main political party in the region, the p y D,
has basically dressed up their authoritarian rule as a democratic revolution.
The p y D or Democratic Union Party, was founded
in two thousand three. Shane Bauer of Mother Jones brings
up the case of Burzan Leani, a Kurdish journalist who
was imprisoned for six months in two thousand seventeen under
(19:39):
charges of being part of an unapproved media organization. Forty
five days of a sentence were held in solitary confinement.
Leoni is affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria
or k DPS, a political party that many Syrian Curds
say is just a wing of the Barzani family's empire
of influence. Since the KDPS is a party for herds
(20:00):
and for Kords alone, it is legal in Rojava. Under
the constitution, political parties may not be found out on
ethnic or religious lines. The Self Administration basically accuses Leani
of being a spy in Rojava there to drum up
unrest and resistance. Leoni denies this, and neither I nor
Shane Bauer have any way of knowing what the truth
(20:20):
here is. The best I can do with the resources
available to me now is to try and gain an
understanding of how free people in Rojava feel to express
their feelings towards the p y D and the Self Administration.
We park on a random street and Kabat approaches the
first passer by. We meet a short, middle aged Arab
(20:43):
man on his way to the market. We say our greetings,
and then I start in questions, what do you think
about the changes that have been made since the revolution?
His answer to the second question is a bit more winding,
but it's also broadly positive. Day said was just a
woman who are educated, our functioning in the jobs as
(21:04):
as well the women the men that they were like,
I just have education for people like me alerted they
didn't work, they were just always farmers. That might have
been a little hard to follow. This guy was saying
that back when ASSAD was in charge, only wealthy, educated
women were able to hold any kind of job. They
have always been liberated working women in Syria, but until
the revolution they were primarily wealthy, generally from coastal cities,
(21:25):
and generally benefiting from some sort of direct connection to
the ASSAD regime. This guy expressed his opinion that now
working class women had opportunities, and he felt this was
a good thing. We approach another passer by a reedy
young man who expresses a more critical opinion of the
self administration. He praises the security, but he complains that
(21:48):
some of the dishonest, corrupt officials who ran things under
ASSAD were still around, and we're still dishonest, but the
people who are already before the revolution have a problems
with their like attitude or corruption. Kabat asks him next
how he feels about, you know, the fact that women
can do stuff here now, none of us. We'll hear
(22:20):
variations of this joke several times today, and many times
throughout our time in Rojava, as you can hear. Jake
and I both laughed when we heard it the first time,
but it grew a little bit less funny every time
someone repeated it. I couldn't help but think that some
of the men back at home in my own country
who complain about the feminist movement oppressing American men. This
feels much less aggressive than the men's rights movement, for instance.
(22:42):
But it's certainly not all lighthearted jokes either. Many men
in Rojava feel that what you and I would call
legal equality is in reality women being placed over men.
It's not exactly a new story in the history of
civil rights movements. After a handful of interviews, we find
ourselves talking to a tall, heavy set man in a thobe,
the traditional Arab dressing gown. Kbat asks him how he
(23:02):
feels about the changes to women's rights after the revolution.
There have been great successes. Next, she asks him, before
a woman could not pick up a gun or go
to work, how do you feel about the fact that
this has changed. I think it's very good that now
women can take up the gun. Before women lived under violence.
Now after the revolution, they have had chances. They have
(23:24):
had their freedom. Before they weren't free, they couldn't speak.
Now they can work, they can speak. There is an improvement. Next,
she asks him if he feels the self administration government
has treated his people Arabs any differently than Kurds. No,
there's no difference. We are all one. It doesn't matter
here if you're Arab, Kurdish Christian. We are all brothers
(23:45):
from this revolution who rose up together as one. We
continue down the street, talking to Arab and Kurdish men
of all ages about their feelings towards the new system.
Most people are broadly positive, particularly about the security situation,
but also generally out the new opportunities for women. After
an hour or so, we find ourselves in a vegetable
market talking to the owner of a small shop. He's
(24:06):
the first man, we think who is emphatically against the
changes made by the Rojavan Revolution. Okay, so he is
not with this system of the woman. He feels like
it's too much or it's over Why because he already
have one wife and he wanted to get a second wife.
But he's a friend. Do you not saying now a
lot that it's not allowed to get a second wife.
(24:28):
I'm not particularly sympathetic to this fellow's complaints, but I
am happy that he felt perfectly comfortable voicing them at
length to foreign journalists because he don't have a children
from the first one, so you have a reason for
the second. But even that, I certainly can't say that
the members of the p whitey Rojava's largest political party,
or any other officials involved in its governance, have never
(24:49):
targeted or oppressed individuals with political differences. That statement would
not even be true of my own country. But I
can't say that this man on the street, talking to
a foreigner with a clear and visible record device, felt
fine voicing his criticisms of the system, and that same
thing would not have happened and Bashar al Assad, Syria.
At the very least, we finished our time on the street,
(25:22):
and after a couple of terrible, terrible cigarettes with a
lawn which we enjoyed very much. Thank you. Alan. We
hop in the van and roll off back to Kamisch.
Lookbat and I start talking about her feelings towards the interview, Um,
how did you feel about the running joke about the
women being in charge of everything? Now? Yeah, I accepted.
(25:43):
I even sometimes expect like a more harsh comments. You know,
I know deeply they are many of them don't like
it at all. They don't believe it at all. They
and even sometimes I feel like if it came again
their control, if this system has been done, the woman
will be like the U is losing this because maybe
they were going to take revenge again. Yeah, which of
(26:03):
those guys, like some of them were clearly she's like
a gay in the vegetable card seemed to be having
a laugh about it. Do you feel some of them
were or maybe he was. I think, yeah, this division
because the other one and he said, like it's strong
system and like I want to because he wanted to
just get another wife because of the kid. He have
a reason why he's criticizing this system. But the other
(26:26):
one he's clear like don't like it at all, and
he's like even make fun on it, Like yeah, they
were going to take us to a whole somehow. Our
whole is the open air prison slash refugee camp or
isis prisoners are help interesting, yeah, because that's the first
time in their life, like never they imagine they have
been right up. Like the woman, she's basically an Arab
culture that they want. She cannot do anything, She's just
(26:48):
a housewife, maximum for home at fellows. So now it's
another thing. It's so difficult for them to accept it.
Even they said by their eyes they feel like it
s will be changed. She means they all hope will
go back to the way it was before, and perhaps
it will. As we drive past yet another towering stretch
of the Turkish border fence, I can't help but think
about how suddenly this could all end. Our last stop
(27:11):
for the day is a residential neighborhood and Kabbat's hometown,
kamisch Loo. We're going there to meet the members of
one of the local women's councils. This council represented the
women in the neighborhood and met regularly with them to
vote on how to handle specific hyperlocal problems. Since all
of the women in it were older and grandmother's Hobbat
referred to them collectively as the Mamas, and introducing us
(27:33):
to them was clearly the most excited she'd been in
the three or four days since I had known her. So,
what they are doing, they are like organizing. They cannot
read all right, it's one of them. They have a smartphone.
What they are doing They just sent the or share
voice messages together in order to organize for our meeting,
gore or gathering. Go. You know, they are discussing the
(27:54):
cases or issues together. So you see it's one of them.
She's hundling and get cooking in one this thing. Just run,
She's just show me. So it's so funny. Alon glided
his van to a stop in front of a nondescript
tan colored building at the end of a working class
(28:14):
neighborhood and commischelow. We headed in through the open gate
of a courtyard, and inside we met the mamas. There
are six of them, and the youngest looks to be
in her late forties or early fifties. They all wear
head scarfs and dressed traditionally no exposed tattoos. Here a
gaggle of young kids scamper around doing kid things. There
are no opo pictures on the walls, nor any hanging
(28:35):
pictures of martyrs. A circle of plastic chairs sits out
in the courtyard and we all take a seat, with
a bot in between Jake and I to facilitate the interviews.
She introduces the co presidents of the Women's Council, one
of whom is also the co president of the larger
local commune. And it's here that I should probably give
you another brief overview of how Rojava's democratic confederalist system works.
(28:55):
On the ground level, every neighborhood, which is in this
case about a hundred and eighty house, has a local
commune made up of all the adult members of that neighborhood.
They elect co presidents which represent that commune and the
People's Council for their district, and the People's Council elects
co presidents to represent that district at the city council.
And you know, so on. Co presidents are elected by
(29:17):
simple democratic vote, and they are recallable through the same mechanism.
The higher level councils are responsible for the kind of
coordination necessary for handling life in large urban areas, but
the root of all governance in Rojava are the local communes.
They're responsible for hyper local maintenance tasks, basic security, and
the distribution of many social welfare programs. They also act
(29:37):
a little bit like a d MV, supplying people with
stamps and papers they need to do official stuff. The
women's councils run as auxiliaries to the local communes as
well as to the larger people's councils. They have veto
power over every women's issue decided in the area and
can thus stop the mixed gender local communes from ruling
on issues of domestic violence or women's healthcare should they
(29:58):
disagree with the ruling. All these different communes and councils
are further broken down into committees which handles specific issues
for their community. The mamas were meeting with today are
the Social Committee for the Women's Council of one local
commune in Commissilow, and as they explained to me, their
job is to act as a sort of emotional police force.
The SA the military police don't show up to deal
(30:19):
with domestic violence or a fist fight between neighbors. The
belief is that getting the police involved is bringing outsiders
and to solve which should be a community issue, so
instead When problems like that crop up, the first responders
are often the mama's. As we sit and talk, the
mom must tell us the story of a recent domestic
dispute they had to handle. He went to fix that
problem between a couple the way she is in her
(30:42):
parts in home since the month, because they like the
has was getting here. So they went there and they
wanted to solve this problem. And then they listened to
the why then she had too, and she said, it's
maybe she is not saying the genuine plan. Let's listen
to the other side as because she said like a now.
Also sometimes the woman they out of pressing. In short,
(31:03):
what they initially thought was a simple case of domestic
violence turned out to be a more complicated dispute between
a married couple. The mamas grew concerned that the woman
in this case may have been distorting or fabricating some
of the claim she was making against her husband. Unfortunately,
like have been oppressed, and there is sometimes the at
a tap of revenge, so let's not you know, we
get powers or try because I do want also alerted
(31:24):
than they have. They don't know how to handle all
this to whatever. So sometimes the woman also they are
not always right. The conclusion the mamas came to was
that both parties had valid reasons to be angry. They
talked things out with both and they helped them reach
a place where they could apologize to each other and
move back in together. This would be an example of
a fairly light case for the social counsel, but they
(31:45):
also dealt with more severe issues than quarreling spouses, issues
like the fallout after a murder ten days ago. There
there is a case like a murder case since sport is,
it's there, but no one can sol But you know,
now I can hear the true crime. Fans in the
audience getting excited, but interestingly enough. When Hubbart said the
murder was unsolved, she didn't mean that the killer was unknown.
(32:08):
In fact, the murder had been caught very quickly, tried, convicted,
and imprisoned shortly after the crime itself. What hadn't been
solved was how to reintegrate the families of the victim
and the murderer back into civil society. It's so his
wife have been the mother of this son and his sister.
(32:30):
They are not accepting to solve this problem. She said
that the immediate family of the dead boy refused to
accept peace. When are we're going to kill that joke? Okay? Anyhow,
they keep the children and then you kicked this and
so his wife out and whenever the woman or anyone
wanted to try to fix this problem, they said, no,
I'm gonna kill blood. Revenge killing is an extremely common
(32:52):
problem in many parts of the Middle East. The specifics
differ from region to region, but the basic idea is
that it's still pretty normal for members of families and
try as to revenge murder in response to the death
of a loved one. I found an interview with a
young Egyptian man, Joseph Nazir, on a website called Connect
the Cultures dot Com. He described her revenge killings can
often turn into all out war between families. Quote. When
(33:13):
I was a child, five or six years old, there
was a war like this between two families in our street.
My little sister and I were inside our home with
our mom when it started. My dad wasn't there, he
was working. There was a fight going on outside our door.
Families were shooting at each other. I was sitting with
my mom inside the house, scared. There were a lot
of guns. The shooting went on for about an hour
or two. One person died in this gunfight, and per
(33:34):
local custom, his family were unable to hold a proper
funeral until one of them had killed a member of
the other family, and that family would be unable to
do their funeral until they committed another murder, and so
on and so forth. You get the idea, and as
Joseph explained in his article, there's only one way to end.
As such, a cycle of violence quote revenge killings can
go on for a long long time, decades and decades.
(33:56):
It doesn't stop until someone in one of the families
wants to stop and agrees to go through a ceremony
to officially halt the killings. This is the only thing
that can stop it. Other than that it will never
stop at all. Now. The ceremony, Joseph refers, who involves
one man from one of the families marching over to
the home of the enemy family, lying down in front
of the man of the house, and saying some variant
(34:17):
of I'm dead, I'm yours. You can do whatever you
want with me. Now. The man who does this is
generally never killed, but it is considered deeply shameful for
him to take this action, and so, in other words,
the cycle of violence can't end traditionally unless a young
man is willing to sacrifice his pride and honor to
stop the blood letting. They've taken the responsibility out of
the hands of individual family members and put it into
(34:39):
the hands of other members of the community. In this
particular case, it took weeks of work by members of
the social Committee and members of several other communes in
the city. Eventually they got both families to agree to
the terms by which they would make a peace. The
next step was to host a gigantic feast attended by
members of the community and by both families. There they
would publicly make peace that way of one side or
(34:59):
the other. The truth, all of the neighbors would know
which family was going back on their word of honor. Now,
convincing both sides to reach a place of agreement was
not easy. The mam has told us of another story
about a murder committed by several members of the whitepg
against one of their comrades. It looked like so it's
like one of them having in the other. Okay, brother
(35:27):
was the pin because he's in love with his sister
so what he done, he proped he and another three
of his friends. They told now, I feel like I
should also jett in here to say that if the
self administration were secretly authoritarian, they probably wouldn't let foreign
journalists here about murders within their own military units. What
(35:47):
happened the families of those for four youngs likely because
of the family to get so the white PG caught
and prosecuted the murderers. But the families of those murderers
had to their homes because they were terrified they'd be
murdered in retaliation. This is the point at which the
mama stepped in. So this solution, it was that the guy,
(36:10):
he's already the killers and in this jail and the
present and they get you dissolution that the families for families,
they were going to turn back to their to their houses.
But three of them they already announced that they don't
consider that this sons. They are sons. Eyning Kabat is
explaining that the social counsels were able to convince the
families of the killers to disown their sons. This placated
(36:33):
the family of the victim and allowed everyone to return
to their homes without further bloodshed. The mamas were pretty
emphatic that they could not solve every problem that came
their way. For one thing, none of them could read,
and they freely admitted that some issues exceeded their depth.
These problems could be escalated up to the educated ladies
at the women's house, or up to the professional courts
in the very most extreme cases. People in Rojava still
(36:57):
have the option of dealing with certain problems and what
ME America would call the normal way with cops and
judges and lawyers, but they prefer not to start there
with any of these groups or steps. One of the
foundational ideas of democratic and federalism is that the folks
who live in an area are generally better at managing
their lives than the people outside it. Bringing a bunch
of cops from fifteen miles away into a domestic dispute
(37:18):
is often a lot less effective than having a group
of older women everyone knows in respects rolling to investigate
and talk things out like just about everyone else we
speak with. The mom as have also trained in using
their a K forty sevens during times of heightened tension.
They take direct responsibility for the security of their neighborhoods,
and they take this work seriously. It's not hard to
see why. The co president of the commune tells me
(37:40):
about her son, who died in an ambush conducted by
ISIS during the darkest days of the war, when the
SDF was losing forty fighters every day. Am Chad, you
could have it, she plays as a music video made
a tribute to her martyred boy. The pride is obvious
(38:03):
in her eyes. She explains to us that her work
on the Social Council and in her local commune is
part of how she honors her child sacrifice. The more
we talk, it becomes clear that all these women have
lost children and other family members battling against ISIS, and
rather than yielding to their rage and pain, they decided
to throw their lives into building something. At one point,
(38:25):
I ask if she can imagine things going back to
the way they were before the revolution. She immediately tells
me that such a thing is unimaginable. System because youth,
because of imaginal names. For example, of minding it's a Cristan.
(38:55):
But on the idea they they were just a Cristan,
you know. Just to to change it, Tom for the
Kurdish name, so we couldn't even speak it away. It
was optional, I guess us. We couldn't excution, we couldn't
do anything, so we cannot even imagine. Then, as we leave,
the co president hands me a little plastic token with
(39:15):
the face of her martyred boy on it. For the
first time in my life, I'm glad I can't speak
fluent Kurdish. It's much easier to just thank her, take
her hand, and meet her gaze without another word. As
we pile into the van, Kobat points out the little
plastic memorial in my hand. She tells me, you can
see where they get the morale to keep going. If
they stop, then they're just grieving. We drive off, and
(39:38):
Jake and I burned down another god awful cigarette with
the lawn, but we mull over the day's findings. It's
late and the sun is beginning to set, but we're
not quite done yet. Kabat has one last stop for
us to make. Our prior stops on this trip had
all been places in groups. Jake and I told Kobat
we wanted to visit. We'd read about women's cooperatives and
local councils and Judgemina and genoir. Before we ever arrived,
(39:59):
we informed Kabat where we wanted to go and we
wanted to meet, and she worked out the logistics and
got the permissions. But this last stop of the day
was the first destination that Harbat had picked herself for us.
The Cemetery of the Martyrs in Kamischlo is one of
the places where Rojava buries its war dead, the Shahids.
From the outside, it's a large stone facility with a
(40:20):
gathering field to one side and long rows of orderly
graves on the other. As we stepped through the gates
following Kabat, I turned on my recorder to capture the moment.
We're walking into a cemetery. It's around sunset. The muzzen's playing.
This is where the graves of the Shahids are held.
(40:43):
M m M. I see marker after marker. They're colorful
with the kind of traditional gravestones on the top written
in both in kind of Arabic characters. On the bottom,
there are pictures yellow backgrounds, faces and color of different Shahids.
(41:09):
Most of them are very young in their twenties, some
of their teens, some older people, men and women, young
women who look like they should be in high school,
and middle aged women mothers. Probably. They're brightly colored pictures
(41:35):
surrounding it. Essentially looks like like a gravestone on top
of a like marble box, and the sides of the
box are covered in sort of colored picture inserts of
the person. There's a picture I'm looking at right now
of a martyr named barn There's three pictures of him
on the front, one of him holding a puppy dog,
(41:56):
one of him gesturing with an ak by his side,
and other of him smiling. He was born in nine
and died in two thousand fourteen. I'm looking at Shahid
Zana next. Oh, that's how About's brother, Zanna Abbas, was
(42:16):
born in nine. He died in two thousand and fourteen
fighting isis. Colbat puts a hand on the picture of
his face frozen forever as a teenager. She kneels down
and kisses her brother's grave. We walk in silence for
a while, given Colbat space for her grief and doing
our best to take in the feel of this place
for ourselves. We reconvene as the sun falls down past
(42:38):
the horizon line. I don't know how you can understand
it unless you how you can start to understand it
without saying it's who they have to come to the
(43:02):
first to understand what. Hoobat tells us that it's not
uncommon for the parents of martyrs to spend hours at
a time here reading or speaking to their deceased loved ones.
I don't know, you cannot express this. You know, there
is a man I showed, like elderly man, how he's
ready for unto his son. Some mammas they just say,
(43:22):
like you know, speaking to them as you know, for hours.
Sometimes you can and you say randomly mamas speaking for
a little while. We just walked through the rows of
graves together and mostly silent. Yet as we walk I
(44:04):
noticed something written on one of the walls of the
cemetery in Kurdish. I asked Hobart what it means? What
is said? So are our symbolic leaders, and that's She
explains that the Shahids hold a particularly sacred place in
people's hearts here. They are the only people in rojapan
(44:27):
society who are considered to be beyond criticism. They sacrifice
their own futures to provide one for their neighbors. In
this way, they are seen as leaders, opening the door
to a new world that the people they've left behind
now find themselves challenged to step through. Thank you for
taking us, for me to be honest, team, even if
(44:52):
they don't ask me, because for me, the story it's
will not be completed without this book. Yeah dat chow
(45:24):
chow chow chow chow a dinner at Radoslajano, or me
via bell A Chow chow chow chow chow Dejano or
me via Jimmy said. The Women's War is a production
(45:52):
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you into your favorite shows.
Welcome to the Women's War, a production of I Heart Radio.
Jake and I are pretty experienced travelers. We're both well
used to dangerous places. But something about Kamischlow, the city
(00:21):
where we spend the night of July, sets us on edge.
The city itself is, if not exactly clean, not particularly
dirty either. It is overcrowded, badly so, but orderly enough.
Given all that, the graffiti on the walls is generally
friendly and pro social. There are the names of various
Shihid's martyrs who died fighting for Rojava, brightly colored recycling symbols,
(00:44):
and cozy cartoon illustrations of women with a K forty
seven's but alone among the ruins of Rojava. Kamish Loo
is not entirely under the control of the SDF. The
Syrian regime and its blood soaked dictator Bashar al Assad
still run a few square blocks of the city, along
with its military airport. The result of this is that
(01:06):
every so often you turn a corner in Komischlow and
run face to face into a gigantic portrait of Bashar.
The regime. Bits of town are walled off, protected by
razor wire and surly looking young male soldiers with kalashnikovs.
A few days before our arrival, an American tourist was
kidnapped by regime soldiers. Here. The full story of this
(01:26):
that comes out later is profoundly dumb. Sam Goodwin, aged thirty,
was trying to visit every country in the world. The
Syrian regime, of course, would not approve his visa, so
he hired our friend Sangar to get him approval to
cross the Iraqi border into Rojava. Once in Rojava, Sam
planned to head to Kamichlo so he could step briefly
into the regime controlled side of town. Sangar told him
(01:49):
that this was a terrible idea, and also told him
that if he was going to safely visit Kamischlow, he
really needed a local Kurdish fixer to show him around
there too. It was easy to accidentally why end up
in the wrong part of town and thus get arrested
by the regime. But Sam decided he knew best. He
didn't have much money, so he decided he wouldn't have
a fixer once he reached Rojava. This was safe enough
(02:12):
until he got to Kamischlow, and he decided to execute
his cunning plan he checked into the Aja Hotel two A's,
which is where most foreigners stay, and then he hit
the ground and scoped out a regime checkpoint. Sam's plan,
it seems, was to hop across into regime territory and
then run back over into Rojava very quickly. Only he
(02:32):
wasn't quite as fast as he needed to be, and
so when Jake and I checked into the Aja Hotel
on the night of July, Sam sat in a prison
cell somewhere nearby in regime controlled Syria. His fate at
that moment was uncertain, although he's since been freed, and
it lingered in our minds. Our nerves were not helped
by the ten minute speech Kobat and our hotel's manager
(02:55):
gave us on which parts of town were actually safe
to visit and which parts of town get us arrested
like Sam. The key, they explained, was just to avoid
wandering too close to the regime parts of town. Large
chunks of the city, they assured us, were totally safe.
It was just that foreigners had a nasty tendency to
funk up in the unfamiliar environs. Now, neither Jake nor
(03:18):
I wanted to spend a lot of time out on
the street. Given all the reasons, I just laid out.
But we were hungry, and so we ventured out for
schwarma and for some beer from me. We were about
ten feet from the door of our hotel when a
technical a flatbed truck with a giant gun melted in
the bed, farted into view. When a cloud of exhausted
wheels to stop just a few feet ahead of us,
(03:38):
smack in the middle of an intersection, two WYPG men
hopped out from the bed of the truck, a K
forty seven's in hand. They took up positions on either
side of the street and began searching vehicles and questioning people.
They did not seem overly aggressive or frightened, but they
did seem very serious, and the mood on the street
turned icy and weird in a way that's hard to
describe to people who haven't watched roving pat rolls of
(04:00):
armed men search for suicide bombers. That is what the
hPG we're looking for. That afternoon, Kamischla was large, and
it's chaotic enough. That isis sleeper cells have had an
easier time operating there than in most parts of Rajava.
There had been suicide bombings earlier in the year. Jake
and I gave the whole scene a wide berth as
we walked past and on to our destination, a little
(04:21):
hole in the wall Shwarma Joint. We ate, and then
we set out to find a beer store. We were
maybe half a block into that mission when a young
man on a motorcycle burned right past the air SATs
checkpoint and up to Jake and I. We both tensed up.
I wouldn't say I've been close to a suicide bomb detonating,
but I have been closer than I wanted to be.
(04:41):
Jake and I never talked about this, but I kind
of gathered from his reaction that he'd had a similar experience,
and so we were both rather jumpy at this. But
the kid just topped off his bike and breeze passed
us into a shop. We relaxed, but we also decided
it was probably a good idea at a high tail
it back to our hotel rooms. We did not go
back out into Kamichelo alone again. We made it through
(05:03):
the night, though, and we awoke the next morning to
an even tenser mood. The commander of Sincom United States
Central Command had just flown into Rojava's capital, Kobani to
meet with the leadership of the SDF. Rojava's military security
was correspondingly tightened. Kabat and Alan picked Jake and I
up that morning, and as soon as we got out
on the road the additional a Sayish patrols were very obvious.
(05:26):
That's not the only reason things felt tense, though. The
reason that the head of Sentcom had flown to Rojava
was to discuss the so called Turkish buffer Zone. President
Erdowin wanted the United States to force the SDF to
withdraw from all of the areas immediately around a Turkey's border,
but a lot of northeast Syria is bordered by Turkey,
including most of the defensive fortifications and tunnels that would
(05:48):
give Rojava a hope of defending itself against NATO's second
largest military. As we ate breakfast, the news dropped that
an individual in Rojava had fired a small rocket into Turkey.
No one was hurt and the STF arrest at the culprit,
but it did not seem to bode well for future peace.
Moments later, scanning my phone, I came across another piece
of breaking news. Iran had just announced its arrest of
(06:11):
seventeen people it called CIA Operatives. I began to feel
as if Jake and I might be standing on the
edge of some yawning, terrible chasm, and so I elected
to set down my phone. This proved to be a
wise decision. My mood improved immensely as we got out
of Commissil and on the road to our next destination.
Today we were headed to a woman's cooperative farm out
(06:32):
in the countryside near a town called Trebespie. The farmer
is one of several co ops training up a new
generation of female farmers. As a law tour across the landscape,
he began to play as one of his favorite songs,
Destane Kobani that means long Live Rojava, We are ready
(06:54):
to die for you. The attacks of the enemy are
in vain. Revolutionary men and women are defending the homeland
without fear of barbaric dogs. You get the idea. It's
pretty standard militant stuff, but there's a pretty sweet breakdown
(07:14):
at the halfway point. Jake and I like it, and
it gets us to thinking about our favorite Irish rebel songs.
A lot of Jake's family came from Ireland, so he
grew up listening to the stuff. I don't have any
Irish blood at all, but for whatever reason, I fell
in love with old ira A anthems when I was
(07:35):
in high school. We decided to play one of them
for Kabbat, and there's no question among us as to
which song it should be. Come out and fight me
like a major, like Calabey from The Green Lovely Day,
(07:57):
This is come out Ye Black and Tans, a classic
tune about a drunk Irish partisan taunting members of a
British military unit. The notoriously violent Black and Hands. The
defiance of the song appears to Kabbat. She asks us
if we've heard Sia Madonni's cover of Bella Chow Jake has,
but I haven't, and she plays it fish Son the
(08:19):
Stars Chocho. In response, Jake and I put on another
one of our favorite i RA songs, Home Soldiers, go
on home, have you done looking homes? Or rad under
jeers and will fight you for ray. Kabat likes that
(08:47):
one a lot. She spent most of her life with
foreign soldiers occupying her homeland or threatening to occupy it
Syrians from regime controlled territory Russians, Americans, Turks. Kabat identifies
deeply with the sentimentic spressed in this song, and she
laughs a lot during it. We have to stop by
(09:09):
the nearby Asaish or Military police office to get more
paper stamped and inspected. We drive into a walled complex
of buildings with a large friendly poster of Apo up
de Lagelon, the founder of Rojaba, wearing his Cosby sweater
and smiling. It's displayed prominently out front. The process takes
a little while, and while we wait, how About starts
a conversation with one of the cops in the office
(09:31):
with us. She asks him a variant of the same
question I've had her asking a number of the men.
The gist of the question is do you find working
with women to be weird? Did you used to feel
differently about their place in society? Is this strange at
all for you? And this guy insists that it's never
been an issue for him. Then he shoots back a
question to Jake. Are women allowed to serve in frontline
(09:51):
combat units in the British military? Jake tells him yes,
but only recently, because for a long time people thought
women could not do those jobs. I tell him the
things are more or less the same over in the
United States. The asaish man regards this as ridiculous. He
tells us our daughters they defeated isis So there is
the proof. We get our permission to move on, and
(10:26):
before long we're rolling up the dirt road leading to
the women's cooperative Farming Commune. It's a sizeable endeavor, more
than two dozen acres under cultivation and a complex of
a dozen greenhouses, each the size of two eighteen wheelers
park next to each other. Alan stops the van and
we get out and meet a middle aged man outside
a pair of trailers that seemed to function as an
office space. He introduces himself as haveal ken War and
(10:48):
explains that he's an agricultural engineer and that he acts
as an adviser to the young women who live in
work here. He takes us into the trailers and he
leads us to a small classroom with YPG and J
flags in one corner and a desk with a computer
and an a K forty seven lint against it. Two
young women sit in a low slung couch at the
other end of the room. They could have walked out
of downtown Los Angeles. Both war jenes, sneakers and colorful
(11:12):
t shirts. Ahim has dark glasses, a head scarf, and
presents with an overwhelming air of shyness. Her partner, Salam
is her polar opposite, with a penetrating gaze and a wide,
(11:32):
toothy and thoroughly winsome smile. Both young women are the
elected representatives of the commune, chosen by their fellows to
represent the group at local council meetings and in the
instances when foreign journalists rolled through town. They both looked
very young to be taking on leadership roles and an
endeavor as large as this farm. When we arrived, there
were enough crops on the ground to fill a couple
(11:52):
of large trucks. My first question for a human Salam
as if before the revolution they had ever thought they
might end up leading a project like this. Kabbat asks
them for me that tutting noise was Salam saying no
in a way that translated very clearly to everyone in
the room, even if it didn't quite translate over my recording. No,
(12:18):
we never thought the world could be like this, I
asked her when she first realized that the world had changed,
and that women in her society suddenly had more options.
The memory was clear to her. She was sitting with
a group of friends shortly after the start of the revolution,
and as they began to talk about the changes happening
to their society, an avalanche of buried desires began to
bubble up from within them. We were young, and we
(12:40):
wanted to study. One of us said I want to
be a doctor, and I said, I want to study economics.
Salam and her friends went to the women's house that
had been newly established in their town. When this place
was set up, our neighbors and other people in the
community talked about it. Salam came from a fairly traditional
Arab village, and it was not the norm for women
(13:00):
and her family to have careers or to even really
live independently before marriage. I asked her if her family
made things more difficult for her when she announced that
she wanted to do this work. The sound she made
wasn't picked up perfectly by my little handheld audio recorder.
I will try to recreate it as best as I
(13:21):
can on my own. The sound only conveys half of
her message. The other half was on her wide open
eyes and cheerfully traumatized grin. It's the kind of look
you see on your friend's faces when they were called
the times their parents caught them out drinking underage, or
sneaking out to visit a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or
doing something else that caused their parents to blow up
in a huge way. Announcing that she planned to leave
(13:42):
home was clearly not a pleasant memory, but her family
weren't able to make her stop either. Perhaps it's true
that our work was men's work before, but now it
is women's work. We said, yes, we will work like
the men, and we put in long hours here to
do so. After a period of study, Salama sided that
her interest in economics would be best served by helping
(14:02):
to start and operate a business. Her training for this
involved classroom lessons and practical training and agriculture, but it
also included the same month of ideological and armed training
required of new recruits who joined the militias of the SDF.
We had classes about ancient history starting with the Big Bang,
classes on Abdullah Alan, on ethics, on how we should
(14:24):
relate to others in our community. We had many classes,
including education on economics. They also learned how to use
a gun. Basic arm training is considered a critical skill
for just about everybody who takes any sort of real
role in Rojava. Did remember what she thought the first
time that she had the first time that she fired
a weather it was scary up until the first bullet
(14:47):
I fired. My hand was shaking and the comrade had
to help me. But the second time I fired it.
I also asked what was probably a more important question,
how had it felt the first time she was able
to eat crops that she'd helped grow herself. It was
hard work, but we enjoyed it when the crops were
finally ready. The cucumbers finished first, We liked them a lot.
(15:08):
The harvest was difficult, but after we had everything gathered,
we were so happy. Now you can see our fields here.
They're so big, and it took a lot of effort
to make them this way. Days spent under the sun,
irritated by the heat, but once we had that food
in our hands, we forgot our discomfort. After we conclude
our interview, Salamin Aheim take us on a tour of
(15:29):
their farm. We pass a man cutting up metal segments
of fencing while a female apprentice observes. We pass a
fertile field filled with row after row of cucumbers, cantaloupes,
and zucchini. I'm not an expert on agriculture, but I've
spent a decent chunk of my life on small farms
in Texas, Oklahoma, California, and Oregon. It is clear to
(15:49):
me that this is not a tiny token endeavor. There
is an enormous amount of food on the ground, a
lot of thick, flavorful cucumbers with an almost media richness
to them that's entirely absent from the ones I've back
in the United States. We eat them while we walk.
The pastoral charm of the field is broken by the
enormous oil refinery that dominates the horizon in the distance.
(16:09):
Rojava holds a number of very rich oil fields which
provide a significant amount of serious total oil output. The
refinery ahead of US doubles as a base for US
troops in the region. Oil production definitely does not jell
well with the ecology balance bits of the Rojavan constitution,
but selling it represents a pragmatic necessity. There are taxes
(16:30):
in Rojava, but this is not a wealthy region of
the world. War is expensive without oil sales the STFs
position would be even less secure. A great deal has
been written about the oil refineries of northeast Syria. A
few months before my own arrival in Rojava, a reporter
with Mother Jones named Shane Bauer published a massive long
form article about his own experiences in the region. Rujava's
(16:51):
oil refineries and the role of US played in securing
them were a major focus of his story. Bauer was
critical of the Rojavan Project, and he spends relatively little
time discussing economic cooperatives like the farm Moron. He writes
of them, quote, These profit sharing ventures are subsidized with
interest free loans, but their role in the economy is
relatively marginal. There are just a hundred and twenty nine
(17:12):
cooperatives in Jazeera, which is one of the cantons in Rojava.
Their goods are bought and sold on the free market.
The question of whether or not these cooperatives really matter
in the big picture is a debatable point, to be sure,
but it's worth noting that none of those one d
and twenty nine cooperatives existed prior to the revolution, and
there are more cooperatives in the other cantons of Rojava.
(17:32):
Fifty five of these co ops are all women endeavors.
Like the restaurant we ate at in Darek and Salam
and Ahms Farm, these employ more than seven thousand women.
It feels significant to me that something of this scale
has been accomplished while the people of Rojava have also
fought an expensive, grinding war with ISIS. And it feels
significant to me when we step into the large complex
(17:54):
of greenhouses on Salam and Ahims Farm. Yeah. Here we
see on one end of the very large greenhouse space.
There's no internal walls between them group six women, all masks,
cutting down plants. Watching these young women chopped down old vines,
(18:15):
remnants of the last harvest to clear up space free
planting pulls my mind back to California and the medical
marijuana farms that I spent a sizeable chunk of the
late Oughts living in and around. Perhaps Shane is right,
and everything happening here is an insignificant side show, but
it doesn't feel that way standing in the middle of it.
We eat a cantaloupe before we leave. Like most right
(18:35):
thinking people, I've spent most of my life considering cantaloupe
to be among the very worst fruits. I find it
dull and flavorless, and I've always sort of assumed that
its main purpose was to be an inexpensive way to
fill out the weight of cafeteria fruit salad. I don't
know if it's something in the soil or just the
fact that I've never had a farm fresh cantaloup before,
but it tastes incredible here, so much sweeter than i'd expected.
(18:57):
Bellies full, We bet our hosts farewell and drive to Turbespi,
a large town of about sixteen thousand. I want to
get a sense of how men on the street feel
about the changes to women's rights here since the revolution.
We haven't heard from many men who are just normal civilians,
not involved in any of the militias or political parties
that make up Rojava. One allegation you'll hear from people
who are critical of Rojava is the idea that the
(19:19):
main political party in the region, the p y D,
has basically dressed up their authoritarian rule as a democratic revolution.
The p y D or Democratic Union Party, was founded
in two thousand three. Shane Bauer of Mother Jones brings
up the case of Burzan Leani, a Kurdish journalist who
was imprisoned for six months in two thousand seventeen under
(19:39):
charges of being part of an unapproved media organization. Forty
five days of a sentence were held in solitary confinement.
Leoni is affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria
or k DPS, a political party that many Syrian Curds
say is just a wing of the Barzani family's empire
of influence. Since the KDPS is a party for herds
(20:00):
and for Kords alone, it is legal in Rojava. Under
the constitution, political parties may not be found out on
ethnic or religious lines. The Self Administration basically accuses Leani
of being a spy in Rojava there to drum up
unrest and resistance. Leoni denies this, and neither I nor
Shane Bauer have any way of knowing what the truth
(20:20):
here is. The best I can do with the resources
available to me now is to try and gain an
understanding of how free people in Rojava feel to express
their feelings towards the p y D and the Self Administration.
We park on a random street and Kabat approaches the
first passer by. We meet a short, middle aged Arab
(20:43):
man on his way to the market. We say our greetings,
and then I start in questions, what do you think
about the changes that have been made since the revolution?
His answer to the second question is a bit more winding,
but it's also broadly positive. Day said was just a
woman who are educated, our functioning in the jobs as
(21:04):
as well the women the men that they were like,
I just have education for people like me alerted they
didn't work, they were just always farmers. That might have
been a little hard to follow. This guy was saying
that back when ASSAD was in charge, only wealthy, educated
women were able to hold any kind of job. They
have always been liberated working women in Syria, but until
the revolution they were primarily wealthy, generally from coastal cities,
(21:25):
and generally benefiting from some sort of direct connection to
the ASSAD regime. This guy expressed his opinion that now
working class women had opportunities, and he felt this was
a good thing. We approach another passer by a reedy
young man who expresses a more critical opinion of the
self administration. He praises the security, but he complains that
(21:48):
some of the dishonest, corrupt officials who ran things under
ASSAD were still around, and we're still dishonest, but the
people who are already before the revolution have a problems
with their like attitude or corruption. Kabat asks him next
how he feels about, you know, the fact that women
can do stuff here now, none of us. We'll hear
(22:20):
variations of this joke several times today, and many times
throughout our time in Rojava, as you can hear. Jake
and I both laughed when we heard it the first time,
but it grew a little bit less funny every time
someone repeated it. I couldn't help but think that some
of the men back at home in my own country
who complain about the feminist movement oppressing American men. This
feels much less aggressive than the men's rights movement, for instance.
(22:42):
But it's certainly not all lighthearted jokes either. Many men
in Rojava feel that what you and I would call
legal equality is in reality women being placed over men.
It's not exactly a new story in the history of
civil rights movements. After a handful of interviews, we find
ourselves talking to a tall, heavy set man in a thobe,
the traditional Arab dressing gown. Kbat asks him how he
(23:02):
feels about the changes to women's rights after the revolution.
There have been great successes. Next, she asks him, before
a woman could not pick up a gun or go
to work, how do you feel about the fact that
this has changed. I think it's very good that now
women can take up the gun. Before women lived under violence.
Now after the revolution, they have had chances. They have
(23:24):
had their freedom. Before they weren't free, they couldn't speak.
Now they can work, they can speak. There is an improvement. Next,
she asks him if he feels the self administration government
has treated his people Arabs any differently than Kurds. No,
there's no difference. We are all one. It doesn't matter
here if you're Arab, Kurdish Christian. We are all brothers
(23:45):
from this revolution who rose up together as one. We
continue down the street, talking to Arab and Kurdish men
of all ages about their feelings towards the new system.
Most people are broadly positive, particularly about the security situation,
but also generally out the new opportunities for women. After
an hour or so, we find ourselves in a vegetable
market talking to the owner of a small shop. He's
(24:06):
the first man, we think who is emphatically against the
changes made by the Rojavan Revolution. Okay, so he is
not with this system of the woman. He feels like
it's too much or it's over Why because he already
have one wife and he wanted to get a second wife.
But he's a friend. Do you not saying now a
lot that it's not allowed to get a second wife.
(24:28):
I'm not particularly sympathetic to this fellow's complaints, but I
am happy that he felt perfectly comfortable voicing them at
length to foreign journalists because he don't have a children
from the first one, so you have a reason for
the second. But even that, I certainly can't say that
the members of the p whitey Rojava's largest political party,
or any other officials involved in its governance, have never
(24:49):
targeted or oppressed individuals with political differences. That statement would
not even be true of my own country. But I
can't say that this man on the street, talking to
a foreigner with a clear and visible record device, felt
fine voicing his criticisms of the system, and that same
thing would not have happened and Bashar al Assad, Syria.
At the very least, we finished our time on the street,
(25:22):
and after a couple of terrible, terrible cigarettes with a
lawn which we enjoyed very much. Thank you. Alan. We
hop in the van and roll off back to Kamisch.
Lookbat and I start talking about her feelings towards the interview, Um,
how did you feel about the running joke about the
women being in charge of everything? Now? Yeah, I accepted.
(25:43):
I even sometimes expect like a more harsh comments. You know,
I know deeply they are many of them don't like
it at all. They don't believe it at all. They
and even sometimes I feel like if it came again
their control, if this system has been done, the woman
will be like the U is losing this because maybe
they were going to take revenge again. Yeah, which of
(26:03):
those guys, like some of them were clearly she's like
a gay in the vegetable card seemed to be having
a laugh about it. Do you feel some of them
were or maybe he was. I think, yeah, this division
because the other one and he said, like it's strong
system and like I want to because he wanted to
just get another wife because of the kid. He have
a reason why he's criticizing this system. But the other
(26:26):
one he's clear like don't like it at all, and
he's like even make fun on it, Like yeah, they
were going to take us to a whole somehow. Our
whole is the open air prison slash refugee camp or
isis prisoners are help interesting, yeah, because that's the first
time in their life, like never they imagine they have
been right up. Like the woman, she's basically an Arab
culture that they want. She cannot do anything, She's just
(26:48):
a housewife, maximum for home at fellows. So now it's
another thing. It's so difficult for them to accept it.
Even they said by their eyes they feel like it
s will be changed. She means they all hope will
go back to the way it was before, and perhaps
it will. As we drive past yet another towering stretch
of the Turkish border fence, I can't help but think
about how suddenly this could all end. Our last stop
(27:11):
for the day is a residential neighborhood and Kabbat's hometown,
kamisch Loo. We're going there to meet the members of
one of the local women's councils. This council represented the
women in the neighborhood and met regularly with them to
vote on how to handle specific hyperlocal problems. Since all
of the women in it were older and grandmother's Hobbat
referred to them collectively as the Mamas, and introducing us
(27:33):
to them was clearly the most excited she'd been in
the three or four days since I had known her. So,
what they are doing, they are like organizing. They cannot
read all right, it's one of them. They have a smartphone.
What they are doing They just sent the or share
voice messages together in order to organize for our meeting,
gore or gathering. Go. You know, they are discussing the
(27:54):
cases or issues together. So you see it's one of them.
She's hundling and get cooking in one this thing. Just run,
She's just show me. So it's so funny. Alon glided
his van to a stop in front of a nondescript
tan colored building at the end of a working class
(28:14):
neighborhood and commischelow. We headed in through the open gate
of a courtyard, and inside we met the mamas. There
are six of them, and the youngest looks to be
in her late forties or early fifties. They all wear
head scarfs and dressed traditionally no exposed tattoos. Here a
gaggle of young kids scamper around doing kid things. There
are no opo pictures on the walls, nor any hanging
(28:35):
pictures of martyrs. A circle of plastic chairs sits out
in the courtyard and we all take a seat, with
a bot in between Jake and I to facilitate the interviews.
She introduces the co presidents of the Women's Council, one
of whom is also the co president of the larger
local commune. And it's here that I should probably give
you another brief overview of how Rojava's democratic confederalist system works.
(28:55):
On the ground level, every neighborhood, which is in this
case about a hundred and eighty house, has a local
commune made up of all the adult members of that neighborhood.
They elect co presidents which represent that commune and the
People's Council for their district, and the People's Council elects
co presidents to represent that district at the city council.
And you know, so on. Co presidents are elected by
(29:17):
simple democratic vote, and they are recallable through the same mechanism.
The higher level councils are responsible for the kind of
coordination necessary for handling life in large urban areas, but
the root of all governance in Rojava are the local communes.
They're responsible for hyper local maintenance tasks, basic security, and
the distribution of many social welfare programs. They also act
(29:37):
a little bit like a d MV, supplying people with
stamps and papers they need to do official stuff. The
women's councils run as auxiliaries to the local communes as
well as to the larger people's councils. They have veto
power over every women's issue decided in the area and
can thus stop the mixed gender local communes from ruling
on issues of domestic violence or women's healthcare should they
(29:58):
disagree with the ruling. All these different communes and councils
are further broken down into committees which handles specific issues
for their community. The mamas were meeting with today are
the Social Committee for the Women's Council of one local
commune in Commissilow, and as they explained to me, their
job is to act as a sort of emotional police force.
The SA the military police don't show up to deal
(30:19):
with domestic violence or a fist fight between neighbors. The
belief is that getting the police involved is bringing outsiders
and to solve which should be a community issue, so
instead When problems like that crop up, the first responders
are often the mama's. As we sit and talk, the
mom must tell us the story of a recent domestic
dispute they had to handle. He went to fix that
problem between a couple the way she is in her
(30:42):
parts in home since the month, because they like the
has was getting here. So they went there and they
wanted to solve this problem. And then they listened to
the why then she had too, and she said, it's
maybe she is not saying the genuine plan. Let's listen
to the other side as because she said like a now.
Also sometimes the woman they out of pressing. In short,
(31:03):
what they initially thought was a simple case of domestic
violence turned out to be a more complicated dispute between
a married couple. The mamas grew concerned that the woman
in this case may have been distorting or fabricating some
of the claim she was making against her husband. Unfortunately,
like have been oppressed, and there is sometimes the at
a tap of revenge, so let's not you know, we
get powers or try because I do want also alerted
(31:24):
than they have. They don't know how to handle all
this to whatever. So sometimes the woman also they are
not always right. The conclusion the mamas came to was
that both parties had valid reasons to be angry. They
talked things out with both and they helped them reach
a place where they could apologize to each other and
move back in together. This would be an example of
a fairly light case for the social counsel, but they
(31:45):
also dealt with more severe issues than quarreling spouses, issues
like the fallout after a murder ten days ago. There
there is a case like a murder case since sport is,
it's there, but no one can sol But you know,
now I can hear the true crime. Fans in the
audience getting excited, but interestingly enough. When Hubbart said the
murder was unsolved, she didn't mean that the killer was unknown.
(32:08):
In fact, the murder had been caught very quickly, tried, convicted,
and imprisoned shortly after the crime itself. What hadn't been
solved was how to reintegrate the families of the victim
and the murderer back into civil society. It's so his
wife have been the mother of this son and his sister.
(32:30):
They are not accepting to solve this problem. She said
that the immediate family of the dead boy refused to
accept peace. When are we're going to kill that joke? Okay? Anyhow,
they keep the children and then you kicked this and
so his wife out and whenever the woman or anyone
wanted to try to fix this problem, they said, no,
I'm gonna kill blood. Revenge killing is an extremely common
(32:52):
problem in many parts of the Middle East. The specifics
differ from region to region, but the basic idea is
that it's still pretty normal for members of families and
try as to revenge murder in response to the death
of a loved one. I found an interview with a
young Egyptian man, Joseph Nazir, on a website called Connect
the Cultures dot Com. He described her revenge killings can
often turn into all out war between families. Quote. When
(33:13):
I was a child, five or six years old, there
was a war like this between two families in our street.
My little sister and I were inside our home with
our mom when it started. My dad wasn't there, he
was working. There was a fight going on outside our door.
Families were shooting at each other. I was sitting with
my mom inside the house, scared. There were a lot
of guns. The shooting went on for about an hour
or two. One person died in this gunfight, and per
(33:34):
local custom, his family were unable to hold a proper
funeral until one of them had killed a member of
the other family, and that family would be unable to
do their funeral until they committed another murder, and so
on and so forth. You get the idea, and as
Joseph explained in his article, there's only one way to end.
As such, a cycle of violence quote revenge killings can
go on for a long long time, decades and decades.
(33:56):
It doesn't stop until someone in one of the families
wants to stop and agrees to go through a ceremony
to officially halt the killings. This is the only thing
that can stop it. Other than that it will never
stop at all. Now. The ceremony, Joseph refers, who involves
one man from one of the families marching over to
the home of the enemy family, lying down in front
of the man of the house, and saying some variant
(34:17):
of I'm dead, I'm yours. You can do whatever you
want with me. Now. The man who does this is
generally never killed, but it is considered deeply shameful for
him to take this action, and so, in other words,
the cycle of violence can't end traditionally unless a young
man is willing to sacrifice his pride and honor to
stop the blood letting. They've taken the responsibility out of
the hands of individual family members and put it into
(34:39):
the hands of other members of the community. In this
particular case, it took weeks of work by members of
the social Committee and members of several other communes in
the city. Eventually they got both families to agree to
the terms by which they would make a peace. The
next step was to host a gigantic feast attended by
members of the community and by both families. There they
would publicly make peace that way of one side or
(34:59):
the other. The truth, all of the neighbors would know
which family was going back on their word of honor. Now,
convincing both sides to reach a place of agreement was
not easy. The mam has told us of another story
about a murder committed by several members of the whitepg
against one of their comrades. It looked like so it's
like one of them having in the other. Okay, brother
(35:27):
was the pin because he's in love with his sister
so what he done, he proped he and another three
of his friends. They told now, I feel like I
should also jett in here to say that if the
self administration were secretly authoritarian, they probably wouldn't let foreign
journalists here about murders within their own military units. What
(35:47):
happened the families of those for four youngs likely because
of the family to get so the white PG caught
and prosecuted the murderers. But the families of those murderers
had to their homes because they were terrified they'd be
murdered in retaliation. This is the point at which the
mama stepped in. So this solution, it was that the guy,
(36:10):
he's already the killers and in this jail and the
present and they get you dissolution that the families for families,
they were going to turn back to their to their houses.
But three of them they already announced that they don't
consider that this sons. They are sons. Eyning Kabat is
explaining that the social counsels were able to convince the
families of the killers to disown their sons. This placated
(36:33):
the family of the victim and allowed everyone to return
to their homes without further bloodshed. The mamas were pretty
emphatic that they could not solve every problem that came
their way. For one thing, none of them could read,
and they freely admitted that some issues exceeded their depth.
These problems could be escalated up to the educated ladies
at the women's house, or up to the professional courts
in the very most extreme cases. People in Rojava still
(36:57):
have the option of dealing with certain problems and what
ME America would call the normal way with cops and
judges and lawyers, but they prefer not to start there
with any of these groups or steps. One of the
foundational ideas of democratic and federalism is that the folks
who live in an area are generally better at managing
their lives than the people outside it. Bringing a bunch
of cops from fifteen miles away into a domestic dispute
(37:18):
is often a lot less effective than having a group
of older women everyone knows in respects rolling to investigate
and talk things out like just about everyone else we
speak with. The mom as have also trained in using
their a K forty sevens during times of heightened tension.
They take direct responsibility for the security of their neighborhoods,
and they take this work seriously. It's not hard to
see why. The co president of the commune tells me
(37:40):
about her son, who died in an ambush conducted by
ISIS during the darkest days of the war, when the
SDF was losing forty fighters every day. Am Chad, you
could have it, she plays as a music video made
a tribute to her martyred boy. The pride is obvious
(38:03):
in her eyes. She explains to us that her work
on the Social Council and in her local commune is
part of how she honors her child sacrifice. The more
we talk, it becomes clear that all these women have
lost children and other family members battling against ISIS, and
rather than yielding to their rage and pain, they decided
to throw their lives into building something. At one point,
(38:25):
I ask if she can imagine things going back to
the way they were before the revolution. She immediately tells
me that such a thing is unimaginable. System because youth,
because of imaginal names. For example, of minding it's a Cristan.
(38:55):
But on the idea they they were just a Cristan,
you know. Just to to change it, Tom for the
Kurdish name, so we couldn't even speak it away. It
was optional, I guess us. We couldn't excution, we couldn't
do anything, so we cannot even imagine. Then, as we leave,
the co president hands me a little plastic token with
(39:15):
the face of her martyred boy on it. For the
first time in my life, I'm glad I can't speak
fluent Kurdish. It's much easier to just thank her, take
her hand, and meet her gaze without another word. As
we pile into the van, Kobat points out the little
plastic memorial in my hand. She tells me, you can
see where they get the morale to keep going. If
they stop, then they're just grieving. We drive off, and
(39:38):
Jake and I burned down another god awful cigarette with
the lawn, but we mull over the day's findings. It's
late and the sun is beginning to set, but we're
not quite done yet. Kabat has one last stop for
us to make. Our prior stops on this trip had
all been places in groups. Jake and I told Kobat
we wanted to visit. We'd read about women's cooperatives and
local councils and Judgemina and genoir. Before we ever arrived,
(39:59):
we informed Kabat where we wanted to go and we
wanted to meet, and she worked out the logistics and
got the permissions. But this last stop of the day
was the first destination that Harbat had picked herself for us.
The Cemetery of the Martyrs in Kamischlo is one of
the places where Rojava buries its war dead, the Shahids.
From the outside, it's a large stone facility with a
(40:20):
gathering field to one side and long rows of orderly
graves on the other. As we stepped through the gates
following Kabat, I turned on my recorder to capture the moment.
We're walking into a cemetery. It's around sunset. The muzzen's playing.
This is where the graves of the Shahids are held.
(40:43):
M m M. I see marker after marker. They're colorful
with the kind of traditional gravestones on the top written
in both in kind of Arabic characters. On the bottom,
there are pictures yellow backgrounds, faces and color of different Shahids.
(41:09):
Most of them are very young in their twenties, some
of their teens, some older people, men and women, young
women who look like they should be in high school,
and middle aged women mothers. Probably. They're brightly colored pictures
(41:35):
surrounding it. Essentially looks like like a gravestone on top
of a like marble box, and the sides of the
box are covered in sort of colored picture inserts of
the person. There's a picture I'm looking at right now
of a martyr named barn There's three pictures of him
on the front, one of him holding a puppy dog,
(41:56):
one of him gesturing with an ak by his side,
and other of him smiling. He was born in nine
and died in two thousand fourteen. I'm looking at Shahid
Zana next. Oh, that's how About's brother, Zanna Abbas, was
(42:16):
born in nine. He died in two thousand and fourteen
fighting isis. Colbat puts a hand on the picture of
his face frozen forever as a teenager. She kneels down
and kisses her brother's grave. We walk in silence for
a while, given Colbat space for her grief and doing
our best to take in the feel of this place
for ourselves. We reconvene as the sun falls down past
(42:38):
the horizon line. I don't know how you can understand
it unless you how you can start to understand it
without saying it's who they have to come to the
(43:02):
first to understand what. Hoobat tells us that it's not
uncommon for the parents of martyrs to spend hours at
a time here reading or speaking to their deceased loved ones.
I don't know, you cannot express this. You know, there
is a man I showed, like elderly man, how he's
ready for unto his son. Some mammas they just say,
(43:22):
like you know, speaking to them as you know, for hours.
Sometimes you can and you say randomly mamas speaking for
a little while. We just walked through the rows of
graves together and mostly silent. Yet as we walk I
(44:04):
noticed something written on one of the walls of the
cemetery in Kurdish. I asked Hobart what it means? What
is said? So are our symbolic leaders, and that's She
explains that the Shahids hold a particularly sacred place in
people's hearts here. They are the only people in rojapan
(44:27):
society who are considered to be beyond criticism. They sacrifice
their own futures to provide one for their neighbors. In
this way, they are seen as leaders, opening the door
to a new world that the people they've left behind
now find themselves challenged to step through. Thank you for
taking us, for me to be honest, team, even if
(44:52):
they don't ask me, because for me, the story it's
will not be completed without this book. Yeah dat chow
(45:24):
chow chow chow chow a dinner at Radoslajano, or me
via bell A Chow chow chow chow chow Dejano or
me via Jimmy said. The Women's War is a production
(45:52):
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you into your favorite shows.
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