Rojava with Andrew

project quickly became polyethnic. There are Syrians, Arabs, Armenians, Czds, and other groups involved in that project, and in fact, the internationally recognized name Rajava has fallen out of use by the project's administration in an effort to de ethnicize the project. I'm going to keep using Rajava simply because it's quicker to say than DAA n ees, or than yes or any other combination, but just wanted to put

that disclaimer out in the beginning. So in the midst the Syrian Civil War, the region gained its de facto autonomy in twenty twelve and pursued a somewhat unique political experiment for crassroots governance and social legal reforms that have attracted significant international fever and support. Do not recognize internationally as autonomous, except by the Catalan Parliament for obvious reasons.

For the past decade plus, the people in the region have fought fastly for independence from Isis patriarchy, Turkish incursions, and other Syrian opposition groups, but recent events led to the newly minted Assyrian government having seriously jeopardized the autonomy of the project. Welcome, take it happen here. I'm Andrew Sage,

also Androism on YouTube, and I'm joined once again. It's me, It's James, Yes, and I had to talk to you about this because I know that you have contacts there, you have experience with that project, with the people involved, And yeah, we're here to discuss the fate of Rajavo.

But like anarchism didn't have to be like an ideological construct that only exists in our little punk hows it's it existed in it in an area where millions.

founded the Democratic Union Party or PYD. Now this party shared an ideological foundation with the PKK and its founder, Abdullah Chilan, with the ideology of democratic confederalism which Alex s Bain in a sacred Rajava came into be in following the Arab Spring of twenty eleven, as various factions of Syrians rose up against President Bashar al Assad, and in such a climate of conflict, ISIS rose to prominence

to threaten the region as whole. So while Asad was dealing with other opposition groups in Damascus, he withdrew forces from North Syria, which left the region vulnerable to ISIS and to key Kurdish groups in North Syria then formed the Kurdish National Council to secure the area, but after an ideological split, the project of Rajava would emerge as a polyethnic polity composed of the cantons of Afrin, Jazira, and Kubani. The PID operates Java within a political coalition

called the Syrian Democratic Council or SDC. The YPG or People's Defense Units and the YPG or Women's Defense Units are the paramilitaries forming the bulk of the political assemblies and military coalership, which is called the Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF. I know, it's a lot of acronyms being thrown at you at once.

nation state by refusing to seize state power. Instead of organizing society through the state, they seek to organize society through local assemblies that manage their own affairs while coordinating action through confederation. Democratic and federalism emphasizes pluralism over nationalism, secularism over religious government, and restorative justice, gender liberation, ecological sustainability,

cooperative and communal economic forms. Democratic and feralism was seen as seen as a pragmatic way of building collective self organization within the purview of the existing dominant state model of the world, while gradually undermining its authority. Now, the gender liberation component in particular has received a lot of international attention thanks to the pid's efforts to put it into practice. They established gender parity quotas in all administrative,

political and decision making bodies and leadership roles. They established women's councils address women's issues. They established the Women's Protection Units or YPG, which is an all female army which is very popular and they established laws to ban honor killings and child marriage, while strengthening the divorce rights of women. So these efforts and others within Rajava have guardered worldwide admiration for the project, and many international volunteers have visited

Rajava to help them fight. And if you're in a lot of online anarchist circles, you've probably heard a lot about Rajava and solidarity with deliberation. But I think it has created a misconception that the solidarity that anarchists feel with for Java is equivalent to one to one ideological alignment. Yeah. Right, what they're doing is not anarchism, it's kind of its

own thing. It's Democrats Confederate the film. Yeah, and this has been a band that in solid to the people, of course, but it just means, you know, being clear that we are fighting for a will in which many rules exist. Yeah, and so are they, and we are just willing to stand with and observe that project and you know, wish for the best and hope for the best and see what comes of it.

of feedback. They are willing to hear an anarchist critique and engage with it. That doesn't mean that they are anarchists, but it doesn't mean that they are opposed to anarchists either.

I guess. And there are different interpretations of different movements in different parts of Kurdistan that draw on his political philosophy, but as his thinking while he was detained in Turkey moved towards this democratic confederalist outlook, influenced about reading Married Book Chain, among others, the movement also moved, and I think it was very well placed when the statist state withdrew to try and implement this like like you've mentioned

right self government, the brotherhood of people's all these things, but it wasn't always there, and it has been willing to change and willing to move it to ideology over time.

and that idea. Everybody's on their own journey, and you know, at this stage in capitalist global domina and status global dominance, we have to let whatever experiments exist or explore the different angles. You know, there's not one right way quite yet or they may never be you know. As one on the topic of disclaimers, I suppose I think it is important to address that, you know, the SDF is

not all sunshine and ruses. You know, there have been allegations of war crimes, including the recruitment of children, and the allegations are forced to target a displacement. Now, not all of these allegations have been conclusively verified, and there are a lot of actors have been involved in Syria over the years that are pushed in narratives and commuted narratives that have to be scrutinized on a case by

case basis. Some of the war crime allegations, for example, have been made by Turkey, which is pretty suspect considering their track record of both hostility towards Rajava and the Kiddish Autonomy, and also their practice of war crimes on a semi regular basis themselves. You know. Yeah, but still hypocrisy has said, I think it is important to not turn a blind eye to these kinds of problems and allegations when they are made.

we are opposed to. And yeah, we should again, like we should look at this like not through like rose To. I know talk a lot about this, but I translated a piece from French a couple of years ago from an anarchist who had fought in Spain, and it's called Refuting the Legend, and the main thesis of the piece was that we should engage with the Spanish civil wars.

It was not as we wished it to be, Yeah, and that way we could learn from it and get better as opposed to just create in a hagiography and like a you know, like saints' lives exactly the same applies here, I.

It's scrutiny, you know, to hould them up to certain standards, and to evaluate their missteps and to highlight their missteps even more than we highlight this successes, because I see only way we're going to succeed in the future. So if we're willing to address and engage with those mystiques.

closer to an anarchist paradigm. There are some who are somewhere in between those two things, right, And there are some who would just want the Islamic state or the New Syrian State or the Assadis state to go away and leave them alone. And that's why they picked up arms, and that's what they're fighting for and like, yeah, again, right, we shouldn't we should be suspicious of a movement which

is entirely homogeneous. We should be concerned, but I have concerns about the way some dissenting voices have been treated in the A and E s in the past year. We should raise those concerns. But like, it would be inaccurate to view this movement as a monolith.

That solidarity doesn't imply that you keep them out shut, that you don't seek to learn, that you don't respectfully criticize. That is, I think the best way to engage these projects not to you know, close their eyes and just follow absolutely. Getting back to I suppose what's been happening more recently, things have not been easy for the movement really since the beginning into A twelve, it has for a long time been caught in a web of conflicting

and conversion interests. In addition to fightin Issis and other Jiadist groups, Rajava managed to receive back in from the US out of a coincidence of interests and tactical necessity, as I would put it, which is confused in some circles of the idea that Rajava is a US designed

puppet through and through right. So after the SDF liberated Raka, they began taking more heat from Turkey, which saw the YPG as inseparable from the PKK and thus a threat under the YPG is the defensive army the protective services rather and the PKK is the Kurdish party in Turkey, so they launched several military operations to prevent the Kurdish regions from linking up and having territorial continuity within Syria.

At the same time, Rojava faced economic blockades, restricted movement, and strained relations with their fellow Kurdish political groups in Iraq that were aligned with two and aligned with the Pyid's political rivals, which had lost influence since the establishment of Rajava. Then you also had the occasional alignments with Russia as a strategic leverage against Tiki, and similar coincidences of interest with the governments of Iraq and Iran, and

even cooperation between Rojava and a SAD government. It's interesting to me that the US alignment is what receives the most attention when it seems to me the Rajava had quite a roster of affiliations of convenience. Not to say that those partnerships or affiliations necessarily benefit them in the long run, but it's important to place those affiliations in context.

Rajava has been seen and treated as a chess piece essentially by both global and regional powers as they attempt to put out a voice of their own and equaled their own autonomy. So, just before the twenty nineteen took his invasion, the US abandoned Rajava entirely, withdrawing it troops and suddenly leading into the tragic fall of several settlements

to Turkey and Tiggish aligned groups. Whether that moved with a draw orlso raised the international profile of the Java struggle, as people on both sides the book spectrum were pointing out this American decision to abandon its allies in the Middle East. So, before we get to the fall of us AD, is there anything critical did you say I missed?

because it flew too close to their bases. They also didn't shoot down the dozens of other Turkish drones that killed little children while I was there, right, And I don't think anyone would reasonably expect them to because US was not there in solidarity with the revolution. It was

there fighting alongside them in this one specific thing. And while that doesn't take away the fact that it is disgraceful to abandon these people who gave ten thousand plus of their children alongside the United States, right, that is shameful. It is also what we should expect from the United States people that use the word haval, which means friend, as opposed to like the way a Marxist movement might

use comra. The friends there understood the terms of their agreement with the US, doesn't mean that they were not disappointed. Doesn't mean that they would not ask for assistance when their children are dying. Of course it would, but those that are terms on which the US was allied with them, and certainly the US did not ideologically influence them. Perhaps the opposite is the case. There are certainly some people in the US military who went over there and came

back seeing the world differently. Turkey actually called the US government because some of the US soldiers who were wearing abdulahill on patches at one point and raised complaints about it. But yeah, I think it's important to understand the terms of the arrangement between them. Otherwise I think that's a pretty good praisie of the way things were. Do you have anything about Shengal?

them to genocidal violence. Right, this is the Uzdi genocide. The states of the world largely abandoned the Azdi people. They tried to defend their communities, but they were overwhelmed by the Islamic State and they gradually fell back to Shengol, which is their mountain, and they went to the top of their mountain to make their last stand. I guess right, that was their place where they had always gone back to.

And there were some US special forces on the mountain, and from what I understand also some British special forces. But it was the friends from Kurdistan who decided to go. It should be noted that they're like fighting the Islamic state at home at this time, right their own villages, their own towns, are being subjected to the same violence.

They went onto the mountain and they built humanitarian corridor to extract the Azdi people right with their bodies, with their blood, And if they had done nothing else since twenty twelve, that would be reason enough for us to stand in solidarity with them. Right like in that moment when the world letting the Azdis die, right when Obama and the United Kingdom and everything else was letting these people be subjected to genocide. It wasn't a military superpower

who went to their assistance. Who wasn't the French or the British or anyone else who was willing to risk Again, there were small numbers of special forces, but it was regular folks from Curtis down with kalashnikovs who went to save them. And I think at this time when Western analysts, who perhaps either don't have a proper grasp of what's happening in Syria or do and are just willing to lie about it, are condemning the a and Ees as

some kind of kurdisheth and a nationalist project. We can point to this and we shouldn't forget the sacrifice that those people made at that time.

and rewarded with the lifting of many sanctions. TAKEI emerged as his strongest backer, as they were pretty cooled with a Sad and the aggressively lobbied on behalf of the HGS government, reframing it as a stabilizing partner, and not long after the fall of a Sadd, in fact, after the Uchland himself called for the PKK to this arm The SDF, which is only loosely affiliated with the PKK, though said well you know not us, we will continue

to find. So Western governments, particularly the United States and its allies, appeared willing to accept this transformation of the SGS. The calculators that are fragmented and internally weak authority could be more easily stared to serve their long term geopolitical interests.

So the HDS and government had a little press tour, but within Syria they moved pretty predictably, engaging in violent for pressure and displacement and massacre of the Alawhite, the Druze and the Kiddish communities in Syria, and for the Kurdish initiated the project of Rajava. The rise of the HDS government would mark the beginning of an end greater isolation and a you'd pressure from within and outside of

Syrious borders. After consolidating power, the HTS government pushed into the Kurdish regions and encircled Kobani, the historic border city that once symbolized resistance to ISIS. So for days, coordinated attacks targeted Rajaba itself, threatening not only the survival of Kurdish olv government, but the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians as food, water and electricity would deliberately cut off and the city placed under siege. The violence had

been especially devastating in Aleppo. From early January, the Kurdish districts of shikh Maksud and Ashrafia became the focus of sustained assaults by Turkish backed militias and units aligned with the Syrian Transitional Government.

January twenty twenty six to allow evacuations. More than three hundred thousand people fled, many seeking refuge in areas still controlled by the Autonomous Administration, but fighting expanded eastward. Jihada's forces began targeting Raka, the ares Azol Hassaka, and critical infrastructure like the Tissrian Dam. Prisons holding thousands of Jihada's detanees were located in these areas, and amid the chaos,

Islamist fighters escaped. ISIS symbols reappaired, and memorials to Kurdish fighters were destroyed.

an Arab. It was portrayed as like local people celebrating their liberation from the SDF, but it was a whole group of men destroying a statue of a woman, a woman from that community who had fought to liberate that community from the Islamic state, right, And I think that like, when that context is deliberately excluded, that tells us an awful lot.

There was to the SDF as a military force, but not not so much to the project. And it was those communities that switch their allegiances.

who an't be willing to assist. And this is something that particularly made headlines, anyone included Israel, which had previously intervened in Syria for the claim justification of aiding the

Jurwis community. I think the way that question was paused to the SDF commander was definitely leading, like they were fishing for headline for sure from what I saw of that exchange, But in the context of the Palestinian genocide and the worlds awareness of their genocide, I think that even with that desperation for survival in mind, that statement was I think a misstep.

Israel is prepared to do to Muslim countries. They don't need much excuse. They would do the same in Syria. Furthermore, Israel has continued to invade Syria and has held Syrian territory for decades and has continued to take more of it under Olshara, and al Shara has not done anything

about it. So I find the idea that he's like eliminating zion is going to be very frustrating when the IDAFA statory inside his country invading it, and the Kurdish Freedom Movement as a whole has been pretty forthright about the genocide. So on October seventh, twenty twenty three, I was in Kurdistan and we watched what happened first in Israel and then in Palestine Ray and they were pretty

forthright about that no one should be killing civilians. And as the genocide in Gaza began, they were forthright about calling it a genocide. And I think they didn't have to. No one was particularly asking them in twenty twenty three, right, and they did, and they made statements about it. And like, I think seeing them as somehow ideologically inclined towards Israel when the it largely was in Israel who was fighting the Islamic state, right, it was largely them in the US.

But I think it's just people understanding the politics of the Middle East in terms of Marvel movies that they can only be two sides. And like, I'm sure at the time when they were facing genocide themselves, they would have welcomed any support, but that doesn't mean that they support the murder of civilians in Gaza. They have been extremely clear about that for an extremely long time.

from the Tishrin. But even after conceder in so much, government forces violated ceasefire terms, so the SDF declared general mobilization across the Kurdish regions of Syria and neighboring states as a last desperate attempt to rally resistance. By the end of January, the Autonomous Administration had lost roughly eighty

percent of the territory it once governed. The SDF was forced to retreat almost entirely into Hassaka Governorate, and on the thirtieth of January, the SDF formally announced a cease fire with the Syrian government and accepted a framework for folding both their military structures and civilian administration into the

Syrian state. Syrian authorities set timelines on this agreement within a month They would retake control of water crossings, oil and gas infrastructure like Crimelane, and also Wadi detention camps holding ISIS members and their families, and strategic sites such as Kamishli International Airport. Interior Ministry units were scheduled to deploy to Hassaka and Commissili almost immediately, and Syrian security forces will oversee the absorption of the Kurdish internal security

apparatus the SAISH, into the state's police and structures. Militarily, the SDF estates be absorbed under the Syrian Ministry of Defense, but on an individual vetted basis. Up to now, the fate of the female fighters and non Syrian fighters within the SDF is unknown, and on the civilian side of things, the institutions created by the Rajarfa administration are to be

absorbed as well. Kurdish officials have thus far secured the governorship of Hasaka and limited commander rules within the military. In exchange for their surrender, the Kurs gained some recognitions on people, The government claims to a firm national civil and educational rights, promised the return of displaced populations, and

issued decrees recognizing Kurdish as a national language. Taught in schools, declared the Kurdish celebration of Nauru's public body, and reversed decades all citizenship policies that shripped tens of thousands of goods of their citizenship. Thus far, most of these promises are on people.

has come to bus. But what this means. Talking to my friends, they're like, we will continue to see exactly, like what the extent they still have autonomy and to what extent they are integrated into a state which has in some instances banned women from wearing makeup for instance.

then be free. Yeah, we could sit around on our armchairs and speculate, but what Moves or Java could have done differently, whether it be failure to advance further, whether it be insufficient integration of and then buying of other groups into the project, whether it be the alliances or agreements or affiliations that they engage in. We can also sit around with litter all the limitations they face, some of they managed to overcome, and there's not so much.

But the blame does not lie in their failures to play this game of geopolitical chess as ruthlessly as other powers in the region. I think the blame lies in this game of geopolitical chess, in this ability of imperial powers to treat the people of the region as a whole as tools to be you used and discarded. And

the end. I continue to hold to the position that only a shared uprising from below, one that refuses compromise, one that cuts across nationalist lines, has the potential to create a new world, and that fight must happen both within Syria and beyond around the entire earth. The fight is not over in Rajava. I find it hard to believe that a people engaged in such a project would let go of that instinct and that drive toward greater

and greater freedom. It remains we seeing what happens with them, but also remains we seeing what happens with us, what we decide to do to push our what's want to be forward. And that's all from me for today or power to all the people. Peace.