Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women's Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan - Softcover

Knapp, Michael; Flach, Anja; Ayboga, Ercan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745336590 ISBN 13: 9780745336596

Verlag: Pluto Press, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

A new kind of society is being built in Syria, but it’s not one you would expect. Surrounded by deadly bands of ISIS and hostile Turkish forces, the people living in Syria’s Rojava cantons are carving out one of the most radically progressive societies on the planet today. Western visitors have been astounded by the success of their project, a communally organised democracy which considers women’s equality indispensable and rejects reactionary nationalist ideology whilst being fiercely anti-capitalist. The people of Rojava call their new system democratic confederalism. An implementation of the recent ideology of the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, it boasts gender quotas of 40 percent, bottom-up democratic structures, deep-reaching ecological policies and a militancy which is keeping ISIS from the gates. Revolution in Rojava is the first full-length study of this ongoing social and political transformation in Syrian Kurdistan. It is the first authentic insight into the complex dimensions of the revolution. Its authors use their own experiences of working and fighting in the region to construct a picture of hope for Middle-Eastern politics and society, and reveal an extraordinary story of a battle against the odds.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Michael Knapp is a historian of radical democracy, Cofounder of the Campaign Tatort Kurdistan and member of NavDem Berlin. His research focuses on the Kurdish issue and the construction of alternatives to capitalist modernity. His research has taken him to the Middle East, where he has studied the Kurdish Liberation Struggle and the PKK.

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Revolution in Rojava

Democratic Autonomy and Women's Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan

By Michael Knapp, Anja Flach, Ercan Ayboga

Pluto Press

Copyright © 2016 Michael Knapp, Anja Flach and Ercan Ayboga
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7453-3659-6

Contents

List of Figures, ix, 
Translator's Note, xi, 
Foreword by David Graeber, xii, 
Introduction, xxiii, 
Prologue: On the Road to Til Koçer, xxviii, 
1. Background, 1, 
2. Rojava's Diverse Cultures, 18, 
3. Democratic Confederalism, 36, 
4. The Liberation, 47, 
5. A Women's Revolution, 61, 
6. Democratic Autonomy in Rojava, 84, 
7. Civil Society Associations, 122, 
8. Defense: The Theory of the Rose, 133, 
9. The New Justice System, 164, 
10. The Democratization of Education, 175, 
11. Health Care, 185, 
12. The Social Economy, 192, 
13. Ecological Challenges, 211, 
14. Neighbors, 222, 
15. Prospects, 250, 
Afterword: The Philosophy of Democratic Autonomy Asya Abdullah, 262, 
Glossary, 268, 
About the Authors, 272, 
Index, 273, 

CHAPTER 1

Background

The name Kurdistan ("Land of the Kurds") first appeared in Arabic historical writing in the twelfth century, referring to the region where the eastern foothills of the Taurus Mountains meet the northern Zagros range. Estimates of the number of Kurds in the world vary considerably, but the most realistic range from 35–40 million; of that number, about 19 million live in Turkey, 10–18 million in Iran, 5.6 million in Iraq, 3 million in Syria, 0.5 million in the former Soviet Union, and about 1 million in Europe.

The Kurds are the third largest ethnic group in the Middle East, after Arabs and Turks. Today, the area of Kurdish settlement, while relatively compact, straddles Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The region is of strategic importance due, among other things, to its wealth in water. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which supply water for Syria and Iraq, flow through the Turkish part of Kurdistan (Bakûr).

Linguists agree that the Kurdish language belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family, although Kurdish differs significantly from Persian. There is no common, standard Kurdish language, nor even a standard alphabet or script, owing in part to the division of Kurdistan and to the bans on Kurdish language in the various states. Kurdish can be divided into five main dialects or dialect groups: Kurmancî, the southern dialects (Soranî, Silemanî, Mukrî), the southeastern dialects (Sinei, Kimansah, Lekî), Zaza (sometimes considered a separate language), and Guranî. These dialects are so different that speakers can't readily understand each other.

As to the Kurdish people, we have no certain knowledge of their origin. Researchers, nationalists (both Kurdish and Turkish), and even the PKK have all offered theories, depending on ideological orientation. Kemalism, the official state ideology of Turkey, upholds the "indivisible unity of the State with its country and its nation." According to Kemalism, all citizens of Turkey are Turks, and any aspiration to recognition of a non-Turkish identity is persecuted as separatism. Turks insist that the Kurds descended from the Turkic peoples.

Many Kurds, for their part, consider the ancient Medes their forebears. The PKK's first program, issued in 1978, states, "Our people first attempted to reside on our land in the first millennium BCE, when the Medes, progenitors of our nation, stepped onto the stage of history." When Kurds try to legitimize their rights as a nation to live in Kurdistan, their arguments tend to rest on territorial settlement rather than consanguineous ancestry. But assumptions about continuous Kurdish settlement and descent from the Medes entered the collective understanding long ago.

1.1 Geography of Rojava

During the Ottoman Empire (1299–1922), nomadic Arabs entered the area that is now northern Syria, where they encountered the local Kurds. A central trade route connected Aleppo with Mosul and today's southern Iraq. Between the two world wars, Kurds and Christians fleeing persecution in Turkey settled here. Together with the region's nomads, they make up the bulk of Rojava's population today.

In 1923, the victors in World War I created the 511-mile (822-kilometer) border dividing Syria and Turkey. This arbitrary line was drawn between Jarabulus and Nisebin (in Turkish, Nusaybin) along the route of the Berlin-Baghdad Railway.

Three islands of mostly Kurdish settlement lie just south of that border. The easternmost is Cizîrê, which also abuts Iraq for a short stretch of the Tigris; the middle island is Kobani, and the westernmost is Afrin. Due south of Cizîrê, in Iraq, lie the Sengal mountains (also called Sinjar), which are inhabited by Kurdish Ezidis.

In July 2012, during the Syrian war, the Kurdish movement was able to liberate these three majority-Kurdish regions from the Ba'ath regime. In January 2014, these three regions declared themselves cantons and embarked on the task of establishing a Democratic Autonomous Administration. Each canton is currently under the administration of a transitional government. In March 2016, the Federal System of Rojava/ Northern Syria was declared [see 6.9], encompassing the three cantons and some ethnically mixed areas that had recently been liberated from IS.

Afrin Canton

Afrin (in Arabic, Afrin), the westernmost canton, is bounded by the Turkish provinces to the north (Kilis) and west (Hatay). Covering about 800 square miles (2,070 square kilometers), it includes eight towns — Afrin city in the center, then Serawa, Cindirês, Mabata, Reco, Bilbilê, Siyê, and Sera — and 366 villages. Afrîn canton also encompasses the highland known as Kurd Dagh ("Mountain of the Kurds"; in Kurdish, Ciyayê Kurd or Kurmanc; in Arabic, Jabal al-Akrad), which rises westward to the Turkish border and southward and eastward to the Afrîn River, extending slightly beyond. Kurd Dagh is 4,163 feet (1,269 meters) high.

Afrîn city was founded at a junction of nineteenth-century trade routes. In 1929, its population numbered approximately 800, but by 1968 it had risen to about 7,000 and in 2003 to 36,562. At the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the canton's population was estimated at 400,000, but once the attacks began, many refugees from Aleppo immigrated to Afrîn, boosting the population to 1.2 million.

Most of the inhabitants are Sunni Muslim Kurds. Additionally, about 8,000 Alevi Kurds live in Afrîn, mostly in the northern town of Mabata, where a small number of Turkmens also live. A number of Ezidi Kurd villages contain between 7,500 and 10,000 inhabitants, which are called here Zawastrî. According to the canton's foreign relations board president, Sileman Ceefer, about 10 percent of the population is Arab. In contrast to the other cantons, asîret (tribes) no longer play a significant role here.

Afrîn's terrain is mostly upland, having been settled continuously since antiquity and unthreatened by nomads. It differs in this respect from the two other cantons, which came under the plow in the period between the world wars. The climate is Mediterranean with average annual rainfall of 15–20 inches. In the lowlands, Afrîn's deep, red soils are cultivated intensively, using groundwater pumps powered by diesel. Wheat, cotton, citrus fruits, pomegranates,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Pluto Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0745336590
• ISBN 13: 9780745336596
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 320
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar