An anonymous movement
Last summer I
visited one of Montreal's famous anarchist bookshops to browse through the
local resistance literature and, perhaps, find an affordable copy of Murray
Bookchin's works somewhere on the shelves. Luckily I did find a collection of
interviews and essays by Bookchin, a thinker and activist whose anarchist and
ecological writing and thought has been fundamental to informing Abdullah
Öcalan's turn away from Stalinist Marxism, toward the groundbreaking theory of
Democratic Confederalism. Öcalan is the imprisoned leader of the banned
Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), and the spiritual theorist and strategist of
the egalitarian and ecofeminist Rojava revolution in the Kurdish north of
Syria.
Incidentally,
while I was there at the bookshop going through leaflets and pamphlets in
French and English, a random Montrealer popped into the store to ask the
shopkeeper if he had anything by Öcalan in store. Despite my lacking knowledge
of the French language, I knew the shopkeeper responded that he had never heard
of Öcalan, but before I had a chance to intervene, the customer had
unfortunately disappeared into the St. Laurent Boulevard's Sunday crowd once
again. Afterwards, I had a conversation with the shopkeeper about Rojava's
paradigm-shifting practice in the Middle East, and even went out of my way to
give him a sort of mini lecture on how Öcalan's theory of Democratic
Confederalism has been fundamental to the multi-ethnic and democratic praxis of
the Rojavans throughout the current Syrian civil war.
That day I
left the bookstore bookshop feeling somewhat guilty for making the shopkeeper
feel embarrassed about knowing next to nothing about Öcalan, Bookchin and
Rojava, but I recount this story here because for me it crystallizes how the
Rojava movement's resistance has been waged in near anonymity from the very
first days of its humble beginnings. The likes of Noam Chomsky, Michael Hardt,
David Harvey and even Slavoj Žižek have since voiced their support for this
movement, and other thinkers and activists have supported its resistance in one
way or another. However, the general import of this movement, as a concrete
alternative to the hegemony of imperialism, dictatorship and fundamentalism in
the Middle East, has been largely buried under the barrage of nationalist and
reactionary voices and media that dominate the Syrian civil war news cycle.
Painfully,
voices and movements from the anarchist, post-colonialist and Marxist left have
chosen to attack and even undermine the aims, strategies and achievements of
the Rojava revolution. They correctly state that Rojava's People's Protection
Units (YPG) and Women's Protection Units (YPJ) have relied on American military
aid and cooperation in their resistance against the forces of the Islamic State
(IS). And they go on to state that as mere instruments of the U.S. imperialist
agenda in the region, the YPG/J are only tools used and discarded by the
Americans, once their aims in the region have been realized. These critical
voices have found renewed resonance in the wake of Turkey's recent "Olive
Branch Operation," which has been waged with tacit approval from the White
House and aims to invade and ethnically cleanse Afrin, the canton to the west
of the now two famous cantons of Kobani and Cizîre.
Nonetheless,
it is most necessary to demonstrate the hypocrisy of such claims and voices,
and to situate the manner and history of YPG/J's cooperation with the Americans
as way of emphasizing the importance of voicing support for this movement not
only against Erdogan's aims in Syria and Turkey, but critically, in favour of
the possibilities the Rojava revolution harbours for the entire Middle East
region.
Kalashnikov vs. BGM-71 TOW
The U.S.
foreign policy in Syria, particularly during the Obama administration, has been
widely criticized and continues to be hotly debated. Nonetheless, the origin of
YPG/J's cooperation with the Americans can be traced to the U.S. decision to
back the Free Syrian Army (FSA) during the initial stages of the Syrian civil
war: after it became clear that despite military aid and financing from
Americans as well as Saudis, backing a losing FSA side would only imperil the
U.S. interests in the conflict, the Americans had no choice but to rely on the
forces of the YPG/J, if they were to remain a player in Syria. In turn, the
YPG/J accepted the U.S. request for cooperation mainly because after the fall
of Mosul to IS in Iraq, arguably no army in the Middle East could withstand the
firepower of the American arms surrendered to IS by the fleeing Iraqi army. Moreover,
as the only truly independent actor in the Syrian civil war, the Rojavans had
been never invited to any talks on the Syrian crisis (until this last round),
and required backing from one the big four (U.S., Russia, Iran, Turkey) to be
involved in discussions over a federalist vision of Syria they were only too
eager to join.
There were
moreover two important historical caveats concerning the background to this new
cooperation. First, from the onset of the Syrian conflict, the Syrian Kurds in
the Rojava region had refused to take part or take sides in the civil war;
their political and military activity had been limited to protecting their
regions from radical militant groups such as IS and, more importantly, to
overseeing the implementation of Öcalan's Democratic Confederalist vision, by
filling the local vacuum of state power created as a byproduct of the war. Only
when IS brought the war to the doorsteps of Rojava, did YPG/J relinquish their
radical passivity. Second, even though the Rojavans' heroic resistance during
the siege of Kobani is remembered as the "Stalingrad" moment of the
war against IS, the high cost and casualties of this battle had made it
painfully evident that to rebuke the Americans, and to continue to resist the
likes of IS (equipped with American BGM-71 TOWs) with second-hand Kalashnikovs
bought on the black market, would inevitably lead to the surrender or
destruction of the Rojavans' freedom, ideals and praxis. This is especially
true in view of the fact that every other national and independent faction in
Syria were highly armed and financed from the beginning of this war, by the
Americans, Russians, Iranians or the Saudis.
All the same,
the cooperation between the YPG/J and the U.S., which began as a tactical and
intelligence partnership in particular battles, and evolved into training and
limited arms support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) during the closing
stages of the war against IS, cannot be described as a one-way scenario of
YPG/J reliance on the U.S. and its imperialist aims and strategies in the
region. Quite the contrary: it is the U.S. that has no partner in Syria but the
YPG/J. Indeed, the YPG/J have operated entirely independently of U.S. demands
throughout this Syrian conflict and have, on numerous occasions, acted against
American aims and interests. In fact, it is only recently after the defeat of
IS and with the announcement of the formation of the 30,000 strong SDF army
along the Turkish border, that this partnership had transformed into a more
strategic coalition.
Therefore, if
it is fair to criticize the YPG/J for giving U.S. strategy in the Syrian
conflict a lifeline, it is equally unfair to criticize the YPG/J for choosing
to arm their democratic, feminist and egalitarian cantons (against the forces of
war criminals like IS and Assad) over appeasing the so-called anti-imperialist
ideals of intellectuals and voices here in the West. It is, in fact,
hypocritical to flatten the Syrian battlefield into a purely imperialist
chessboard arrayed with proxy pawns, and so to reduce the stakes and
aspirations of Rojavans's paradigm shifting practice by casually comparing them
to the ethnic and/or religious agendas of other factions involved in the Syrian
conflict. Forces that are backed by countries with petit imperialist and
expansionist agendas, such as Russia, Iran and Turkey, and which have moreover
continuously refused Rojavan overtures toward an all-Syrian but democratic
cooperation and partnership.
No friends but the mountains
As the famous
saying goes, the Kurds, the largest group of stateless people in the world,
"have no friends but the mountains." And if the war campaign against
the canton of Afrin is being framed in the media not only as the latest
rejected pilot in the Kurds' quest for democratic self-determination, but also
as a melodrama of their betrayal and abandonment by the U.S., it is necessary
to emphasize in contrast that the YPG/J are only victims of their own success.
Analysts and
strategists may correctly point to imperialist plans for dividing Syria across
sectarian lines, as the Turkish incursion into Afrin will not merely severe it
from its sister cantons to the east, and force it to either realign itself with
the Russians or risk full invasion by the Turks and their extremist allies. Rather,
it also aims to establish a Sunni dominated corridor from Turkey all the way to
Iraq (via the opposition dominated areas and Sunni midlands antagonistic to
Assad's rule) that could cut off the Kurdish areas' access to the sea (via the
mainly Shi'ite areas to the south-east) and lead to the complete isolation and
containment of Rojava from all sides. It is true that this is a scenario that
best serves the U.S. interests in the region, as it appeases Turkey's fear of
the Kurds; pacifies Assad; does not cross the Russian red line of losing access
to its Mediterranean military base in the Assad-controlled region; and most
importantly, by way of the Sunni corridor, splits Iran's threatening access to
Israel via a "Shi'a Crescent" that extends from Iran to Israel
through Northern Iraq, central-southern Syria, and finally, the
Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon.
Geopolitical
interests aside, however, weakening Rojava is important to the U.S. foreign
policy for a more strategic reason. The ideological danger of Rojava's
political alternative to the "business as usual" of the Middle East
outweighs, for both Western imperialism and regional expansionism, the
importance of safeguarding their strategic stakes in land, sea and commerce.
The Rojavans' hybrid tactical strategy of Dual Power and democratic
organization effectively overcomes the cynicism around both revolution and
reform that haunts the post Arab Springs and Green Movement Middle East, and
its stateless motto is essentially nationless in a region plagued by
sectarianism. Indeed, if the Middle East is the Gordian knot of world politics
and peace, then it is Rojava's practice that has brought race, gender and class
together, against a regional chessboard arrayed with imperialist,
fundamentalist and nativist actors. And it is precisely here, because of this
existential threat to the order of late neoliberalism, that Rojava is a victim
of its own success and its out-dated partnership with the U.S. The tacit
agreement held by all the opposing sides involved in the Syrian conflicts with
regard to the Turkish invasion of Afrin is only a testimony to the seriousness
of this threat. An isolated Rojava could then be weakened and gradually picked
apart via embargos, land blocks and no fly zones, in the same way that other
paradigm-shifting revolutions elsewhere were contained and derailed before.
Therefore,
the Rojavas need vocal support here in the West not in order to save them from
abandonment by the U.S. Indeed, the people and defenders of Afrin have never
asked for solidarity from governments and institutions here in the West, as
they are keeping out Erdogan's forces on their own just fine. Rather, it is
from the Western governments' continued interference in Syria that the Rojavans
must be protected. The leftist organizations and movements here in the West
must step in to save the civilians in Afrin from the same fighter jets and
tanks their governments sell to the Turkish military. It is in view of such
considerations and nuances that it is important to not approach the Syrian
stalemate from a morally reductive or superior standpoint.
In his seminal
piece on the Rojava Revolution, Michael Taussig asked if in the clash between
Rojava and IS we were "facing an 'Hegelian moment' in which two
symmetrically opposed contenders have erupted onto the stage of history?"
With the elimination of IS at the hands or Rojava, we must now ask if the
elimination of Rojava via Turkey's endgame is in truth an attempt to ensure
that no history takes place in the Middle East, and that things go back to
their neoliberal normal with the end of the war. It is high time that the
Rojava Revolution emerged from anonymity.
Fouad Oveisy is a PhD student in
Critical Theory and Comparative Literature at the University of California,
Irvine. His research is focused on the intersections between realpolitik,
critical theory, and post-revolutionary strategy and literature.
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