Despite being the smallest part of Kurdistan — a geo-cultural territory encompassing southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, and northern Syria — Rojava now serves as a site of revolution and liberation against, and from, dominant states and capitalist modernity. These revolutionary beginnings can be traced back to 1979 with the arrival of the Kurdistan’s Workers Party (PKK) and its founder Abdullah Öcalan, a Kurdish activist, writer, and political theorist (imprisoned by Turkey since 1999). Indeed, Öcalan has been especially important for the revolution, as his ideas laid the foundation on which the liberation movements (both general and the branch focusing on women’s liberation) are built. Based on a 2020 webinar with Dilar Dirik (GTA, 2020) one of the Kurdish Women’s Movement’s experts and activists, the text below will explore how Rojava and its associated movements (primarily the Kurdish Women’s Movement) were able to establish resilience prior to, and during, the COVID-19 pandemic.
| Authors | Viviane Straub |
|---|---|
| Topics | Democracy, Education, Gender, Rights, Social change |
| Case Report | Volume 2: "Resilience in the Face of COVID-19" |
Is it possible to live autonomously without a centralised government? To have gender equality, cooperative economy, and practice direct democracy, as well as ecological thinking? This reality has arisen in one of the most unlikely of places. Namely, in a region characterised by war, and the violent interventions of Turkey, Russia, and the USA. In this hostile environment, Rojava — officially known as The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria — has nonetheless been transformed into an “anarchist-feminist autonomous region that is the antithesis to everything around it” (ecologise.in). Home to a section of the Kurds — one of the Indigenous groups of the Mesopotamia plains whose long sought desire for their own homeland has been constantly quashed — Rojava has played an important role in the Kurdish struggle.
Despite being the smallest part of Kurdistan — a geo-cultural territory encompassing southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, and northern Syria — Rojava now serves as a site of revolution and liberation against, and from, dominant states and capitalist modernity. These revolutionary beginnings can be traced back to 1979.
Process that led to the community being resilient (Pre-COVID)
The Kurdish Freedom Movement (an umbrella term encompassing a plethora of Kurdish organisations) has long sought alternatives beyond the nation-state system, and has recognised the impact of this system on society and the environment. This includes the erasure of other ways of knowing (Indigenous cosmologies), conflict between ethnic and religious communities, and the ecological crisis. Hence, the pillars of this movement being radical democracy, ecology, and women’s liberation, as taken from Öcalan’s writings. Indeed, it is these pillars and their associated practices that helped to establish community resilience prior to COVID-19.
Beginning with the first pillar: Rojava’s political system is based on democratic confederalism. The principles hereby being autonomy, direct democracy, environmentalism, multiculturalism, feminism, self-defence, self-governance, and a shared economy. This has enabled the movement to learn how to self-organise and establish practices whereby power and control is distributed. As Dirik highlights in the webinar, this has created spaces in which “people have a way of directly becoming political agents, and political subjects themselves”. This is further fostered by the movement’s political structure. Comprised of communes, assemblies, interrelated congress-like structures, horizontal and direct decision-making mechanisms were clearly defined prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whilst the second pillar has been more difficult to fulfill owing to the continued control of the means of production and nature by dominant nation-states, the Kurdish people have nonetheless tried to practice less destructive and more regenerative ways of living. This includes the practice of commoning whereby access to land, water, and electricity becomes more equal. Communities in the region have also seen the growth of cooperative farming and river cleaning initiatives. All of these help strengthen resilience if a crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, were to arise. Thirdly, the emphasis on feminist perspectives and the effort put into the liberation of women has meant that continued focus has been placed on alternative practices to hegemonic thinking and capitalist modernity. As briefly alluded to, this is reflected in political life and governance structures. Hence, the Kurdish Freedom Movement continues the collective process of building a more ecological life – culturally, politically, socially, economically.
Finally, the importance of leadership must not be underestimated when looking at resilience established prior to the pandemic. Indeed, the role of Öcalan has been of paramount significance. As the founder and primary theorist of the movement, Öcalan has had a very formative influence on its development. Particularly through his writings in which prompts are made to imagining a different modernity. One which does not feed into further colonisation, industrialisation, ecocide, and the systemic violence of women, amongst other things. Öcalan’s ideas continue to hold the movement together and allow for cohesion to persist.
How resilience that was established has helped during the pandemic
There are many ways in which resilience was maintained during the pandemic. One of these includes the fact that the Kurdish Freedom Movement and other associated movements such as the Kurdish Women’s Movement, were well accustomed to selforganisation. This stems from the political structures in place as control and power does not lie in the hands of a small elite, but is distributed amongst groups to allow for greater autonomy. In addition, the movement did not have much choice but to learn how to self-organise due to limited aid and resources given from outside. As a result, people knew how to respond to the crisis and were also able to build a COVID-19 hospital.
Furthermore, people were aware of the implications of a lockdown and what this entails: “we know what a lockdown is because we have experienced it, because of the wars imposed by the Turkish army, we know what it means to survive under these conditions”. Solidarity initiatives to support vulnerable families and committees to ensure that the communities are doing well were therefore quickly established. Furthermore, a campaign was initiated by the women’s movement against domestic violence as it was shown that this had increased as a direct result of the pandemic. The campaign also highlighted the exploitation of women’s labour and continued social reproduction keeping inequality alive. Aside from the political culture of selforganisation and the prior experience of lockdown — both of which meant the people were more aware of how to respond — strong foundations and leadership also helped ensure that the movement did not falter, and community solidarity persisted.
Lessons learnt
Whilst there is much to learn from the Kurdish Freedom Movement about alternatives to capitalist modernity, only a few lessons about ways in which resilience can be developed will be outlined. The first being the power of self-organisation (often despite the dominant system) as people realise they are not just passive subjects, but rather active participants in society able to directly engage in political processes. As Dirik says, one way this could be done is by “turning communities into agents and giving them the platform to self-organise”. Whilst this is dependent on size and context, amongst other things, it does seem useful to know that communities would be able to respond quicker were a crisis to unfold. Dirik also notes that another learning has been the need to find ways of struggling together through building alliances among networks and groups.
This goes one step further than solidarity as the aim would be to establish platforms for co-creation and collaboration. Finally, the aforementioned role of good leadership seems an important component to carry forward. One that does not mirror hegemonic thinking but takes into consideration the need to restore an ecological, economic, social, and political balance.
References
- Ayboga, E., Flach, A., Knapp, M. (2015). Revolution in Rojava. Hamburg: VSA Verlag.
- Global Tapestry of Alternatives (2020) Dialogue 6: COVID-19 - Responses from the Kurdish Women’s Movement. GTA webinar video. Available at: https:// globaltapestryofalternatives.org/webinars:2020:06?redirect=1 [Accessed 14 May 2022].
- Jinen, K. (2020). Kurdish Women’s Movement: Let’s struggle against the pandemic together!. [Online] Available at: https://komun-academy.com/2020/04/25/kurdish-womensmovement-lets-struggle-against-the-pandemic-together/. [Accessed 4 January].
- Miley, TJ. (2020). The Kurdish Freedom Movement, Rojava and the Left. [Online]. Available at: https://merip.org/2020/07/the-kurdish-freedom-movement-rojava-and-the-left/. [Accessed 4 January].
- Shilton, D. (2019). Rojava: The radical eco-anarchist experiment betrayed by the West, and bludgeoned by Turkey. [Online] Available at: https://ecologise.in/2019/10/27/ rojava-the-eco-anarchist-experiment/. [Accessed 4 January].
- Towsend, M. (2020). Revealed: Surge in domestic violence during COVID-19 crisis. [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/12/domesticviolence-surges-seven-hundred-per-cent-uk-coronavirus. [Accessed 4 January].