WEBVTT - Sneaking Into Utopia 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.560 Welcome to the Women's War, a production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.399 Americans learned about the world through the lens of war. 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:12.280 Before Isis emerged, most Americans probably wouldn't have been able 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:16.040 to tell you what occurred was in any detail. Today, 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:19.200 if asked, those same Americans would probably say, they're the 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.319 folks who helped us fight ISIS, or maybe they're the 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:27.120 people Trump just betrayed because modern media cannot abide nuance. 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:29.320 The Kurds in Iraq and the Kurds in Syria tend 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:32.280 to get lumped into the same bucket, but Iraki Curtis 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:36.040 stand and Syrian Rojava are two very different places. The 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.159 Kurdish Autonomous Region in Northern Iraq has its origins in 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.880 ninete one, when the United States and her allies established 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:45.360 a no fly zone in order to stop Saddam Hussein 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:48.880 from murdering more Kurdish people. This was maintained in one 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:51.440 form or another up until the two thousand two invasion. 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:54.880 As a result, Northern Iraq was spared the worst excesses 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:58.360 of Saddam's regime. After that point, the Iraqi Kurds were 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.000 given space to build their chunk of country into something 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.800 very much resembling an independent state as a result. While 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:07.280 most of the country fell into violent chaos after the 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:11.880 U S invasion, Northern Iraq blossomed. Its local militious collectively 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.520 referred to as the Peshmerga, succeeded in providing an exceptional 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:20.080 degree of security, and with security came economic investment. Over 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.160 the course of a decade, Iraqi Kurdistan built rapidly and 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:27.319 capitalized on their substantial oil reserves. Skyscrapers went up all 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:30.440 around the capital their bill and for a time, pundits 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:33.640 claimed the city would soon be the Middle East's next Tobai. 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.679 That dream came crashing to the ground in two thousand 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:43.160 fourteen when Isis invaded. Investment money dried up, construction halted abruptly. 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.760 The city has recovered somewhat today, but its skyline is 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:51.200 still dotted with dozens of skeletal skyscrapers forever abandoned. The 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.880 fault for this is not purely with Isis. Outrageous corruption 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.360 within the Kurdish Regional Government or k r G also 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:02.160 played a role. The Kurdish Regional Government is, on its face, 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.440 a democratic system, one where women are guaranteed thirty of 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:09.119 the seats in the one and eleven seat regional parliament. Now, 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:13.000 the the KRG Kurdish Regional Government is separate but technically 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:16.400 subordinate to the government in Baghdad. The closest parallel in 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.040 American politics would probably be to compare the Kara Ge 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.560 to something like a Native American reservation. Although it's it's 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.520 still a lot different than that um Iraqi. Kurdistan is independent, 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:27.560 though in in a lot of the ways that matter, 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:29.680 but not all of them. It's still rely on funding 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:31.720 from Baghdad and the like, but they have their own 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:34.320 military force, the Peschi Marka, who are made up from 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.520 the militias of the two largest political parties in the region. 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:39.920 It's a little bit like if the Republican and Democratic 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.920 parties each controlled half the military, and it works about 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.040 as well as you'd expect that to work. Now, everyone 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.639 who spends any amount of time in Iraq will agree 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:50.919 that the kaya Ge is much better at running things 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:54.440 than the government in Baghdad. But considering the Baghdad government 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.760 spent the winter of two thousand nineteen machine gunning protesters, 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.440 this is a pretty low bar. No bis, this gets 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.440 done in Kurdistan without a lot of bribe, money, greasing 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.320 a lot of palms. The KRG is a hell of 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.960 a lot more functional than the government in Baghdad, but 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.760 it basically exists to siphon off cash to a handful 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.400 of wealthy families. At the top of the heap are 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:18.280 there Barzanis and the Talibanis, whose many scions are basically 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.120 Kurdish nobility. Or Bill is a city where you can 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.720 see penniless refugees and millionaires driving escalates on the very 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.800 same street. In other words, it's a lot like Los Angeles. 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.280 Jake and I landed in Sulimania in the early afternoon 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:35.040 July eighteenth, two thousand nineteen. We were met by a driver, 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:36.960 a friend of a friend, who would take us on 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:40.000 the five hour drive to her Bill. Now the drive 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:43.080 shouldn't really be five hours long, but the roads in 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:45.960 between Sulimania and her Bill are filled with potholes in 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.760 random debris. We have to slow to a near stop 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:51.480 every few minutes in order to navigate them. Some of 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.120 my local friends say the poor state of Kurdistan's roads 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.160 is an understandable lapse given the giant war the government 0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.920 just fought. Others say there'd be plenty of money for 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.320 road work if it weren't all going to the barsanis 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:05.800 the patron of the family, Massoud Barzani is worth an 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.760 estimated forty eight billion dollars. The state of California, with 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.240 roughly eight times the population of Iraqi. Kurdistan spent one 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.480 point six billion dollars maintaining its state highways in two 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.640 thousand and nineteen. You do the math. Graft is not 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.840 the Kyrg's only problem. Rank nepotism is another major issue. 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:28.320 Massoud Barzani was the president of the Kyrgi until June 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:32.480 two thousand nineteen, when he was succeeded by his nephew, Natschervin. 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.120 Prior to being elected president, Natschervin was the Prime Minister 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.040 of the KRG. He was succeeded in office there by 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.680 mass Rua Barzani, Masud's son. There's a lot to love 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:44.800 about this part of the world, but the sheer scale 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.960 of the corruption and the unbelievable bullshit regular people here 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:49.640 have to put up with as a result of it, 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.800 it's it's just infuriating. We have to wait a day 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:54.479 and a half in our bill for our fixer. My 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:56.760 old friends sang Are to square things away with the 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.599 border crossing into Rojava, so Jake and I see the 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:01.359 sites and swing by the mall to pick up a 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.200 couple of last minute bits of equipment. I spend most 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.880 of my time working my way through Iraqi. Kurdis stands 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:11.000 shockingly good selection of international beers. I settle on Moosehead, 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.080 an odd brew from New Brunswick, Canada. I developed an 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.880 appreciation for it during my days in Halifax. I had 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.480 my first Moosehead on a nude beach in Nova Scotia. 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:22.320 It feels strange, to say the least, to drink one 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.000 in the blistering heat of an Iraqi summer. On our 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.159 last night in her Bill, twelve hours before we're set 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:29.159 to drive to Rojava, Jake and I are in a 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.240 cab on our way to dinner. The driver has the 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.479 radio turned to a local pop station, and the music 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:35.800 is a ragged selection of hits from the last couple 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.279 of years. There's a lot of talk of champagne, bottles 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.760 and clubs and brand new cars and all that sort 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.200 of stuff. At one point, the host, who speaks in 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.480 flawless English, tells her listeners a story she's heard about 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.880 Charlemagne the God. Apparently when he goes on tour. He 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.600 flies four of his very good friends around with him 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.400 everywhere he goes so that they can hang out and stuff, 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:59.240 and she absolutely cannot get over how cool this sounds. 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.039 The host of voice takes on a mournful tone when 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:06.279 she says, I just want that life so bad. The 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.760 pain in her voice is palpable. As I listen to this, 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:12.320 I think about Murray book Chin here and her bill. 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.480 The primary influences from the United States are pretty obvious 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:20.160 celebrity obsession, displays of conspicuous wealth, marvel t shirt, star wars, posters, 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.440 all of the cultural gifts that Hollywood has distributed to 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.960 the world. But just a few hours away in Northeast Syria, 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:30.000 the United States's main contribution to the culture there was 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:34.279 the work of an obscure anarchist philosopher. Globalism is a 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:38.080 fucking Roulette wheel. We eat and head back to the hotel. 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:40.520 I go to bed thinking about Murray book Chin and 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.359 Charlemagne the God. Jake and I wake up at seven 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:47.680 am on July excited that today is finally the day 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.479 we will both see Rojava. All right, Jake, it's Saturday morning. 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:54.679 A feeling man, You're fiting good minute fresh. Yeah. Yeah, 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.560 what about what two and a half hours three hours 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:05.880 from the border from when? Yeah, and we like three 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:08.200 hours there? What he messed around for like a couple 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:12.280 of hours waiting from stumps and then go across and 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:14.080 then do another couple I was waiting for stumps on 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.040 the OtherSide. Yeah, it will be a long day of 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:22.400 waiting for stamps. Yep. Sangar picks us up in his 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.280 brand new Toyota four by four. I first met him 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.680 in two thousand and seventeen during the Siege of Mosle. 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.200 Sangar probably has the highest tolerance for danger of anyone 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:33.680 I've ever met, and that's saying something. Some of my 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:35.920 fondest memories at the times we drove away from the 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:38.720 death defying trips to the front line, he'd always stopped 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.360 at a little shack on the road back to her 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:44.160 Bill and buy us all knockoff Heineken's hen Kins. Those 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.120 lukewarm beers in his car tasted better than any alcohol 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.679 I've had before or since. As we drive to the border, 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:53.800 Sangar tells us about his previous trips to Rojava. He 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.840 goes there to work, obviously, but also for fun. When 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.880 Ramadan comes around during the daytime, most of a rack 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:04.040 shuts down and alcohol sales are officially forbidden. On those days, 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.120 Rojaba becomes a Kurdish drinkers oasis. So you don't feel 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:13.600 there's ramana in here. I know. It's like um that 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.520 the restaurants they have to have like what you call 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.480 the big rocks, you know, like they cover, they cover 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.800 the restaurant. They're no fun, no, I know, like the 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:26.440 tea shops, restaurants are opening like it's normal. There's no 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.280 religion in Rojavva. No, there's no just upper religion, just 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:32.560 up religion. Yeah, you know, like you don't feel it's 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.840 romana here. You're feeling you know, yeah if you you 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.880 cannot smoke everywhere here, you know, like you cannot smoking public, 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.360 you cannot smoking with But like there it is so 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:49.720 rare to find someone who's fasting with Ramanani. No one ramana. 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.200 So that's even like for drinks beer, and you're like, 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:56.199 I don't find them easily. That's great. The radio continues 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.720 to play as we drive along, mostly hip hop ballads 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.200 of Hollywood wealth at ex Us. They make for a 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:05.400 strange contrast with the yellow Sun racked countryside of northern Iraq. 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.079 Much of Kurdistan is gorgeous, but not this area. We 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:12.400 roll past dismal, gray villages and over broken roads to 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.920 the tune of bubbly pop music. We noticed an unusual 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:18.400 amount of Iraqi military traffic on the road to the 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:22.319 Syrian border. No one knows why precisely, but we assume 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.040 it's due to something that happened on July sevente the 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.640 day before we landed in Iraq. While I was still 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.520 in the sky, two unidentified gunmen had walked into an 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:34.000 Herbille restaurant and opened fire on a group of Turkish diplomats. 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:38.040 One of those diplomats was killed, along with a civilian. Now, 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:40.360 nothing more than that was known at the time we landed, 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:42.640 but I will say that one of the people we 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:44.520 talked to you just assumed this had been an attack 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:46.880 carried out by the p k K. If you'll think 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:48.960 back to the last episode, the p KK is that 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:52.120 left wing militant group founded by a Dola Agolan that 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:55.160 the the U S and Turkey both considered to be terrorists. 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.640 As Kurdish Turkish militants, they have a fraud relationship with 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.880 the cur Dish regional government in Iraq. Now their FELLO occurred. 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:04.600 So a lot of the actual people who live in 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.400 northern Iraq under the ki rgs you know, domain or 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.760 at least broadly sympathetic to the p kk's goals. But 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:13.839 the kara Ji's government, dominated by the Barzani family, has 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.520 been making increasing diplomatic overtures and having more and more 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.200 conversations and making more deals with the Turkish regime for 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.520 years now. They want better relations with Turkey for variety 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.959 of political and practical reasons, but this has been regularly 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:29.480 stymied by the fact that the PEKK has a bunch 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:33.920 of bases in northern Iraq and regularly attacks Turkish soldiers. Meanwhile, 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.360 Turkey regularly bombs northern Iraq, which the KYRG is not 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.800 super happy with either. It's a messy and it's a 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.640 fraud situation, and it complicates relations between Rojava and the 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:48.240 Kurdish regional government in Iraq. Iraqi. Kurdistan is also one 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:50.920 of the most capitalist places on the planet and Rojava 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.400 system is very much founded by far left radicals uh 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.079 and particular among these radicals are members of the p 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.880 y D or the Democratic Union Party of Syria. I 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.240 really apologized for all the acronyms. There's just no other 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.480 way to tell the story. The p y D is 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.400 the largest political party in Rojava, and most of the 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.800 early organization in the region after the Assad regime pulled 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.040 out was done by the p y D and its members. Now, 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.480 the Turkish government considers the p y D to be 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.959 terrorists as well, and says they're basically just a wing 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:22.760 of the p k K. And to make matters more complicated, 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:24.640 there's a lot of p KK involvement in the p 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.559 y D, So it's a mess. The whole situation is 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:32.400 almost unbearably complex and and and messy and complicated. But um, 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.320 the most important thing to know at this point is 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.720 that it wasn't exactly strange for us to see the 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.800 Kurdish regional government sending more soldiers to the border with 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:44.280 Rojava in response to a p KK assassination in their capital. 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:46.960 Stuff like that has happened before. And I spent a 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.480 lot of the ride talking the situation over with Jake 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:51.640 and sang Are and trying to make sense of it 0:11:51.679 --> 0:12:01.199 all in my own head. I know it's confusing. As 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:03.560 we talk all this over, we wind up hitting the 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:07.040 first border checkpoint at around noon, a place called pesh Kebar, 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.439 a small crowd of perhaps two people are already waiting 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:15.000 to cross. These are Syrian civilians. Many of them fled 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.160 the civil war years ago. They recently decided the situation 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.240 was safe enough to return, and they're headed back for 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.000 a long awaited reunion with their families. A few months 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.960 from now, after the Turkish invasion, many of these same 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:32.679 people will become refugees yet again. We leave the air 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:35.320 conditioned comfort of Sangar's car and head to the office 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:37.440 where our fate, or at least our ability to cross 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:43.760 legally into Rojaba, will be decided. She's going to okay, 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:47.840 come and then we go to the music. All right. 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.360 Quadrett is the gatekeeper of the border control station. She's 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:53.480 one of the few women I've met in Kurdistan who 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:56.480 holds a significant role in the government. She is essentially 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.400 the intermediary for the people who decide which journalists are 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.920 journalists enough to get to go to Northeast Syria. Of course, 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.000 Jake and I worked with Sangar to set things up 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.280 ahead of time, but having things set up ahead of 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:09.880 time means almost nothing in a place like Iraq. We 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.280 are led into a small room with surprisingly good a 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:15.960 c where another Western journalist waits for his credentials. Quadrat 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.960 looks our paperwork over and deliver some bad news. We've 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:23.480 been denied. Permission to cross the y is not immediately clear. 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.319 We appear to have run a foul of Iraqi bureaucracy, 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.880 so we continue to sit and wait. Time sledges by 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:33.840 minutes than an hour than two. We wait with a motley, 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.719 quiet assortment of other reporters from around the world. They 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.240 filter in and out, and all of their approval processes 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.560 seem to go much better than our own. From over 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.760 in Rojava, Kabbat are soon to be. Fixer texts us 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.200 that we have a three pm appointment with the sash 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.480 Kurdish military police to get our approval pass to work 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:53.720 in Rojava, as it's already well passed. One Jake begins 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:55.600 to suspect we will not make it in time for 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:59.480 this meeting. He winds up being right. Only after interminable 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.599 weight do we find out what the problem was that 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:11.400 when you sent an email come on go was they 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:17.800 filled to the online media right radio. It turns out 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:19.760 that some of the papers I submitted to the Iraqi 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:23.160 government listed my employer as I Heart Media rather than 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.720 I Heart Radio. This would not be an issue anywhere 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:27.760 else in the world, but to the iraqis the word 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.360 media made us sound like a PR firm and the 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:35.200 only one journalists to crossover. Quadrette understands the mistake here, 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:37.200 but both of her hands are tied up in the 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:39.400 red tape that makes up roughly three fourths of the 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:42.080 mass of the Iraqi government. The only man who can 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:44.400 turn our no into a yes as a fellow named 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:49.000 Dr Hamide. He's in charge of approving reporters. Unfortunately, Dr 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.000 Hamid lives in Sweden, where it is currently night time. 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:54.920 We call him repeatedly for more than an hour, texting 0:14:54.920 --> 0:15:00.040 and dialing on multiple phones. Hello, Dr Hamide, this is 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.440 Robert Evans with I Heart Radio. UM. I'm calling because 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:07.280 we're here at the border crossing station and we're trying 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.680 to get across and we've already got, you know, an 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:12.480 emailed approval, but they're saying that we need your approval 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:14.520 to get across, and there was some sort of confusion 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:17.800 about us being a media company or a radio company. 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.320 At two thirty six pm, still waiting in the press 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:24.120 office with quadrat I wright encircle the phrase fuck borders 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:26.880 in my notebook. It is a sentiment I felt often 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:31.040 throughout my adult life, but rarely so acutely. Rojava, this 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.920 place I've been reading about for years is right over there. 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.920 I could literally swim across the Tigris and be there 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.600 in thirty minutes, but because of a line on paper 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:44.680 drawn by dead French and British assholes, I cannot. It's frustrating, 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:47.240 to say the least. But at the end of it all, 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:52.960 Dr Hamid's approval finally comes through a little after three PMLA. 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:56.760 Before we can go, there's still a little more bureaucracy 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.400 for us to weather though. First we're questioned by the 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:03.200 Iraqi Ritish Asaish in the mildest way possible. They ask 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:06.160 us basic questions about our plans and then stamp our documents. 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:08.760 The whole process takes around thirty minutes, and it mostly 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.800 consists of us handing our passports to numerous cops, who 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.360 passed them around to other cops, who passed them around 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:17.160 to more cops before handing them back to us. It's 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.880 a perfect illustration of bureaucracy in a nutshell. We bid 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.320 goodbye to Sangar and we take our place in line 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.440 for the bus into Rojava. Everyone else on the rickety 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:29.760 steel contraption is either a refugee or Assyrian with business 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.560 interests over in Iraq. Many of them are young children, 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:36.000 excited to be back home. We cross the bus rumbling 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:43.160 over a massive pontoon bridge. Crossing the Tigris is always 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:46.120 a strange sensation for me. The river has an almost 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:48.880 mythic presence in my mind. Growing up. It felt like 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:51.640 the kind of location Indiana Jones would stumble onto during 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.720 an adventure. It feels sacred and heavy, with the strange 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.640 kind of gravity that only the deepest history imparts to 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.640 a place. But it is in the end to another river, 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:06.080 and our crossing is uneventful. We are officially driving across 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.280 Rojava for the first time. On the other side of 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:11.760 the Tigris, it's a quick, dusty jaunt to the border 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:15.159 crossing station. The contrast is immediate and obvious. On the 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:19.040 Iraqi side of the border, everything was clearly temporary, prefabricated 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:22.119 office buildings, trailers and tarps, things that can quickly be 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:26.359 torn down once the political situation changes. The Rujavan border 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:29.480 control station however, is a massive stone edifice with a 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.520 large duty free building still under construction and a suite 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.159 of permanent offices. In front of the station is a 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:38.000 billboard covered in the brightly colored faces of young men 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.160 and women soldiers in the WHITEPG and J who died 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:44.399 fighting isis The meaning of all of this is quite clear. 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.720 Rejava paid for its sovereignty and blood and it's here 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.359 to stay. Something in the air seems to change the 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:53.560 moment we cross the border, and it's more than just 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:56.440 the quality of the buildings. We see women in uniforms, 0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:00.240 suddenly sizable numbers of them clearly doing important work. Even 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.000 the women out of uniforms seemed to carry themselves differently. 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:05.199 And the first of these women that we meet is 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:09.440 our fixer, Kabat. She's in her mid twenties, about five 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.280 ft six and thin, with a warm smile, piercing eyes, 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.520 and an immediate get the funk to business attitude. She 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:19.080 rushes us through the bureaucratic necessities, hurrying the border officials 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.919 along when they go too slowly for her, liking the 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.320 people who run things in Rojava, the p y D 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.560 and the SDF from the Sundry, other acronym organizations and 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.959 ministering this place. They're all recognized as terrorist groups by 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.840 the Turkish government. If any of these organizations were to, say, 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.280 stamp a journalist passport, it might cause that person a 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:39.399 lot of unpleasantness when they had a layover and is 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.040 stand bull on the way back home. So instead of 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:44.920 stamping our passports, the Rajavan authorities give us a thin 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:47.840 strip of paper with our personal information and several stamps 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:51.280 on it. This is our internal passport. The whole process 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:53.360 of getting it takes about a half hour, and then 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:57.400 we're in the van. Alan Kabat's chain smoking driver takes 0:18:57.400 --> 0:18:59.720 off down the highway, giving us our first good look 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:03.439 at the land itself. Wow, it's beautiful. As soon as 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.720 we get past the hill and it's just like mountains 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:10.679 and valleys and hills and green, more grain than you 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:14.600 see in Iraq. This would not remain true for our 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.159 whole trip through Rojava, but it was definitely true of 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:19.320 the first couple of miles of terrain we saw. After 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.199 crossing the border. We get to talking with Kabat and 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:24.520 I try to sound out some of her opinions. I 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:26.399 mentioned that when we were in our bill Jake and 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.680 I had driven past the Barzani family palace, a massive 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:40.640 compound significantly larger than a city block. Yeah. Yeah. Kabat 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:44.679 immediately defined capitalism as something we don't want in ro Java, 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.080 which was interesting to me, but she also acknowledged that 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.840 the system in place was a very weird hybrid of 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.200 capitalism that was kind of duct taped to leftist political theory. 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:55.720 Java has taken a lot of criticism for this from 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.480 Western leftists and even from some foreign volunteers. Kabat, for 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:02.760 her opinion, expresses that this kind of hybrid system is 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.600 really the only option right now given the realities of war. 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:08.760 We are that we're protected to that level. They are 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:13.360 still yeah, because it's too confused to build a new system, 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:15.919 which she is not. And it's interfare and everything. So 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:22.679 now it's unshapped, you know, it's like just completely our system. 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:27.080 It's not to it's half capitalists have communists have nothing. 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:29.560 I don't know. It's like a cultural best all the 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.760 are the culture. It's just not clear state, you know, shaped, 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:38.000 it haven't been shaped it. So we are struggling to 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:43.000 always be aware, like, look, we don't capitalist system. We 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.000 don't want to the communist completely system. We donna something 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:49.640 which is stud with our touchant or you know, history 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:53.600 and everything. But for sure not as a couch. This 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:58.280 is everywhere now, she said, but for sure not as 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:01.719 the KRG there. And she's stating her opinion that in 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:04.359 her eyes, most of the believers in the Rojava project 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:07.480 are looking for something new, something that hasn't been done before, 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:09.320 that will work better than the stuff that has been 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:11.760 tried there in other places in the world. And there's 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:14.960 not really widespread agreement on how that new thing will 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:17.840 work in every instance, or exactly what it will be. 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:20.720 But they have looked at the border, at the thing 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:23.240 going on right next to them, and they have decided 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:25.720 that that's something they don't want to have. As we 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:28.359 roll into Derek, the first city we see in Rojava, 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:30.680 it's obvious that this region does not have the same 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:34.160 rampant wealth disparity we saw across the border. No one 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:36.880 is rich in Rojava, or at least they don't appear 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.119